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

“Okay, do that again, I’ll shoot you in the nuts!” Buster snarled, pointing the gun at Shaun’s groin.

“You’re going to blow me the fuck up!” Shaun yelled, clutching his face. “What difference does it make!”

Mac pulled his Glock but he raised a hand, palm outward, and tried to talk in a calming voice. “Shaun, chill out, the vest isn’t real! It’s to keep them busy wondering, is all.”

“There’s that car again!” Buster said, pointing now at the east end of the alley.

Mac turned and saw the Crown Vic again, this time at the other end of the alley. He looked toward the east end. There was another black car there.

“Fuck! It’s the feds!”

Shaun bolted again, with remarkable speed, running toward the closer car to the east, where an Asian-looking guy in a suit got out, gun in one hand, waving a badge with the other. “Drop your weapons! FBI!”

Shaun waved his arms. “Don’t shoot me, I’m their prisoner, don’t shoot!”

“Get down!” yelled the fed.

Shaun threw himself flat.

Mac turned to look toward the other end of the alley — and saw a large black man, suit, sunglasses, with gun and badge, coming at them from the other car.

“Drop your weapons!” the black fed yelled.

“Fuck this!” Mac said, and fired at the black guy.

He missed and the black cop returned fire. A corner of Buster’s head exploded with a round and he fell as Flesky shrieked and ran, still mindlessly holding the explosive vest.

“No-no, nyet, don’t shoot, this will explode!” Flesky yelled, running toward the east end of the alley.

Mac jumped up and fired at the black guy, who was still running at them, his bullet cutting at the agent’s side. The fed grimaced but didn’t stop, and fired back — and Mac felt something slam into his chest just below his collar bone.

A flash of red consumed his vision and he was whirling, falling, squeezing off a shot that smacked off the Buick’s grill…

There was another gunshot and Flesky yelled in pain.

A roaring filled Mac’s ears. He couldn’t see…

Then the roaring receded, and he felt as if he were going down a drain, like all his blood was draining away into the earth. With an effort, he opened his eyes and saw two faces looking down at him — one was the Asian fed, frowning. The other was Shaun, standing behind him, eyes wide, ogling down at Mac. The black fed joined them, clutching his bleeding side. Somewhere a siren was wailing.

“He still with us, Richie?” asked the black fed.

“He’s still alive, James,” the Asian-looking guy said. “But maybe not long…”

Mac wanted to get out his phone and try to press the number code to explode the vest. But he couldn’t lift his arms. There was no strength in them. He had just enough strength to speak. “It’s coming… Firepower… Firepower is coming. You… are…”

The words died in his mouth, then, choked by rising blood. But before he died, he did have one last thought. They’re too late… too late to stop us…

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was 9:25 a.m. and the H225 rotorcraft helicopter was skimming the rooftops, sliding in over Washington D.C. It flew as low as Deirdre dared to fly it to stay under the radar. She was flying so low, sometimes she had to pull it quickly, forty feet up, to keep from hitting power lines.

Vince had pushed the M134 Dillon forward on its tracks, locking it in place so its heavy-duty titanium muzzle was jutting out the open hatch. He was standing behind this modern, electrically operated Gatling, hands on the big machine gun’s controls, a heavy black safety belt around his waist stretching to a bolt that the Brethren had installed in the starboard bulkhead behind him. A damp wind whistled through the open hatch.

“You know the Air Force is going to scramble jets, gunships, whatever, to come after us, because I’m not answering the radio,” Deirdre shouted over the roar of the rotors and the wind.

“I’m still hoping you can get away without them identifying you,” Vince shouted back.

“My fingerprints are all over this thing! And Bobby’s probably going to have to testify, Vince! I don’t want him to perjure himself.”

Vince’s mind was more focused on the immediate challenge. They’d just had word from Gus Gresley that the senators and a large crowd were gathered at the Lincoln Memorial — but some of Chang and Deirdre’s allies at the FBI had finally decided to risk getting fired; they’d gotten through to organizers and the presentation was to be cancelled. Someone was on the stage right now, making an announcement to the four hundred people already gathered…

Too little too late, Vince thought. The crowd was already there — and so was the H225 heli now, as it soared in over the long narrow reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, low enough that its rotors were making waves. A crowd was gathered in front of the steps leading up to the statue of Lincoln, while on the steps, near a portable podium, stood a group of men and women, who’d been ready to speak to the crowd through the PA system set up on either side. Television cameras were ready; microphones were propped up…

But a man in a braided police uniform was on the podium, waving his arms, telling them, Vince presumed, that the event was cancelled. The fancy-dressed people behind him were now hurrying away… Police were coming up from their cars, directing the crowd…

Maybe it had been stopped in time. Maybe what Vince had planned wouldn’t be necessary.

He was scanning the vehicles coming to the streets beside the open area near the Lincoln Memorial…

There — a caravan of large delivery trucks, painted with fake logos on the sides: George Washington Laundry Service, Jefferson Davis