Chapter Fifty
Fifty
Court had wanted to take the pistol off the man he killed, but he was chased out of the room by more gunfire.
Jim had said the catwalk wasn’t structurally sound, but apparently one of the attackers didn’t get the memo and had gone up there, giving him a decent overlook of this portion of the large structure.
Court entered the hallway the dead man had just come through and was surprised to find it empty. This gave him the impression that the six attackers had all split up, and this made for an even more chaotic situation.
One was dead, for sure; he didn’t know if the man his dad had fired at had been hit or had only dropped his flashlight, and there was someone up above somewhere, as well.
Court knew his dad would make his way to the Speakeasy, and he planned on meeting up with him there.
But before Court could get to the Speakeasy, he saw another glow of a light, farther up the hall, coming from a room they called the Boardroom, because a massive plywood table had been erected down the center of it as a role-playing aid.
Court imagined the table was long rotted away, but he knew the shape of the room and knew people could find cover in there, so he ducked off to his right into a smaller room they called the Guest Bedroom, because it had once been used for an overflow housing area when people came to train.
In here, Court was immediately drenched with rain dripping from the leaking tin roof.
The catwalk above him had collapsed, and rotten wood covered the floor.
He had to pick his way carefully through the darkness, because he didn’t want to shine his light and give his position away to anyone on the catwalk.
If he hadn’t left his father behind, he would have never made it back to the Tomb without getting shot, and then the enemy would have simply just shot up the Tomb itself, probably killing his dad.
He hadn’t heard any more firing, so he imagined his father was right now making his way through the little tunnel to the Speakeasy.
That meant—for a moment, anyway—the old man was safe.
But Court had to get to the Speakeasy himself, and that meant he had to face whoever was up on the catwalk behind him, and whoever was in the room or the hall in front of him.
He had four bullets in his revolver, and another six in his pocket.
—
Campbell Coyle knelt in a muddy and dark CONNEX box on the eastern side of the building and called over his earpiece, checking his team.
One by one, they called in. “This is Alfie, I’m on the catwalk. I can move forward, but it feels like this floor is going to fall in. Also, I don’t want to use my light, so I’m not doing much up here, but I shot at movement below me a minute ago.”
“This is Gavin. I’m shot in the hand. I lost my flashlight. I’m hiding back near the entrance we came in. I still have my gun, though. Anybody comes this way and I’ll blast the fucker.”
“Nolan here. I’m in a hall somewhere, going into a room. By myself, I can’t see or hear anything since the shooting a minute ago.”
“This is Barry. I’m moving through the room where the shooting came from. There’s a little closet here. I smell gun smoke. Somebody was just here, probably the guy that shot Gav.”
It was quiet for a moment, and then Campbell said, “Jack? Jack, are you with us?”
Barry spoke up again. “Jack is here, facedown. He’s dead.”
Campbell sighed. He was still outside, moving to one of the entrances on the east side.
If Jack was dead, his brother Alfie, up on the catwalk, was probably about to do something stupid.
He said, “Alfie. Concentrate on the job. Move carefully on that catwalk. I’m going to come up there with you and assist, yeah? Don’t you bloody shoot me.”
The Northern Irishman began moving into the massive dilapidated building.
He didn’t know why he was here, what this location was to Court Gentry other than the building next door to and behind his da’s home, but it was already sounding like Court and his father knew their way around.
That would give them an advantage, but Campbell Coyle had spent time in plenty of shoot houses doing training, so he wasn’t worried.
He held his pistol high and moved through the darkness, as another burst of gunfire kicked off somewhere ahead of him.
—
Court heard fire around the structure. It was undisciplined, and he knew it wasn’t his dad. More like one of the men with Coyle had seen a shadow and dumped rounds toward it.
He moved to a fortified wall that separated the Guest Bedroom, where he was, from the Boardroom, where he’d noticed a light from a doorway moments ago. He worried about someone on the catwalk, but they would have to be far behind him, because the upper level here seemed to be completely caved in.
And this cave-in had given him an idea. He found a fallen cluster of boards leaning against the fortified wall, and he slipped his revolver in the small of his back and then began climbing up.
He wasn’t silent, but the rain beating down on the roof was so loud that he wasn’t worried about making noise.
