The Stringers, page 48
Another problem. I hadn’t the slightest idea of where to go. Every turn offered three additional paths to go. Others were blocked by debris, but had small openings for someone to squeeze through. Somehow, I managed to pick the right ones every time, aided in no small part by the Fifth Avenue Boys’ unusually loud voices. It was obvious what they discussed as they hurried back to their car.
They didn’t know my name, but that was irrelevant. If they got to McCullen, our editor would show them a picture of every stringer he had on his payroll and have them finger the culprit. I would be easily identifiable. From there, they wouldn’t even need an order to know what they were to do.
Then I realized in horror there lay a third choice. The only practical one.
If I didn’t kill them, I’d have to take Casey’s offer and accept a pardon in exchange for protection. It was last thing I say myself doing. Instead of a stringer, I’d be a rat, a turncoat. Casey would try to make my decision seem honorable, but I knew better. History had shown that whistleblowers and informants were always hated, even by those whom they helped.
A crack in the floor nearly sent me to the ground. I barely managed to keep my balance, pressing my hand against the wall as I stopped to regain my breath. But I gave myself only one gasp before I resumed my pursuit. I couldn’t stop for a moment.
With their heavy Thompson’s, they covered ground with incredible speed and stamina, while I had a small revolver, no more than a few pounds, yet struggled to catch up. It humiliated me, but this humiliation spurred me to go even faster, discounting any hint of caution as I encountered precipitous sections of the pathway where all that remained was a crossing no wider than my foot. I crossed it without flinching, and when I reached a veritable canyon in the hallway, where the section of the stadium had been torn apart, I ran until the very edge and then leapt into the air, throwing myself across it. I landed less gracefully than I had planned, slamming against the ground on my shoulder. I groaned, a headache coming over me. Heaving, I picked myself and looked ahead.
It wasn’t much farther to the parking lot.
Down the flight of stairs I could see the gate. Somewhere among the cemetery of automobiles was the Fifth Avenue Boys’ vehicle, the living hiding among the dead.
I went to move, but stopped when two light snapping sounds were followed by a creaking noise above me. Not bothering to look up, I threw myself backward and rolled to the side, covering my head as the ground shook and a thunderous crash echoed in the air. Particles of dust and rock rattled and swirled, forming brownish-black clouds.
When it had ended, I lifted my head up, and through the clouds I saw a large and serrated slab of concrete buried into the floor where I had been standing like a pillar or monument. At first it appeared to have been happenstance, but as I got closer and caught a whiff of air, I smelled a strong chemical odor, the telltale sign of explosives.
I wiped the grime and sweat and dirt from my eyes and moved down the stairs. Hardly able to see in the dust, I crouched down using the guardrail as my guide. When I came to the parking lot a light snow flurry arrived, giving the vicinity the pretense of tranquility.
As I moved to a minivan deprived of its tires, using it for cover, I could tell they were still there. There was no sound of an engine revving or tires screeching, and their automobile was too loud for them to have slipped away unnoticed. For reasons unknown, they had not yet fled.
The silence was abruptly shattered as gunshots were fired. Ricochets splashed across the hood of the van I stood behind. I knelt down, letting the shooter empty his magazine as I waited to determine their location during a pause in the gunfire. When he stopped, I went to stand up, only to be sent back down by another volley of bullets coming at me from my left. With no room to maneuver, I remained still, though I was aware of how vulnerable my position put me.
“Go! Go! Go!” someone yelled, followed by the smacking of hardened boots against the pavement on my right.
I recognized the tactic right away. A pincer move. They would pin me down with fire in the center, suppress me from the left, allowing another to come at me from the only possible escape. I had perhaps ten seconds before I would be surrounded and exposed.
Whispering a short prayer, I leapt over the hood of the minivan, somersaulting across the ground and up to the front remains of a truck. As I did this, I caught a glimpse of two of them in front of me, one of them yanking at their submachine gun, which had jammed. His partner next to him had turned to help him.
I could not miss. But I wouldn’t get another shot like it.
Still running, I peered down the sights of my snub-nosed barrel, one eye closed, and fired, aiming for his torso. Despite the gun’s inaccuracy, the bullet struck him in the neck, sending out a jet of blood as he dropped the gun and grabbed at his throat to stem the flow. The other killer jumped back in shock, then saw me running. He aimed with his gun, but his hesitation gave me time to stop, take aim again, and with a single shot, as well. This time my aim was perfect, directly between the eyes.
Grateful for my accuracy, I moved to the other side of the truck, and by then the others had realized I had relocated. They made their sentiment known with a long list of expletives describing what they thought of me. It sounded comical, until one of them concluded the tirade with a subdued, but incensed tone.
“We’re not leaving until ya dead,” he said. “And ya ain’t gonna die quick. We gonna wound ya, then tear ya apart, piece by piece. I figures this is better than goin’ back to McCullen to figure out which one of ya backstabbed us. Might as well save us the drive, right? I mean, gas ain’t cheap. But not expensive enough to pour some of ya and see what happens when we light it.”
