Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Bodhi was ready to run Washington and Rasha by me, but at the same time, one guard fired an entire magazine into the open space, hitting Boyce to my right in the chest and neck. His head snapped back, his arms flopping as he tumbled heavily to the floor. Rasha screamed as more rounds spat splinters of wood into the hallway. I had an opportunity and took it, shooting twice, missing, as the thug went to cover the instant I fired. The good news was, it gave Bodhi enough cover to safely run our two witnesses out. He didn’t hesitate, there was no backward glance for me, and that was good and right. I just hoped I’d get to see him again.
Rushing into the room, I dropped the first guy who lifted his head up from behind the overturned couch, and then I crouched quickly behind a toppled table.
There was an anguished cry from Crouse as two bullets slapped into his chest. He fell sideways, his head bouncing off the floor. I spun to three armed goons running toward us. I registered all this in a microsecond before one of them got the drop on me. He swept forward, loosing a couple of quick rounds that thumped into my shoulder and chest, putting me on my knees, as if someone had struck me across the torso with a baseball bat.
I kept my right hand clasped around the trigger grip of the MP5K, my left securely holding on to the fore grip for stability, managing to fire as I went down. Three men was a big, easy target to aim for, almost impossible to miss at this range. A dozen bullets scythed through the air, smacking into the guards as they raced forward, drilling them in the abs, neck, and legs. It was a deal-closer. They fell away heavily, the bright-red jets of blood painting the marble floor like something out of a Pollock lover’s wet dream.
It gave me just enough time and cover to get to Crouse and drag him behind the table.
I put out a hand to steady myself and nearly fell on my face.
“You’re hurt,” Crouse groaned like he was annoyed.
“It’s fine,” I assured him, because at the moment, I was and wasn’t. Things hurt more than I thought they should, but I hadn’t been shot in body armor in a bit, so that could be all it was. “You have to be in pain yourself.” Getting shot in the chest, in Kevlar, felt like being pounded by a sledgehammer.
“It’s not fine,” he corrected me. “You’re losing blood, Jed.”
“Okay, yeah,” I rasped, feeling it then, the pain assailed by sudden weakness that now amplified, spread all the way up and down the right side of my torso. “It’s official: I caught one under the vest.”
“You look bad,” Crouse commented, and I heard the concern and regret in his voice. “If we don’t stop the bleeding, you’ll be dead in minutes.”
I looked at my watch. “Like you know how long it’ll take,” I scoffed, refusing to believe he had bleeding-out down to a science. “SOG’ll be here in five, so give it a break.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but there was a man behind him, whom I put on the ground with one shot to the throat, then a second to the head.
Turning from the dead man back to me, Crouse’s eyes were huge. “Jesus, Jed.”
Thankfully, when I lifted to look over the table, there was no movement anywhere, only bodies.
“Okay,” I exhaled, slumping back down. “We’re clear.”
“I gotta get you out of here.” He moved to my side.
“Maybe we just wait,” I suggested, the idea of getting up sounding, at the moment, well beyond my capacity. “Where are your guys?”
There was no sight of Ortega or Kim, only Boyce, dead where he’d fallen.
He listened a moment in his earpiece. “Kim took two in the leg; Ortega is with him in the elevator. They’re good.”
That was excellent news. I would have liked it better if Ortega came back after getting Kim to safety, but he was probably putting pressure on his buddy’s wound, so I understood. I wouldn’t have left Bodhi in that same situation.
“We have to move,” I announced.
“Yes,” Crouse agreed, and I lifted my arm so he could loop his beneath my shoulder. He bore my weight as he pulled me to my feet.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I told him, trying not to scream with the pain.
“I imagine the pair of us must look like an old-time double act,” he said, grinning as we stumbled like a pair of drunken lovers toward the door. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears, my heart beating furiously inside my chest.
“You able to shoot?” he asked. “I can’t carry you and do both.”
“I’ll kill anyone who gets in our way,” I promised him, raising the muzzle of the machine gun, ready to fire.