Hellbent

The man bellowed and rolled away, grabbing at the screen of the Boomerang Warrior unit mounted on his shoulder. A third round clipped the butt of the man’s slung rifle, kicking it into a hula-hoop spin around his shoulder.

He dove behind a heap of gravel next to the tower crane, shouting, “How the hell does he see me? I’m showing nothing in our line of sight!”

Van Sciver’s calm, deep voice rode the breeze. “Check for cameras.”

A moment later, “The Boomerang Warrior’s picking up a remote-surveillance unit in the valley with an angle on us.”

Evan debated going again for the backup ARES in the ravaged trunk of the Town Car, but there were enough holes now that the raised metal no longer offered protection; it would be like standing behind a screen door. He got off a glance around the punctured rear tire, catching Van Sciver’s thick arm reaching past the Tahoe’s door to haul in a fallen FN SCAR 17S.

Even without an earpiece, Evan heard Van Sciver say, “Send me the coordinates.”

The simple directive landed on Evan like something physical, the weight of impending defeat.

Twenty seconds passed, an eternity in a battle.

Then the rifle cracked, and Evan saw metal shards jump up from the earth upslope, glinting in the dying sunlight.

Van Sciver’s voice carried, ghostly across the dusty expanse. “We are clear. Candy, haul ass up there and find who’s behind that camera.”

At the Town Car’s rear bumper, Evan heard Tommy’s voice come through the bone phone. “I’m blind.”

“Fall back to the rally point,” Evan said quietly. “Immediately. Do not engage any further.”

Tommy was a world-class sniper, but past his prime. If he went head-to-head with Candy, an Orphan at the top of her game, she would kill him.

Evan heard one of the Tahoes screech away. It barreled upslope, giving Evan’s position wide berth. He caught a glimpse of Candy’s hair in a side mirror as the SUV bounced across the razed lot.

Through the radio Tommy’s voice sounded scratchier than usual. “What about you?”

Evan stared at his ARES 1911 where it had landed in the dirt ten yards away. His backup was out of reach in the trunk behind him. Tommy neutralized. Van Sciver beaded up on the Town Car with his rifle.

“I got you covered,” Van Sciver called to his freelancer. “Make the move.”

A crunch of footsteps signaled the man’s emergence from behind the gravel pile.

Evan realized what Van Sciver’s countermove was, the genius of it turning his insides ice-water cold.

He heard the clang of footsteps on metal rungs. Then the door to the elevated operator’s cabin of the crane hinged open and slammed shut.

Evan was finished.

He still owed Tommy an answer. He set a finger on the bone phone, said, “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re clear?” Tommy asked.

Evan swallowed. “I’m clear.”

“Falling back,” Tommy said. “Call me for extraction?”

The Tahoe creaked as Van Sciver posted up and slotted a fresh twenty-round mag into the big rifle.

“Sure thing,” Evan said. His mouth was dry. “And, Tommy?”

“What, pal?”

“Thanks for everything.”

73 The Black Hereafter

Joey stood at the edge of the fifth floor, the poured-concrete slab solid underfoot, the base-jumping pack snug to her back, fist gripping the rip cord. The sound of gunfire carried up, pops muffled by the concrete wall and the roar of traffic beyond. She picked her spot across the fourteen lanes of traffic, a parking lot glistening with shattered glass. The city had started to granulate with dusk. Night wasn’t far off, and blackness would aid in her escape.

From her perch she’d watched most of the action unfold. Tommy had rolled off the roof of the Orellana house and disappeared well before Candy McClure had forged upslope in the Jeep. Her pursuit would be in vain; Tommy had too much of a jump on her.

That left Evan pinned down without a weapon, facing off against Van Sciver and a freelancer. Last Joey had peeked, they’d taken up strategic positions at a ninety-degree spread, vectoring in at him from two angles he couldn’t cover even if he had a gun.

But he was Orphan X, and Orphan X always found a way.

And so she’d donned the backpack and retreated to the far edge as promised.

Now she was here, freedom a single leap away.

A mural decorated the far wall of the freeway, visible to the eastbound passing cars. Cesar Chavez and Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. A cacophony of quotations and languages painted the drab concrete, but one sentence in particular stood out.

“If you’ve got nothing worth dying for, you’ve got nothing worth living for.”

She read it twice, felt it pull at something deep inside her.

Pushing away the sensation, she took a few backward steps to allow herself a running start.

Then she heard another sound.

A large piece of machinery rumbling to life.

At the dead center of the uppermost slab, she hesitated.

Run.

Or turn.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, heard a voice that was part Jack’s, part Evan’s, part her own.