Into the Fire(35)

Too late Evan saw that Yeznig had twisted away from the round so it had caught his torso in glancing fashion, tearing free a hunk of flesh and fabric.

With a roar he flipped the table over at Evan, phones, ledgers, and espresso flying. Evan ducked down and in, letting it twirl overhead and getting off shots to Yeznig’s shin, knee, and gut before it all crashed onto the floor behind him.

Yeznig groaned, clawing at the glimmering hole in his abdomen, his pistol out of reach.

Before Evan could pivot, Raffi charged him, his face awash in blood. He struck Evan in a football tackle, crushing the RoamZone against Evan’s thigh. Despite its Gorilla Glass and hardened black rubber casing, the phone crunched as he fell.

Raffi swung blindly, a rage-fueled battering. The Browning flew from Evan’s grasp. He tried to angle the ARES, but they were at too close quarters for him to risk firing. Raffi overpowered him, fighting his gun hand down and then swatting the ARES away.

They grappled on the floor, close enough to kiss, arms locked, teeth bared. Raffi’s shattered face was inches above Evan’s, dripping blood. From the corner of his eye, Evan sensed Yeznig dragging himself toward his gun.

Evan relaxed his arms, relenting. As Raffi’s weight came down on him, Evan twisted away. Swinging around Raffi’s torso like a wrestler and seizing him in an arm bar, Evan braced the elbow joint with his legs. But the limb was sheathed with muscle; it was like trying to snap a log.

Straining against the arm, Evan leaned back to shoot a glance behind him. Still short of his fallen pistol, Yeznig expired with a shuddering wheeze. One of the phones miraculously had managed to stay plugged in, and it rang, rang, rang, earsplittingly shrill.

Raffi was too strong, bucking and ripping his arm free before Evan could break the joint.

Evan rolled onto his back, already reaching for his belt. With a single jerk, he whipped it free of the loops. Popping onto his feet, he fed the leather end through the buckle. Raffi was on his stomach, gathering himself to rise when Evan slung the makeshift noose over his neck.

Placing one Original S.W.A.T. boot on the back of Raffi’s head, he firmed his grip on the belt and jerked back.

A crackle as the vertebrae gave.

Raffi twitched. And then he didn’t.

Evan scooped up his ARES and surveyed the mess of a conference room, his shoulders bowed, catching his breath. The noose of the belt dangled from one fist.

The phone continued to ring, but Evan saw now that the cords had all snapped free when Yeznig had hurled the table at him.

Something moved in his peripheral vision—Terzian’s hand reaching for a gun?—and Evan swept the ARES over and fired through Terzian’s heart. But the corpse absorbed the round without complaint.

Another ring and something moved again on Terzian’s chest.

A cell phone inched further into view, worming up out of his breast pocket.

Evan recognized the rectangular slab of technology as a Turing Phone. Boasting end-to-end encryption on a security-geared operating system, it was engineered out of a rare alloy of zirconium, aluminum, silver, copper, and nickel, marketed under the comic-book name Liquidmorphium. It was physically unbreakable, un like the RoamZone, whose broken pieces were jabbing Evan’s thigh through his cargo pants.

Evan fished the Turing Phone out of Terzian’s rumpled shirt.

It would do for now. At least until he got back to the Vault and replaced the shrapnel in his pocket with a new RoamZone.

Given Max’s circumstances Evan had to be reachable at all times, so he thumbed off a text to Max: THIS IS ME. USE THIS NUMBER IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

Then he pocketed the Turing. He was just about to rethread his belt through the loops when shouts rained in from the lobby door, the no-neck brigade arriving in force. Through the glass wall, Evan saw two of the bouncers breach the lobby, no doubt in response to the commotion.

Putting his back to them, he raised the ARES and shot out the one-way window. Ducking through the shower of glass and holstering his pistol, he jogged toward the cafeteria and the rear gate beyond.

As he neared, a pair of bouncers spilled around either side of the cafeteria, walkie-talkies to their faces, blocking Evan’s way. They spotted Evan and froze.

He had blood on his shirt and a noose-shaped belt in one hand.

Conspicuous.

They sprinted at him.

He shot a glance over his shoulder. The other bouncers emerged through the shattered maw of the window onto the walkway. They looked stunned from the violent aftermath they’d witnessed inside. And they looked angry.

He didn’t want to kill them.

Holstering his ARES, he spun back around. The men pinched in at him from both directions.

Directly ahead, no more than twenty yards away, the side door of the cafeteria lay open. The gunfire had spurred a flurry of panicked movement inside. Most of the gamblers stood in the bleachers, confused, but a few were already running, strobing across the doorway.

He sprinted for it.

The bouncers closed in around him. He snapped the belt to the side, the buckle smacking a meaty chin and causing the others to veer and duck.

Without slowing his momentum, he flew through the doorway.

As soon as he cleared the threshold, he clipped the shoulder of a hulking guy in a biker jacket. Muscle and leather, undentable. Physics assigned them the roles of bumper and pinball.

Evan felt himself go weightless, the floor scanning by several feet below.

He hit the polished floorboard in a spin and slid a few feet. He’d just rotated around to see the gaping pit in the floor before he was weightless again, falling ten feet into the fighting arena. Impact jarred the breath out of him. Dirt in his eyes, under his nails. Grit against his chin, his cheek. The smell of musk, feces, and blood.