Hell In High Heels --- A Jane Delacroix erotic novel: Sex, Sin, and Slaughter in Southern California (11 page)

              Her hair was wild as a lion mane, eyes crazy with emotion and drugs, in her hand she held a big .357  Magnum Colt Python with a 4-inch barrel. The size of the handgun was ludicrous in Chou's tiny hands. Though first produced in 1955, Sten had never seen one outside of a high end gun store.

              Now, as he looked deep into the massive tunnel of its muzzle, he hoped to never see one again. “Easy,” he warned.

              Chou shrieked and launched into motion. Startled and almost paralyzed with disbelief, Sten watched her squeeze her eyes tightly shut as she took the titanic revolver up into both her hands. She dropped straight down into a full crouch and snapped the heavy weapon up, like an Olympic Weightlifter trying to hit a 400lbs Snatch.

              Eyes still locked tightly shut, Chou was screaming in what Sten assumed was Cambodian, though he found it impossible to tell for sure. The surrealistic fog of the situation felt overblown, like a melodrama seen on stage. He stepped easily to one side as she began firing blindly. The roar of the hand cannon was deafening and the .357 magnum rounds plunged through the hall, leaving funnels of supersonic air cracking down the length of the corridor.

              Recoil jerked the heavy pistol barrel up like the arm of a puppet on a string. Three shots in and Sten had managed to reach the side of the staircase. He reached for the pistol, half bemused, half worried one of the massive bullets would cut through a wall and hit Jane somewhere deeper in the mansion. Chou let the recoil unlock her elbows slightly as she fired a fourth time.

              This time the pistol recoil drove the frame straight back into her face. The hammer smashed into her lips and split them open to knock the bottom off her two top teeth. Shocked by the sudden pain and force, Chou's eyes snapped open and she screamed as her head was knocked back.

              The pistol fell heavily to the floor, struck the bottom step and hopped like a badly bounced coin. Sten heard a cry behind him and spun, M3 up and at the ready. One of the bodyguards had appeared in the doorway, Swedish K at port arms. A red blossom the size of a 50-cent piece appeared in his chest. The loose .357 came down off the bounce and struck the hall floor butt first as if held by an invisible hand. The hammer reverberated under the impact and the fifth round went off like a stick of dynamite in a laundry chute.

              Sten jumped a foot when the dropped pistol fired but his eyes never left the Cambodian gunman as he tried to bring his own weapon to bear. The man was struck with a second .357 round that shattered his jaw and tore an avulsion the size of a paperback novel in the front of his throat.

              Slaughtered, the man twisted as if caught with a Rocky Marciano hook and went down. Sten gaped in incredulous shock. The whole thing was as unlikely as an Andy Warhol painting. On cue a second bodyguard appeared behind the first.

              The two men looked up at each other over the improbable corpse of the third. Both men went for their triggers and realized the other was doing the same. Both men peeled away for cover as they fired, throwing their aim wild and sending bursts of slugs to hammer into the building's walls. Plaster dust and splinters the size of pencils filled the air as the rounds clawed through the materials in useless fusillades.

              Chau staggered to her feet, mouth bleeding copious amounts as she spit out shards of teeth. On one knee in the hall, Sten sensed her moving and swung his grease gun around like a croquet mallet, smacking the steel barrel into the slight woman's shins, using merciless force.

              Chau cried out and went down face first into the hallway rug, yet another artifact of the French Renaissance. Blood instantly soaked the cream and burgundy carpet length, ruining eight thousand dollars beyond repair in less than a second.

              Sten launched himself forward, putting a heavy hand in the small of the woman's back and pinning her immobile. He thrust the M3 forward with one hand on the pistol grip and triggered a long, ragged blast of suppressive fire at the doorway.

              Chou screamed again in inarticulate shrieks of primal rage and tried to rise. Exasperated, Sten did the only thing he could think of and popped the folding wire stock of the sub-machine gun against her temple like a carpenter tapping home a nail. The Cambodian woman dropped instantly to the rug.

