Elise’s face whitened with shock. In the middle of the night, she seemed slow to react, slow to realize just what was going on. Daniel imagined her dull brain just had time to register the face-painted and heavily armed men bursting in before one of them charged her.
She backed up in reflexive alarm, but not fast enough, and Daniel let his M4 fall to his side on its retractable sling to free up his hands, making the “shush” sign the whole time. Funny how most people obey emphatic, familiar signals, he thought.
She stared stupidly at him with obvious disbelief. Finally she seemed to recognize him.
Daniel gently tackled her in a modified martial arts move he dredged out of his subconscious, which ended up with them both on the ground out of sight behind a big heavy lab bench. He covered her mouth with his hand and said into her ear, “Stay down, don’t interfere. This is a rescue.” He was so close he could smell her perfume, her skin.
She nodded, her eyes wide. “Daniel, thank God,” she breathed.
He absorbed her big blue eyes, the splash of freckles across her nose, her auburn hair, and a delicate scent that made his mouth dry up like a lovestruck teenager. He started to get dizzy. Oh God please no. Not now. He had the weirdest feeling, like he had known her all his life and she had known him too, déjà vu times two. With an effort of will he pushed her and the feelings away and went back to the job.
As he was turning back toward the door, gunfire exploded in the corridor.
He saw Larry, framed in the doorway, open up with his AA-12. Shots roared out as he walked the gun from floor to ceiling, shooting at something down the corridor to the right. The recoil kept the barrel climbing up, up and then all the way over with his hand spasm-locked on the trigger.
Time seemed to slow down with Daniel’s adrenaline surge, and he saw pieces of Larry’s armor blowing off in chunks as return fire slammed him. It was something big and heavy and deadly, because he saw Larry’s back plate lifted off his body and flap like a sail as something went all the way through him from the front.
Larry! Daniel’s whole being launched forward like a Border Collie bolting for a frisbee, every reason for his existence condensed into one pure moment, driving for the goal. That Others May Live thundered in his head as he sprinted for the doorway. He saw the big man’s automatic shotgun stop firing and fall out of his hands, and then Larry crumpled to his knees, going down slow and heavy.
Before the wounded man hit the floor Daniel threw his body into the kill zone, between his comrade and the shooter. He wrapped his hands behind Larry’s neck, grabbing the carrying handle of his armor between his shoulder blades.
Daniel felt a hot tearing burn in his thigh and then in his side below his ribs as bullets ripped through him. One round hit the SAPI plate in the center of his back and punched like a fist into his spine, but the armor held. Daniel ignored everything but the job, just glad the shots weren’t hitting Larry.
As soon as he had a grip Daniel put up a foot against the opposite wall, pushing off of it like a gymnast. He threw his whole weight back through the doorway into the lab, dragging his wounded teammate with it and out of the line of fire. Daniel screamed with effort and pain. His leg filled with liquid fire and his muscles burned.
Scrabbling on the floor, he dragged Larry backward as if he was in a strongman competition. He frantically hauled and lifted and jerked almost four hundred pounds of gear and bloody dying man back behind the heavy lab bench. Daniel dropped him, popped the quick-release on his ruck and pulled out his aid bag; he went to work, ignoring his own wounds and his suddenly acute need for food.
Elise rushed to Daniel’s side, but her face turned queasy as she saw the blood pouring out of the big man’s body.
Zeke took the door position and yelled on the net, “Hostile, hostile, southwest corner room. Man down, man down. Skull, put a few rounds through the corner of the building.”
Immediately they heard heavy, measured popping sounds begin, metallic and deadly, rifle rounds punching through the thin lab walls. They hoped Skull knew where he was aiming.
Daniel glanced up over the bleeding mess to meet Elise’s eyes, kneeling there. She looked horrified. Nothing I can do about that now.
He pulled out Gramps’ blade and she shrank back, but he ignored her and cut the body armor off of Larry. The knife sliced through the armor’s straps and seams and in ten seconds he had the man’s shell off in pieces. Daniel’s hands moved with the practiced speed of his younger days as he slid the pig-sticker back into its sheath and ran his hands over Larry’s body, searching for the trauma in his flesh. He would have to let the other three deal with the hostile if he was going to save Larry’s life.
The worst injury was a sucking chest wound, front and back penetration. It looked like a large-caliber full metal jacket round, maybe coated with something to defeat armor, .50 caliber or .44 magnum. He cursed all fans of big-bore handguns as he grabbed Elise’s bare hand and put it against the bloody hole in Larry’s chest.
“Pressure, hard, HERE.” She did as he told her, shaking tears out of her eyes.
Daniel rolled Larry onto his side to keep the fluid buildup in his lungs under control. Air wheezed in and out of the puncture in his back as his body struggled for breath. He needed to seal that up.
By this time Zeke was squeezing off single shots left-handed in the doorway, firing down the corridor to the right, suppressing the hostile. With part of his mind Daniel heard the electric-chainsaw sound of Spooky’s P90, slim 5.7mm rounds shredding in short bursts like hail drumming on a steel rooftop. Then he heard a flash-bang go off, and Zeke moved out into the corridor. He and Spooky were assaulting the shooter.
Daniel had unrolled his aid bag and was reaching for the tools of his trade when Elise leaned over and planted her mouth full on Larry’s.
No time for smooching and no need for mouth-to-mouth ran through Daniel’s head unbidden. His fingers slowed down as his disbelieving brain watched her lay the mother of all French kisses on Larry, like a drunk chick at a Saturday night meet-market. The uncomprehending part of him was suddenly jealous. He heard the snake giggle from somewhere deep inside.
Elise lifted her head, coughing and retching, and he saw her expression, a mixture of horror and hope, as she wiped her mouth out with the sleeve of her lab coat and stared down at Larry.
Daniel realized this must be an attempt to transfer the XH to Larry. It was the only thing that made sense.
He had to put that question on hold along with many others as a tall cabinet in the corner behind Elise swung inward. It had hidden a door from the next room. A man stood thus revealed, a scarred man with a very, very large handgun in a shooter’s grip: Karl Rogett. He fired two more quick shots back into the room he was leaving and then turned toward Daniel – and Elise.
Daniel dropped his right hand to his thigh where his trusty XD was holstered, quick-drew and fired, double tap. Unfortunately the hard rubber bullets he had loaded stung and bruised the gunman but didn’t put him down. His experiment with nonlethal ammo had betrayed him, and he frantically pulled the trigger over and over, peppering the man with riot rounds at close range. One hit Rogett’s face and tore a hole in his cheek, but the shots that bounced off his arms and chest did little but annoy him.
The pistol’s slide locked open and Daniel was out of ammo.
Karl had been shielding his face with his raised arms, and began to bring his weapon back to shooting position. Daniel released his pistol, snapped his hand to the blade on his calf. He drew the knife with his fingertips and in one motion extended his hand with a flip of the wrist. It was poor technique but he was very close, less than ten feet away. Gramps’ legacy turned end for end once. The razor-sharp tip of the blade punched right through the meaty part of the man’s left forearm, between the radius and ulna.