End Game (Will Robie #5)(123)

“Roger that. One minute.”

“Give me a five-click warning,” she said.

“Done.”

She told Blue Man what she was about to do.

“You going to wish me luck?” she said.

Holding his shoulder he managed a weak smile and shook his head.

“I know,” said Reel. “It’s never about luck.”

She put the scope back on her rifle’s rail, ran through the plan in her mind, and judged it to be good enough. She eyed the top of the metal stack and the trajectory there to her intended target.

Then she loosened up her right throwing arm. This was far more intense than throwing out the first pitch on opening day. If she didn’t toss a strike, they were dead.

She positioned her rifle barrel on top of the metal stack, making sure to keep her head below the barrier.

She got the five-click warning from Robie.

What she was about to attempt was the mother of all multitasking.

You can do this, Jessica. This isn’t as hard as what you did back in Iraq. Nothing is as hard as what you did back in Iraq.

The door burst open and shots were fired through it.

As Reel expected, her adversaries pointed their weapons that way and returned fire.

She stood with the paint can in her right hand. She swung it around to gain momentum and force and then heaved it at the stairs.

As soon as it left her hand and arced toward the target she dropped to the floor and sighted through her rifle as the paint can began its descent.

She waited . . . waited.

Her aim with the can had been good enough.

Her focus was complete. There was nothing else on earth right now, other than her and that can.

Like shooting clay pigeons.

She fired.

The round punctured the can and the heat from the bullet did what the match and fuse would have accomplished.

She ducked down right before the explosion.

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.