Hollow World (25 page)

Soon after, the train glided to a stop in the Contemporary’s main building and the heavy, acrid smoke wafted out into the clean air of the platform as soon as the doors opened. Charlie stumbled out of the monorail, drenched in sweat and dripping blood from his wound. Kalani followed close behind.

Catching sight of the slaughterhouse that was Monorail Red’s front passenger compartment, a woman on the platform began to scream in terror at the horrific sight. Quickly, Charlie and Kalani hurried away from the monorail without looking back and made their way to the ground floor where they took refuge in a nearby restroom.

“Fuck!” Charlie gasped as he stumbled over to the sink and checked his reflection in the mirror. He had been lucky—extremely lucky—that the wound was only skin deep, the bullet having simply grazed him along the ribs. The laceration would certainly require stitches, but Charlie was in no immediate danger.

“Is it bad, braddah?” Kalani asked, weapon still drawn and trained on the door in case any unexpected visitors decided to join them.

“No,” Charlie replied firmly, slapping a fresh magazine into his weapon and chambering a round. “What about you—are you hit?”

“Negative. Close call, but I ain’t dead yet,
haole
.”

“So much for a stealthy infiltration,” Charlie pointed out, his words laced with frustration.

From outside the restroom door, a voice spoke up.

“Charlie, Kalani, let me in quick! It’s Jen-Jen!”

Kalani quickly opened the door and ushered the blonde into the room. Catching sight of Charlie’s bloodied shirt, Jen-Jen gasped.

“Charlie, are you okay?” she breathed.

“I’m fine—just a scratch,” he said, dismissing her concern with a wave of his hand. “Did you hit any resistance on your way here?”

“No, but what the fuck happened? I heard the gunfire. People are screaming and running all over the fucking place. It’s complete pandemonium out there.”

Kalani answered, “Two Chaos Squad guys were waiting for us. Well, not
waiting
for us—I definitely think we surprised them. They drew down and we returned fire. Bad news: white boy took a bullet. Good news: bad guys took a lot of bullets. Chaos Squad is now short two assholes.”

“Jesus,” she breathed. “You guys have some seriously strange luck.”

Charlie interjected, “We need to get moving. If we were hit this hard, I can’t imagine what the others must be up against out in the open. We need to get over there now to bail them out.”

Kalani and Jen-Jen exchanged nervous glances. Charlie took notice.

“What?” he asked.

“They’re on their own, Charlie,” Jen-Jen answered, eyes downcast.

“It’s protocol,” Kalani added. “Our first priority is to complete the objective. We need to get in the Tower as fast as possible.”

Charlie was taken aback. He understood chains of command and the importance of following orders, but it was possible that Victoria and her guys were facing heavy resistance and were in great danger. He wasn’t about to throw them to the wolves—not after everything they’d done for him.

“Fuck your protocol,” he said. “I’m going to get them. You can come with me, or you can go to the Tower—but she needs us, and I owe it to her to help.”

For a moment, Charlie stared intensely at his friends. Nobody spoke. Finally, Kalani broke the heavy silence.

“You’ve got some big iron balls—and it’s probably suicide—but we’re with you all the way. Lead on,
haole
.”

Jen-Jen reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“Thank you,” Charlie breathed and headed for the exit.

Weapon at the ready, Charlie threw open the restroom door and hurried toward where he assumed Victoria would be. Jen-Jen and Kalani followed, eyes constantly scanning their environment for threats.

Heading into enemy territory, with almost no idea as to the identity of their adversaries, Charlie felt no fear. What he felt instead was a boiling rage that washed away his pain and honed his focus. It would sustain him until he either resolved this situation and rescued his family, or died trying.

Charlie had become a machine.

33

As Victoria made her way toward Bay Lake Tower, flanked by Mason and McCoy, she quickly pulled up a satellite image of the property on her phone. Even while she hurried toward the tower at a brisk pace, she studied the map intensely. Luckily, there was not much to memorize. Charlie had been spot-on: a sidewalk led directly past the bus stops and beneath the monorail tracks until it met the road, at which point she and the others would be able to cross and take cover between the numerous cars in the resort’s large northern parking lot.

For the first time in Victoria’s career, she had no plan—she was simply winging it. It pained her to know that countless variables stood in her path. She had no idea where the Chaos agents had been posted, no clue what they looked like and no plan for what to do if and when she found them. All she knew for certain was that Charlie’s life—and the lives of his family—relied solely on her ability to buy the detective the time he needed to make an unopposed entrance. Kalani and Jen-Jen would be doing everything in their power to keep Charlie safe, but two extra guns would mean nothing if they were caught by a sniper’s bullet in the exposed section between the two buildings. Even a semi-competent sharpshooter could put a swift end to their mission before it had truly begun. She
had
to think of something.

