End Game (Will Robie #5)(118)

A hand reached down and grabbed his, pulling him up.

Reel and Robie were eye to eye.

Robie helped Malloy to her feet.

“She’s hit,” he said.

“What the hell happened?” she said. “Did you take some of them out?”

Robie shook his head. “We’re screwed.”





CHAPTER





71


Robie put his finger in the muzzle and spun his digit around. Slowly something came out of the muzzle. He held it up as Reel shined her light on it.

She muttered a curse under her breath. “Restrictor plug.”

Robie nodded. “That explains the box of blanks you found at Randall’s cabin. The restrictor caused just enough blowback to make the slider functional and enable the ejector to kick the bullets out. That’s what confused me. I hit three of them with no result.”

He popped the mag and pulled out a bullet. The end was crimped.

“Gunpowder but no bullet,” said Reel.

Robie rolled Malloy’s sleeve up and examined her wound. “You were right, in and out.”

He tore a strip of cloth off his sleeve and used it to stanch Malloy’s wound and then wrap it.

When he looked up Robie could see Blue Man and the others huddled near a doorway across the room.

Blue Man approached. “Status?”

In answer Reel raised her pistol and fired at the ceiling. Everyone jumped but when no bullet impacted the concrete ceiling Blue Man’s features indicated he understood immediately. “So much for a fair fight,” he said. “So what do we do now?”

“We keep moving,” said Reel. “And we find or make weapons we can use against them.”

“Let’s go,” said Robie. “I hear them coming.”

They rushed out through the other door and Blue Man led them through a labyrinth of passages until they reached a steel door. They opened it and moved through.

“These are the crew quarters,” said Blue Man as they looked around the dimly lit space. There were metal beds, some with rotted mattresses. Gunmetal-gray desks and shelving were aligned in another room they could glimpse through an opening. Cabinets were built into the walls.

“They must have a generator down here,” observed JC Parry. “To make the lights work.”

Robie and Reel weren’t listening. Reel was collecting all of the ammo from their guns.

Lamarre said, “Why are you taking those? Guns are worth shit if you don’t have bullets.”

“Don’t you get it?” replied Reel. “They’re blanks.”

“Blanks! We’re in a shootout and we got blanks?”

Reel didn’t answer. She took the mags over to a desk, set them down, and started searching drawers and cabinets. Blue Man helped her.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“Anything. Don’t care what it is, just anything,” she said tersely. “And look for a first aid kit. The medicine in there might not be any good, but there might be bandages for Malloy’s arm.” She called over her shoulder. “Robie, this is going to take time. We need to secure our flanks.”

Robie nodded and said to Blue Man. “Is there any other way in here, other than through that door?”

Blue Man paused in his search and said, “Down that hall and to the left. It’s the space where the missile would be stored before it would be raised up to fire. There’s another door down that corridor coming off a hallway that runs perpendicular to this space.”

Parry said, “Raised up? I thought there was a silo that the missile was lowered into.”

“There is a firing silo, but the missile was kept on its side and then raised up into the silo for firing,” explained Blue Man.

“Which doesn’t really matter right now, guys,” pointed out Reel as she grabbed things out of the drawers and piled them on the desk.

Robie motioned to Camilla and Mateo. “Camilla, you help them look for stuff we can use. Mateo, we need to find things to secure the two doors, okay?”

Mateo looked frightened but nodded.

Robie looked over some of the things that Reel and Blue Man had pulled from the drawers and cabinets. An old first aid kit was in there. Blue Man took some of the gauze and a roll of tape over to Malloy, who was sitting on one of the beds looking pale and sick.

Robie grabbed a roll of gray duct tape, then snagged some wooden boards that had formed the shelves of a storage unit against one wall.

He broke two boards in half, leaving jagged edges on each one.

He handed them to Mateo.

Next, Robie stepped to the door they had come through. He listened at the metal and then cautiously opened it and did a quick turkey peek. If there was someone out there he couldn’t see or hear them.

He wrapped the outside doorknob over and over with the duct tape. Then Robie closed the door and took a board from Mateo. He jammed it under the door’s bottom edge on the right side. He inserted the other board into the doorjamb and wedged the other end against the floor. He unlocked the door and tried to pull it open. It didn’t budge.

He locked the door.

“Okay, that’ll have to do. Let’s go take a look at the other door.”

As they passed by Reel, Robie could see that she had taken Parry’s and Blue Man’s glasses and had broken the plastic lenses and filed them to a jagged edge.