Gun Work

Non-reflective gear, sight-shields and baffled muzzles.

This was big time.

Carl must have sweated off half a pound for every step, to and from. No commotion from the outlands. No snipers in the trees, so far. Not that trees could survive here. He made it back to the limo with all his skin intact, and the phone rang again.

“I see three men coming down for the bag,” said Barney. Three shadows, from different directions, vectoring on a target.

“Carl?” The voice on the phone belonged to Erica.

“Baby...?” Carl sounded lost, or damned. His voice had constricted.

Erica was gulping air, sobbing on the other end of the call. “He told me... they told me I have to tell you...”

Barney leaned over to listen, trying to keep an eye on the bag.

“Just say it, baby, whatever it is.” Carl was jittering, on the verge of implosion.

“They say you broke the rules,” Erica said, parroting what a deep male voice was telling her to say. “You contacted someone. Brought someone with you. That’s... that’s not allowed. He says...they say the ransom is now two million, and this is a down payment.” More instruction, then she reluctantly added, “In good... faith that you will not betray them again.”

Carl was shouting Erica’s name into a dead line.

“No good,” said Barney. “We’re blown. They’ll dump the bag unless we give them a reason to run with it.”

Barney floored the accelerator of the limo, heading straight for the bridge.

The night came alive with auto weapons fire.

“What the hell are you doing —” Carl hollered.

“Shut up. Get in the back. Head down.”

Lacquer chips jumped from the hood of the Town Car as a fusillade of nine-millimeter slugs flattened into the windshield, making starbursts, rude impact hits without the attendant cacophony of gunfire. The voice had spoken true — silencers.

Triangulating, Barney figured four shooters, three of them the guys after the bag. One grabbed and they all scattered two seconds before the limo came to a dust-choked halt near the natural stone foundation.

Barney already had the Army .45 in his hand.

As the car stopped he chocked his door open with his foot and stayed low, popping two rounds and dropping the runner with the bag, who was not shooting. The bag was scooped by another runner who fired back — Uzis, from the sound and cycle rate. Barney ducked the incoming angry metal bees, mostly discharged unaimed, panic fire, gangsta showoff.

The brake was up and the limo began a slow roll toward the bridge. This was intentional. Barney crabwalked alongside, scanning around for the bonus shooter, who expectedly rose from the crest of the bridge and began shooting downward, ineffectually. Barney put a triple-tap in his general direction to keep him down, under cover.

The right front wheel stopped against the outstretched leg of the first guy to grab the bag.

“Now,” Barney shouted at Carl. “Drag that sonofabitch in here!”

He spent his final five rounds keeping Bridge Guy down. It took Carl about five seconds to find his own spine, then jack-in-the-box out the starboard side of the limo to collect their captive. Only about one in twenty fired shots from the darkness was even hitting the car now. They were back in the thick of battle, and dormant reflexes and instincts resurged. Carl even remembered to grab the insensate man’s gun, and hefted it across the seat to Barney just as Barney’s clip ran dry and the action of the .45 locked back.

Barney’s hands knew the weapon, a Heckler-Koch MP5 with a retractable buttstock. A Navy version of the assault gun favored by SWAT teams, notorious for having a dicey thumb safety. Barney quickly checked the cocking handle and then emptied the 30-round mag at the top of the bridge before he ducked back into the limo. The integral silencer was starting to cook already, and the gun was hot as a barbeque.

Sporadic incoming fire tried to hector them, but their armor was as good as advertised. Barney stomped the limo into reverse, humping the big vehicle inelegantly out the way they had come.

Carl shouted something about Barney being out of his mind, what was he thinking, they were all sunk now — clear the table, bring in fresh meat and stick a fork in them, because they were done.

“Just clock that maggot if he wakes up,” said Barney, meaning their guest.

“What’re we gonna do?” Carl moaned.

“I hate to put it this way, old buddy, but if Erica is still alive, they’ll call you, you bet. If they don’t call, she’s already gone. But if they do call, you tell them that now we’ve got a hostage, too.”

What had just happened?

Past the insanity, when the shouting had abated, what had been accomplished, and why?