Hardcase

by Dan Simmons

  The first bullet hit Doc high in the chest again. The second took off the top of the old man's skull just at the hairline.

  Kurtz let the body drop, raised the .38, and squeezed off three shots toward the point of muzzle flash at a bank of machinery about fifty feet away. Bullets whined off steel. Kurtz threw himself back just as four more shots blew out the window on his right and slammed against the open door to his left.

  One gun firing, thought Kurtz. Probably 9mm semi-auto.

  He knew that did not mean that there was only one shooter down there. He doubted if he could be so lucky.

  Three more shots, very close together. One came in the open door, ricocheted off the steel ceiling, and struck sparks on the floor and two walls before embedding itself in the desk.

  A couple of seconds of silence as the shooter slapped in a new magazine. Kurtz used the intermission to reload the three bullets he'd fired. His spent brass rolled into the black pool of blood behind him and stopped rolling.

  Five more shots from below in immediate succession, the loud 9mm blast echoing. Four of the slugs ricocheted around Kurtz's small place. One of the ricochets slammed into Doc's upturned face with the sound of a hammer striking a melon. Another ripped the shoulder padding on Kurtz's topcoat.

  This is not a good place, he thought. The shots were still coming from the heap of girders and dismantled machinery to the right of the control tower. It was quite possible—even probable—that a second and third shooter were waiting somewhere to his left, like duck hunters in a blind. But Kurtz had little choice.

  Swinging into the doorway, he fired all five shots toward the darkness to his right. The shooter returned fire—four more shots—the last two ripping the air where Kurtz had stood only a second earlier.

  He ran in the opposite direction along the catwalk, shaking the spent brass out of the .38's cylinder and trying to reload as he ran. He dropped a bullet, fumbled out another. Five in. He snapped the cylinder shut even as he ran full tilt.

  Footsteps pounding below him. The shooter had run from cover and was running under the control room, firing as he went. A flashlight beam played along the catwalk. Sparks leaped and bullets whined ahead of and behind Kurtz. Could it be just the one shooter?

  I couldn't be that lucky.

  Kurtz knew that he could never make the extra hundred feet or so to the wall without being hit. Even if he could, he would be an easy target as he crawled down the ladder.

  Kurtz had no intention of running all the way to the wall. Grabbing a suspension cable with his left hand, clinging tight to the .38 with his right, Kurtz swung up and over the handrail and dropped.

  It was still a bone-smashing thirty feet to the mill floor, but Kurtz had jumped above the first pile of limerock he had reached, and the heap was at least fifteen feet high. Kurtz hit on the side away from the shooter—smashing into the sharp rock and rolling in a cascade of cinders and stones—but the slope helped break his fall without breaking his neck.

  Kurtz rolled out in a landslide of black stone and was on his feet running again before the shooter came around the heap.

  Two shots from behind, but Kurtz was already running full speed around the third pile. He slid to a stop and dropped prone, bracing the short-barreled revolver with his left hand clamping his right wrist.

  The shooter wasn't coming.

  Kurtz opened his mouth wide, trying to calm his panting, listening hard.

  Limerock slid and scraped behind him and to the right. Either the shooter or an accomplice was flanking him, climbing over the limerock heap or climbing around it.

  Kurtz shifted the .38 to his left hand and rolled right, sweeping black pebbles over him like a man attending to his own burial. He dug his feet into the heap, letting the small, smooth stones slide over him. He butted his head into a depression in the heap and let the black rock cover everything but his eyes. As the stones settled, Kurtz shifted the pistol to his shooting hand, but buried the hand in rock.

  He knew that he was only partially covered, quite visible in all but the dimmest light. But the light here was very dim indeed. Kurtz aimed the .38 in the direction of the earlier sound and waited.

  Another sliding sound. There was just enough light for Kurtz's eyes to see the silhouette of his attacker's gun arm as it came around the edge of the mound of limerock twenty feet or so away. Kurtz waited.

  A man's head and shoulder appeared and then jerked back out of sight. Kurtz waited.

  The light was stronger behind Kurtz. That meant that the shooter could see silhouettes on the floor or rock pile better than Kurtz could. Kurtz could only wait and hope that he was not presenting a silhouette to view.

