The General's Weapons (Heinous Crimes Unit Book 4), page 7
Yours,
Luke Titan, MD, PhD, Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Top Ten of America’s Most Wanted
“How many times have you read that letter?” the Other asked.
Christian stood from the chair. He didn’t know why, exactly, but he thought he should leave his mansion now. Something was…amiss in the real world.
“You feel it, too?” the Other asked. “I’ve been thinking something was wrong for a few minutes, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Christian opened his eyes. He didn’t wear a watch and didn’t need to check a clock to understand the time. His mind never lost track of it. He’d been in the mansion for two hours and Tommy should be in his office by now. He would have recognized what Christian was doing when he arrived and not disturbed him.
Why do you feel like something’s wrong? There’s nothing out of the ordinary happening.
He still didn’t know, but he didn’t care. Something wasn’t right.
Christian got up from his desk and walked to Tommy’s office.
“Hey,” he said. “Is anything going on upstairs?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long ago did you get here?”
“An hour.”
Christian closed his eyes, still standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” Tommy asked.
Christian didn’t answer. He was trying to push out any distractions, wanting to focus on what his mind knew but couldn’t tell him. Why did he feel so nervous? What was he missing?
It was in the air. The smell.
Christian opened his eyes. “Simone. We’ve got to find Simone.”
Simone Goodfriend had stepped from her car about five minutes before Christian came out of his mansion. The parking lot was getting congested, but she was able to get her usual spot. Her attention wasn’t on parking when the world erupted in fire around her. She was focusing on Christian, hoping that the man had gotten some sleep the night before.
She worried a lot about Christian and Tommy, even if she showed it by berating them. She had to do it like that, or else she’d be run over. The FBI wasn’t inherently sexist, but crime fighting was a male profession. Simone was okay with that. A feminist, she was not, at least not in the sense that all female shortcomings could be blamed on the patriarchy.
She knew a lot of what had transpired between her two partners and Luke Titan. She had never met Titan and didn’t want to, but if she did, she would be one of the first to fire a bullet at the bastard. He’d destroyed two men, two good men, and the world was short on those as far as Simone was concerned. At thirty-three, she was unmarried. In another life, she might have seen herself being able to settle down with someone like Christian.
Not in this life, though.
The time for settling down had passed Christian by, probably around the time Titan had plunged a knife into his face.
He needed more sleep and Tommy needed more therapy. Simone couldn’t help, or rather, she couldn’t help with everything they needed. She did what she could, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, not as long as Titan lived.
Simone flashed her badge at the card reader and reached for the front door when a sound like a thousand hands clapping at once erupted behind her.
She turned to see what had made the noise, her eyes wide.
White vans had surrounded the building entrance. She didn’t know how many or where they’d come from, having been deep inside her mind during the walk from her car to the door, but they were here now. The “clap” had been all of the doors being slammed shut simultaneously.
Other people in the parking lot had stopped and were staring like Simone.
The vans formed a semi-circle across the parking lot. Simone’s eyes followed them from one end to the other, and she briefly wondered if the other side of the building was the same.
A crazy thought, given how weird all of this was.
Men swarmed out of the front and back doors of the vans, which was when Simone realized exactly how weird the situation was, except weird no longer described it. Fucked was a better word.
The men wore heavy vests and each one held an automatic rifle.
A small breath escaped Simone. “RUN!” she screamed, the first sound to break out across the parking lot.
The next was the sound of bullets exploding from barrels.
“What are you talking about?” Tommy asked.
“Why isn’t there an alarm going off?”
“Christian, I’m not understanding.”
Christian knew he had already wasted too much time. The smell was growing stronger by the second.
“There’s gunpowder in the air. Do you smell it?”
Tommy sat rigidly still as always, but his eyes flicked away from Christian to the wall.
“Oh, God,” he whispered.
At that moment, an excruciatingly loud siren started booming from the walls. It wailed across the entire floor, interspersed with a calm woman’s voice.
“This is not a drill. Code Nineteen. This is not a drill.”
“Simone,” Tommy said, his words almost completely lost in the noise around them. “She’s upstairs. She probably just got to work.”
Christian stopped speaking. He turned and ran, unholstering his weapon as he did. He had no idea what was happening, only that Luke was behind it.
He also knew that enough people had died because of Luke. Simone wouldn’t be another casualty.
Simone hadn’t done field work for the FBI, but she wasn’t an idiot, either. She dove inside the building, hitting the floor with a bone-creaking slam.
The windows exploded behind her and glass flew through the air as if a tornado was roaring through the parking lot.
Simone looked up, her hair covering much of her face. The people still standing in front of her looked like deer in headlights, except they were staring at guns instead of lights. Bullets tore into them and Simone despaired as large red patches bloomed on their blue and white shirts.
