Chapter 12 Close But No Cigar #2
Kane and Chance lurch into position on either side of me, and we open fire at the SUV.
The glass pocks and splinters and spiderwebs, and then shatters.
Red sprays. The vehicle squeals and fishtails to a halt.
The driver is slumped dead over the wheel, but the passenger doors fly open and men disgorge, firing back over the hood.
One of the men is Pugli, who wields a subcompact machine gun, spraying rounds indiscriminately as he hides behind the massive black SUV.
"We have Pugli trapped!" I snap over comms.
Chance and Kane pour suppressive fire at the SUV, switching mags in smooth, practiced alternation while I wait and watch, hoping Pugli shows his face.
One of his men pops up over the hood and I drop him with a lucky shot. Another SUV rounds the corner and rakes to a halt at an angle, windows down, starburst muzzle-fire flashing. This buys the enemy enough time to force us back behind the cover of the corner, and I hear a door slam.
"No!" I shout. "FUCK!" I lurch, foolishly, out from cover, firing from the hip.
Bees buzz past my face. Something sharp and hot slices my cheek, scrapes my scalp.
A powerful hand snags the back of my vest and yanks me backward—this is my salvation.
I feel the quick sharp hot blaze of rounds skating millimeters over my nose as I topple backward.
Chance yanks me like a sack of seed, one-handed, and bodily tosses me to safety while Kane rips off a long suppressing burst.
"You fucking dick!" Chance shouts. "Getting your dumb ass killed won't help us!"
I struggle to my feet and rush forward again. "He’s getting away!"
Tires squeal and Kane keeps firing. I hear glass shatter, hear shouts, but then Kane drops back with us. "Fucking got away.”
"Anyone have eyes on Rafael?" I shout over comms.
"No sign of him," Lash answers. "The container door is open but he never appeared."
A sudden barrage of gunfire echoes, followed by an answering fusillade.
"I'm going in," I hear Inez say. "Si, with me."
"Inez! Wait!" Silas shouts—I hear him on comms and as an echo.
"Fuck," I snarl, and scrabble into a sprint.
Gunfire blasts and rounds whip past me, but I'm beyond caring. I feel Kane and Chance on my heels, hear them firing, but I have thoughts only for Inez. That open door has "trap" all over it, and I fear her determination to see Rafa dead will override her caution.
"Dammit, she went in," Sol says over comms. "Si is with her."
"It's—maze—bolthole—escape—following—" static breaks up her words as the metal blocks her radio's signal.
"A Suburban just flew past us,” Toro says over comms. "Pugli has escaped—I saw only him, however. He is alone, and it looked like he was bleeding."
"With any luck, he'll bleed out," I hear Rev say.
I ignore this, sprinting as hard as I can around corners and down corridors. I must have badly miscalculated our route for us to be so many turns away from the target zone. Guilt and rage and shame ripple through me—I fucked up and compromised the mission.
Pugli escaped.
Rafa is escaping with Inez on his heels—and who the fuck knows what nasty surprises that snake has cooked up in that rabbit warren inside the containers.
"Inez!" I shout. "Come in!"
"Ren—on him—not letting him—away."
"Sophia!" I shout. "It's got to be a trap!"
Something flashes in the corner of my vision, and I drop and whirl on instinct—a round bites through my skin at my hip, glancing painfully off my hipbone at an incredibly lucky angle.
It leaves me bleeding and in serious pain, but in no real danger.
I return fire, taking my target in the groin.
He stumbles, sags, drops to a knee, rifle lifting for another burst. A barrel chatters at my left ear, and I feel the heat of the barrel on my skin.
"You're hit, Ren," Chance says. "C'mon, man, let's get you to safety so I can patch you up."
I jerk out of his hold. "It’s nothing," I snap, "fuck off or follow me."
"Don't speak Portuguese, my guy," Chance rumbles. "But I take it that's a no to safety."
"These fucking bastards won't fucking die!" I shout, still in Portuguese, not caring who understands or who doesn't.
I lurch forward, my injured hip screaming in pain, blood trickling hot down my leg. My previous leg wound is screaming from overuse as well—my whole body is a mass of pain from the various places I've taken wounds, major and minor.
No fucking matter. Inez is all that counts.
