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After the smoke cleared she sighted through her optics.
Her pitch had been long and loopy, but ultimately right down the middle of the plate.
A few moments later Robie was next to her.
“It worked,” he said. “But we lost Camilla. She caught a round in the chest.”
He turned to Malloy. “You’re going to stay here with Walton. Watch his bleeding and do whatever you can to comfort him. I don’t think there are any of them left down here, but be on guard.”
Malloy didn’t look pleased by this plan at all. “I can fight,” she said.
“I have no doubt of that,” said Robie. “But Jess and I will be better off without anyone.”
“You think I’m going to hold you back. I can take care of myself.”
“And you think leaving a wounded man alone makes sense?” said Reel.
Malloy hesitated and then said resignedly, “Okay. But what are you going to do?”
“We’re going to finish this
,” said Reel.
Chapter
75
“DÉJÀ VU ALL over again,” whispered Reel as they moved along. “We’re hunting in pairs.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” replied Robie.
Reel glanced sharply at him, but he wasn’t looking at her.
He had snagged an undamaged pair of optics off one of the dead men and took a long look around.
There was a door up ahead, at the top of the stairs. They reasoned that just beyond it was the level on which they had entered the silo. They needed to get help. They were well aware that Blue Man could not survive much longer in his condition.
They were also under no delusions that there would be no one on the other side of that door waiting to kill them.
“If Randall is still here, leave him to me,” Reel said.
“You really hate the guy.”
“Hate doesn’t really cut it.”
They reached the door and Robie put his ear against it, listening intently.
He nodded and Reel cautiously opened the door as they each peeled off to either side of the portal.
They both recognized the staccato burst of an MP5 emptying dual mags.
“Me high, you low,” said Robie.
Sixty rounds later Reel and Robie pointed their rifles through the doorway and sprayed their rounds in a one-eighty arc, top to bottom.
They caught the man reloading the MP5. One of Reel’s rounds tore into his thigh while two of Robie’s bullets hit the man in the head and chest, respectively.
They burst into the room and Reel grabbed the MP5 from the dying man’s grip, while Robie pulled free two full mags from holders on the man’s pants.
“Good lesson in keeping some of your powder dry, moron,” said Reel to the dying man.
“This is the JV team,” said Robie. “We left the varsity down below.”
Reel slammed the mags in and gripped the weapon as she looked ahead. “I recognize this hall.”
“I do too. The manufacturing area Fitzsimmons showed us is that way,” said Robie, pointing to his left. “So that means the long passage where we took the golf cart ride to see Bender’s body dumped is beyond that.”
“And the exit door out of this hellhole.”
He stooped over the dead man, searched his pockets, and pulled out a phone. “It’s passcode-protected,” he said, tossing it down as the phone’s owner breathed one last time before expiring.
“How many you think are left?”
“Considering they only had one guy waiting to greet us here, I think their numbers are limited.”
“Or maybe some of the guards up here have jumped ship.”
Robie nodded. “I don’t know what they’re getting paid, but it’s probably not enough to die for.”
“Fitzsimmons’s Nazi guys?”
“I can’t believe they recruited any of them for this. He’d want to keep his identity separate. But Patti probably has stuff in reserve. And then there’s Randall.”
They passed through another doorway and moved down the well-lighted hall.
“I don’t like this,” said Robie.
“Too easy,” added Reel.
“In here,” said Robie.
They slowly opened the door and found themselves in the drug-manufacturing area they had seen previously.
But unlike before, it was totally empty. The work areas looked like they had been deserted recently. Chemicals were still bubbling, computers were still working, and they could see half-finished projects all around. But the motorized assembly line had been shut down.
“You think they cleared out?” asked Robie.
“Well, Fitzsimmons said they were moving their operations beginning tonight. Maybe they started with getting the workers out of here.”
Reel nodded, her gaze reaching out to all corners of the room. “So let’s go find them before they find us.”
Robie peeled off his comm pack. “How about a little misdirection first?”
He turned the frequency back to the original one. He adjusted his headset, then held it away from himself and started speaking. “You’re wounded and you’ve got no way to get out of here. Just contact Patti and the others and tell them it’s over. Do it now. It’s your only chance to survive this.”
Silence of course followed, and Reel said in a loud voice, “Just kill him, Robie.”
“We kill him, we’re not going to be able to find our way out.”
Reel waited a moment and said, “I know where we are. We’re ten minutes from the manufacturing area we were in. I can get us out of here once we reach it.”
Robie said, “Then we don’t need this guy after all.” He deliberately pulled back the hammer on his weapon.
Reel said, “Don’t use the gun. Too much noise. Slit his throat.”
Robie pushed some stuff off a workbench and then made other scuffling noises followed by a scream and a gurgling sound. Then he pushed a box off a shelf to create a thudding noise, as though a body had just hit the floor.
Robie turned off the comm pack.
“You think they bought it?” she asked.
“I think we’re going to find out.”
Chapter
76
THEY DIDN’T HAVE to wait long.
The door to the area they were in burst open two minutes later and four men hurtled through the opening.
Scott Randall was one of them.
Three trigger pulls by Robie and Reel later, and Randall was the only
