Earth Thirst (27 page)

“There's no stairwell either,” Mere says. “What happens when the power goes out? Does Montoya stay up here until someone turns the power back on?”

“He's not that stupid,” I say, thinking about the number of men who are stalking us. Five doesn't seem like enough. “There's got to be another exit.” And then I realize why the number seems off. “They're coming up the stairs,” I say.

“Who is?”

“The other team.” I point at the way we came. “These guys are driving us toward this door. They haven't rushed us yet, and they haven't thrown any gas or flashbangs. They want us to go through that door first. Into a kill box.”

Mere nods that she understands what a kill box is.

“How many do you think are on the other side of that door?” I ask Mere, flashing her a quick smile.

“I don't know, Silas.”

“Guess.”

“Fifty,” she says.

I nod back in the other direction. “There are five back there. Which seems like better odds?”

“That way,” she says, pointing back the way we came.

“Then that's the way we'll go.” I take her hand and we start sidling along the wall. The door at the end of the hall is inset in the wall, and there's about a meter on either side. If I have to trust one or the other to be thick enough to stop bullets, I'm going to bet on the wall. As we approach the turn in the hallway, I stop and put my mouth close to her ear. “When I tell you to, start screaming,” I whisper. “Give it all you got, okay? Think of being skinned alive or something.”

“Or
something
?” she hisses back.

“Something that takes a little while. And is truly awful, okay?”

She looks at me.

“What?”

“Can I think of something pleasant first?”

“Sure,” I say, leaning over and brushing my lips across hers. They're warm and soft, and all I can think is that I'd rather keep doing this than kill five men. “But don't think about it too long, okay?” I say as I stop.

“Okay,” she says. A second later, before I've even had a chance to position myself to peek around the corner, she lets loose with an unholy blood-curdling shriek.

* * *

The penthouse is on the twelfth floor. The dance club is on the fourth. In between, it's nothing but luxury condos. The tenants are all sheep, and they start flooding for the exits when I pull the fire alarm.

After Mere's distraction and my subsequent judicious use of billiard balls, we found a distinct lack of Montoya family members in the main area of the penthouse. The elevator never arrives, and our jaunt down eleven flights of stairs is fraught with a number of frightened residents who are either surly or terrified by the fire alarm that Mere pulled on the eleventh floor. It's good cover, and we ride it out to the street and the plaza around the building. The first of many fire trucks arrives, as well as a number of police cars, and the whole area becomes a hotbed of sirens and lights and activity.

Mere and I slip away. We walk four blocks north and catch a cab. It's as simple as that.

Which makes it too easy.

She presses herself against the door of the cab, shivering—both from chills and trauma. I offer her my coat, and she doesn't seem to register its presence around her shoulders. I don't push it. I let her sit and shiver and think, clutching my coat around her shoulders.

I lean against the other window and watch the city go by. I've got some things to think about too.

Phoebe was on the other rooftop. She's the only person I know who could have made a shot like that. And she took it, blowing Talus's brains all over Montoya's fine hardwood floors.

I'm more than a little curious as to why.

THIRTY-ONE

T
he cab pulls into the roundabout in front of our hotel and Mere responds to the familiar sight of the hotel facade. I get out and open her door, letting her get herself out of the car while I pay the driver. She's still in shock, stumbling like a sleepwalker through the lobby toward the elevator. I follow, keeping my distance, but still letting her know I am beside her. I get the hotel room door open, and step aside to let her in before I realize what a fool I've been.

Someone grabs her, yanks her inside, and the door is slammed in my face. A hotel room door isn't going to stop me, and I shatter the lock assembly with my hand, smashing the door open. The gunman inside starts firing, the suppressed noise of his submachine gun nothing more than a shuddering whisper, and his bullets make a mess of the door across the hall.

They're going to fall back since I've breached the door, and I can't imagine they're dumb enough to not have a fallback position. After the guy waiting for me to be stupid enough to stand there and let him fill me with bullets runs out of ammo and reloads, I push off from the wall next to the door of our room, and perform the same entry trick on the next room over.

