Hunters, Matt Rogers [pdf ebook reader .txt] 📗

had missed their first shots, and King was still coming, like a two-hundred-and-twenty pound freight train and—

Impact.

King tackled the long-haired man around the midsection with no regard for his own safety. They flew back, over four hundred pounds in total, and burst through one of the metal weapon racks. The rack imploded, collapsing on itself, and the two men smashed through, spilling to the floor.

Violetta knew what she needed to do.

The noble thing would be to help her man. Charge in and try to kick the long-haired guy in the midst of the scrabble. But that was insanely selfish.

One glancing blow to her mid-section from a man like that and her child would stay unborn forever.

So, despite her instincts screaming otherwise, she hauled Alexis to her feet and hustled her out of the room. Behind her, she heard the animalistic grunting of two men wrestling, fighting, brawling for their very lives.

In the gladiator’s arena.

She stifled tears as she fled with Alexis, determined to protect her baby.

19

Glass shards trickled off the pane of the shattered window but Slater didn’t notice them.

He was zoned into that window frame like it encompassed his whole world. All he needed was the slightest flash of movement and he’d pump the trigger of the CQBR, lacing the breach point with lead.

King was still at the door.

Cold silence.

Nothing.

No noise besides the hollow ringing in his ears.

Then bedlam erupted.

A sound came from the armoury — bone against flesh. With Slater’s impaired hearing it was like a small stone splashing in a pond, at the edge of his hearing. But it was unnatural, and it seized his attention. Immediately, King abandoned his position at the front door and sprinted behind Slater, SIG Sauer clutched in white knuckles, gunning for the armoury.

Violetta was in danger.

The rest was a non factor.

Slater swept his aim to the door in an attempt to cover both positions from his vantage point beside the kitchen island. He panned in sweeping arcs from door to window, door to window, door to—

Another flashbang came in through the window.

Slater thought about diving for it, but it fell just short of the kitchen island countertop. It clattered into the dead space on the other side, out of reach, and Slater threw himself down, putting the giant slab between him and the grenade.

Instinctual reaction saved his vision. He knew squeezing his eyes shut wouldn’t be enough, not at such close range. So he pressed his face into the side of the great marble slab, squashing his nose in an attempt to put a solid surface against his closed eyes. Then he pressed his hands so hard against his ears that he thought he might crush his own skull with the squeeze.

The flashbang exploded.

It was still horrendous.

He lifted his face away from the slab, working his jaw. His skull was splitting with pain. He backed up, raised the CQBR, tried to focus…

There was a new development.

A soldier in tactical kit had a boot in the kitchen sink. He was working his way in through the window. He leapt down, identical CQBR carbine in his hand, and ducked behind the other side of the kitchen island before Slater could get a shot off.

Now it was a one-on-one standoff, and only one party was impaired. Slater was ninety percent deaf, seeing double, fighting back waves of nausea from the lack of proprioception.

Then the mercenary made a tiny mistake.

Encouraged by the fact he sported more protective gear than his adversary, he risked a glance over the top of the kitchen island. Slater couldn’t comprehend why, but perhaps the guy had little experience in active combat. You make all sorts of mistakes in the real world. The top of the guy’s helmet materialised for a split second, his visor following just long enough to assess the situation.

Slater put a three-round burst into his helmet.

None of the rounds went through, but stopping a bullet takes a tremendous amount of resistance, all absorbed by the helmet. Within, it would have felt like three brutal smacks to the dome.

The guy jerked and went down.

Slater took a two-step run-up and dived, skidding across the smooth surface of the countertop. He lost his momentum fast, but he didn’t need to tumble off the other side of the kitchen island.

He only had to get a new line of sight.

He slid to a halt on his side, facing down at the mercenary, who was rattled and disoriented from the brutal impacts. The man’s visor was cracked by one bullet, and the other two were embedded in the side of his helmet. Slater aimed the CQBR one-handed and put a round through his exposed shoulder, sending the rifle spilling from his adversary’s hands.

Then he leapt down off the countertop.

He wanted the guy alive.

He landed on top of the newly disarmed man and used the butt of his own rifle to smash the visor in with two well-placed strikes. Then he grabbed the guy by the collar with his free hand and dragged him across the length of the kitchen, back behind cover in case anyone else came through the window.

Hunched over the bleeding, semiconscious mercenary, Slater growled, ‘Who are you? SAC?’

He could barely hear the sound of his own voice.

The mercenary didn’t answer. He wouldn’t, even if he was from the Special Activities Centre, the CIA’s deniable program for covert wet work. They were the soldiers sent in to do the dirty work whose executors couldn’t afford donning the official uniform. There was no patriotic pride in operations like theirs.

Slater shook the guy by the collar. Under the broken visor, under the blood, he looked to be in his late twenties, with that college jock demeanour. A strong jawline, smooth tanned skin, sharp eyes.

He opened his mouth and mumbled something.

Slater hissed, ‘What?! Who are you people?!’

A low voice behind him said, ‘Decoys.’

20

King thought he had it in the bag.

As he struggled to heave the mangled weapons rack off his chest, Violetta fled with Alexis in tow, and relief flooded through him.