Hollow World (26 page)

“Mason, please!”

She heard her gravely injured friend attempt to inhale, and it sounded grotesquely unnatural—broken and ragged. He gasped—each inhalation a struggle, each exhalation wet and bubbling. Victoria couldn’t see Mason’s wound, but she knew from the sound of his breathing that the round had punctured one of his lungs. He was dying—slowly.

Victoria was close to panicking. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she leaned out from behind the SUV to try to reach her friend, but two rounds slammed into the tailgate of the vehicle and forced her back into cover.

“Goddamn you—fucking coward!” she screamed, even though she knew the shooter was too far away to hear.

She collapsed to her knees and leaned against the rear wheel of the SUV. Just a few yards away, her friend lie suffering, dying in a pool of his own blood, and she was powerless to help him. She buried her face in her hands and openly wept—firearm discarded and all but forgotten on the ground next to her.

Victoria had never been this terrified or hurt in her life. A natural born protector, she never gave a moment’s thought to her own wellbeing and she did not fear death, instead fearing the loss of those close to her. She had led these people here, and now one of them was dying and it was her fault. What if she’d made the wrong call? What if her team were to be slaughtered here in such close proximity to The Most Magical Place on Earth? How could she live with herself?

Suddenly, five shots rang out in the distance—loud, not from any suppressed rifle. Victoria could only pray that McCoy had found and eliminated the shooter—Mason deserved that much. Justice and retribution were all that could be done at this point. Even at a glance, it was clear that the poor man had lost too much blood to recover. Fresh waves of agony washed over Victoria and she found it difficult to focus on the moment. Never before had she lost a teammate in the line of duty. Still, the world was a cruel place and it refused to give Victoria the time to mourn her friend.

Three sets of footsteps were rapidly approaching from the far side of the SUV. It was surely the sweep team coming to finish her off.

Fuck that
, she thought.
I’m taking one or two of these assholes with me if it’s going to be like that.

She lay on the ground and raised her pistol, aiming straight ahead, toward the front of the vehicle. She relaxed her shoulders and drew in a deep breath to steady her aim. If this was to be her last stand, then she refused to fail. She would kill at least one of them before they took her life.

Finally, right on cue, the first mercenary cautiously stepped around the corner and into her iron sights. He was a large man wearing a bright blue polo shirt, and he carried a large-caliber handgun held low, but ready. Without hesitating, she pulled the trigger with practiced smoothness and her weapon jumped in her hands once. Twice. Three times. Bright red splashes of blood erupted from the mercenary’s chest and neck. His momentum carried his dead body forward where it collided hard with a parked car before finally falling to the ground.

Too late to change course, the second mercenary skidded around the corner and she fired three more times. Each round found a home deep within the man’s chest and he collapsed atop his fallen comrade.

Still aiming for the corner of the vehicle, waiting for the third and final mercenary to appear, Victoria noticed something that made her breath catch in her throat and her hopes dissolve before her eyes. The slide on her weapon was locked back—out of ammunition. There was no time to dig a fresh magazine out and reload, for she was lying on top of her extra magazines.

And then the mercenary showed his face, raised his weapon and took aim.

Victoria closed her eyes as a wave of serenity overcame her. She was going to die, there was no doubt, but she was unafraid. She had succeeded in buying Charlie the time he’d needed to get inside, and it was more than enough for her. She laid down her weapon and kept her eyes firmly pressed shut, awaiting the deafening roar of a high-caliber handgun to cast her into oblivion.

Finally, the sound came—it was quieter than she’d expected.

But why could she still hear? Why did she feel no pain? Was this what dying felt like?

Realizing that she was in fact not dead, Victoria’s eyes shot open to reveal the last thing she had expected to see: her attacker lay dead, slumped against the side of the SUV with a bullet hole above his eye and the contents of his head splashed across the vehicle. To her right, smoking gun still in hand, stood Detective Charlie Walker of the Detroit Police Department, flanked by a large Hawaiian and an attractive blonde. The detective lowered his weapon and rushed to her side. Gently, he lifted her to her feet as Kalani and Jen-Jen hurried to check on Mason.

“Charlie!” Victoria shouted and threw her arms around his neck. She squeezed him harder than she’d ever squeezed anything in her entire life—she’d never been so glad to see another person in all her days. After a few seconds, she felt a light tap on her back and realized that she’d probably been cutting off his supply of oxygen. Pulling away, she noticed the bloody hole in his shirt and the way he favored his left side. He’d been shot. “Are you okay?”

Charlie dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “It’s okay, Vee. It’s nothing. Jesus, what the hell happened to Mason?” he asked, stepping quickly past her to get a closer look at their fallen comrade.

“There was a shooter. McCoy went after him.” She wiped a fresh tear from her cheek.

From behind them, a man cleared his throat and everyone turned around to look. Before the group stood McCoy, dragging a bloodied, bullet-ridden—but very much still
alive
—mercenary with him. The merc looked defiant, but it was clear that he was fading fast.

“This our shooter?” Kalani asked, all traces of joviality gone from his voice. McCoy nodded.

“Was he alone?” Victoria asked.

“No. He had a spotter,” McCoy stated.

“Dead?” Kalani ventured.

McCoy nodded gravely and shoved the wounded mercenary toward the big Hawaiian. Kalani caught the man by the collar, lifted him and slammed him onto the hood of a nearby car. Withdrawing a knife from his pocket, he snapped open the blade and turned to the team. The mercenary began to hyperventilate.

“I think it’s time we asked a few questions,” Kalani stated.