              The barrel of the Swedish K levered blindly around the corner and opened fire.  Parabellum rounds cut through the air above the ex-marine's head in a hail of 9mm lead slugs forcing him to duck. Sensing an opportunity, Sten drove himself into action.

              He came up in a low lunge and dove over the unconscious woman's body, landing on one tucked shoulder and rolling across in a tight ball. He came up fast, right at the edge of the door and shoved the long suppressor in under the hammering, stuttering Swedish K.

              His knuckled went white as he pulled the trigger and hosed the area behind the door jam. The Swedish sub-machine gun instantly fell silent and tumbled away to land in a lake of the dead chauffeur’s blood. The final Cambodian gunmen pirouetted like a ballerina, his chest and stomach a bloody mess, tripped over the feet of the other KIA and fell heavily to the floor.

              Snatching the M3's stock tight in against his shoulder, Sten snapped the barrel back and forth in a tight pattern as he looked deeper into the room. There was a moment of silence while he took in a small alcove complete with china hutch showing Hummel figures from a Summer Day On The Seine, a reading chair next to an informal humidor, and a door which hung open, revealing stairs leading down.

              There was a pause that seemed to last improbably long after the furious gun battle. Slowly, Sten uncoiled and lifted himself to one knee, his hearing still compromised from the close in report of un-baffled firearms. Behind him however he easily heard the rattled breath of the unconscious opium slave as blood bubbled through her nose.

              Marty yowled in a questioning manner from much further back. Sten worked his jaw, weapon at the ready, and his ear drums popped, returning some of his hearing. He heard the sound of heavy feet thundering up wooden stairs and he had just a moment's warning to tense.

              Boupha came through the door, weapon blazing.

              Jane cried out in pain.

              She tried to pull free from Javacovitch as the sound of weapon reports rolled back down the stairs, but he was relentless. She struck his face with an open palm blow while trying to weave her leg between his ankles for a pseudo Judo-trip, but he casually shifted with the blow and automatically popped his hips back, easily keeping his balance.

              “Knock it off!” he warned.

              He shoved the barrel of Sten's .45 into her stomach. She gasped and sagged against the iron claw hold he held in her hair. The wind was driven from her as she folded down in pain and she stumbled. He eased up on the pressure for a moment to let her catch her balance. Her hands stretched out to keep from falling as she fought to breathe.

              Her waving hand smacked up against the wooden crosshatch of a wine rack. Instantly she seized her chance. Her hand wrapped around the bottle of Merlot and she snapped herself straight, yanking the wine clear of the rack. Her arm whipped around and the heavy glass container smashed into the ex-Green Beret's face.

              He made a heavy, almost squalling sound as his nose broke and the impact resonated deep into the bones behind his face. He staggered and Jane yanked her head free from his grasp. Taking the bottle up in a two handed grip like a Viking with a battle axe, she brought it down on the top of his head. The bottle shattered around his shoulders and the DIA agent hit his knees. Grasping the broken neck of the busted bottle, Jane drove the heel of her foot in his face and laid him out.

              Hun Sen drove in to get her but she heard him coming and managed to half step out of the way. The Cambodian general struck the table where she'd been bound at a dead run and went sprawling. The feel of the disgusting man's hand on her skin, her ass, her sex, flashed through her in a wave of belligerent revulsion so strong she'd lashed out before she was fully conscious of taking action.

              He was pushing himself up, cursing and trying to turn, his hands like the talons of a vulture, clawing for her with his nails from out of the shadows. The smell of his body this close was nauseating and her terror at the feel of his touch was overwhelming.

              A long, wicked icicle of curved glass jutted out like a stalagmite from the handle of bottle neck and she plunged it forward once, almost surgically, into the side of Hun Sen's neck. The glass sliver slid without resistance into the muscles under the jaw and sliced through the network of arteries and veins there. Hot sticky blood gushed out over her hand, invisible in the dark.

              A hand like a tiger trap clammed over her wrist. She screamed and tried to pull free. Her bones ground together painfully under the pressure and she was jerked down to her belly. Hun Sen's breath washed over face like noxious fumes from an industrial plant.

