False Move, page 24
Aiken caught up with Lacey, but was elbowed roughly in the midriff. The man woofed out air, and hissed at the pain: he still wasn’t on top form after being on the receiving end of the Mustang’s bruising impact. Lacey staggered away, and the man groped to grab him. Megan suddenly broke ranks and ran after him, swearing in vitriol.
‘Don’t hurt him,’ Hayden barked. He swung to and fro, saw how too close for comfort Po was and brought up the suppressed barrel of his pistol. ‘Everybody hold it, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in Villere’s head!’
Tess didn’t move, only continued staring at Stella, trying to imbue a state of calmness on the woman. She didn’t want to look back at her partner, in case it encouraged Hayden to follow through with his warning. After a quick dip towards his ankle, Po also stood, relaxed, arms hanging at his sides as he peered back at the gunman.
Megan caught up to Lacey. Encumbered by her pistol and Hayden’s warning, she had little recourse. She practically jumped on his back, wrapping an arm around his neck. She was trawled a few yards, before Lacey’s strength gave out and he went down to one knee. Megan stumbled over him, and then swung around, raising her pistol to his face. ‘You piece of crap!’ she squawked at him. ‘I should fucking kill you right here, right now!’
Ignoring her, Lacey dug in his jacket pocket, and came out clutching two identical USB sticks. He craned so that he caught Hayden’s attention. ‘It’s these you want back. Let Stella go, and fucking take them!’
Lacey sent the USB sticks flying and their clatter across the bare concrete floor only hinted at their final destinations somewhere in the shadows of the far wall. Megan grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head up, and forced the end of the suppressor against his forehead. ‘You just signed your own life away, asshole,’ she hissed.
‘No, Megan,’ Hayden barked. ‘We don’t know if they’re the only copies. I think we’re still missing one.’
Megan’s lips writhed in poorly contained rage, but Hayden was correct: they had to confirm the USB sticks were the only remaining copies of the files. She relaxed the pressure on the trigger a fraction.
‘Nicholls,’ Hayden said. ‘Go and get them, and bring them here.’
Nicholls was still in a state of confusion. He looked dumbly between Po, Tess and then Lacey.
‘The fucking USB sticks!’ Hayden snapped.
Nodding in embarrassment, Nicholls chased after the USB sticks like a dog after a thrown ball.
Lacey attempted to rise.
‘Stay down,’ Megan snarled. Aiken joined her, but just stood, unsure what to do.
‘Let Stella go,’ Lacey responded.
They were strung out through the large room. Not how Hayden had planned things working out.
‘You,’ he said to Po, and he jerked the gun a couple of times so his message was clear. ‘Get moving.’
Po turned aside and began strolling nonchalantly to where Tess waited. Presently she was unguarded while Megan and Aiken were crowding Lacey, and Nicholls scrambled around trying to locate the thumb drives among the detritus of the construction site. Hayden commanded Po to stop when he was alongside his partner.
Tess mouthed words at Stella, then turned and eyed Hayden steadily. She sneered at the threat of his gun. ‘You haven’t done anything like this before, have you?’ she said.
He didn’t rise to her scorn. ‘I’m a fast learner,’ he said instead.
‘No, buddy,’ Po drawled. ‘You learn by making mistakes and not repeating them. You ain’t gonna get the opportunity at a second go.’
Behind Hayden the doors creaked open, and there was an instant shift in the light bleeding in from the outer corridor. It was enough to note the grin of satisfaction on Po’s face. Hayden snapped around, aiming his gun at the new arrivals, but didn’t pull the trigger. Instead he wheezed out a curse.
‘Surprised, you? You shouldn’t be. I’m the proverbial bent penny,’ Pinky Leclerc announced. ‘I keep turning up.’
Alone, even armed as he was, Pinky’s inclusion in the dynamic wouldn’t have made much difference, but Pinky was not alone. A trio of armed men accompanied him, and between them they ushered hostages of their own. Gagged with duct tape and their hands cuffed behind them, Ben Holbrook and Clarissa Glenn glared at Hayden for allowing their capture.
Hayden didn’t lower his weapon.