If they were expecting me to reply, they were disappointed. I refused to give them the satisfaction and chose to move away from the truck, into a mixture of commercial vans and pickup trucks with their wiring and longboard engines strewn around like spare body limbs. A minute or so transpired without further gunshots, but was then interrupted by a short burst. The shots were directed elsewhere. They didn’t know where I was anymore.
For a while, I hoped that the ISA officers would come out to save me, but then I remembered the Tongs would be coming soon. In fact, I was surprised they hadn’t already. Something must have been delaying them. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t keep them indefinitely.
Tired of the silence, one of them called out to me again.
“Why don’t ya come and fight us like a man? Or is that too much to expect of a weasel like ya? A dirty, rottin’, double-crossin’ weasel who wants to sell us out to the Feds! I gotta admit, though. Ya look real good in that uniform. It must have been easy for ya to put it on. It’s where ya belong. Ya ain’t one of ours! Ya one of ’em. Better to kill ya wearin’ that suit of theirs than our clothes. It spares us from getting’ confused about who we killin’ here. We ain’t killin’ one of our own. We’re killin’ a little rat bastard.”
I said nothing. He couldn’t stop himself.
“How does it feel to be workin’ for them bastards, huh? What’s it like? Just remember, when we kill ya and drop what’s left of ya off at their office, nobody ain’t gonna shed no tear for ya. Nobody. They’ll drop ya carcass six feet under and then go back to pushin’ their noses into our business. Think about that and see how that feels.”
If I had had more than four bullets left, I would have fired one at him. What he said didn’t irritate me as much as his arrogant tone. But that was the point of it.
As he rambled, I quietly planned my attack.
Strategically, it was actually academic. My weakness was their strength. I had a tiny revolver with a handful of cartridges. They had automatic weapons and plenty of ammo to spare. As long as they kept the distance between me and them, they would have the tactical advantage. If I could draw them into a close proximity, however, and fight them at point-blank, their advantage would be gone. And if I could also place myself between two of them, it would be even better. The confusion would cause them to hesitate before firing, or perhaps make them accidentally shoot at one another in the crossfire. The key was speed and precision. I had to keep moving no matter what.
Readying myself, I let out a long breath, inhaled deeply, and then moved out into an open space toward the shattered frame of a smart car that had seen better days. One of them spotted me and opened up. Forced to crawl the rest of the way to the car, I moved around it and kept my face in the snow, my clothes growing wet while my elbows and knees ached.
I rolled, turned, and there I saw the bodies of the two men I had killed. Their companions had left them and their weapons there, still loaded and ready to fire. Beside them were their bags of ammunition.
My eyes lit up like a pair of Roman candles.
I had to get them. I’d still be outnumbered, but it was better to be outnumbered with a submachine gun and a drum of fifty rounds than a revolver with no room for error.
Raising my head slightly, I saw them heading around me, their watchful gazes distracted.
The opportunity to make a run for it appeared.
Within a millisecond, I went from a prone position to a dead sprint, putting every ounce of energy into my legs as I stared down at the guns on the ground. Seeing me, two of the boys fired at me, and the bullets slapped against the metal frames and shattered cars’ windows, and glass particles showered the air. I felt the bone-chilling wind blow against my face and snowflakes fall into my eyes as hollow-pointed rounds whizzed past me, either inches away from my face or searing the edge of my clothes. For an instant I looked down and saw a tear in the side of my trousers at my hip, but refused to stop.
The Thompson was lying in front of the man’s body, his arm and pale blue fingers resting on its wooden stock. Within a few feet of it I threw myself out, reaching for it with my arms outstretched, and as I landed I felt my fingers touch the stock and the trigger guard, pulling it toward my chest. Spinning around as I hit the ground, my back now pressed against the corpse, I turned upward and lifted it to fire back.
A muddy boot appeared from the side and slammed down on my chest. I gasped for air, scarcely able to get breaths into my lungs.
A demonic face loomed over me, blackened and disfigured from self-abuse and a lifetime bred in the cruelty of a violent world. He smiled, showcasing diseased gums and copper-colored stained teeth.
“Hello,” he said. “Nice weather, ain’t it?”
I glared at him, praying the gun would fire. One in two chances I had picked the gun that had jammed on its previous owner.
I pulled the trigger.
It clicked.
I rolled my eyes and tossed it aside.
“Odds ain’t in ya favor today, are they?” he asked.
“I guess,” I said.
“Ha! I figured ya go for this. It’s like leavin’ out food in the woods for a bear. Sooner or later he gonna come for it.”
He pushed the front of his boot further into my gut. I tried to fight back, but the muzzle hovering near my face discouraged me from being overt about it. He kept grinning as he called out to his friends, then reached behind him and produced a small but razor-thin knife with a serrated edge on the back. Tapping it against his gloved finger, he licked his lips with a bloodlust in his eyes.
“We’re gonna have some fun,” he said.
Shoving his boot down hard, the force seemed to send my ribs into my lungs. I ceased being subtle and used both hands to push against his foot.
I then remembered the Prizm inside my pocket. I had no idea what I could do with it. But Casey had given it to me for a reason.
