Gun Work

Inside they encountered minimal resistance. Sirius caught a frag from the wall in the forehead and instinctively returned fire with the shotgun. The orange smoke canister caught the shooter square in the noggin, almost somersaulting him backward. His MP5 skittered across the floor. As Barney stepped over him, he put a round in the guy’s ear and the man stayed still.

If this was another wrong building, at least it was full of motivated hostiles with heavy ordnance. Nobody chopped so far could be deemed an innocent.

Barney located the elevator. They set it for the third floor, lobbed in a smoker, and moved for the stairs.

When they kicked through the stairway door on the second floor and deployed right-left-up-down, muzzles everywhere, a consternated sentry flung his pistol toward them and rabbitted away.

Long corridor, five rooms, max lock.

Barney held up his pinky finger, indicating flechettes for the shotguns. Spiked brass rods instead of shot, heavy powder, used by Feds to blow door hinges from the outside. Sirius smoked the far end of the corridor while Armand turned the first door to confetti. It was a heavy wooden door, cross-barred, but once it lost its hinges it sagged like an old prom queen. Inside a child was screaming, balled into a wad in a far corner. No leg shackle. Television. It was a little girl about eight, her long hair beautiful but filthy, her coal-brown eyes dilated in terror. Barney had to slap her lightly to get her attention. “Cuidado,” he said. “Quedarse aqui, nina. Regresamos inmediatamente; vamanos ahora. ¿Entiendes?”

He had tried to say watch out, stay here little girl, we’ll be right back, we’re leaving today. No doubt it sounded like me-Tarzan you-Jane to the panicked girl, but he did not want her running out into gunfire. She seemed to grasp most of it and nodded, her eyes shining with tears. He held her face with his mutilated hand and made sure she registered the reassurance in his own gaze. Then he pointed for her to stay right where she was. “¡Permaneces!”

The alarm on his wristwatch peeped. Simultaneously, El Atrocidad’s watch would be signaling, too.

It rains a great deal in Mexico City and its outback, generally short bursts during midday in the wet season — May through October on the tierra fria. It had rained during Barney’s first visit and no doubt had rained a lot during his incarceration, although he had no memory of hearing or smelling rainfall while he was shackled. The rain, then, had not mattered or affected operations. Outside the Palacio, now, it had begun to rain...

... which would not only cleanse the air for a scant moment, it would also sabotage Barney’s smokescreen.

They worked the corridor, smashing open the bolted doorways which held the latest crop of hostages. Another child, not Almirante. A beautiful, bedraggled woman in a miniskirt, no doubt snatched outside a club. A man who had lost a finger already and demanded a firearm so he could get involved. A woman who remained in her corner seat when the door flew down, and smiled when Barney looked at her, as though she had known all along he would arrive, perhaps in answer to a prayer.

Barney pointed. Up. Next floor.

Shooters on the third floor were ready to rumble, but ill-prepared for the smoke delivered by Sirius, squinting to see through the blood clogging his eye from his head wound. Armand took a rolling dive and managed to bracket the corridor, firing and reloading his .44. His hands were no longer shaking. Barney saw Karlov holster one firearm and execute a one-handed clip-change on another, smacking the fresh load against his knee and grimacing mostly for show. Sirius had his shotgun bowslung and was lopping the opposition apart a limb at a time shooting his twin Para-Ordnance semi-autos two-handed, walking and firing alternately, left-right-left-right. The slugs carved vapor trails through the thick green smoke, found targets, inflicted destruction.

Barney was slammed to the floor by two wild hits in the back, their killing penetration dispersed by the body armor, but their motive force burly enough to knock him on his face. He crawled to a locked door across the hall, grabbed the knob and fought to hoist himself upright. The breath had been punched out of his lungs and he needed to draw new air.

Sirius and Armand walked point, giving the hall maximum coverage, expecting Barney and Karlov to follow in their wake to mop up by freeing the hostages on this floor.

Good god, how many people were held captive here? There were three more entire wings to the building.

Karlov handed over a shotgun and Barney blew the next door.

Instantly, gunfire erupted from within. Karlov snapped backward and fell down.