‘Are you still confident of earning that bonus now?’ Tess asked from behind him.
FORTY-FOUR
‘You tried killing me once and failed. Care for a second try, you?’ Pinky aimed his pistol directly at Hayden James.
Hayden didn’t reply, but neither did he lower his weapon. He flicked another glance over his bosses and knew the second he pulled the trigger would be their last, and quite probably his too. The trio of men surrounding his bosses had protected their identities with scarfs wrapped around their faces. They looked ready to spray everyone in sight with their submachine guns.
Hayden aimed his gun at the ceiling, then unfurled his grip so the Beretta hung on his index finger by its trigger guard.
‘Didn’t think so,’ said Pinky. ‘Now … the rest of you asshats, drop your damn weapons or you’ll see what your beloved leaders look like in matching crimson.’
Holbrook and Glenn were forced to their knees, and one of his mysterious companions held the stock of his weapon tight to his shoulder, its barrel a hand’s breadth from their heads. The other two spread apart, one training his weapon on Nicholls who had taken to a knee in the shadows, hoping he’d been missed. The third man took a position where he had Megan and Aiken in his sights.
‘Did I not make myself clear, goddammit?’ Pinky barked.
Nicholls threw aside his pistol and held up his hands. Aiken wasn’t stupid either. He set down his weapon and kicked it away and raised his hands in surrender. Up on the stage, Seung and Johnson didn’t move, but neither did they dispose of their guns. However, they didn’t try to stop Stella either when Tess mouthed another instruction, and then hurried to the side of the stage to meet her friend coming down. Stella had shed the after effects of sedation, but was still weak with fear, and also trepidation for her father. She almost fell into Tess’s arms, and Tess moved her aside, so she was out of the line of fire.
‘You on the stage,’ Pinky went on. ‘I’ll give you the benefit of not hearing me the first two times, but the third will be the last. DROP YOUR FUCKING WEAPONS NOW!’
Seung and Johnson dropped their weapons.
Pinky smiled in faux gratitude, then aimed a wink at Po.
‘Good work, brother,’ said Po, because his friend deserved the praise, having achieved so much in short order.
Pinky’s smile was genuine this time. He was having serious misgivings about his chosen career path, and was in the process of formulating the best way to leave it behind, but it had its advantages too. In short order, during the drive up from Boston, he’d pulled in favours and secured the assistance of a trio of criminals who hadn’t balked at the notion of his plan. Their price was a large chunk of Pinky’s current empire, but it was worth it to him and not to be missed once he walked away from the rest of it. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, the outfit had no connection with Po Villere’s enemies in Boston, but was close enough to travel up and meet with Pinky within the time frame given to them by Hayden James, and to carry out the swift and daring counter-snatch of Holbrook and Glenn. Their task was sped up by the assistance of Harris Collins; the guard who’d first raised the cover-up of a murder to Aaron Lacey and who’d helped him download the incriminating files. Tess had made contact with the guard, and he’d not only agreed to spirit Pinky’s outfit inside Elite’s HQ, but to also ensure they went unchallenged as they abducted the company heads. As it were, there were few on site involved to any degree with what their bosses and the troubleshooting team were involved in, and Pinky’s group were in and out in minutes, and Holbrook and Glenn confined inside a van until the appropriate time came to walk them inside. Unlike Hayden James’s people, Pinky’s were hardened criminals who wouldn’t think twice about ending any resistance to their plan. To prove a point they’d come armed with military-issue Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine guns and supplied Pinky with a tactical semi-automatic SIG Sauer P226R pistol, and a secondary weapon, a more compact P228 originally destined for Tess’s hand. At the moment, she had her hands filled with Stella Dewildt, so Pinky offered it to Po instead.
Po shook his head.
He moved on Hayden James.
He met his stare, then almost disdainfully stripped the man’s gun from his hand and shoved it into his belt at the back.
‘So what happens now, Villere?’ Hayden asked.
Po ignored the question. He sought Tess in the gloom. ‘Get Stella outta here,’ he called.
‘What are you going to do?’ Hayden pressed.
