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each some nails, screws, and other bits of jagged metal that they had found in some of the cabinets.
When she saw Robie with the weapons and the NV goggles, she said, “How’d you score that?”
“Just lucky timing. What do we got?” he said, looking at the paint can.
“I’m taking a page from our ‘friends’ in the Middle East and making a couple of IEDs.”
He checked on Malloy. Blue Man had dressed her wound as best he could.
“I can still fight,” she said. “I’m right-handed, so make sure I have something to fight with.”
Robie nodded and walked over to the table and picked up what had been the barrel of one of the rifles, which had also been removed from its stock. Duct-taped to the muzzle was a very sharp-edged piece of metal.
Reel called out, “So there are seven of them left?”
Robie nodded. “But don’t put it past them to add reinforcements. Remember that Dolph and Patti and some of their cronies might still be here.”
“Let’s focus on getting the seven first,” replied Reel. “Especially Randall.”
“They’re going to have both doors covered,” said Lamarre.
“Which means they had to split their force, three and four,” said Robie.
“But if we open one of those doors they’re going to open fire and we’re dead,” rejoined Lamarre.
“My, my what an optimist you are,” said Reel.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Mateo.
“We need to create a diversion,” answered Robie.
“With what?” snapped Lamarre. “Using one of us? Well, I’m not sacrificing myself.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, because we don’t need you to. We have someone else to play that role,” said Robie.
He walked out of the room and a minute later came back carrying the dead man over his shoulder.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Lamarre. “What happened to him?”
Robie set the body down. “I killed him before he killed me.” He examined Lamarre. “You’re about his height. Switch clothes and put his ball cap on.”
“What?”
“Take your clothes off and put his on.”
“But they’re covered in blood.”
Reel stepped forward after hefting the piece of glass attached to the metal gun barrel. “Either switch clothes or I gut you right here. And then you’ll be covered in blood. Yours.”
Lamarre looked at her incredulously. “You can’t be se—”
Reel placed the glass right against his neck.
Blue Man said, “Based on experience I can tell you that she is dead serious.”
Lamarre started quickly stripping off his clothes. While that was happening, Robie and Mateo had found an old push broom. After they had put Lamarre’s clothes on the dead body, they used duct tape to secure the body to the broom and positioned him standing up. Reel used the tape to stick one of the nine-millimeter pistols to the dead man’s hand and then taped it to his side so it looked like he was pointing it.
They moved the body over to the door they had come through.
Robie said to Reel, “We’ll do the positioning, you take the rifle and goggles.” He explained the plan to the others and put his hand on the door.
Lamarre said, “If they’ve got this night-vision shit, won’t they know it’s a dead guy? Their own dead guy?”
“Night optics aren’t like looking at a high-def TV,” pointed out Robie. “And they’re going to have maybe a split second to decide to fire. But if you have a better idea, I’d be glad to hear it.”
In response, Lamarre looked down at the floor.
Robie glanced back at Reel. She had on the optics, and the rifle was pointed toward the door.
“We can’t tell which way,” he noted.
“As you know, I can always be flexible,” she replied, swinging the rifle to the left and then the right.
He looked at Blue Man and Parry, who had hold of the upright corpse.
“Move him closer to the door,” he said.
They did so and then Robie glanced at the others. “Get out of the line of fire and stay down.”
Malloy, Mateo, Camilla, and Lamarre backed away and knelt down.
“On the count of three,” said Robie. He performed the countdown and then wrenched open the door.
Blue Man and Parry pushed the corpse forward and out into the corridor and then dropped to the floor.
Barely a heartbeat of time passed before the shots rang out, hitting the dead man in the head and chest but, of course, failing to kill him a second time.
Another second passed, then Reel’s rifle fired three times.
They heard one scream and then two bodies hit the floor down the corridor and to the left. They heard feet running away.
“Three down, four to go,” said Reel.
“And now they know we’re armed,” said Blue Man.
Robie said to Reel, “Let’s go get some more real guns and level the playing field.”
They sprinted out into the darkened hall, with Reel covering Robie.
Robie reached the dead men. Neither was Scott Randall.
Reel noted this and said, “Good. I want to kill him up close and personal.”
Within thirty seconds they had two rifles, two pistols, a load of spare ammo, and another pair of night optics.
And something else of immense value that Robie quickly pocketed.
They ran back to the group and distributed the weaponry.
Robie put the night optics on and looked through them.
He noted the bullet hole through the right lens and glanced at Reel.
“Nice shooting.”
“Do they still work?” she said.
“Better than what we had.”
Reel said to the others, “Okay, now we outnumber them. We’re going to go on the offensive and get the hell out of here.”
Robie added, “We’ll split up into two groups. Jess will go with one group and I’ll go with the other. The third guy ran away to the right. We’ll go that way. Jess and the others will go to the left.”
“But how will we communicate, Robie?” asked Blue Man.
In answer Robie held up the other things of value he had found on the corpses.
Two communication packs complete with headsets.
“They’re going to know that we took out two more guys and they’ll have to assume that we got these. They’ll change their radio frequency so we won’t be able to get any intel from that. We’ll change our frequency, too, and communicate that way.”
They geared up and started to divvy up their forces.
Malloy stepped toward Robie and said, “I’d like to go with you.”
Reel glanced at Robie but made no comment.
“Okay,” he said. Looking at Blue Man he said, “Sir, you go with Jess, Mateo, and Lamarre. Parry and Camilla can come with me.”
They split up into these groups.
Robie looked at Reel. “Good hunting.”
“Same to you.”
“Feel better about our odds?” he asked.
“I never doubted them. Even with fake bullets.”
“You know they’re going to bring reinforcements.”
“God, I hope they do.”
She turned and led her ragtag band away into the darkness.