Reaching the road, McCoy took point and rushed across the lanes, halting on the far side as Victoria and Mason followed suit. The three moved on together and when they reached the edge of the parking lot, McCoy and Mason stopped, turning to Victoria for orders. After a few seconds of empty silence, Mason spoke up.

“Vee, we need to think of something. Fast,” he said.

“I know,” she replied, pinching the bridge of her nose. “For the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t have a plan.”

McCoy remained silent, but Mason continued.

“They need us, Vee. We don’t have much time before their monorail heads this way.”

“Mason!” Victoria snapped. “A minute of silence, man
.
Jesus. I’m working on it.”

Mason raised his hands in a mock apologetic gesture, but seemed unable to stay quiet.

“I’m sorry. These Chaos guys worry me. They—”

“That’s it!” she blurted, startling him. “Chaos.”

Mason cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Chaos,” she repeated. “We’re going to get into some serious shit back at HQ for this, but it’s a surefire way to get things moving.”

“What have you got?” asked Mason, cautiously.

“A ridiculous idea, but it’s simple and it’ll work. Do you still carry that low-yield det cord with you everywhere you go?”

“Of course I do. Never leave home without the stuff,” Mason scoffed, lifting one leg off the ground. Reaching for a spot near his knee, Mason grabbed at the seam of his pants. Within seconds, he’d withdrawn a three-foot length of the explosive cord from a cleverly concealed sheath. “Will this do?”

“Perfect.”

Quickly, Victoria separated the explosive cable into three equal one-foot lengths and handed one to either team member. Mason removed three small devices from his pocket, and clamped them to the ends of each piece of cord.

“Remote blasting caps,” he stated. “I can detonate all three of these at once using an app on my phone. What’s the plan?”

“Find a car, then drop these fuckers into the gas tank and run for your life,” Victoria told them.

“Holy shit! You really weren’t kidding about that whole chaos thing, were you?”

“Not in the least—things are about to get wild. But it’ll work, I guarantee it. Once these go off and we’ve got three smoking carbecues, panic will set in. Guests will be running wild and it should bring any nearby Chaos members running to the scene.”

“You do realize that there is a
massive
downside to this, don’t you?” Mason snapped. “I mean, we wanted to distract Chaos Squad, not to lure them into an uneven firefight on their home field. It’s suicide.”

“If we don’t do this, Charlie and his family could die. We’re still far enough away to be sure that they haven’t spotted us yet, but if they see Charlie getting off that monorail, the heat will be entirely on him and he’ll be exposed, surrounded and overwhelmed. We
have the element of surprise and a fair amount of cover. We don’t need to beat them, Mason. We just need to keep them occupied as long as we can.”

“And what happens when we run out of bullets and ideas?” Mason asked, voicing a solid concern.

Hesitating, Victoria sighed and told him, “We’ll worry about that if and when the time comes. For now, let’s blow up some fucking cars. Meet me back here after you’ve planted the det cord and get ready to scratch that itchy trigger finger.”

Mason and McCoy nodded before the three split up to decide which three unlucky families wouldn’t have a ride home in the morning. Victoria chose a large black Hummer with massive chrome wheels—a scourge on the face of the Earth and a monument to environmental ignorance if ever there was one.
Fuck it
,
she thought,
they’re clearly rich, and the insurance money will buy them a Prius or two.

The owner had replaced the standard fuel hatch with a cheap, gaudy carbon fiber model that came complete with a lock that required a key. Irritated by this inconvenience, Victoria snapped open her pocketknife and broke the flimsy lock with a quick pry. She removed the cap, dropped the det cord inside and made her way back toward the road to regroup with the others.

Mason and McCoy returned just seconds after Victoria, and Mason fished his phone from his pocket in preparation for detonation.

“You sure about this, Vee?” he asked.

“It’s the only way,” she said. “Now flip the switch, draw your damned sidearm and get ready to engage a dozen armed and highly trained mercenaries.”

She spoke in an ironic, comical tone, but neither Mason nor McCoy laughed. Mason closed his eyes and let his thumb touch the onscreen detonation button.

For several full seconds, nothing happened. Victoria glanced at Mason, hoping he could fill her in. He shrugged.

“I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe the blasting caps weren’t waterproof? I could have sworn that when I—”

The sky lit up a brilliant white.

Three massive pillars of smoke and flame rose up to meet the night sky and the shockwave from the trifecta of blasts ruffled clothing and bent blades of grass. Windows rattled in their frames hundreds of yards away. Windshields and mirrors shattered on cars near the explosion—some of which were even thrown several yards away. Victoria felt the pressure of the blast in her ears and sinuses. When the percussive thunderclap of the explosion had faded, Victoria could hear the sound of dozens upon dozens of car alarms shrieking away into the night. People screamed and ran toward the three massive pyres.