There's a flurry under the covers as I dash through the room and I don't blame the residents of the room for pretending to be nothing more than a profusion of pillows. I yank open the sliding door to the balcony, and get outside in time to watch Mere and three mercenaries leap off the balcony of our room, letting their rappel lines guide them on their fast descent to street level.

There are two gunmen remaining, and one of them sees me coming. He gets one burst off, and I feel a burn across my arm and side, but it doesn't slow me down. The second guy was too busy watching for me to come into the room through the front door, and he reacts too slowly to the sound of his partner dying.

There are three rappel lines. I figure out which one Mere and her captor are on, and I yank the other two free from their hooks, letting the men on them fall. Wrapping the strap of one of the dead merc's weapon around the remaining line, I go after Mere.

Our room looks down on the bean-shaped pool. The hotel keeps it heated, but there aren't many deck chairs out given the time of year. The two mercs whose lines I cut are sprawled on the pavement around the pool, and the third man has reached the bottom of his line and is trying to extricate himself and Mere from the rope without losing control of her. Four more men are coming from my left, all dressed in the same black BDUs.

They're not dressed the same as the team at the penthouse, and they've got different weapons. These guys are Secutores.

Mere gets free of her captor, sees the men coming from the left, turns to run the other way, and is grabbed again by the man who had brought her down. She yanks free, takes two steps back, and goes into the pool.

It's a good distraction. I'm coming down fast, and I tighten my grip on the strap to slow my descent marginally. Timing the rapid passage of balconies, I kick off of one and let go of the strap, falling free the last ten meters. The guy who had brought Mere down is the cushion I'm aiming for.

He breaks my fall, though the impact is deathly traumatic for him. I'm up and into the midst of the other four in a heartbeat. They're trying to figure out how not to shoot each other with their silenced submachine guns as I throat punch one, shatter the kneecap of another, grab the third and throw him into the fourth. Shattered kneecap is down, and I twist his neck until I feel it snap, and then I strip his weapon from him. It's an HK MP7 and not an UMP like I expected it to be. The gun is lightweight, has a laser sight and a noise suppressor, and it shoots a smaller cartridge than the .40 S&W that the UMP carries. A better weapon for urban environments. I point the gun at the pair who are trying to get off each other, and pull the trigger. This one is set to semiautomatic fire. I have to pull the trigger again before the pair stop moving.

Mere is splashing in the water, making a lot of noise. “Are you hurt?” I call out, sweeping my gaze around the perimeter of the pool. She keeps making noise, but I hear a “no!” among all the other sounds.

I wave my gun toward the stairs at the shallow end. “Get out of the water,” I tell her.

“Come and get me,” she sputters, which makes me smile as I pad in the direction the team of four had come from. When I reach the wall surrounding the pool and peek over, looking over the manicured landscaping to the hotel parking lot, I wonder how many men Belfast has. And their transportation plans.

Nine men down, I count. If it is a twelve-man team, that leaves one to command and two to drive. Two vehicles. Six men each. I look for larger vehicles. Hummers. Luxury SUVs. Short buses. Anything that fits the profile.

My side aches, and the cut along my inner arm still hurts too. The bullets grazed me, taking a bit of flesh, but I shouldn't still be feeling pain from these wounds. I slip the magazine out of the gun and raise it to my face, sniffing at the top bullet in the stack. The chemical stink makes goose flesh race down my neck and across my back.

They've dipped their bullets in the weed killer.

The tips are dark in the light reflecting from the pool, tiny triangles atop copper jackets. I don't like these bullets, and I shove the top of the magazine in my pants pocket and with my other hand, fumble one of the bullets out of the magazine so that it falls into my pocket. I tap the base of the magazine once against the butt of the pistol and slap it back into the gun.

Out in the parking lot, a dark shape flicks its lights on twice. Behind me, I hear Mere say my name. I hear the sound of a hammer clicking back as I turn, and I make sure my finger is clear of the trigger on the MP7.