The skull of a man exploded in front of her. She knew him. His name was Frederick. How many times had she talked to Frederick as she walked past security every morning?
Simone could hear nothing except for the sound of miniature explosions ripping through the air. She dropped her head to the floor and pressed her cheek to the trail of blood leaking across it. She followed its path to a fat woman who lay slumped halfway down on the floor. Her upper body was upright against the security check-in station. Her leg below her right knee was missing, the white bone and red flesh jutting out like a badly-butchered animal’s.
Simone didn’t cry. Her only thought to move away from the danger. Later she would find no pride in that, knowing she had been in shock.
She began to crawl.
She didn’t know if people were running in behind her, only that bullets still flew overhead. She had to get away from them. That was all that mattered.
Screams, glass, and blood filled the air as Simone crawled into the building.
“This is fun!”
Charles could barely contain himself. The first three television stations were showing live coverage of the attacks. The two-way radios sat on the coffee table, filling the room with the voices of his men and the screams of the dying. Charles didn’t care about them. He was too interested in the carnage on the televisions and wondering when the last news channel would get with the program.
Aerial camera views from the helicopters flying overhead showed the parking lots. The buildings looked relatively similar, only the surrounding landscape appeared different. White vans were abandoned across the streets or parking lots, the men who had arrived in them forming loose circles around the building.
They were slowly tightening their nooses, moving in as they continued firing. Charles could see when the men ran out of ammunition. He watched them drop their magazines and load fresh ones with anticipation.
An explosion lit up the far left television. Someone had thrown a grenade into the building. Fire and smoke rose at the bottom of the structure.
Charles glanced over at Titan. Both men were standing almost shoulder to shoulder, although Titan stood taller than Charles.
His face held the same placid noninterest.
“What do you think?”
“This is a very good job, Mr. Twaller.”
Charles nodded and looked at the man a second longer before turning back to the television screens.
It was a very good job, no doubt about it. This might not be the largest attack against the Federal Government in terms of death count, but it certainly was in regards to the number of attackers.
Charles forced his gaze away from the televisions and turned back to the radios. He picked up the one on the far right.
“Are any reinforcements there yet?”
The higher the elevator rose, the more Christian heard. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he understood it was huge.
It sounded like a war had started.
“What are you doing?”
Christian was surprised to hear anyone inside the elevator, especially his mother. She hadn’t spoken to him like this in years. None of his former apparitions showed themselves to offer him advice anymore. He had been alone, and yet here she was, standing in the corner of the elevator, ready to have a conversation.
“I’m going to help Simone,” he said, knowing that he was talking to his own mind. It used to do this often, to help him make it through tough times.
“How are you going to help her, Christian? You can shoot that gun decently at best. Do you hear what’s happening through these concrete walls? How many men are up there shooting? What can you possibly be able to do?”
Christian turned away from her.
“Honey,” his mother said, “I’m not trying to be cruel, but you’ll die if you go through that door. Whatever is happening, one man can’t stop it.”
He ignored her, the same as he had the Other inside his mansion. It didn’t matter what she said, nor that it might be similar to what his actual mother would say. He wasn’t leaving Simone up there. No way.
If that meant dying, then he was okay with that. Maybe it was even preferable.
The elevator doors opened onto chaos. Christian had viewed chaos up close and with a lot at stake before. He hadn’t panicked during those times, and he didn’t panic now. He might never achieve the calm, almost reptilian mindset that Luke possessed at times like these, but the knowledge that he had to keep his head if Simone was to live came over him.
His gun was already raised as he looked through the smoke and shattered walls.
Christian ducked as he came out low and ran for the opposite corner. He dropped to his knees as he reached it, landing on the smooth floor and sliding until his left hand caught the corner, bringing him to a stop.
Tommy would be proud, he thought.
His mind took in everything, cataloging the dangers around him and relaying them to his conscious self with perfect timing.
Christian rose to his feet but stayed crouched as he looked around the corner. Smoke filled the air and the smell of gunpowder was heavy. The screams of the dying were everywhere, rising above the alarm’s insanely loud howl.
How could he find her in here, and where in the hell was their backup?
He heard weapons discharging that lacked the heavy firepower of those outside, meaning other agents were turning outward and defending themselves.
Christian peered into the lobby, trying to see through the smoky destruction.
“You won’t be able to see anything from here.”
What in the hell? he wondered.
It was Dr. Michael Hanson, the psychiatrist Waverly still made him see. He’d never shown up as an apparition before, and yet here he was, giving advice.
Christian didn’t turn around and risk getting shot. He knew these apparitions would continue speaking regardless of what he did.
“You’re going to need to get out front,” Hanson said.
“That’s where the risk is,” his mother said.
“Both of you, shut up.”