He made it to the top; he was on the wall now looking down into the Boardroom. It was too dark to see anything in there, but he drew his Smith and Wesson and his flashlight and got ready.
Well aware there was someone up high, maybe twenty-five yards or so behind him, he knew he’d have to act quickly.
He flipped on the light, and immediately saw a man in a raincoat below him. The man’s gun was up and pointed towards the doorway that led across the hall and, ultimately, to the Speakeasy.
The man swung his pistol in the direction of the light. Court fired twice into him, spinning him around and out into the hall, and then Court quickly rolled over the top of the wall, off the felled piece of catwalk that he’d climbed to get here, and dropped down into the Boardroom.
A volley of at least ten gunshots followed. Someone on the catwalk was shooting at him, but he’d made it behind the fortified wall. Tires filled with dirt and railroad ties protected him from the bullets of the shooter, though he heard impacts on the other side.
Court had landed hard on a stack of timber, rolled down into the muck on the concrete floor, and found himself in some foliage here. He heard the sound of a skittering rodent taking off to find some other place to hide.
Court had two rounds in the revolver, and the enemy, an enemy that was no doubt in comms with each another, knew exactly what room he was in.
The man up on the catwalk could direct others to either of the two entrances.
On his right, a hallway led to the eastern side of the building, more halls and rooms, and to the left, he just had to cross a hall to get into the Speakeasy, where he assumed his dad was waiting for him.
He opened the cylinder of the pistol quickly, dropped all the shells into his hand in the darkness, then reloaded the two unspent cartridges, letting the spent shells fall to the floor.
He pulled three more bullets from the strip clip in his pocket, slipped them into the cylinder, and slammed it shut with a hard flick of his right hand.
Then Court rose and moved towards the exit, in the direction of the Speakeasy, hoping he’d get lucky and find the gun of the dead man there so he would have a backup.
—
Campbell Coyle called over his earpiece, his voice as low as he could make it while still being heard over the thunderstorm that seemed to be beating the building apart around him.
“Alfie. What happened?”
“A man shined a light and fired, went over a wall. Twenty yards in front of me and to the right.”
Coyle knew this would be Court; it didn’t sound like an old man’s maneuver, so he asked his four remaining team to call in.
“Alfie moving forward on the catwalk.”
“Gavin still on the west side. Watching several exits.”
“Barry here. I’m in the hall right behind where the last shooting happened. I’m taking cover. Waiting to hear someone tell me which way to go.”
There was no response from Nolan Walsh.
Both sets of brothers had lost a member. Alfie Donnelly, Gavin Walsh, and Barry Walsh were all Campbell Coyle had left.
He considered pulling everyone back and out of the building, but the storm would end at some point, the police would arrive at some point, and Campbell knew that the fact that Court’s dad was here could be used to his advantage.
He wanted to end this, right here, and then he wanted to go back home.
Coyle said, “Alfie, I’ll come up the catwalk on your right. You keep going forward, try to see into that room the target went to.”
Coyle found a broken wooden staircase and carefully began climbing.
—
Court gave up on finding the gun the man had dropped; it must have fallen out into the hallway, and there were eight access points with a view to that area, so Court wasn’t about to hang out there in the hall with a flashlight.
Instead, he took a big breath, let it out, and then sprinted across the hall and into the Speakeasy.
Gunfire came from above and from up the hallway, two shooters, both on his left.
But he made it into the room, immediately covered the area with his gun, then raced around a faux wooden bar that ran along the left-hand wall, because that was where the access from King Tut’s Tomb led.
He got back there, knelt, then quickly flashed his light. In front of him, he saw his dad sitting on his butt on the concrete, leaning against the bar and adjusting his glasses.
There was blood on his hand and smeared on his face. Court crawled to him through a puddle that was a couple inches deep. “You’re hit?”
Jim said, “Put my hand through a fucking nail crawling through that damn tunnel.” He held it up. It was his shooting hand, and the nail hole was bloody and ragged, but small.
“Shit,” Court said. “Can you shoot?”
“Hell yeah. Hey, son. Remember when this place was a lot more fun?”
“When both it and we were twenty-five years younger, and the bullets weren’t real? Yeah, I remember.”
“The good ole days.”