              He said something she didn't understand and it was more of a gurgle as his own blood bubbled in his throat. Then he sighed wetly and the grip on her arm released. Instantly she scrambled backward, feeling her stomach flip-flop.

              She had to get out, get upstairs and find David. David! His gun! She began frantically slapping the cellar floor trying to find the Colt .45 Javacovitch had been wielding.

              Suddenly a man was screaming from behind her and she heard the unmistakable thudding of a body going down steps the hard way. She turned and felt her heart quicken as she heard the unmistakable yowling of Marty. Then, in the next moment--

              “Goddamn cat!” David Sten yelled. “Get out of the way!”

              Boupha, Ocelot on his head like a living hat, somersaulted into the room. He was screaming in agony as the animal mauled his face, turning skin into bloody ribbons that hung in tatters from his scalp. The Cambodian bodyguard staggered to his feet, striking his own head with his fists as he tried to dislodge the thing. Back lit by the light from the stairs, it was like watching a slapstick comedy performance on the stage of some off-Broadway production.

              Sten, M3 up and ready, stood framed in the doorway. His face held a look of equal parts revulsion, fascination and...satisfaction, as he watched the little jungle cat rip the Asian mercenary to shreds. Abruptly, the Ocelot leaped free. Boupha stood for a moment. Hesitantly, unsure, Sten lifted the grease gun.

              Boupha toppled like a tree. He struck the ground hard and rolled out of the light until only one blood splashed boot remained in the beam of weak illumination. The Ocelot padded into the light, sat regally and began licking its paws coolly.

              “Marty!” Jane gasped in pleasure.

              The cat instantly spun and bounded toward her.

              “Marty?” Sten sputtered. “Marty!” He began walking forward. “What about 'David'!”

              Jane sprang to her feet and scooped the purring cat up into her arms. She showered the kitty with kisses, laughing with relief. She turned toward the big detective and ran forward.

              “Jane!” he howled. “Jesus, are you okay?”

              “Oh, David--”

              Sten stepped forward and swept his left arm up. He struck her and shoved, tossing her to the side and forcing the Ocelot to jump free. The M3 came up like a gunslinger's pistol in his right fist. The suppressed weapon flashed in a star burst pattern in the twilight illumination of the cellar.

              A four round burst of .45 ACP slugs hammered into Agent Javacovitch as he stood, handgun raised. The bullets struck the man in the chest and neck in a loose Z-pattern. He staggered back and triggered the modified M1911A1 into the ground. It sounded like a burst of thunder but the rounds hammered harmlessly into the floor.

              He staggered backward, trying to raise the pistol again.

              Sten let the sub-machine gun cycle a double tap. A section of Javacovitch's skull came loose and spun off like a deformed Frisbee. There was no stagger this time. The man simply dropped and hit the dirt to lay motionless.

              Sten threw the grease gun down and rushed to where he'd knocked Jane clear. She came into his arms as he scooped her up. He was drunk with relief and crushed her naked form to him. He could feel the swelling of bruises on her lips, taste the blood she had bled and pulled away from her embrace.

              “You're hurt!”

              “It's okay,” she laughed. Her small giggle was like ice in a highball glass, nearly lyrical. “I'm going to be fine. I'll just need some makeup and a whiskey sour. Where's Chau, the code?”

              “Where's Ho Chi Min’s lovechild?” Sten scoffed, bitter. “Upstairs sleeping off a haymaker. We need to get back up there and turn her over to Dawson for 'restorative memory therapy' before she tries to murder her rescuers again.”

              “I still don't understand everything, David,” Jane said in his shoulder.

              “How can we?” he replied. “Half the back story is classified and another quarter of it doesn't make sense unless you're an expert on espionage and Southeast Asian politics. There was a girl, she needed rescuing, whether she knew it or not, and she knew something people were willing to kill to learn. We helped. We lived. You're getting a nice retainer. You can take me to dinner.”