‘I should give you something to remember me by,’ said Pinky, and tapped the muzzle of his SIG below the scar on his head: without the gauze padding the full extent of his injury was vivid and looked the more permanent due to the sterile sutures holding together his skin. ‘Leave you with a head like a split gourde.’
‘You should be grateful that I spared your life,’ Hayden rasped. ‘I hit you with that skillet so’s Megan didn’t put a bullet in your brains.’
‘No, bra,’ said Pinky. ‘Saving my life was never your intention.’
Po had walked away during their brief exchange. His attention was on Megan Stein. She still controlled Lacey with one hand furled in his hair.
‘It’s over,’ Po told her. ‘Put down your weapon and you won’t be hurt.’
Megan shook her head vehemently. She hauled on Lacey’s hair, drawing him up so that she could use him as a shield. She stuck her gun in the side of his neck. ‘I’m walking out of here and this piece of shit’s coming with me. Now back the fuck up, all of you!’
‘Po,’ said Lacey, ‘if you let her take me, I’m done for the second she’s in the clear.’
‘You were done for the second you killed my Ethan!’ Megan screeched. Her gun went from his neck, to Po, then back again. ‘I’m not fucking kidding! Get out of my way, or you’ll be wearing his brains.’
‘You’re not leaving this place with him,’ Po warned.
‘Then he’s not leaving this place at all!’
‘No, Megan, don’t—’ Hayden’s warning was lost in the immediate aftermath.
Chaos erupted as a gunshot rang out.
Lacey collapsed to the floor, even as Megan backed away, freeing her weapon to shoot at Po.
Po’s hand whipped up, and he released the blade he’d cupped in his palm and concealed under his sleeve since secretly removing it from its boot sheath earlier. The knife sank to its hilt in Megan’s shoulder, but she still held onto her weapon, and she let off a shot at Po. But he’d moved instantly, ducking and lunging to one side, so the shot went wide. Megan tracked him.
From the floor, Lacey aimed his revolver. Unbeknown to all, Tess and Po included, he’d discovered it lying under the passenger seat of the Mustang, dropped there when he’d dived inside on 56th Street in Manhattan, and had concealed it under the bulky dressings and bandages on his wounds before exiting the car at the old burying grounds. While Megan had prepared to murder him in cold blood, he’d dug out the gun, and fired under his armpit into her gut. She was on her feet, but dying, only not as fast as he’d hoped. He shot her again. This time his bullet found her chest, and she staggered back on wooden legs, her face a picture of dismay. Again she proved more resilient than he’d hoped, and she lowered her gun and returned fire. Lacey got off a final shot before they both collapsed wearing fresh bloody wounds. The scar on Megan’s face bore a new hole, and it was barely discernible among the puckered flesh: not so the hole at the back, as it had taken a large chunk of bone and scalp with it.
‘Dad!’ Stella’s scream rang out from the wings of the stage where Tess had moved her out of harm’s way. Her footsteps thundered as she raced back onto the stage, and Vera Seung, nearest her, also grasped at a chance of a hostage. She lunged for Stella, even as Johnson leapt for where his gun lay on the stage. Their actions added fuel to an already incendiary situation.
A submachine gun roared, and Nicholls died under a blistering hail of bullets, his hand still inches from where he’d earlier tossed his gun aside. The sound was startlingly loud in the large room, and in reaction, it scattered those able to run. At a gallop Grant Aiken snatched up his fallen gun, and he loosed three suppressed shots in quick succession before he too was torn apart by one of Pinky’s men.
Po vaulted over Lacey, even as he plucked Hayden’s gun from his belt and fired at Johnson. Johnson was saved by his elevated position, and the angle of the stage, and returned fire. A bullet nicked leather from Po’s jacket before he ducked and his counterfire went high and wide.
Seung grappled Stella around her waist and yanked her off her feet. She braced her hostage against her, moving sideways as she sought her dropped gun. From nowhere, Tess powered into her and all three women went down on the stage in a bundle of furiously struggling limbs. Johnson turned to get a bead on his partner’s attacker, and Po bobbed up over the stage and placed a better-aimed bullet in his prone body. Johnson gasped, readjusted his aim, but before another shot could be fired by either of them, Pinky blasted the man with a short burst of three 9mm Parabellums from his SIG.