I looked up at the man. He was smiling at the others, who were monitoring the area for the Tongs, anticipating their arrival, too. Keeping my eyes on him to see he did not notice, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Prizm. But I couldn’t just put it on the side of my head. He’d notice it and rip it off. I had to hide it.
I glanced to my right. A pool of blood attracted my gaze. After putting on the Prizm, I plunged my hand into the red pool, then hurriedly smothered the side of my face with it. I then lightly coated the Prizm, hoping it wouldn’t wreck it.
A lightheaded sensation rushed through me as the Prizm connected. Receiving back signals, it attached itself and activated, and an old familiar feeling came to me as the electronic waves pass through the device and into my brain. Unlike the thousands of times I had used it before, however, no screen appeared in front of me. Instead, I heard a deep voice.
“Account is locked.”
Using my thoughts, I issued the commands.
“Unlock account.”
“Password.”
“Untouchable.”
“Thank you.”
The man standing above me turned his head and lowered his eyes at me. As soon as he did, he disappeared behind a holographic screen that flooded the full breadth of my vision. The screen at first was blank, but then transformed into a menu of options. Before it had downloaded, however, I concentrated on a single thought, a word.
Huginn.
The screen changed, flashing intensely before it transformed into a bird’s eye view of the city. As the view moved, however, I realized it was not a static picture, but from a camera. And the bird-like perspective meant it came from the drone hovering above us.
The Prizm acted on its own without any commands from me. The camera zoomed in and pinpointed my exact location, its widened lens sweeping over the stadium parking lot. It then pierced through the snowfall to discern us out below. Five figures were classified as humans, one of them myself. The two behind me the drone identified as humans, too, but deceased.
“Maybe we’ll leave ya to the Tongs after we done,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll want their pound of flesh, right?”
I trembled in order to appear terrified as I accessed Huginn’s weapons systems, switching to its high powered gun.
“Determine targets,” the program stated.
I hadn’t ever used a drone program before, but it managed to read my thoughts correctly, designating everyone in the parking lot except myself as targets.
The man knelt down next to me, placing the knife next to my eye. I blinked.
“Savor what you see here,” he said. “It’s the last things ya ever gonna see again.”
He grabbed my head. He proceeded to deliver several devastating blows to my chest, then the side of my head. The disorientation upset the program and it froze temporarily, waiting for me to clear my thoughts before it could resume.
“I’ll deliver ya head to McCullen,” he said. “He’ll want it on his shelf, with the rest of his trophies.”
Desperate, I threw a haymaker at him. It found its mark, knocking him backward. While I winced from the pain in my knuckles, he fell on his back, glaring up at me as he flipped the knife around and gripped it by the tip, winding his arm back to throw it at my face.
Rather than flee, I remained calm, allowing the program to resume. The screen popped back up, the four men surrounding me with target markers on them.
“Strike is ready,” the program said.
Just as the man was about the throw the knife, I smiled, which caused him to pause.
“Commence strike,” I said aloud.
It all happened at once. The screen zoomed in on the man standing in front of me until his face filled it up. The drone’s gun then fired and a round as bright as a ray of sun discharged, pierced through the clouds and the snow, and came down on him like a meteorite, and as it hit him his eyes lit up with horror and he went to call out to his friends, but his voice disappeared along with his body as he disintegrated in an instant, leaving nothing but dust particles that floundered in the air before settling on the ground.
To the eye it was not graphic at all. There was no blood. There were no screams, no tears, no missing limbs, no decapitated bodies, no viscera spilled about in a gruesome fashion. But the instantaneous obliteration of a human, removing all trace and vestige of their existence in a single stroke, was more appallingly violent than anything I had ever seen before in my life.
I hyperventilated as I stared at the pitiful remains and heard the gun fired three more times and three more zaps resonate across the parking lot. When I turned to look at where the three men had stood there also were three clouds of dust floating in the air and gently landing on the snowy ground.
Dust to dust.
A screech of tires broke me out of my concentration. Up along the road, a trio of Mercedes had arrived, the mass of men and guns gathered near the fence line. Their leader was standing in front of them, a pistol in his hand. He remained motionless, staring at me with large eyes. I could scarcely make him out from where I was, but I didn’t need a close look at his face to know the terror emanating from it. They had arrived just in time to witness the drone strike. His men now had the same trepidation, constantly looking back at their cars as if to get back into them and flee while they still could. I was in their territory, but their leader had to realize it was foolish to try to fight. In a single strike, I could wipe out his entire group of men.
The only question he must have been thinking was why I hadn’t done it already.
The leader raised his head high, as if to signify he was not retreating but reassessing his plan, and then turned back to his car. His men moved too eagerly for him, throwing themselves back in as the drivers pulled away before the doors had been closed. They tore down the road and away, leaving a heavy burnt-tire smell to inundate the air.
I went to move, but cried out as I felt a sharp twinge of pain. I examined my hip where the bullet had gone through my trousers and saw blood dripping from it. It had passed along the skin. A superficial wound.
I pressed my hand on it as I rose to my feet, making my way back up the stairs into the stadium.
***
