AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lastly, let me say”—he held his drink up high—“a bold and secure future for all.” It was Hinton Labs’ company motto; Zack recognized it from his reading.
Anton took a drink from his glass; the rest of the group drank, as well, and then, as a group of servers began bringing trays of appetizers out of the kitchen, Gareth Wren stood next to him and raised his glass. “If I could just say a few words, as well. First, let me echo Anton’s appreciation of—”
A shout of alarm from the front of the building, and then gunshots boomed in the street. Handgun rounds at first; ten or fifteen went unanswered, but then light machine gun fire from one of the military trucks pounded at a cyclic rate.
Zack was moving in under a second, scooping up the chest rig, then racing to Anton, who was still standing, his glass in his hand. Zack threw the armor over the man’s head, knocking away the mojito, but he didn’t bother fastening the vest. Instead, he reached under his guayabera and yanked his Staccato free of its appendix holster, then turned and began pushing his protectee towards the hallway to the kitchen and the back door beyond it.
Zack had made it only a few steps before more gunfire erupted, this time in front of him, coming from the alley behind the building.
A pair of Zack’s team were at the hallway entrance, pistols raised and ready. One stepped into the kitchen a few feet, then immediately shot back out into the dining room. Looking at Zack, he shook his head no, as two-way gunfire continued from that compass point.
The shooting out back was voluminous, but the gunfire emanating from the front seemed even more ferocious, with seven or eight guns firing. Zack had second thoughts about trying to make it out to any of the vehicles parked there.
He looked back over his shoulder into the dining room, saw two of his guard force raising their pistols to fire through the front window, and then he saw that Gareth Wren had pulled his own handgun and was presently leading the two engineers and Kimmie towards the back of the room near the entrance to the kitchen.
“Wait!” Zack shouted, and Wren stopped the entourage.
Looking back towards Zack, the Englishman said, “Got to exfil out the back, mate. There’s a lot more shooting at the front.”
“Listen to the cadence. There’s only one of our guys left out back returning fire. The incoming out front is from the left. We’re better off going out front under the army’s suppressive fire and heading to the two vics parked to the right.”
“Got it!” Wren said, shouting like the British army warrant officer he had been, and he turned Kimmie and the others back around. “That way!” he shouted, then turned back and raised his gun towards the kitchen. To Zack he said, “I’ll cover! Off you go!”
Zack turned Hinton around by the neck, and then he leaned up into his ear from behind. “We run for the front door. Break right just outside. Do not stop for anything.”
“But—”
“Go!” Zack kept his hand on Hinton’s left shoulder as he held his pistol out in front of him, his arm extending past Hinton’s right ear and the barrel of the gun aimed in their direction of travel. Shoving his big chest into the smaller man’s back, he got him moving, and together the two men ran for the front door.
They passed huddled Hinton Labs employees on their left and right; at one point Anton tried to reach for a woman hiding under a table as he ran by, but Zack kept up the pace behind him, forcing him forward, nearing the exit.
Zack’s two teammates at the front recharged their weapons with fresh magazines, and then they themselves raced for the door, wisely creating a front guard for their protectee.
Zack liked his chances now. Between them they had three guns to add to the military force’s fire outside; he didn’t know how many enemy he was up against, but it didn’t sound like more than one or two. He felt confident his people could keep heads down long enough for him to throw his protectee into one of the vehicles and get it moving out of the kill zone.
Just twenty-five feet from the front door, a furious barrage of gunfire came from directly behind. Zack heard outgoing handguns, and he also heard softer pops, telling him someone was firing either in the kitchen or else out back near the kitchen door.
Zack didn’t look back; he just kept moving. His two men in front of him burst out through the front door; one broke right, the other left, both of them had their weapons raised, and the man on the left instantly fired, apparently seeing a target.
Zack kept barreling forward, a foot behind Hinton now, his pistol still outstretched past the billionaire’s head as he ran.
Fifteen feet from the front door, Anton Hinton stumbled forward, lost his footing completely, and slammed chest first into the tiled floor, skidding all the way to the door. Zack kept running, jumped on top of him, then spun back around to check his six o’clock.
The first thing he saw was Gareth Wren firing into the kitchen from the middle of the room. In front of Wren, on the left and right of the kitchen galley, both of the security men were down, one prone over a table and the other on his back in a pool of blood. Bullet holes pocked the wooden walls between the kitchen and the dining room.
It was clear that the military guys out back were dead, the enemy had made it inside the rear of the restaurant, and from there they killed two of the security force in the dining room. Only Gareth Wren was left defending from behind.
And then Hinton shouted below Zack. “I’m shot!”
Zack didn’t think Hinton had been shot, and he didn’t see any blood, so he rose back to his knees and yanked his protectee up. Even if he had been hit, the enemy seemed to be closing from the back, so Zack had to get his man moving.
Both he and Anton stumbled as they poured out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk. Directly in front of them a soldier stood in the back of a pickup truck and aimed his PKM machine gun to the east, in the direction of the incoming fire, and then he fired a short burst.
Zack glanced at the security guard, who broke left, ran towards the incoming fire, his Glock pistol blasting, and then dropped the weapon and spun to the ground, either injured or dead.
Zack turned with Hinton to the right and saw the security officer there still on his feet and running to the Lincoln Navigator, his pistol still out and scanning for targets.
Zack pushed Hinton after the guard to the right, and as he did so he aimed behind him. The American dumped round after round out of his Staccato towards the area of threat as he raced in the opposite direction, knowing that with a twenty-round magazine capacity, he could afford to be liberal with his shooting. Hinton stumbled again in front of him, but less dramatically than before, and with Zack’s help he managed to keep his feet under him as he shot along on the broken sidewalk. Within seconds Zack was pushing him into the back of the Navigator. The big American jumped in and on top of his protectee, and the surviving security guard leapt behind the wheel.
