The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(20)

The remaining man fired back—

Dox felt a round whiz past him, another, and then—

He was behind the next tree. It was no thicker than the previous one, but still he’d never been so grateful for the proximity of nature. The last line of a poem zipped through his head—But only God can make a tree—and he almost laughed.

He glanced back at Larison. Larison nodded. Dox took a deep breath, stepped right, and started firing. In his peripheral vision, he could see Larison sprinting forward. This time, the sixth man didn’t even try to return fire. Maybe he was swapping in a fresh mag. Maybe he was shitting his pants. Maybe all of the above.

Larison made it to the next tree. Their three positions now formed a scalene triangle, with Dox and Larison at the base and Dox closer to number six’s position.

There were more trees ahead. If Dox had been the man, he would have found the options depressingly bleak. Dox and Larison could just keep leapfrogging closer and closer until they flanked him, one keeping him pinned down while the other moved. Absent a hell of a lucky shot, at this point it was only a matter of time.

Number six must have been doing the same math. Because just as Dox was about to dart to the next tree, the man went tearing off in the opposite direction, zigzagging as he moved. But his zigs and zags weren’t as random as they might have been, and Larison, stepping out from behind his tree, brought up the Glock, took a moment to track the man’s movements, and fired. The round caught the man in the back and staggered him. Dox fired twice, nailing him both times. Larison shot once more and the man went down.

The two of them did a quick 360-degree sweep of the area. No more threats. No more anyone, other than Manus. But there would be plenty of visitors soon enough, most of them wearing blue uniforms. People could rationalize or otherwise ignore a single gunshot, maybe as many as three or four. But even if the city hadn’t set up one of those fancy acoustic gunshot detection systems, and probably it had, a running firefight between this many combatants in a public park was going to get called in.

Larison walked over, his head still swiveling, scanning the park. “You all right?”

Dox took a moment to inspect himself. He didn’t see any holes. “Yeah. You?”

“You want to make small talk, or you want to get the hell out of here?”

Dox laughed. Once you got to know him, Larison actually had a fine sense of humor. “Don’t see why we can’t do both,” he said.

They looked over at Manus. The man was heading their way from fifty feet off, the dripping Espada still gripped in his right hand. It looked like someone had tossed an entire bucket of blood onto him. Which, as Dox considered, was more or less what had happened.

Neither of them said anything as Manus approached. Dox, who had planned to holster the Wilson, found himself keeping it in a retracted low ready position. As it happened, Larison was doing the same.

Manus reached their position. He glanced at their pistols. Then he closed the Espada, and for the first time, Dox saw him smile.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”





chapter

fifteen





LARISON


Larison couldn’t decide whether Manus was serious or joking. Even Dox, who had an answer for everything, was momentarily stymied and just stood there silently, the Wilson frozen in purgatory.

Whatever. Probably Manus meant it both ways. Larison holstered the Glock and looked at Dox. “Stick together, or split up?”

Dox glanced around, then back to Manus, either so Manus could read his lips or because Dox was afraid to look elsewhere.

“Three big guys,” Dox said, finally holstering the Wilson. “One scary, one covered in blood, and one devilishly handsome. See if you can guess who’s who. Anyway, overall the description is apt to be a lot like whatever witnesses might report.”

“Yeah,” Larison said. “But on the other hand—”

“I know, on the other hand, if anyone runs into another team, I’d rather it be the three of us together. It’s hard to imagine whoever’s behind this sent more than six, but still, let’s take our chances with witness descriptions until we’re clear of the area. Then we’ll split up, and regroup later and debrief. Sound good?”

It sounded good to Larison. And apparently to Manus, too, who said, “Let’s go.”

They all popped up their parka hoods. Larison said, “Wait, let’s not leave the toys. I told you it was going to be talking or shooting and nothing in between.” They grabbed the umbrella and the selfie stick and started moving.

There were a lot of ways in and out of the park, so unless there were quite a few more than the six they’d already dropped, Larison didn’t expect to run into any more opposition. They’d already thoroughly reconnoitered and knew the surroundings well, and without any discussion headed out the east side, the less trafficked part of the park.

Larison scanned the area as they moved, eyeblink-ready to pull the Glock if he saw anything the least bit suspicious. But the park was quiet.

He was half-horrified, half-relieved that he hadn’t shot Manus when he had the chance. A sequence kept replaying in his mind: when he had hesitated, the trigger half depressed, then holstered the Glock, tore in empty-handed, and engaged an obviously formidable operator struggling to deploy a giant knife. Why? To help Dox, of course, but a head shot would have been the right way to do that. He realized it was Dox’s determination to stay within the less-than-lethal parameters for the sake of his lady. But that was Dox’s deal. When had Larison become so devoted to Dox, and to Rain, that he would compromise his own instincts just to demonstrate his loyalty?