  The man moved with real speed, coming around the side of the pile and sliding to floor level, weapon raised and braced in the approved style. There was a bulk to the upper body which suggested body armor.

  Knowing that any movement would draw fire, but also knowing that he had to change his aim or miss, and thus die in a very few seconds, Kurtz shifted the snub-nosed .38 a bit to the left. Stones slid.

  The man wheeled at the first sound and fired three times. One of the slugs hit a foot or so above Kurtz's right hand and threw stone chips into his face. The second bullet slammed into rock between Kurtz's buried right arm and his body. The third nicked Kurtz's left ear.

  Kurtz fired twice, aiming for the man's groin and left leg.

  The shooter went down.

  Kurtz was up and running toward him, shaking off stones, sliding and almost falling in the resulting rock slide, reaching the shooter just as the groaning man started to raise his weapon again.

  Kurtz kicked the 9mm Glock out of Detective Hathaway's right hand, and it went skittering away on cold stone. The cop was fumbling for something with his left hand, and Kurtz almost shot him in the head before he realized that Hathaway was holding up a leather wallet section with his badge catching the dim light A shield, the cops called it.

  Hathaway moaned again and clutched at his left leg with his empty hand. Even in the darkness, Kurtz could see blood pumping from the wound. Must have nicked the femoral artery. If he'd hit it full on, Hathaway would be dead by now.

  "A tourniquet… my belt… make a tourniquet," Hathaway was moaning.

  Kurtz kept the .38 steady, set his foot on Hathaway's chest—knocking the wind out of him—and held the muzzle a foot from the cop's face. "Shut up!" Kurtz hissed. He was looking over his shoulder, listening.

  No footsteps. No noise at all except for the two men's labored breathing.

  "Tourniquet…" moaned Detective Hathaway, his gold shield still raised like a talisman. He was wearing heavy Kevlar body armor with porcelain plates, military style. It would have stopped an M-16 round, much less Kurtz's .38 slug. But Kurtz's bullet had gone into the cop's leg about four inches below the hem of the vest. "You can't… kill… a cop, Kurtz," gasped the homicide detective. "Even you aren't… that fucking… stupid. Tie off… my leg."

  "All right," said Kurtz, putting more weight on his right foot on Hathaway's chest, but not enough to shut off all breathing. "Just tell me if you're alone."

  "Tourniquet…" gasped the cop and then gasped again as Kurtz dug his heel in. "Yeah, fuck… fuck…yeah… alone. Let me tie this off. I'm fucking bleeding to death, you miserable fuck."

  Kurtz nodded agreement. "I'll help you tie it off. As soon as you tell me why you're doing this. Who are you working for, and how did you know I'd be here?"

  Hathaway shook his head. "The precinct knows… I'm here. This place will be crawling… with cops… five minutes. Give me your belt." He held his detective shield higher, his hand shaking.

  Kurtz realized that he wasn't going to get an explanation from the wounded man. He took his foot off Hathaway's chest and took a step to the side, aiming the .38 at the detective's forehead.

  Hathaway's mouth dropped open—he was breathing raggedly and loudly—and he swung the shield up in front of his face again, holding it in both hands the way someone would hold a
crucifix to drive off a vampire. He was gasping, but his voice was very loud in the empty mill, as was the sound of Kurtz clicking the hammer back on the .38.

  "Kurtz… you fucking don't kill a cop!"

  "I've already had this discussion," said Kurtz.

  In the end, the detective's gold shield was no shield at all.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 32

  « ^ »

  "Where the fuck is that detective motherfucker?" said Doo-Rag, sitting on the edge of Malcolm's huge desk. "It almost one a.m. Motherfucker should've called by now."

  "Get the fuck off my desk," said Malcolm.

  Doo-Rag got off, slowly, sullenly, and moved to the leather couch against the wall. He played with the Mac-10 in his hands, clicking the safety on and off repeatedly.

  "You click that one more time, motherfucker, and I will have to ask Cutter to remonstrate with you, Doo," said Malcolm.

  Doo-Rag glared but set the Mac-10 on the couch beside him. "So where is the honky cop motherfucker?"

  Malcolm shrugged and put his Bally loafers up on the desk. "Maybe Kurtz killed his ass."

  "Hathaway that much of a fuckup?" said Doo-Rag.

  Malcolm shrugged again.