A body appears, starburst flashing. A round whickers overhead, another past my left elbow. A third slices along the outside of my thigh. I drop him. And his buddy, who follows him around the corner. Kane drops the next two with bursts to the vests, and I double-tap them as I pass.
Now we're in the thick of things, with Lash's rifle blasting in the distance, taking out targets only he can see, and there's Sol in the doorway of a container, trading bursts with someone inside.
Rev has his back to Sol's, Scarlett is off to one side firing at a target running along the tops of the containers while Saxon kneels nearby, firing in different direction.
We're surrounded and outnumbered, and they're closing in.
"I've got tangos inbound," I hear Fonz say. "Six of 'em, on foot, moving my way. I don't think they know we're here, though." A pause. “They see our vehicles. Fuck. I’ve gotta do something. Girls, stay put. Here's my side piece—"
I tune him out, focusing on reaching that doorway where Sol and Rev are, where Inez went.
I hear gunfire in the distance, hear Fonz in my ear counting dropped tangos like he's keeping score in a video game.
"Do you require backup, Fonz?" Taj asks in his soft, lilting voice. "We are not far away."
"Nah, I got it…" he trails off and I hear a burst echo in concert over the comms and from the distance. "…All…wrapped…up. Fuck you, dickhead, think you can hide there? Take a bullet to the earhole, fucknuts. Yeah, bitch, how you like them apples?"
"Am I as annoying as he is?" Saxon asks.
"Not hardly, brother," Sol answers. "You're far more annoying."
"Oh, fuck you."
"Inez is in there alone!" I shout, sprinting across the open space. "Cut the fucking jokes!"
Solomon rips a burst into the container and then pivots behind cover as a return volley scorches the air where he was. Lungs burning, wounds pulsating agony so potent it leaves me snarling with each searing gasp, I don't so much as hesitate as I barrel into the container at full speed.
Only pure stunned shock saves me; Rafa left a handful of men behind to delay pursuit.
I'm among them before I know what's happening.
I drop my rifle to hang by the strap and lash out with an elbow, catching something hard that gives way with a crunching thunk.
I draw my sidearm and fire it blindly at an upward angle in the general direction of the man I elbowed.
The noise of the shot rings in my ears. I spot movement out of the corner of my eye and strike behind with my foot, catch him in the belly and leave him doubled over and gasping; I fire again, and he drops.
Now I'm surrounded and fists are slamming into me.
I turtle, taking the blows to my back and ribs, and then I hear punches and scuffling and grunting, and then a series of single gunshots.
The blows stop and I lurch into motion, limping as fast as I can, grunting through the pain of each step.
I hear a shout from ahead, but it echoes and distorts. I hear a female shout of anger.
"INEZ!" I scream. "I'm coming!"
I hear feet behind me but spare no thought or time for who it may be. I don't care.
A gunshot rings out, echoing weirdly.
I turn the first corner—the container that was open was more of a foyer, just an empty container with a few metal barrels overturned to create a firing position near a doorway cut through the walls.
Here, the ambient light from outside isn't enough to cut the gloom, and I bring my rifle up and turn on the under-barrel flashlight attachment.
Here I see the evidence of Rafael's presence: the metal walls are covered with rugs to absorb sound and soften the harshness of the bare metal, and another rug covers the floor.
On the rug is a couch and coffee table, with a battery-operated camping lantern providing harsh white lighting.
A stack of paperback novels rests on the table, one of them propped open on its spine.
A cigarette smolders in an ashtray near the open book and a green glass bottle of wine stands half-empty, a red Solo cup near it.
The smoke twists up to the ceiling and vanishes through some cleverly hidden ventilation.
I take all this in as I pass through, hurdling the couch on my way to the next opening cut through the walls. The next container/chamber contains a porta-potty, the smell from which is truly awful, being trapped inside the container.
I hear another shot, a third.
My light beam sweeps the next opening—blood is smeared on the wall from someone bouncing off of it.
A puddle of blood turns the floor slick and slippery, and I see a heel mark skidding through it, and another footprint directly in the middle of it—this gives me hope that the blood belongs to Rafa rather than Sophia.
A fourth container is empty but for a ladder leading up through a hole in the floor/ceiling; the rungs are coated in blood. The dull copper of a spent shell glitters in the beam as I sweep it across the container, still half on the ladder. Another casing rolls lazily toward me.