Mere is out of the pool—her dress clinging to her body, her hair wet and tangled. Standing partially behind her, his right side exposed enough that I can see the pistol in his hand, is Tony Belfast. He's wearing a dark sweater and slacks, the pants missing the numerous pockets typical of assault gear, but I have no doubt he'd be equally comfortable in that get up at a gallery opening as he is right now.

“Put it down,” he says.

I set the safety and grab the sling as I let go of the weapon. It drops and hangs a few centimeters above the ground, swaying back and forth.

Mere is shivering.

“Let her go,” I say.

“I can't do that,” Belfast says.

“Why not? She's not an Arcadian.”

“I know,” Belfast says. He doesn't say anything else, waiting for me to figure it out. Mere gets it first. “They want me too,” she says, her teeth chattering.

“She's a smart woman,” he says. “A pain in the ass too, from what I hear, But hey, not my decision. I just follow orders.”

“Yeah,” I say, “there's a lot of that going around.”

“Can I offer you some advice?” he says, stepping behind Mere so I can't see him as well. He puts his free hand on her shoulder. “Get some perspective. I don't think your masters have your best interest in mind.”

There's nearly twenty yards separating us. He'll be able to pull the trigger at least once before I can cover that ground. And if I try to shoot him, he'll just shield himself behind her. Any move I make has deadly consequences for Mere, and so I do nothing as he starts to back away.

A scuffling noise of leather sole against brick sounds to my left, and I turn my head a fraction, still trying to keep an eye on Belfast and Mere.

“He's all yours,” Belfast calls out, pulling Mere with him as he starts to walk backward.

I turn my head more and catch a glimpse of Alberto Montoya as he launches himself off the wall. I whip the strap up, swinging the gun like a mace as he flies toward me. The gun hits him in the head, doing absolutely nothing to distract him, and he plows into me, forcing me back several steps. Far enough that I tumble into the pool.

At least I drag him with me.

Underwater, there are no shadows and everything is cool and blue. We're in the deep end, and I let myself sink down to the bottom where I can launch myself upward off the tiled floor. Alberto is swimming overhead, spread out like a frog, and I come up fast. He twists as I hit him in the stomach, bending around me as we both break the surface of the pool. He tries to headbutt me, but missing, cracking his skull against the tip of my shoulder. I don't try to hit him; I just hang on, and when we fall back into the pool, I'm on top. Kicking ferociously, I drive us down to the bottom, trying to drive him head-first into the tile.

His shoulder hits first, and a flood of air comes rushing out his mouth. He claws at me, trying to tear my clothes. Trying to get at what lies underneath. I punch him in the left arm—somewhere in the vicinity of the ragged hole left by Phoebe's sniper bullet—and I'm rewarded with more bubbles coming from his mouth. And a thin strand of blood, swirling like smoke as it leaks out of the hole in his jacket.

He twists away from me. Since he's got the bottom beneath him his leverage is better, and when he gets his feet up and against my thighs, I know I'm going to lose this contest. He shoves, and I let go, letting the power of his kick send me rocketing back toward the surface of the pool.

I don't go after him. Breaking the surface like a rising whale, I suck in a lungful of air and swim for the edge. Whoever gets out first will have a height advantage against the other. I haul myself out of the pool, swipe the water from my face, and look for Alberto.

As I'm tracking the dark shape under the water, out of the corner of my eye I notice movement along the edge of the pool. Throat punch isn't dead, and he has rolled onto his side and he's got his gun pointed in my direction.

I dart for the shallow end, a direction that he can't track very well from his position, as bullets chew up the pavement where I had been standing a moment before.

There's no sign of Mere or Belfast. With a growl, I launch myself across the width of the pool. Throat punch senses me landing behind him, and he tries to roll over, but he's awfully slow.

This time I make sure he stays down.

Grabbing one of the other guns lying nearby, I pepper the water with bullets, letting Alberto know it isn't safe to come out of the water yet. Grabbing an extra set of magazines, I run for the wall separating the pool from the parking lot.

Mere and Belfast went out the wrong side of the pool. They're going to have to go all the way around to get to the parking lot. By heading straight for the wall, I'll make up a lot of lost ground.