Ciro stood as if he were on a firing range with zero regard for the possibility of anybody shooting back. He had the barrel of the assault rifle between the iron bars of the fence, his aim rock steady. He fired shot after shot into the engine block, placing twelve bullets into an area no larger than a square foot.

Joey B obliterated the front tires and the windshield.

Within five seconds, the Chevy had become a useless wreck.

*   *   *

Bullets continued to zing around Manny and into the old utility pole. The pole was slowly disintegrating. One way or another, he’d have to do what he was supposed to.

Before he had taken his position in the doorway, Manny had placed a Mason jar filled with gasoline and melting mothballs next to the telephone pole. He’d punched a hole in the screw-on top and stuffed a thin piece of a dish towel down into the flammable mix.

Manny bent his knees, trying to stay covered by the pole, and grabbed the Mason jar. He managed to get hold of it and stand up without getting hit. He pulled out a cigar lighter that produced a torchlike flame.

Once, twice, three times, and the lighter ignited with a hiss. Manny hesitated, knowing that once he touched the flame to the piece of towel, he would have to step out and throw it, gunfire or not. Which meant he’d probably die throwing the goddamn gasoline. Where the fuck was Demarco? Had they spotted him? Did he go down with the first shots? Fuck it. So be it.

And then Manny heard the first scream.

*   *   *

Seconds can seem like an eternity when people are shooting at you. But it hadn’t taken Demarco Jones more than ten seconds to make his move. He’d been concealed behind a patch of overgrown bushes and scrubby trees that ran along the fence of the empty industrial lot opposite Beck’s building.

He’d waited patiently for Kolenka’s men to start shooting at Manny. Then he rolled out onto the sidewalk, crouched low, and moved quickly toward the shooters from behind, fluidly, effortlessly, unheard against the gunfire.

In his left hand he carried a Spyderco Warrior combat knife, in his right hand a crude fifteen-inch galvanized iron pipe with the bottom taped for a secure grip. A beautifully designed and expertly honed cutting tool in one hand. A crude bludgeon in the other.

Demarco moved like a wraith behind the five men shooting at Manny. They never saw or heard him. Even if they had, there wasn’t much they could have done about it.

Demarco’s first slash severed the thick hamstrings on the legs of the two men leaning over the SUV’s hood. One fast hard slash cut through the muscles and tendons of four legs. Both men screamed, reached backward toward the searing pain, turning toward the iron pipe that smashed into their heads with two fast hits. Both were down in just under three seconds.

The third shooter, leaning over the roof of the SUV, turned toward Demarco as the pipe crunched into the middle of his forehead, splitting the skin, breaking his nose, and knocking him unconscious. The combat knife’s blade swept down and sliced through the arm that held his gun, cutting through muscle and tendon, all the way into the hard humerus bone just above the elbow.

The fourth shooter holding the rifle turned it toward Demarco, but way too late. Demarco was already too close to him, the barrel of the rifle pointing past him. Demarco punched the iron pipe into his stomach and slashed the rifle out of his hands.

The last shooter crouched behind the back end of the SUV had been shooting with his left hand. He had to spin all the way around to get a shot at whoever was attacking them from his right.

Demarco wasn’t even breathing hard. He spun toward the last man, his back now against the SUV. He was so calm, so fast, that he actually had to wait a beat for the man to finish turning toward him, and then Demarco slashed his blade down on the man’s gun hand, cutting all the tendons running along the wrist to the thumb. Followed by a fast uppercut with the galvanized pipe that shattered the man’s left mandible, knocking him unconscious. He fell in a heap, his gun hand useless.

The gunfire had stopped almost as suddenly as it had started.

Manny Guzman smiled.

He stood up, holding the Mason jar filled with homemade napalm, the soaked piece of dish towel burning and smoking.

He stepped out from behind the light pole and stepped toward the SUV, taking no chance that he would be throwing it from too far away. But Manny had forgotten about the driver. He had apparently followed orders by staying in the SUV, but now that he saw Manny approaching with a flaming bomb of some sort, he jumped out onto the street, gun in his hand.

He took aim. Manny overhanded the jar like a major league pitcher. The driver fired. Manny threw. Bullet versus firebomb.

The momentum of Manny’s throw pulled him down low. The bullet missed his chest, but caught him on the top of his right shoulder, gouging out a trail of flesh and blasting through the top tip of his clavicle.

The jar shattered. The homemade napalm splattered into the gasoline. The driver pulled off a panicked second shot, but Demarco Jones had already thrown his iron pipe. It smashed into the driver’s back. The shot went wide. A soft whump sounded and everything burst into a roaring black inferno of flames.

*   *   *

Stepanovich’s men were caught between two impulses.

Shoot back at whoever had shot up their SUV. Or, keep running through the lot to get into position behind Beck’s building to intercept anybody fleeing the flames clearly visible on Conover Street.

Stepanovich stood near the middle of the lot, about twenty yards back from Beck’s building, yelling orders.

Beck moved closer to the gate now, to keep his eye on what Stepanovich and his men were doing.

His original plan had depended on the cops being in the neighborhood by now, responding to gunshots, while Manny, Ciro, Demarco, and Joey got the hell out of the area.

He looked across the street to make sure that the Porsche was moving. It was. Ciro and Joey B were driving out of the lot to swing around to get Manny, who should be running as fast as his old legs would carry him into the empty industrial lot opposite Beck’s building where Ciro and Joey would pick him up.

Demarco was supposed to head quickly in the opposite direction and get the Mercury which was parked over on Beard Street, meet Beck, and drive out of the neighborhood.

But there were no cops swooping in and taking out whatever was left of the Russians on Conover and the Bosnians in the empty lot.

He checked again after the Porsche. It was out of sight. Good. Manny, Ciro, and Joey would be safe. Beck wasn’t worried about Demarco. He was probably already climbing into the Mercury on Beard Street.

Beck could have turned around and hustled over to Van Brunt, where Demarco would find him, but no. No way. Not now. Not with these bastards and that bald maniac alive and able to come after them.

He went through a quick calculation. His men were safe. He had all the weapons he could carry. His Browning was registered. The Benelli legal. He could hear Phineas making the argument that his client had been forced out of his home, only to be ambushed, whereupon he had no alternative but to fight to save his life.

Beck smiled in the dark red glow that pulsed on the other side of his building. It would end here and now, one way or the other.

68

Beck kept moving toward the disabled Suburban blocking the entrance to the empty lot, watching Stepanovich and the others as best he could. They were midway in the dark empty lot, having spread out behind his building.

He saw Stepanovich pointing and ordering two of his men to go back to the Suburban and see who had shot the SUV to pieces. That left six, plus Stepanovich out in the lot.