Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(34)

A speakeasy hatch squeaked open, a face filling the tiny metal square.

A murmured greeting followed, and then various dead bolts retracted, the door swung inward, and the broad-shouldered man disappeared inside.

Now Evan knew how he wanted to load the shotgun.

One nine-pellet buckshot load for the chamber, two more on its heels in the mag tube. He followed those with three shock-lock cartridges and had a pair of buckshot shells run anchor.

He popped in the triangular safety so it was smooth to the metal, the red band appearing on the other side. When he pumped the shotgun, he felt the shuck-shuck in the base of his spine.

“Stay here,” he said. He reached for the door handle, then paused. “You may not like what you’re about to see.”

He got out, swung the door closed behind him.

He walked across the desolate street, bits of glass grinding beneath his tread. The midnight-black Benelli hung at his side.

He could feel Jack fall into step beside him, hear Jack’s voice, a whisper in his ear. It’s too late for me.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Evan said quietly.

I want to know that I’m forgiven.

“You are.” Evan quickened his stride, bearing down on the door. He knocked out the brief melody and raised the shotgun, seating the butt on his good shoulder.

I love you, son.

The speakeasy hatch squeaked open, and Evan pushed the muzzle into the surprised square of face and fired.

There was no longer a face.

He shoved the shotgun farther inside, the muzzle clearing the door, and unleashed two buckshot rounds, one to the left, one to the right.

The three shock-locks were up next, copper-powdered, heavy-compressed centered shots that provided a total energy dump on one spot with no scatterback or frag.

Hinge removers.

He shifted the action to manual so he could cycle the low-powered breaching rounds and give them more steam. Then he stepped back and fired top to bottom—boom-boom-boom. The last slug knocked the door clear off the frame, sending it skidding across the floor.

Cycling buckshot into the chamber and toggling the switch back to autoload, he stepped through the dust into the metallic tang of cordite, shotgun raised.

The blow-radius effect of the initial blasts in the contained shop was biblical. With no air movement, the powdered smoke had stratified, hovering like gray mist.

Five men, either dead or in various stages of critical injury, shuddered on knocked-over folding chairs, tilted against bloodstained walls, sprawled over a central table. No sign of the Orphan. The broad-shouldered man was the only one able to do more than bleed out.

He bellied across the floor, dragging himself away with his forearms, a combat crawl. His right leg was a mottled fusion of denim and flesh.

He kept on, making for a rack of rifles and shotguns beside the steel front door.

Evan walked toward him, stuck a toe in his ribs, flipped him over.

The man tried to look away. “Oh, God,” he said. “You’re—are you—Orphan X? Oh, God.”

Evan seated a boot square on his barrel chest, hovered the hot muzzle over his throat. “You killed Jack Johns.”

The man’s fine hair, so blond it was almost gray, was shaved in a buzz cut. His scalp showed through, glistening with sweat. “No—not me. I didn’t go up in the chopper, man. There was a special crew.”

“But you were there. On the ground in Alabama. You were all there.”

“Yes.”

Evan swung the shotgun to the side and blew off his hand.

The howl was inhuman.

But so was making a man in his seventies jump out of a Black Hawk with his wrists cuffed together.

Evan rotated the Benelli back to the man’s head. “Van Sciver?” he said. “Where?”

Somewhere behind them, a final sputtering wheeze extinguished.

“I don’t know. I swear. Never even met him.”

Evan moved the Benelli over the guy’s other hand.

“Wait! Wait! I’ll tell you—tell you everything. Just don’t … don’t take me apart like this.”

“How many freelancers did he bring in? Not including the helo crew.”

“Twenty-five. He hired twenty-five of us.”

Evan surveyed the wreckage, added it to the train-station tally. “Fifteen now,” he said.

“Sixteen.” The man risked a look at his hand, failed to fight off a full-body shudder. “I make sixteen.” And then, more desperately, “I … I still make sixteen.”

“Who’s running point here?”

The man looked over at the red-smeared linoleum where his hand once was and dry-heaved. His face was pale, awash in sweat. Evan put more pressure on his chest, cracking a rib, snapping him back to attention.

“Jordan Thornhill,” the man said. “Orphan R. Nicest guy in the world. Until he kills you.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Black dude, all muscle. Could scale a cliff with his bare hands, he wanted to.” The man started hyperventilating. “God, oh, God, I think I’m bleeding out.”

“You’ve got enough for the next five minutes. Where is he?”

“Van Sciver called him home. I don’t know where.”

Evan twitched the barrel slightly.

“I DON’T KNOW WHERE! I don’t know anything. I swear. They keep us in the dark about everything.”