Eight left.
Return fire came from the others, AKs coughing out rounds, strafing the shipping containers. They held the weapons improperly, arms winged out, unleashing long spray-and-pray bursts with ample muzzle rise. They were clearly not expert assaulters, but at these numbers they didn’t have to be. The assault was war-zone relentless, the illicit full-auto weapons clearly an added perk of Gadds’s import operation.
Evan knifed between two of the massive metal boxes, ducking as ricochets flew overhead, ping-ponging between the containers.
He ran through the tight space, corrugated metal sandpapering both shoulders, and popped out the rear as two more men shot into sight at the end of the row.
Evan was off balance, firing into the blaze of Kalashnikovs. Again the men gripped the AKs inexpertly, all wrists and elbows, the lack of resistance causing one gun to short-cycle and the other to unload high.
David Stade, assault with a deadly weapon—left eye, right eye.
Jay Gordon, human trafficking—scalp.
As Gordon went down, he swung the AK, forcing Evan to dive back between the containers to avoid the incoming volley.
Six men left on the premises.
And Russell Gadds.
The ARES was empty, the slide locked to the rear. The aggressive front-frame checkering and specialized Simonich Gunner Grips had opened up the cuts on Evan’s hands again, blood snaking down his forearms. Slamming his back to the metal rise and bracing his boots against the opposite wall, Evan slid down, hitting the slide release and dropping the mag.
As he slapped the fresh mag home, wincing as the base bit into his palm, he could hear shouting as the others circled the shipping containers, hemming him in. His vantage was limited, none of the men daring to venture across the mouth of the aisle on either side.
He went to chamber a round, but his fingers, greased with blood, slipped on the slide. Before he could try again, the men unleashed. The percussive roar came at him from all directions, threatening to swallow him up.
He flattened to the ground, burying his face in the dirt, enduring nearly ten seconds of sustained fire.
Ten seconds could be a very long time.
He heard the men approaching now and did his best to force his cramped hands around the ARES, but it fell from his grasp. He worked his phone from his pocket, leaving the fabric darkly smeared, and thumbed it on.
But he had no one to call.
He was all alone with what remained of his plan.
Stuck in the cramped space, he stared up the narrow alley, the ambient city lights guttering, blocked by the shadows of men moving in.
He turned and looked in the other direction, noting the same.
He thought of Trevon in his humble East L.A. apartment with Cat-Cat and a breakfast table with one chair. Kiara, who was at this moment obliviously airborne, winging her way to Los Angeles. Jonathan Bennett, who was regrouping in the White House, no doubt planning future assaults that would spell disaster for the other Orphans who had fought so hard to move on and get by.
Evan looked down at his fallen pistol, the opened lacerations on his palms.
He clenched his fists against the pain. Dark spots appeared in the dirt below.
He’d never take six men wielding AKs. Not like this.
“Wait!” he called out. “Just—wait! I’m done! I’m coming out!”
A rough voice answered him, “Throw your gun first! Now!”
Evan picked up his ARES and hurled it clear of the containers.
The voice was closer now. “Walk out. Hands laced behind your neck.”
Evan complied, his palms sticky against his skin. As he shuffled between the containers, he heard men pile into the makeshift alley behind him, blocking off any escape route.
He stepped from between the shipping containers into a semicircle of four men. They were fanned out around him at a fifteen-foot standoff, automatic weapons raised. The remaining pair of men pushed free of the alley behind Evan and completed the ring.
Even if he still had his weapon, there’d be nothing he could do.
They could end him right here, but Evan knew that Russell Gadds was a talker and a sadist. He’d want to look into Evan’s eyes. He’d want him to know what was coming. Gadds’s henchman, Terrance DeGraw, had told him as much: The chief likes to take his time with folks. Give ’em his full attention.
The bitter tinge of body odor, fear, and fury hung in the air, the scent of a posse ready to do its worst. Evan stood very still, not wanting to give them an excuse.
The speaker—Danny Hurtada, human trafficking—gestured with the tip of his AK, the flab of his arms rolling with the motion. “Search him.”
One of the others stepped forward and clocked Evan in the face. He crumpled, briefly blacking out, but the impact with the ground jarred him back to consciousness.
Hands frisked him, seizing his phone from his pocket.
A steel-toed kick cracked a rib, and then the others closed in on him.
“Hang on,” Hurtada said. “Chief is gonna want to see this motherfucker.”
Menacing faces glared down at him, silhouettes against the night sky.
For a moment Evan thought they might beat him to death despite Hurtada’s orders.
But then he was hoisted to his feet.
Scott Marcus—manslaughter—pocketed the RoamZone and spit on Evan’s boots.
Fernando Corté s—murder one, fugitive—frisked Evan roughly and then prodded him toward the building with the muzzle of his AK. Evan’s legs felt heavy, his head still clouded from the blow.
At the entry Hurtada input a code into the control pad, and the metal door buzzed open. It looked thick enough to withstand a battering ram. Flecks of blood were still making their way down the fa? ade, a snail’s-pace crawl that felt hallucinatory.
Evan was propelled into the front room with enough force to make him stumble. Steel plating covered the walls entirely, save for a huge rectangle of one-way glass that Evan guessed was composed of Lexan.
The room was twenty-two by eighteen feet, precisely as Trevon had described.
Hurtada and Corté s slotted their automatics into a gun rack lining one wall. Hurtada sported two handguns, one on each hip. He drew them both, handing one off to Corté s.
Aiming at Evan from either side, they steered him across the room and stood him before the glass.
He stared at his reflection. Dark beads dripped from his fingertips. His left eye throbbed, a bulge coming up under the brow, crowding the upper lid.
He’d looked better.
An electronic click announced itself over hidden speakers, and Russell Gadds’s voice came over the loudspeakers. “How many of my men did you kill?”
“So far?” Evan said. “Ten.”
“Doesn’t look like you’ll be doing any more damage now.”
When Evan blinked, he felt the bite of crusted blood. He looked down at his slashed-up palms. “No. I guess not. I guess I’m finished.”
The voice came back on and said, “Did you frisk him?”
Corté s nodded at Evan’s ARES and the RoamZone, resting on the battle-scarred table behind them. “Head to toe, chief.”
“Bring him in.”
Hurtada and Corté s pushed Evan toward another reinforced door, which clicked open, and then he was through into an office.
This, too, was just as Trevon had described it. A fancy desk with a leather blotter, complete with gold-plated swivel pen holders. Tables with digital scales and packing materials. Doors leading back down dim corridors, the building octopusing out across the property.
Hurtada and Corté s flanked Evan, guns raised. They were taking no chances. Behind him Evan heard the door shut with a weighty clank that spelled finality.
Russell Gadds was parked at the desk, a pair of cowboy boots resting up on the edge of the desk, looking like a soap-opera bad guy. His bloodshot eyes bulged, pronounced beneath a tumble of shiny dark curls.
He regarded Evan and seemed unimpressed with what he saw. “You’re the one who’s cost me so much?”
Evan said, “Yes.”
“Who hired you?”
“Trevon Gaines.”
Gadds’s boots thunked to the floor as he rocked forward in the chair, his eyes bulging a bit more, one hand slapping the blotter. And then his lips parted, his teeth bared. He made a sound like a laugh.
He covered his mouth, sealing in the sound, and blinked a few times rapidly. Then he took a measured breath. Another. With each one he sank back further into his chair.
Finally he said, “Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do to that retard when I’m done with you?”
Evan said, “No.”
Through the bullet-resistant glass, Evan could hear the other men huddled around the table, joking and laughing.
Gadds made a noise like a whinny, which he muffled beneath closed lips. “Know what they taught me in the classes?”