They were right. Christian took off, his body bent low. He made it to the back of the security station and dropped to his ass, his back sliding down the polished wooden credenza. Bullets flew through the air above him, some smashing into the structure he was hiding behind.
It was only a matter of time before one caught him in the lung. Still kneeling, he faced the front of the building and peeked over the top.
Christian's body grew cold at the sight outside despite the war unfolding around him. His mind put the number of men approaching at around fifty. They were nearing the shattered windows and doors, mowing down everyone they saw. It was like an apocalyptic nightmare, with the healthy coming to gun down the infected.
A bullet whizzed by Christian’s face. The sound of it rang in his ear after it passed. He scanned his surroundings, seeing other agents doing the same as him, only they were firing their guns, trying to hit the assailants.
“There’s some cover,” Hanson said with the same detachment he always used in his sessions.
“Christian, be careful,” his mother said from the other side of him.
Christian dropped to his stomach and started crawling, his legs pushing him forward while he did his best to keep his gun in a firing position.
He moved out from behind the security desk’s shield, avoiding the dead bodies and dying people around him. He moved past them as fast as he could, intent on finding one single person.
“Simone!” he shouted, hoping that she might hear his voice through the cacophony. “Simone, can you hear me?”
He kept scanning the room as he moved, his mind as close to a computer as any human would ever achieve as he identified and dissected every input it received.
“There,” Hanson said. He was crawling, too. “Someone is moving.”
Christian saw her immediately. He needed nothing else. That was Simone’s red hair, and she was crawling in the wrong direction. She was heading toward the wall on the opposite side of the building.
Christian turned toward her.
Simone knew nothing except that she needed to keep moving. If she kept her body’s momentum going forward, she would eventually find safety. If she stopped, she would die.
She was finally crying. Sobbing actually, but not from fear. The smoke was too much, even down on the floor. She could barely see anything, but she couldn’t stop to wipe at the tears dripping down her face. That would halt her progress.
It would be her death.
Her hand touched someone’s leg, sliding off a wet, meaty wound where a bullet had ripped through.
Simone pushed it out of the way, acting more on animal instinct than human. She crept, crawling, and the time felt endless, each inch a mile in her mind.
She screamed when a hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her back roughly. She stretched her hands out and kicked without looking, feeling something hard beneath her foot as she did.
The hand released her and she scurried forward, desperately wanting to get away. She’d moved forward a few feet when the hand clamped down again. This time another came immediately after, grabbing her free leg. She was pulled roughly and fast, all the way back.
“Simone, stop!”
She turned her head at the sound of the voice, and through the smoke and fear, she saw Christian.
“Stay down and follow me!”
Simone did no such thing. She reached out and hugged her troubled friend, joy surging through her.
Christian wasn’t ready for the embrace, but it came with a mugger’s force. Simone wrapped him in her arms and pulled him close.
They lay like lovers on the floor for a long moment.
“Okay, okay,” Christian said, forcing her to let go. “We’ve got to go.”
His voice was softer. She could hear him now she wasn’t kicking him in his face. There was blood leaking from his nose but he didn’t feel any pain. His adrenaline was coursing too fast.
“Come on. That way.” He pointed in the opposite direction and then pushed her ahead of him, changing his mind about her following.
They crawled past the dead without sparing them a glance.
Something exploded behind them, and Simone stopped momentarily and turned around to look, but Christian shoved her, forcing her onward in a way he would have never done otherwise.
Christian didn’t know where safety lay in this place, but he knew where they were going. Back to subbasement C. Back to Tommy and the small family he had in this place. If he was going to die, he’d do it there, with them.
They’d moved another fifty feet when Christian heard the sweetest sound in his life.
Heavy artillery fire from a helicopter high above.
“It’s over,” Luke said as the helicopter hammered the world beneath with 30mm rounds. “Few of your men will live.”
“I know.”
Some had fled a few minutes before, understanding that they’d overstayed their welcome.
The helicopters began arriving on all of the screens, and SWAT teams showed up in heavily armored vehicles shortly after.
The screens went black when Charles hit the off buttons on the remote controls. Luke turned and looked at the fat man.
Charles held a two-way radio to his face, and was speaking into it. “Retreat if possible. We’ll be in contact.” He turned the first radio off and picked up the second.
Luke wanted a drink. He left the living room and found the liquor cabinet in the kitchen easily enough. He took a glass and poured himself a double shot of Charles’ eighteen-year-aged scotch. He lifted it to his nose, breathed in, and then sipped the golden liquid.
He didn’t turn around when he heard the fat man waddle into the kitchen.
“What’s next?”
What was next? That was the question he needed to answer. Luke took another sip, savoring the liquor that so much work and time had gone into creating. He wasn’t drinking due to stress or sadness. It was in celebration.