  "How come the cop didn't tell us where this Kurtz motherfucker was going?"

  Malcolm smiled. "He probably knew that I'd send you and Cutter and a dozen of the boys to make sure the job was done right and then Hathaway would be out the D-mosque ten Gs."

  "But he told us where Kurtz work," said Doo Rag. "That basement under the porn shop. We should be there."

  "Nobody there, middle of the night," said Malcolm. "Hold your water, Doo. The cop don't kill Kurtz tonight for some reason, you and your crew can go visit the porn-shop basement tomorrow."

  Cutter quit looking out the window and sat on the corner of Malcolm's desk. Malcolm said nothing. Doo-Rag glared at Cutter, then at Malcolm, then at Cutter again. Both men ignored him.

  "You really gonna let the honky cop collect the D-mosque's ten grand?" Doo-Rag said after a minute.

  Malcolm shrugged. "That's why Hathaway ran the tap on some gun dealer we don't know and didn't tell his cop pals. That's why he went to bust a cap on Kurtz by himself tonight. Nothing I can do if he wants all the money."

  Doo-Rag smirked. "You could pop a cap up Hathaway's ass."

  Malcolm looked at Cutter and then frowned. "You don't kill a cop, Doo. Only a crazy man would do that."

  The three of them were in Malcolm's rear second-floor office. Outside the closed door, in the upstairs pool hall, eight more Bloods were shooting pool or sleeping on couches. Downstairs, there were about twenty more, half of them awake. Everyone was armed.

  Malcolm dropped his feet off the desk and walked over to the window. Doo-Rag left his Mac-10 on the couch and came over to stand near him. They were a study in contrasts: Malcolm elegantly dressed and preternaturally still, long fingers quiet, and Doo-Rag quivering and jiving and snapping his twitchy fingers silently. There was not much to see out back: Doo-Rag's red Camaro, Malcolm's Mercedes, a few other cars belonging to the senior Bloods, and a Dumpster. Malcolm had installed a high-output crime light on a pole since his SLK was out there most of the time, but that was a wasted expense. No one was going to steal Malcolm Kibunte's car from the Seneca Social Club.

  At that second, Doo-Rag's Camaro burst into flame.

  "What the fuck!??!" Doo-Rag screamed, achieving an amazing falsetto.

  Cutter walked slowly to the window.

  Doo-Rag's Camaro was burning steadily, flames leaping from the roof, hood, and trunk. It was obvious that the gas tank had been ignited; but rather than a gigantic, action-movie explosion, it just burned steadily.

  "That my car, man. I mean, what the fuck is going on?" screamed Doo-Rag, hopping around. He ran to the couch and came back with his Mac-10, although no one was in sight in the parking area or alley beyond. "I mean, what the fuck?"

  "Shut up," said Malcolm. He was poking at his molars with a silver toothpick. He checked out his Mercedes, but it was far from the flames at the opposite end of the lot from the burning Camaro—almost right at the back door—and no one was near it.

  Cutter made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a growl. He pointed at the fire and made the sound again.

  Malcolm thought a minute and shook his head. "Naww. We won't call nine-one-one yet. Let's see what happen next."

  Malcolm's Mercedes exploded in a ball of flame. This time there was a movie-style explosion, rattling the caged windows on the second floor with a bone-shaking whuump.

  "What the fuck?" shouted Malcolm Kibunte. "Some bastard fucking with my car?" Some of the first-floor Bloods were already out back, milling around with automatic weapons ready, but they were being driven back inside by the heat from the two burning automobiles. Malcolm wheeled on Cutter. "Call nine-one-one. Get the fucking fire trucks here." He pulled his Smith & Wesson Powerport .357 Magnum and ran down the back stairs.

  Two fire engines and a fire chiefs car arrived less than two minutes later. The big pumper filled the alley, hoses were played out, and more men and hoses appeared down the walkway from the front of the Social Club. Firefighters shouted instructions at one another. The Bloods were also shouting, their weapons visible.

  The firefighters backed off. The flames roared.

  Malcolm gathered Cutter and a few others around him at the back door. The fire chief, a short, powerfully built man with the name badge HAYJYK on his bulky coat, came up to glare at Malcolm.

  "You the asshole in charge here?" demanded Hayjyk.