34

Victoria wiped the final tears from her eyes as she lightly stepped toward the wounded Chaos soldier. Jen-Jen and McCoy held the man’s arms, not allowing him to move even an inch. Kalani loomed over the bloodied man, combat knife still in hand. The mercenary’s breathing was erratic, but the big Hawaiian refused to relent. Victoria had to put a hand on his to calm him down.

“What’s your name?” Victoria asked the mercenary, calmly and with no emotion coloring the tone of her words. It was almost as if she were having a normal conversation with a stranger. Still, the man refused to speak, rewarding her instead with a look of the purest disgust. “Again I’ll ask you: What is your name?” Again, nothing but defiant silence.

Victoria was far too exhausted to play these kinds of games. She’d interrogated men like him before—they always played tough. Normally, she’d go through the entire song and dance and, after a few hours, she’d be able to leverage some answers out of her subject. This time her patience had worn thin, and the man who’d killed her friend would give her the answers she needed—and he would give them
immediately
. She turned and cocked an eyebrow at Kalani.

“Cut him,” she said softly, before turning her back on the grisly scene.

Kalani did as ordered, digging the blade an inch into the mercenary’s abdomen. The man bucked and thrashed, but the two Company agents held him firmly in place and he screamed in agony. A consummate professional, Kalani only penetrated the muscle and fat, causing excruciating amounts of pain, but no damage that couldn’t be reversed.

Kalani removed the blade from under the skin and Victoria waited a few moments for the man to calm down before speaking again.

“Your name,” she demanded, her voice calm.

The mercenary coughed, but this time he obliged, not wanting to face the wrath of the knife-wielding Hawaiian for something as trivial as a name.

“Moran,” the man said, finally. “You crazy bitch. I hope you don’t think—”

“Cut him,” she said again, wasting no time letting this man talk tough. Kalani moved quickly, but the mercenary screamed once more.

“No! Wait! Don’t cut me again, damn it!”

“Then I suggest responding to the question I’m going to ask with an answer I’ll like,” Victoria demanded. She saw Charlie’s reflection in the windshield of the car and, while the brutal torture of their enemy clearly unsettled him, he still had his characteristic grin.

“What do you want to know?” the mercenary asked, deflated.

“I want to know where the rest of you assholes are positioned.”

“It won’t make a difference. You’ll never get those girls.”

“Then it’ll do no harm for you to tell me, will it?”

The mercenary looked conflicted, as if trying to decide whether to answer. Kalani showed him the knife once more—and it did the trick. The man’s reply was exactly as Victoria would have preferred it—short and to the point.

“Two in the Tower lobby. Two in Holloway’s room with the little girls. Our Captain is in the room next door with the wife. Two more riding the monorail. The three you just killed. Then there’s me and my spotter.”

“That’s twelve,” Victoria stated. “It adds up, but you’d better not be lying to me.”

The man shook his head and swallowed. “Is that it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Victoria informed him and turned on her heel, grabbing Charlie gently by the elbow and leading him away from the scene. Charlie just caught a glimpse of McCoy withdrawing a suppressed pistol from his shoulder holster before he was led out of sight. Still, he heard two muffled gunshots and knew that Chaos Squad was now seven members short.

Ignoring the feeling of nausea creeping up in his stomach from the overabundance of violence he’d witnessed in such a short period of time, Charlie stopped walking and faced Victoria.

“Vee, I’m so sorry about Mason. He was a good man.”

“He knew what he was doing. We all did,” she managed, trying to look detached. Charlie could tell she was hurting. Losing Mason had really cut this poor woman deep and Charlie couldn’t help but feel responsible for Mason’s death—after all, nobody would be here if it weren’t for him. He decided not to voice his concerns, realizing it wouldn’t help to ease Victoria’s troubled mind. Instead, he chose to direct her anger toward justice for their fallen comrade.

“Where do we go from here?” he asked. He had already come up with a few ideas of his own, but he knew that allowing Victoria to plan their route would help to get her mind off Mason for the time being.

“We’re sticking together. I don’t know how you took that bullet but it won’t happen again. It might seem like a bad idea, but we’re heading straight through the Tower’s main entrance. The plan is simple: we storm the lobby and kill the two assholes stationed there. Then we take the elevators to my dad’s floor, and keep shooting until your girls are back in your arms. We’re so close, we can’t fail.”

The plan was risky but Charlie knew it was their only option. Normally, he’d try to formulate a new plan, but he simply went with the flow. He was exhausted, he was bleeding and he was in a hurry to finish this nightmarish scenario and be reunited with his family.

“Then let’s finish this. I’m not getting any younger,” he joked and put his arm around Victoria’s shoulders. Victoria gratefully returned the gesture and then the pair joined the remaining members of X-ray Team around Mason’s body.

One of the team had rolled Mason onto his back and closed his eyelids. Charlie spied a bloody rag nearby; someone had cleaned the blood off the fallen agent’s face. Hands folded neatly over his chest, Mason looked at peace. Charlie could see that Victoria was thankful that Mason hadn’t suffered long. Even though she tried to act tough for the sake of her team, Victoria still couldn’t suppress the tears that came once more upon the sight of her friend’s body. She wiped clumsily at her eyes until Jen-Jen led her away.

No words were spoken for the fallen operative, just a moment of silence as each man found their own personal way to harness the pain that they felt from their loss. Finally, they’d all found a place to bury their emotions and they moved to follow Victoria and Jen-Jen.

As the five armed combatants made their way toward the main entrance, fire trucks pulled into the lot and furiously set to work on the blazing cars. The landscape, so full of violence and wreckage, more closely resembled a war zone than a vacation resort.

War.

Charlie tasted the word—savored it—for it was war he was about to bring to his adversary’s doorstep.