Holbrook and Glenn had nowhere to go. They were forced flat by their guard, but he didn’t kill them. They weren’t to know his intentions, and both emitted muffled pleas through their gags. In the meantime, Hayden James abandoned them to their fate, racing for where he knew there was a gap between the loose boards on the far side of the room. Gunfire chased him every step, and he felt the tug of one bullet as it exited the flesh of his right thigh. Fortunately for him, his leg didn’t collapse beneath him, and he made it through the gap in the wall. Bullets punched through the drywall, showering dust and shrapnel, but to his right when he had lunged left. By the time his would-be killer adjusted his aim, Hayden was hurtling away along a service corridor, and the sounds of battle fell behind him.
Within what was destined to become the destination of theatregoers, a drama continued to be acted out on its stage. Stella proved a hindrance in the fight, only attempting to escape the melee to reach her father’s side, while Tess strove to protect her from Vera Seung’s determined attack. Immediately after they’d spilled apart, the woman had gone on the offensive, kicking and punching, and it was unclear if she intended killing them both or forcing a path through them. Tess inserted herself in harm’s way, and took a couple of heavy blows to her body before she landed a punch in retaliation. Seung had unarmed combat skills Tess couldn’t ordinarily match, but she was more ferocious in her defense. As Seung powered a roundhouse kick at her face, Tess ducked under the streaking foot and clasped both hands around the woman’s upper thigh, then charged her off her supporting leg. They went down again, and this time the barely constructed stage gave way under their combined weight, and they crashed together through loose planks into the void beneath.
Tess blinked in the almost complete darkness, trying to get her bearings, before realizing she had found her way on top of the woman. Blindly, she threw aside the pinioned leg, and crawled up Seung’s chest, throwing punches down into Seung’s body and head. Her previously injured wrist threatened to come apart again with each blow she landed, but she didn’t let up. Not until she was dragged off the unconscious woman by Pinky, who offered her a roll of his eyes. ‘Damn, Pretty Tess, remind me to never get on your wrong side.’
‘Where’s Stella? Where’s Po?’ she asked in a rush.
‘Stella’s with her dad, Po’s gone after that Hayden James dude.’
‘What?’ Tess croaked, still partially in a daze from her short but brutal battle.
‘He saw you had that bitch there in hand, him, then went after Hayden.’
‘That boneheaded man!’ Everything was under control, with all of the Elite people either dead, unconscious, or under armed guard. Hayden could run for all she cared, because without his promised reward he wouldn’t get far before the police caught up with him, but damn it if Po didn’t have a point to prove! He had nothing to prove except how stupidity could get him killed! She was about to race after him, when Stella’s keening wails reminded her there was somebody in need of more urgent assistance. Leaving Pinky to dig Seung out of the wreckage under the stage, Tess rushed to Lacey’s side and knelt down opposite Stella, who was futilely attempting to staunch too many wounds with too few hands. Remarkably, Lacey was not yet dead, but it would only be a matter of minutes if they didn’t get him to hospital.
FORTY-FIVE
He felt like a rat in a maze, every corner he took, every passageway he ran down was a dead end or sent him deeper into the labyrinth. With the benefit of previously reconnoitring the site Hayden James should’ve been able to escape, but he kept getting turned about. There were footfalls close behind, his pursuer dogged, and he’d be swiftly caught unless he found a way out. He couldn’t return to the front of the building, not while Pinky’s crew were still in attendance armed with submachine guns, as he’d be torn to pieces the instant he showed his face. Instead he chose to keep running and try to find access to the building site at the rear, and from there use the mounds of dirt and heavy equipment as cover until he could find a way out and onto the harbor. When he’d planned the exchange and subsequent executions, figuring out where his team was going to dispose of the bodies had taken precedence over an escape route. He’d earmarked the area towards the rear where an annexe building would eventually complement the larger entertainment complex. The construction crew had only recently broken ground, and dug deep foundations, and Hayden had judged the deep pits ideal graves. Ironic that it might be him filling one of those graves …
