Black Flagged (The Black Flagged Technothriller Series) (18 page)

He moved quickly through the crowded section, trying to put as much distance between himself and whoever might have left the Suburban to follow him. He really wanted to get them into one of the long aisles, where he would be able to pull off a few of his better tricks. He nearly broke into a jog when he exited the maze-like produce area and still saw no aisles. He stumbled into another section, filled with more vegetables and walls of refrigerated items. He risked a glance back at the entrance, but did not see anyone that looked suspicious.

A large, precariously-stacked dry foods display loomed ahead, and beyond that, Daniel saw at least a dozen aisles. As he walked toward them, he caught a glimpse of two men, dressed in simple, dark clothing, entering the store side by side. They moved with a purpose, and Daniel was pretty sure their purpose wasn't surveillance.

He stopped at the beginning of the third aisle, pretending to check out the items on the end cap. He wanted them to see him here and wait until they were close enough to ensure they followed him down the aisle. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw them round the produce section corner and slow down as they spilled into the store's center connecting aisle. He placed a bag of organic tortilla chips and a jar of salsa into his basket and waited for the two men to make a move.

They approached slowly, pretending to examine items, and Daniel waited until they reached the first aisle before disappearing down the aisle to his left. He needed to see how they operated. If they both came down the same aisle, then he was in business. If they separated, then his chance of success in the store would be minimal, and he would have to quickly find another exit.

He stopped two-thirds of the way down the aisle, about sixty feet, and placed three cans of tuna in his basket, waiting for one of them to either peek around the corner or enter the aisle. Filling his peripheral vision, they both stepped into the aisle and walked toward him. Daniel turned and opened the distance between them, moving briskly toward the back of the store. He turned the corner and started the transformation, oblivious to the fact that the two men had almost broken into a full run.

As soon as was he out of their sight, he slid the shopping basket as far as he could across the aisles, landing it two aisles over. He turned down the adjacent aisle and deftly removed the golf jacket, pulling the entire jacket inside out to reveal a brown and blue patterned flannel interior. He quickly put the jacket back on and pulled out several flaps surrounding the bottom, turning the jacket into what looked like an oversized, unbuttoned flannel shirt. He reached inside the "shirt" pocket and pulled out a worn blue Cubs hat, with light brown hair protruding from the open bottom. In a practiced manner, he placed this on his head and tucked the hair on the sides with his fingers. He now turned back toward the end of the aisle and started walking slowly, simultaneously pulling out a pair of thick-rimmed fake designer eyeglasses and a non-functioning cell phone from one of the exterior flannel pockets. He had just pushed the glasses up his nose and turned his head down to examine the cell phone in his left hand, when two serious, dark-haired men rushed around the corner, each with a hand behind his back.

Daniel glanced up at the first man, his mouth hanging slightly open. He hoped that all the man processed for the next few seconds was a slightly disheveled, slack-looking graduate student in a worn flannel shirt fumbling with a cell phone. He just needed them off guard for a few seconds. Apparently, the quick change satisfied the first man, and he continued toward the next aisle without breaking pace.

Daniel slipped his right hand down to the four-inch folded knife in his back pocket, as the next man, slightly shorter and stockier, barreled into the opening, glancing at Daniel and continuing toward his partner. He took a few steps and suddenly swung his body to face Petrovich, bringing his pistol around as he turned. Petrovich had seen this coming. The fake cell phone struck the floor, leaving Daniel's hands free.

He bolted inside of Sanchez's striking radius and gripped the man's shooting arm at the wrist with his left hand, while viciously slashing the knife blade across the commando's throat with a powerful reverse grip. Daniel felt a hot spray pulse across the back of his head and neck, and saw a bright red arterial splash hit several yellow boxes of spaghetti in front of him. Before Sanchez could react, which would have been an impressive feat at this point, Daniel jammed the blade back into his throat, and the man went slack. He hated knife work.

