End Game (Will Robie #5)(120)

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.





CHAPTER





73


Fuzzy green on black with constrained depth perception. Like being underwater with one eye closed.

That was the best way Robie could describe the world he was seeing now through his damaged optics.

His rifle was pointed out in front of him.

Behind him were Parry, Malloy, and Camilla. They were each armed, but they were counting on him to see what was coming.