Chapter 7 - THE DEAD MAN’S SWITCH
The echoes of the sniper fire faded, leaving only the sound of rain hammering against the metal roof and Marcus’s ragged, wet breathing on the floor.
Adrian pressed his back against the rusted steel pillar. His legs were dead weight, useless appendages dragging on the concrete. He held the silver Colt tight to his chest, counting the shadows moving on the catwalk above.
Four men. Heavy tactical gear. Night-vision goggles.
Uncle Paulie wasn’t taking any chances. This was a professional sweep.
“You look pathetic down there, Adrian,” Paulie’s voice boomed from the bullhorn. “Crawling in the dirt like a rat. Your father was right. You lost your teeth the day you married that civilian.”
Adrian didn’t waste breath on an answer. He scanned the room.
Maria was still tied to the chair in the center of the floor, weeping silently through her gag, exposed to the crossfire. Marcus was bleeding out ten feet away, clutching his shattered shoulder, his submachine gun lying just out of his reach.
“Kill the traitor first,” Paulie ordered his men. “Then finish my nephew.”
Two mercenaries raised their assault rifles, aiming down at Marcus.
Adrian didn’t think. The instinct to protect, the same instinct that had made him reach for Sophie when she ran into his office three years ago, took over.
He pushed off the pillar with his left hand, sliding across the slick concrete, and raised the silver Colt.
He fired twice.
BANG! BANG!
The heavy .45 caliber rounds struck the catwalk railing with deafening force. One bullet ricocheted off a steel beam, striking the nearest mercenary in the thigh. The man screamed, dropping his rifle over the edge.
The remaining mercenaries instantly turned their fire on Adrian, chewing up the concrete around the pillar as he dragged himself back into cover.
“You’re just delaying the inevitable!” Paulie shouted, furious now.
Marcus groaned, painfully dragging himself across the floor toward Adrian’s cover, leaving a thick smear of blood behind him. He collapsed behind the pillar next to the man he had spent three years poisoning.
“Why didn’t you let them shoot me?” Marcus coughed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
“Because you’re going to help me get Silas’s wife out of that chair,” Adrian grunted, popping the cylinder of his Colt to check his rounds. Four bullets left.
“I can’t feel my right arm,” Marcus gasped.
“Then use your left.” Adrian grabbed Marcus by the collar and pulled him close. “Listen to me. Paulie’s men are going to rappel down from the catwalk in about thirty seconds to flank us. When they do, you are going to lay down cover fire with your weapon. I’m going to cut Maria loose.”
“They’ll tear you apart, Adrian. You can’t walk.”
Adrian looked at Marcus, his eyes cold and hard. “I don’t need to walk to kill Paulie. I just need you to buy me ten seconds.”
Marcus looked at the man he had hated for a decade. He saw no fear in Adrian’s eyes, only a terrifying, absolute resolve. Marcus nodded slowly, picking up his dropped submachine gun with his trembling left hand.
“For Lily,” Marcus whispered.
“For Lily,” Adrian agreed.
Above them, the distinct zip of rappelling lines unspooling echoed in the rafters.
“Now!” Adrian roared.
Marcus leaned out from the right side of the pillar, holding the submachine gun awkwardly with his left hand, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon roared, spraying the air with a chaotic, inaccurate burst of suppressing fire.
The mercenaries returning fire were forced to duck back, their descent momentarily halted.
Adrian threw himself out from the left side of the pillar, propelling his body across the floor with his arms like a wounded tiger. He reached Maria’s chair, grabbed the combat knife strapped to his ankle, and slashed through her nylon bindings in two brutal strokes.
“Run!” Adrian yelled at her, pushing her toward the dark labyrinth of shipping crates at the back of the warehouse.
Maria scrambled to her feet and sprinted into the shadows just as Marcus’s gun clicked empty.
The warehouse fell eerily silent.
“Well, that was noble,” Paulie sneered from the catwalk, having remained safely behind a thick steel beam. “But now you’re both out of ammo, and you’re lying in the middle of the floor.”
Adrian lay flat on his stomach, the silver Colt aimed steadily upward.
“I have four rounds left, Paulie,” Adrian called out.
“And I have three men with automatic rifles,” Paulie laughed. “You lose, Adrian. It’s over.”
Paulie reached into his coat and pulled out a small, black remote detonator with a blinking red light.
“Your father wanted me to make sure there was nothing left of you to bury,” Paulie said, his thumb resting heavily on the red button. “This warehouse is rigged with enough C4 to level a city block. It’s poetic, really. You die in the same fire you used to forge your reputation.”
Marcus squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the blast.
Adrian didn’t flinch. He kept his gun aimed at Paulie’s chest.
“Press it,” Adrian said softly.
Paulie frowned, insulted by the lack of begging. “Goodbye, Adrian.”
Paulie pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
No explosion. No fire. Just the sound of the rain.
Paulie frantically pressed the button again. And again. He smacked the detonator against his palm.
“What’s wrong with this thing?!” Paulie yelled at his men.
Suddenly, a small, quiet voice echoed from the shadows near the entrance of the warehouse.
“I took the wires out.”
Everyone froze.
Standing in the doorway, drenched in rain, holding her ragged stuffed rabbit in one hand and a fistful of red and blue copper wires in the other, was Lily.
Silas stood massive and imposing right behind her, holding a shotgun.
“She saw the blinking red box by the door when we snuck in to get Maria,” Silas rumbled, racking the shotgun with a terrifying, metallic clack. “Said it looked like the bad box the fire man used. So she pulled the wires.”
Paulie’s face turned purple with rage. “Kill the kid! Kill all of them!”
The mercenaries raised their rifles toward the doorway.
But they had forgotten about the man on the floor.
Adrian fired.
The first bullet took the mercenary on the left perfectly in the throat.
The second bullet hit the mercenary on the right in the center of his chest plate, knocking him backward over the railing to plummet thirty feet to the concrete floor below.
The third mercenary panicked, spinning toward Adrian, but Silas’s shotgun roared, taking the man off his feet in a cloud of red mist.
Paulie was left standing alone on the catwalk.
He looked down at his dead men, then at Adrian, whose silver Colt was now aimed directly at Paulie’s face.
“Wait, Adrian!” Paulie screamed, dropping the useless detonator and raising his hands. “It was your father! It wasn’t me! I was just following orders! We can make a deal!”
Adrian looked at the man who had helped orchestrated the murder of his wife and child.
He didn’t hesitate.
He pulled the trigger.
The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber.
Adrian frowned. He had miscounted. He only had three rounds left, not four.
Paulie heard the click. A sick, triumphant grin spread across his face. He reached behind his back and pulled a live fragmentation grenade from his tactical belt.
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“Deal’s off,” Paulie laughed, pulling the pin.
He dropped the grenade directly over the railing, aiming straight for where Adrian lay helpless on the floor.
