Chapter 16: CQB 241

Delaney grinned as the car crusher bit down on the old minivan. “This never gets old.”

“Say that after you’ve done it for another ten years.” We watched as it compressed down.

“It’s just so damn cool. As long as we aren’t crushing thirty grand away.”

We had four vehicles in a neat row, stripped and ready to be pushed into the crusher. We’d prepped them weeks ago and meant to get to them earlier, but with everything going on, we just hadn’t been able to find the time.

“You ready to use the forklift this time?”

She nodded eagerly and started to trot over to the lift.

Something moved to my left, and I spun. A blurringly fast figure rushed toward Delaney.

More by reflex than intent, I lunged forward, just catching a belt, then yanking back with everything I had. Feet sliding on the gravel, the guy scrambled for footing and turned into me.

I had a glimpse of a shaved head and a waterfall of teardrops below his left eye as I caught him up and drove him into the outside edge of the crusher, every bit of my weight lifting him and powering him into it.

Some of the air went out of him as we made impact; his head rang off the metal, but he snarled and tried to shake it off.

Maybe it was peripheral vision. Maybe it was experience.

Maybe it was just blind fucking luck.

Either way, I caught his right wrist as he tried to shove a knife into me, freezing it upright between us.

For a moment, we fought without moving, nearly completely frozen, faces inches apart, teeth bared.

We were locked for one endlessly slow heartbeat. I felt a muscle tremble as it started to give out.

The long black KA-BAR blade shivered for a second, then tilted and slid up under his ribcage.

He blinked rapidly for a moment, then his eyes froze open, seeing nothing.

I staggered back, dropping the sagging body to the ground.

Delaney stood stock still, her wrench gripped in her hand. She’d obviously been trying to get close enough to get a shot in. “I think we missed one.”

I looked him over for a moment, finally recognizing him from the sheriff’s file. “Yeah. Jiminez. Something ... Carlos Jiminez. Or something like that. Marine Raiders. Before he joined up with Billy.”

“At least we...” Whatever Delaney was going to say was lost forever in the sound of a single gunshot.

I felt the blow just as I heard the shot. My left leg suddenly gave out, dropping me to the ground.

A second shot followed, but it was too late; it rang off the main beam of the crusher, right where Delaney’s head had been. She’d already dropped, rolled under the lift and dashed madly, throwing herself under the mostly closed roller door to the Fury’s garage.

“Damn these little holdout guns. Can’t hit shit at more’n ten feet with it.” My leg wasn’t responding at all, and I could see Billy sitting up in the SUV we’d prepped. He glanced at the little purple gun in his hand. “Most of our shit was in the trunk of the Charger. We were movin’ it to another hide.”

I was done; there was just no way I could reach any of the guns in my hides, no way to even crawl away fast enough to make a difference. He’d finish me off, then kill Delaney. And I still didn’t have a goddamn clue why.

He stood up out of the SUV, nodding slowly, keeping the pistol on me. “You’re pretty damn good, Doc. Not good enough, but damn good. Best I’ve ever seen. The way you took down my boys like it was nothin’, never thought that could happen.”

He nodded toward the dead body of his partner. “Jimmy was a bad, bad man, and you made it look easy. Kinda funny, tho’. He loved that knife.” He shook his head and grinned. “I gotta say, that shit at Eagle River Bridge? That was some kinda sweet. I’d a paid good money see someone drive like that. Jesus. You’re damn good.”

If he got close enough, I could launch myself at him, try to take him down or at least buy Delaney some time to get away. He just looked at me and shook his head. “Ain’t gonna work. Some of the crazy ones kept grenades on them; try to take you out with them if you got too close. You got that look, Old Man.”

I stared at him. I had a bad feeling I was all out of chances.

“I hate to do this. Hell, I like you two. But it is what it is. Really wasn’t planning on doing it here with all your damn cameras, but I’m a guessin’ they’ll figure out it was me soon enough anyways.” He shook his head slowly. “If I shoot you a few times, you’ll make enough noise to draw her outta there. I don’t figure it’d be smart to go in after her with that temper of hers. No guns in there, I looked. But I don’t particularly fancy going in there with her and all them power tools.”

He chuckled. The gun started to come up.

It was the noise of the forklift engine and the crusher running that hid the sound. Any other time, he would have certainly heard it. The one noise that made all the difference in the world. I caught it, but I was farther away from the crusher and the forklift.

The oil-smooth sound of a Golden Commando Dual-Quad 350 engine firing up.

He didn’t miss the roar as the accelerator was stomped to the floor, his head jerking up, but by then, it was too late. I rolled hard to the side just as the gleaming red and white Fury exploded through the roller door with the banshee shriek of tearing metal.

Anyone else would have tried to escape through the front gate, maybe get to the sheriff’s department. That’s what a normal person would have done. I’m pretty sure that’s what Billy was thinking Delaney was trying to do; he started to turn a little toward the front gate.

Underestimating Delaney’s rage can be hazardous.

Delaney loved that car. She’d spent countless hours working on every square inch of it. It was a gleaming thing of beauty, inside and out. It had been sanded, re-chromed, painted, polished and lovingly restored to perfection. Anyone could see it was a work of art.

Right now, though, Delaney was enraged.

Right now, the Fury was just a bigger fucking rock.

She didn’t brake. Hell, she didn’t take her foot off the gas at all. Three thousand six hundred pounds of car with 88 pounds of infuriated Delaney at the wheel slammed forward into the SUV with a mind-numbing explosion of sound.

It buried a good six inches of itself in the side of the SUV. The fact that the mercenary had been standing there didn’t matter in any material sense. Not to the Fury, not to the SUV.

It certainly mattered to William Douglas Halston, though.

He’d been caught dead center, the red nose of the Fury disappearing into the black side of the SUV just above his hips.

It looked like a bizarre magic trick, his torso somehow sitting there upright, while he stared down at himself, his gun a dozen feet away, knocked from his hand by the impact.

The driver-side door of the Fury popped open with a horrible twisted-metal groan. Delaney slowly swung out, blinking. A steady trickle of blood from her nose made her face a half-mask of red. Furys don’t have airbags, so there was no escaping the steering wheel. She barely glanced at the mercenary before rushing to me on unsteady legs while I pulled myself up to sitting.

She dropped to her knees next to me and looked me over for more bullet holes, white-faced. “Did he...?”

“No, just the one in the leg. Help me up.”

Delaney looked me over one last time, a tremor passing over her face, then she braced herself and lifted as hard as she stood. With that, I managed to pull myself upright to stand on my one good leg.

Catching her breath, she grumbled at the effort. “Fuck, you’re heavy. You need to cut back on the tacos and hot dogs.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that when you do.”

She made a strained soft laugh. “What the fuck would we eat?”

“Kale. Maybe tofu. Wild mushroom risotto.” I took a few steady breaths to try to keep my head from spinning.

“Ugh. If we’re gonna do that, I should’ve let him shoot us both.”

I could see him watching us as I half-hopped over to the Fury. Not saying a damn thing, just watching us. He was dead, and he damn well knew it. The only thing keeping him alive for the moment was the pressure of Delaney’s car pinning him against the side of the SUV, keeping him from bleeding out.