I hear feet clomping on metal directly above me, and then Inez's muffled voice.
A gunshot.
Inez’s voice is silent.
"No, no, no," I snarl under my breath, hauling myself into the chamber and sprinting forward; the path now is a straight line following the long axis of four containers, an eighty-foot stretch that I sprint down, gasping raggedly, doggedly ignoring the excruciating pain in my hip.
At the end of the fourth container is another ladder up, which I ascend recklessly fast, intent only on catching up to Rafael and Inez.
I emerge in yet another empty container, hobble through it to another ladder leading up.
Here, however, daylight spears down in a circular spotlight.
Scrambling up, I emerge blinking into daylight.
A hundred or so yards away, at the end of the containers, the waters of the Port of LA glitter and ripple and glint.
I'm just in time to see Rafael dodge a vicious swing of the long black blade in Inez's fist. His left arm is bathed red, blood dripping from his fingers as he dances lithely away from Inez's wild swings.
She's screaming in a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, an occasional curse in English sprinkled in—she's almost incoherent.
Gone is Inez's legendary icy calm. This is a creature born of her unleashed rage and hate.
My hip and leg are both ready to give out whether I will it or not, so I hobble-hop-limp from container to container, pistol in my hands as I try to draw bead on Rafa. Their fight is messy and chaotic, leaving me no clear shot.
Rafael spots me first, grinning evilly through a split lip and bloody nose.
He's weaponless but far from helpless—Rafael is no stranger to combat, armed and unarmed.
Normally, he'd pose no real threat to someone like Inez, but she's not in control anymore, and her left leg is bathed in blood.
She's slowing, shaking her head as if disoriented or concussed.
She swipes at Rafael with her knife, catching him across the belly; she opens his skin and looses a ribbon of blood down his front, but it's no mortal wound.
And it's a mistake.
Rafael surges inside her reach, slamming a knee into her gut, grabs a fistful of hair and shirt, spins, and hurls her bodily into space.
"SOPHIA!" I shout, forcing myself into a run again.
I'm too late.
Always too late.
Rafael throws himself after Inez. I have less than thirty feet to the edge, and I cross it in quick time considering the state of my wounds, but it's too late, too late, too late.
A boat snarls to life. I stumble to the edge, pistol held in a Weaver grip, aimed down at the Zodiac seventy feet below, bobbing in the waters of the port.
Rafael is clambering over the side, panting.
The driver of the boat grabs him by the waist of his jeans and hauls him in one-handed.
Rafael grins up at me as he reaches down and yanks Inez's head up to show me her red-bathed face, unconscious and bleeding.
I fire at the boat, but my shot goes low, slicing into the water behind the speeding away rubber craft. I'm in motion, leaping off the container—only to be jerked back by a powerful hand.
"I don't think so, bro," Rev's voice rumbles in my ear. "You ain’t catchin' that fuckin' thing, especially not with that wound."
"Sophia," I whisper, sagging against Rev's hold, suddenly exhausted beyond comprehension, my aches and injuries catching up to me all at once.
"They're going to that yacht," Rev says—not to me. His voice is in my ear again. "We'll get her back, brother. Promise."
My knees hit metal and darkness swells behind my eyes. The rubber boat bounces across the water toward the mid-sized yacht anchored half a mile or so out—in the middle of the shipping lane, of all places.
I watch as it reaches the yacht, slows. Hands roughly pass a small figure up into the yacht, and then Rafael's figure follows on his power, although even from here I can tell he's badly hurt and moving slowly.
CRACK!
The driver of the Zodiac abruptly flinches, wavers, and topples backward over the motor into the water. Distant shouts float across the water.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
Splashes announce Lash's accuracy.
"Fuck," Lash snarls across the comms. "The cowardly dog is using our Sophia as a shield. I cannot shoot for fear of hitting her."
The yacht rumbles to life, twists in the water, and lurches into motion, angling away from the port and toward open sea.
"Sophia!"
I failed her.
He has her…again.
I cannot see her surviving him a third time.
Woozy now, I hear Rev's voice, Solomon's, Silas's.
Hands lift me, and I try to find my feet, but the darkness drags me under.