Daniel moved his left hand forward along Sanchez's wrist and removed the pistol from the man's non-existent grip. He kept the pistol aimed at the corner of the next aisle, right at head level, and within a fraction of a second, Daniel saw the black cylindrical shape of a suppressor appear, followed by Cumming's head. They fired at the same time, each with a disadvantage. Cummings was moving too fast, and Daniel was using his off hand.

Daniel heard a snap pass by his right ear, as Cummings' first bullet missed his head by less than an inch. The bullet continued past him, through the store, striking the decorative glass frame above a large serving station that housed shiny stainless steel bins filled with barbequed meats. Glass rained down into all of the simmering bins and a brown leak-proof carton held by a skinny Hispanic woman. The second bullet went wider than the first and higher, striking a suspended light near the barbeque cart, sending a cascade of sparks down onto the heads of a young, white grunge couple standing in front of the meat counter. Daniel's first and only bullet didn't miss. It punctured Cummings' left eye, exiting low at the base of his skull with surprisingly little back spray. He noticed a perforated box of pasta fall from the aisle behind Cummings.

All of this happened within the span of a second, giving nobody a chance to react beyond simply freezing in place. The silenced bullets simply struck their unintended targets and caused damage that appeared to be an equipment malfunction. Nobody's attention was drawn to the life and death struggle a few aisles away. What happened next would draw half of the store to his location.

Momentum carried Cummings' useless body forward into a large display of stacked cans, and the tall, square column of twenty-six-ounce tomato cans cascaded down over his body, spreading hundreds of cans into the open aisles around them. Several cans rolled through the thick, spreading pool of blood around Sanchez's body, leaving blood trails past his head down the aisle. He fought the instinct to search their bodies because he needed to get out of the store fast. He could already hear some commotion, and he didn't have long before several employees arrived on the scene.

Petrovich picked up the second pistol and removed his blood-splattered, reversible jacket. He used it to conceal the identical semi-automatic pistols, wrapping the jacket in a way to keep one of the pistols secure, while keeping the other free for use under the material. He buried his right hand inside the folded jacket, gripping the pistol, satisfied that he could use it quickly if need be. He took off the fake glasses and threw them onto Cumming's partially buried corpse.

Glancing around, he carefully stepped over the cans, almost slipping, and moved over one more aisle, before turning toward the front of the store. He didn't see anyone headed in his direction yet, which meant he should have enough time to get out of the store before mayhem descended on the Natural Foods staff. He moved briskly, passing an Indian woman wearing a headscarf and a dark-haired, olive-skinned man on his way out of the aisle. The woman stared at him strangely, and Daniel realized that he must have a considerable amount of the first man's blood on the side of his neck.

He ignored the woman's gasp and pressed forward to the checkout area. He carefully scanned everything around him, looking for the rest of the team. Now that intentions were clear, he would engage the team immediately. He didn't see anyone that looked out of place, but he was painfully aware that anyone glancing at him for too long would be alarmed. He couldn't afford any attention at this point, not with the rest of the Suburban's occupants in the parking lot. The last thing he needed to confront was an off-duty cop who had seen too many movies.

Only four of the dozen cashier lanes were open, all toward the entrance, which might make things easier for him. In total, he quickly counted about thirty people, including employees, crowded around the bustling area. It was a large group to pass without attracting attention, but everyone looked extremely busy as he continued toward one of the empty lanes a few registers away from the commotion. He kept scanning the group for any signs of alarm, painfully aware that the back of his neck and shirt were stained red.

Instinctively, he focused on a woman closing her purse near the closest open lane and decided to use her to get out of the store undetected. She had short, cropped, dark hair and was dressed like a professional, in a matching gray suit. He walked through one of the empty lanes and turned toward the exit, which fortunately kept his blood-splattered right side partially hidden from view. He kept his gaze forward, hoping that the cashiers and baggers would stay focused on their jobs and that nobody in line would pay much attention to him.

He passed the group unnoticed and concentrated on his target. The woman put her purse in the shopping basket's empty child's seat and started to push the loaded metal cage toward the entrance. Daniel counted at least five brown paper bags stacked in the cart. He timed his pace, arriving behind her in an area devoid of windows and shopper traffic, just before the exit. She had stopped to look at the community posting board, which made it easy for him to nestle behind her.