Well, this is definitely a spectacle.

As Victoria had expected, nobody was injured by the blasts. She trusted her team to know that both men would have chosen vehicles specifically for their isolation and distance from anyone who could possibly get hurt. Assured that all innocents were safe for the time being, she surveyed the area and searched for any signs that would betray Chaos agents who should be closing in on their location. She spied many vacationers and Cast Members gawking; some corralling children away from the scene, others on cell phones most likely dialing 911. Unfortunately, none seemed to be the Blackwater type. Victoria could tell the difference between a vacationer and an operator, and all of these onlookers were clearly tourists or employees.

Violently, the side window of a car burst just a few feet to her left, followed by a sharp
crack
from off in the distance. Ducking behind an SUV, Victoria drew her sidearm and checked to make sure Mason and McCoy were okay. Spotting them unscathed and behind cover, she tried to discern from which direction the shot had come. She was certain that she’d heard the report of a sniper’s rifle, but the suppressor had done its job well. It had not masked the shot entirely, but instead made the intended target unable to locate the shooter by sound.

A hundred yards to her left stood a dark copse of trees that would provide excellent cover for a shooter, but the angle of the shot that had shattered the car window wasn’t possible from that position. The shot had come from the direction of the tower, or the parking lot between. The most likely position for a shooter, she knew, would either be from one of the tower’s windows, or from an automobile in the lot. Still, she had trouble believing that a shooter—an ex-Blackwater mercenary, even—could miss a shot from such a short distance. With all of this in mind, Victoria was able to piece together the most viable location that their assailant was in.

The sniper wasn’t in the tower, nor were they in an automobile or the trees next to the lot. He was mobile. The fact that the first shot had missed—by a large margin, for a professional—revealed this truth. A shooter in a comfortable and stationary position would have put two rounds through her chest before she could have even realized it was happening. This meant that he was in motion. He’d stopped, lined up a quick shot, fired, and moved on. Victoria sighed as she felt the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins. A mobile shooter, while likely to be less accurate, was in fact
more
deadly. They were unpredictable and hard to track. Not only were they dangerous, but they also provided an excellent distraction—drawing their target’s focus while other assailants closed in on their prey, unnoticed.

“Fuck,” Mason snapped. “Runner?”

“Runner,” Victoria agreed.

“That means a sweep team isn’t far behind,” Mason added. We need to burn this motherfucker before they get here or we’re as good as dead, Vee.”

Looking around, Victoria glanced toward the trees once more. The most logical decision would be for the shooter to head for that darkened area. It would provide optimal cover for moving and shooting, and he could essentially force Victoria and her team to turn away from the resort—the direction from which the sweep team would surely come. It was a cleverly lain trap, and it would essentially catch X-ray Team in the crossfire between the shooter and the flanking team. Mason was right—their survival hinged upon the removal of the shooter—their odds of success would greatly increase with him out of the picture.

“McCoy,” Victoria called. “Mason and I are going to draw his fire. Find him, flank him and put him to bed. Understood?” She pointed to the tree line so McCoy would have the best idea of where to start.

With a grunt and a nod, McCoy crawled toward the rear of the car he was concealed behind and set himself in a position to move as soon as he was covered.

Victoria glanced at Mason and then back to the tree line. The two of them would need to break cover and fire blindly to provide McCoy with the distraction he would need to slip away.

After a mental three-count, Victoria burst from cover, staying low and firing wild shots high in the direction where she thought the shooter would likely be. Mason also opened fire in the same general area. Their haphazard volley of shots was answered almost immediately by three high-caliber rounds that ricocheted off the pavement near Victoria’s feet, showering her with fragments of asphalt. Miraculously, she made it to cover behind an SUV just as three more rounds hit the automobile, shattering a side window, bursting a tire and puncturing a fender.

“Did you get a location?” Victoria yelled, but McCoy was already on the move, nearly halfway to the tree line. “Mason! Think you can make it across?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can. Cover me.”

Victoria leaned out from behind the SUV, staying low, and began taking more precise shots toward areas where the shooter could be concealed. Mason broke from cover and fired again, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him. To Victoria’s horror, a dim muzzle flash lit up far from where she’d been aiming and Mason went down hard on the pavement, ten feet from the SUV and still very much out in the open.

“Mason!” she shrieked. “Mason, tell me you’re okay!”

Mason coughed once, still facedown on the asphalt. Victoria could see the puddle of blood slowly spreading from beneath him.