  Malcolm only glared back.

  "We've already called the cops, but if you don't get those fucking guns out of here, you're all going to jail and we're going to let that fucking fire burn. And it's about ready to ignite these other four vehicles."

  "I'm Malcolm Kibu—" began Malcolm.

  "I don't give a fuck who you are. You're just another gang punk to me. But get those guns out of sight now." Hayjyk was leaning so close to Malcolm that the top of his fire helmet was brushing the taller man's chin.

  Malcolm turned and waved his men back into the building. Three police cars pulled up behind the pumper in the alley, their red and white whirling lights adding to the pattern of lights already flickering on all the surrounding buildings.

  "Wait a minute," yelled Malcolm, pointing to the four firefighters going in the back door after the Bloods. "They can't go in there."

  Hayjyk just grinned without humor, stepped back, and gestured for Malcolm to join him. Malcolm did so, his hand on his .357 Magnum.

  Hayjyk pointed up at the roof of the Seneca Social Club. "You're on fire, asshole!"

  Malcolm began shoving his way past firefighters, trying to get to the rear staircase. It was locked from the inside. He pushed his way down the hall, Cutter and Doo-Rag shoving aside Bloods and firemen alike.

  "You can't go back in there!" shouted Hayjyk.

  "Gotta get some papers and shit," said Malcolm, loping up the stairs. The second-floor poolroom was already half-filled with smoke. Firefighters were standing on two of the green felt tables, smashing at the ceiling with their huge axes. The sight made Malcolm sick. Someone had smashed the glass of the rear window in his office, so the space was free of smoke. Malcolm gestured for Doo-Rag to close and lock the door. Then he began pawing papers, guns, and drugs out of the desk and throwing them into a black duffel bag. Luckily, the heroin, crack, yaba, dope, and other drugs were at the arms warehouse out near SUNY. Malcolm had never risked keeping the most incriminating shit anywhere near him. But he had to save his papers and records.

  A fireman stepped out of the darkness of the rear stairway. He was carrying an ax backward in his right hand, his left hand was in his coat pocket, and he had a respirator with goggles over most of his face. "You'd be safer outside," said the fireman through his mask.

  "Fuck you, man," said Doo-Rag.

  The fireman shrugged, took a step forward and clubbed Malcolm over the head with the dull end of
the ax. The big man went down heavily. There came two soft ph-uut sounds, and Doo-Rag slammed back against the closed office door and fell to the floor. He left a smear of blood on the door.

  "Told you it was safer outside," said the firefighter.

  Cutter began to move and then froze. A black polymer H&K USP .45 Tactical with a silencer was now visible in the firefighter's left hand.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 33

  « ^ »

  Suddenly someone began pounding on the locked door. A section of ceiling actually collapsed above Malcolm's desk.

  Kurtz's gaze shifted for only a second, but the distraction gave Cutter time to flick open a switchblade and lunge for Kurtz's heart. Kurtz had to swing the pistol out of line of fire as he jumped back. Cutter leaped closer. Kurtz brought down the ax while he jumped away, but the ax was heavy and it was clumsy handling it with just one hand. It only deflected the blow. Cutter had the blade swinging again, and he came in fast.

  Kurtz dropped the ax, tossed the pistol into his right hand, and tried to bring the H&K to bear, but Cutter had grabbed his right wrist. Kurtz kneed the stocky man in the balls—it didn't seem to have any effect—and then Cutter's blade was ripping through the left side of Kurtz's heavy coat.

  Asbestos and metal fibers sewed into the coat slowed the blade and gave Kurtz a chance to bat away Cutter's right wrist before the knife cut through anything but shirt and skin. Cutter slashed again. Kurtz and Cutter staggered around the room in a clumsy dance, both men breathing hard, Kurtz's plastic mask fogging up. The blade rose and came up fast enough to slash Kurtz's face, but the heavy respirator plastic took the cut. Kurtz tried desperately to free his right hand and the pistol, but the simple truth was that Cutter was stronger than he was.

  Cutter's feet came down on Doo-Rag's face; he just dug his boots in for traction. Kurtz slammed into the edge of Malcolm's desk, numbing his thigh. He couldn't see well through the respirator mask, and he didn't have any way to get it off with both hands engaged. Cutter was forcing him back over the desk.