Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

the cafeteria and kitchen. Past that, the administration offices and comm center.

He got ten steps down the corridor and saw a man’s head sticking out of a doorway; one of the Brethren looking nervously around. Vince had heard the red-haired guy called Smitty.

Vince fired from the hip, missing, and Smitty ducked back in the cafeteria. He slammed the door shut. Vince heard the door locking.

Vince started jogging now, passing the cafeteria door, hearing shouting from inside. He reached the L-turn in the corridor that would take him left, to admin and comms.

He stopped just before the corner, listening. Someone was shouting from down there too. He glanced behind him; no one was coming out of the cafeteria — not yet. He stepped around the corner, swinging the rifle as he went so it pointed down the corridor.

Three men were coming his way. He didn’t know them — probably from one of the outlier groups who’d just come into town. He mentally framed them as Tan Guy, Stumpy Guy, and Bared Teeth. Two of them had Glocks in their hands, Bared Teeth carried a tactical shotgun.

Vince flicked the AR-15 to full-auto. Stumpy Guy and Vince fired at the same moment, and Vince felt something burn a groove along the skin of his left shoulder as he fired a burst at the group. Stumpy Guy screamed and went down, clutching his belly, Tan Guy spun around, impacted hard in a shoulder. Bared Teeth was unhit; he had both hands on his gun and was carefully aiming.

Vince threw himself flat, firing another burst as he went down, and Bared Teeth lost his grimace, the bullets shattering his mouth and blowing out the back of his head. He writhed and fell flat on his back. Tan Guy got up to one knee and Vince fired a short burst, shooting him through the heart.

Vince stayed stretched out on his belly, waiting — and there was Marco Ambra, stepping out the door to the administration center, about forty feet away, aiming his Glock at Vince’s face.

Vince fired, the rifle at an awkward angle, the burst tearing into Marco’s right leg, knocking him off his feet. Marco fell face down, groaning, getting off a shot that zipped through the air above Vince.

Vince got quickly up on his elbows and fired, taking off the top of Marco’s head before he could use the Glock again.

Marco flopped face-down, instantly dead.

Vince got to his feet, checked the load on the rifle — the clip was empty. He tossed the AR-15 aside and drew the Desert Eagle just in time to fire it at Bjorn, the strapping near-albino militiaman now running toward him with an Uzi.

The .50 round caught the guy in his gut, tearing him open and spinning him around. Bjorn fell heavily on his side, groaning.

But as Vince walked up to him, Bjorn raised the Uzi. Vince kicked the weapon aside and shot Bjorn in the top of his head. At that range the big pistol made quite a mess.

He stepped over the body to the wall close to the open admin door. He stopped there, listening. No sound from within.

Vince looked around the edge of the door — saw no one down the hallway. Hearing voices from the stairway, at the second-floor level, he picked up the Uzi in his left hand, walked over to the stairwell and saw the shadows of men with guns coming up. He fired the Uzi randomly down the stairs, emptying the clip. A spray of bullets ricocheted below and the shadows receded. That would keep them for long enough, he figured.

He tossed the Uzi aside, went back to Marco’s body, and found another set of keys on a chain attached to his belt. He broke it free. Vince holstered the Desert Eagle and picked up Bared Teeth’s tactical shotgun — a Mossberg 500 — and noticed that as well as a full magazine, it had five extra shells attached to the weapon’s receiver by an elastic “side-saddle”.

Shotgun in hand, he went to the door of the administrative offices. Standing to one side, he unlocked Gustafson’s office door. He took hold of the knob, stepped to one side, pulling the door open wide. There was no response from inside. He stepped across the hallway, leaned over enough to see into the room. No one was there.

Vince went to the comm office, unlocked it the same way, opened the door the same way — also no response. He looked inside. No one there, just the electronics. PCs, printers, the tactical radio set up.

He thought about using the comms to try again to get in touch with the feds. Or maybe he could break into a computer and get some more data. But he was no hacker and didn’t have time to try. The enemy would be coming up those stairs soon enough.

Let’s get this done, he thought. Cut through the tango presence, find Deirdre and Bobby. The longer he waited, the more time the Brethren had to get their defense together.

Vince went to the corridor — and fired the tactical shotgun, instantly, shooting from the hip, at the four men at the top of the stairs just twenty feet away. The big gun bucked in his hands and one of the men exploded at the solar plexus. Vince pumped another round into the chamber as he brought the shotgun to his shoulder. A man behind the falling Brethren got off a shot that clipped Vince’s right earlobe.

So much for getting my ear pierced someday, Vince thought, firing the Mossberg at the shooter. The man’s face vanished in a welter of red as Vince stepped to his left, turning his body to make a smaller target as the guy with the Glock in his hand fired, the round going where Vince had been a moment before. The last man was farther down