The Galil, an Israeli adaptation of a Finnish rifle based on the Polish version of the Russian AK—
Lindsey was settled down in the corner of a flesh-toned room, primarily storage for excess office chairs and file cabinets, watching the door. She had been waiting for the employees to clear out before setting up. With Michael's collateral restrictions and the two god damned cowboys, it was like running an Op with her hands tied.
“Theresa, can you hear me?” EP said.
Lindsey reached in the bag for her Galil ACE and found the grip. If they had lost connection, EP might have been trying to warn her for the past ten minutes and she wouldn’t have heard. They could be right on top of her.
“What?!”
“Oh good. It’s like you’re in a bunker down there, I had to boost it off—”
“Is the evacuation done?”
“Yea. Targets on the tenth floor—”
“Moving out.” Lindsey headed for the door.
“—but they tried to call the guys you killed. You’ve got two heading down.”
“I’m not set up!”
“You can’t deal with them?”
“They’ll send the rest of them after me!” Lindsey couldn’t believe she had to explain this. She only had one option left.
“I need to blow the stairs before they move him out!”
“How—”
“With my last fucking breath!”
EP got the idea.
“Wait! I think I can draw the other two out of the stairs. Malachi, can you hit the lobby?”
There was a pause, but Lindsey didn’t waste any time getting the door open.
“Yea, fine. Give me a sec,” said Philip.
She shut the door as quietly as she could, white-knuckling the handle, and promised herself this would be the last time she ever waited on Philip.
~
Philip was parked in the front lot under the gentle shade of a live oak. Police sirens echoed in the distance and screams popped out at odd intervals like birdsong. Most of the employees had evacuated out the back entrance and fled across the street on foot, leaving their cars in the front lot. He had hoped to stay unnoticed until the target got farther down the stairwell. EP had other plans.
“Yea, fine. Give me a sec.” He told her and started the car. Bet she’s glad he got off that bridge now.
He drove down the back row under a line of oaks and glanced at the front of the building. There were three armed men standing guard at the tops of the steps. Briefly, through the glass front of the lobby, he saw at least five other guards around the reception desk and more standing on the upper loft.
The front entrance was recessed about twenty feet from the face of the building, forming a U shape of glass walls. He wouldn’t be able to lob a grenade into the lobby unless he was facing it dead on, and opening up on the door guards wasn’t going to be enough to draw anybody out of the stairwell. He needed something loud and ballsy. He pulled an old trick out of his book, and ghosts smiled at him in the rear view.
He turned on the row that seemed to have the most cars and stopped behind a tall van. He took two wrapped grenades out of the pouch in the center console, tore off the electric tape and put them in his coat pocket, and got out.
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He leaned over the windshield, grabbed a wiper, and threaded the blade through the ring on one of the grenades. He set it down easily in the gap between the hood and the windshield and took off the safety clip, then did the same to the second grenade with the other wiper blade and got back in the car. After clipping the grenade pouch on his belt behind his back, he lowered the seat and leaned it flat behind him, then brought the Rattler onto his lap and switched it to auto. It had all taken less than thirty seconds, but he half expected the guards to come around the van and spray him through the windows.
He went back around and turned down the center row towards the lobby. The seat was so low he could just barely see over the steering wheel. He put on his best scared office worker face as he crept forward and got a good grip on the Rattler. The two guards in front of the big glass doors watched him without much interest. Something came over the radio and they put their hands to their ears and looked back at the lobby. Perfect.
He lined up with one of the concrete posts on the sidewalk and raised his Rattler at the windshield. Careful not to rev the engine, he pushed the pedal down and the speedometer climbed. He said some mantras in his mind and visualized them.
“Their bullets miss. They drop dead.”
He added another as he pulled the trigger.
“They don’t shoot the fucking grenades.”
He was going over thirty when he dropped the first guard. Bullets ripped through his windshield as he missed the second one. The guards on the loft fired through the windows and rounds cracked on the engine block. In his mind, he saw the crash and watched himself get up unharmed. He replayed the vision in his head and felt everything else fall away as his body relaxed and the rifle moved on its own.
There was a jolt and a moment of darkness.
The two guards on the steps backed up and emptied half their mags blindly before the car jumped the curb and hit the concrete post head-on. The grenades went flying, leaving their pins on the wipers. One sailed past the guards and crashed through the glass into the lobby and the other struck one of them in the shoulder at thirty miles per hour and bounced off behind him. He stumbled back, tripped over the dead body, and sat down hard. The other guy realized what was rolling around.
“Shit!” He threw himself down to the right of Philip’s car, just in time.
There was a loud roar, and the shrapnel took out half the glass in the lobby, the rest of Philip’s windshield, and most of the windows. Cars out in the lot shed glass and tires hissed. The guard sitting down died instantly.
In the lobby, someone yelled “Grenade!” and dove behind the front desk. The guards on the ground floor ran to the elevator hallway, knowing the front desk wouldn’t stop shit. The guys on the upper loft backed away from the edge, and the poor bastards in the waiting area hit the ground behind some leather chairs and glass coffee tables.
The second blast took out the glass railing on the loft and sent shrapnel through the front desk, killing the guard behind it. Another in the waiting area died in the same instant and one running to the elevator hallway dropped screaming. In a flash, a hardened base of operations became a screaming bloody mess.
Philip came to lying flat in the seat with the sound of the grenade ripping through the air. He felt like his face was on fire, and the aches from the first car crash had flared up again, but otherwise he was untouched. His Rattler was still strapped on his chest and he was covered in glass from the windshield.
A second later, there was another roar and more shrapnel dinked the car. Someone yelled outside. He snatched his P226 out of its holster and aimed it at the passenger door. The guard made all kinds of noise getting his gun off the cement. Philip put six rounds of .357 Sig through the door and he dropped to the sidewalk with a dull thud.
“Did that do it, uh.” He tried to think of her code name.
“Yea, that did it,” EP said in his ear. He flicked the P226 to safe and set it back in its holster, then grabbed his Rattler and set it to semi-auto.
“Good, guess I can die now.” He sat up.
Movement up on the loft caught his eye. The guard fired and most of the rounds zipped through the car harmlessly, but one cracked the steering wheel and hit Philip’s chest plate as he took aim.
“Fuck you.”
The dumb bastard was standing up on the loft with absolutely no cover and jumped back as Philip fired. Not fast enough. He got him four times, walking the shots up from thigh to head. When the suppressed smacks stopped echoing, there was nothing but the sound of the fire alarm and sirens in the distance.
He reached over to get the extra magazines off the floor on the passenger side and remembered he had already put them in his chest pouches when more gunfire ripped out of the building. He finished leaning his head onto the seat and kicked open the driver’s side door. Bullets ripped into it almost instantly.
“All right.”
He dropped the passenger seat back and threw himself over it as more rounds cracked into the car. Deja-vu cut through the chaos and somewhere midroll, he smiled.
The roof concealed him from the loft, but that didn’t stop them from trying. Fabric flew down with streams of sunlight and the seats around him spat out chunks of polyester. He kicked open the passenger side rear door to give them something else to shoot at as he dropped the backseat down and dove into the trunk.
He rolled over trash, shoes, jackets, a blanket that smelled like death, and an old jack before he got a hold of the release handle and kicked it open. More rounds poured through the lid and skipped off the street as he rolled out. He was in a crouch with the Rattler up and ready to rock before the shit in the trunk settled. Two guards on the loft dropped dead and the others dove for cover. He got down and reloaded with a smile on his face.
“I’m the god damn attack team,” he whispered down the barrel.