The sliding glass door opened in front of them, and a young woman wearing a yoga outfit walked through, glancing briefly in their direction. The woman waited for her to cross into the produce section and tried to push the cart forward, which didn't budge.

Daniel held the cart in place with his left hand and pushed the barrel of the pistol into the small of her back. He whispered closely into her left ear, "I'm holding a silenced pistol at the base of your spine right now. If you make a sound, you'll never walk again. I need your cart. You can keep your purse. Can you give me your cart?"

He pressed the pistol into her back again, and she nodded.

"Let's get moving. When we get into the vestibule, you'll let go of the cart and go left, out of the door. Keep walking until you find a coffee shop. Relax with an iced drink, and don't worry about your groceries. The parking lot is not safe for you right now," he said, as the cart moved forward through the sliding doors and into the vestibule.

"Take your purse and go," he said, removing the gun from her back.

She carefully lifted her purse out of the cart and walked through the door, never looking back at him. Daniel was impressed by her ability to remain calm. He had given her a fifty percent chance of screaming as soon as he pushed the gun into her back and had resigned himself to hitting her over the head with the pistol. Just as she passed a small potted plant display along the outside wall of the store, he heard a muffled scream from inside the store. Knowing he had little time left before a call went out to the police, he unwrapped his jacket and placed both pistols into the shopping cart seat, hidden by the groceries. He slipped the jacket on, flannel side out, very aware that the collar was soaked with cold, thickening blood.

**

Douglass Porter, former Army Special Operations staff sergeant, sat impatiently behind the wheel of the running Suburban. The team had been in the store long enough for him to start feeling nervous, and he kept his eyes glued to the store's entrance vestibule. The vestibule didn't empty directly into the parking lot; instead, it contained a front wall, with doors on both sides, which had disgorged nearly two-dozen shoppers since Cummings and Sanchez had disappeared from sight. Parking the truck diagonally to the left of the front wall, he was able to see the automatic doors slide open, but had no clear view of those exiting from the right side.

A woman in a business suit had just walked out of the right side and kept walking toward the far end of the building. He caught some motion and returned his eyes to see a full shopping cart emerge from the right side doors. A grungy-looking guy in a baseball cap followed the cart and pushed it down his parking lot aisle. Doug made a quick assessment of the guy and returned his attention to Natural Foods. The man with the cart drifted over to the other side of the aisle, and in the flash of a brain synapse, Doug Porter sensed that something was wrong. His next set of synapses told him to think about the MP-9 submachine gun that Cummings had left on the passenger seat, but his hands remained on the wheel, scanning the doors. When the police scanner nestled into one of the Suburban's center console drink holders crackled to life, he quickly turned his head toward the man with the cart. He didn't have much time to process his mistake.

**

Daniel gripped a silenced pistol in each hand and rapidly turned away from the shopping cart, extending both weapons at the driver's side of the Suburban's windshield. He registered the look of surprise on the man's face and alternated trigger pulls. The first two bullets struck the safety glass a few inches apart, right where he saw the driver's upper torso and head, followed by another closely grouped pair just below the first. The entire front windshield transformed into an opaque, blue-tinted mosaic of tightly packed glass particles, as the safety glass shattered, but held in place.

With his view obscured by the safety glass, Daniel walked slowly toward the vehicle, concentrating the pistol fire on the milky white glass surrounding the driver's seat. Bullets ripped through the windshield, tearing into the upper dashboard and the driver beyond, confirmed by bright red splotches on the broken glass. A few bullets hit the metal frame of the Suburban, causing the only noise that might attract anyone's attention in the parking lot. He approached the driver's door, still firing methodically, as the door window's red-stained glass particles fell to the parking lot surface, directly exposing the driver to Daniel's deadly aim. He reached the door and fired at point-blank range into the driver's head, having noticed the man's bulletproof tactical vest at the outset of the engagement.