58. Shootout
Shootout
“It’s him!” I yelled. “Amir! He’s alive!”
“He came back for it?” Spider said, taking a firing position by the door. “What the hell is our backup doing? Where’s our security perimeter?”
“Doesn’t matter. We need to clear the room and connect the Drive.
There’s no time to waste,” Belle said. “I need you, Widow, to lay down some cover fire. I’ll move under your cover fire to the cabinet to our left.
Then, I want you Alex to do the same. Follow me and help secure the left flank.
I want the rest of you to secure the right flank and head down center. ”
“Roger,” Widow said. She moved towards the door and took up a firing position just beside the wall.
Then, immediately turned and opened fire on Amir and his men who were moving towards us.
Belle quickly slipped past and I followed closely behind her.
I opened fire on them the moment I reached the cabinet.
“One down!” I said, taking cover. Amir had hid behind one of the cabinets and fired aggressively at the entrance. “Careful you don’t hit the servers!”
“I want the device back! Give it to me!” Amir shouted.
“The hell we are!” Jerry replied. I watched as he scurried to an old table near the entrance and flipped it over. He was now hiding behind its thick oak wood surface. “Drop your weapons!”
“Then you give me no choice,” Amir said. I watched as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a grenade, removed the pin, and tossed it at Spider. “A little gift from my friends in Iraq for you Americans.”
My heart sunk. At that moment, seconds felt like minutes. I traced the grenade as it bounced across the floor, slid past me, and into the hallway.
“Take cover!” Spider shouted, turning away from it.
But it was too late. The grenade went off showering the entryway with searing heat and penetrating metal shards.
One of the doors was blown off its hinges and collapsed in the hall way.
All movement had stopped on the other side. I couldn’t hear anything anymore.
“Spider! Saint!” I shouted. Suddenly, Belle yanked me to her as more gunfire erupted in my direction.
“Are you crazy!” Belle said, returning fire. “Can’t you see we’re outnumbered. We’ll die if we leave this cover.”
“We’ll die if we stay,” I said. Belle craned her neck to look at the entrance. Smoke and debris filled the air. She turned to me and shook her head.
“You’re right. We can’t afford to die here,” Belle said. “The world depends on it.”
Suddenly, a burst of fire hit just above our heads. We hit the floor and covered the flanks, watching, waiting for the enemy to come.
“I will give you one chance to live. Give me the drive and I will go,” Amir said. “I promise not to kill you once I have it.”
When he said this, I could hear some of the men break into muffled laughter.
I raised my head over and saw Amir calming his men down.
He had at least twelve with him, that I could see, in defensive positions by his side.
Though more were probably hiding behind the servers.
Things were starting to look bleak for me, Belle, and Jerry, who was across the way from me huddled behind a table.
“You have no idea what you’ve done! The damage you’ve caused! What you’ve unleashed on the world,” I said. “Thanks to you, Armageddon is upon us. The world will end if you take the drive.”
“Lies,” Amir said, breaking into laughter. “Do I look like a fool to you? Huh?”
Another several shots hit near me. I can’t tell if he doesn’t understand what he’s done or if he’s too greedy to care.
“Give me what is mine! Now!” Amir shouted. “Or I’ll take it off your corpse. Either way is fine by me.”
“The drive doesn’t have weapons technology you idiot,” Belle said, angering him. “It’s a prototype artificial intelligence program designed for the military. It’s useless to a lightweight black market weapon smuggler scum like you.”
“Lightweight? What this mean?” Amir said, visibly confused. “Artificial what? It was created for the military. That’s good. This is what I need. Now hand it over! Last chance!”
I suddenly felt this darkness overcome me.
Like a hand stretching far over the room; covering me whole.
We were trapped; unable to move from cover.
And Amir was not about to give us the chance to come up with a plan to escape.
It was then that I heard the spine-chilling sound of pins dropping.
One, then another, and yet some more. He planned to level my cover with explosives.
“We need to go, now!” I yelled, grabbing Belle by the arm.
“Too late!” Amir shouted, raising his arm. Several of his men did so as well. Jerry watched in horror as the two of us rushed to the entrance behind us.
Suddenly, Spider emerged, bloodied and limping, with his rifle raised at the hip. We froze.
“Get some!” Spider shouted, spraying the whole area in front of him with rounds.
He went through the magazine in seconds, hitting several of Amir’s men, and causing them to drop the live grenades on the ground around them.
We rushed through the entrance with Jerry closely behind.
What followed was a series of explosions that ripped through the server stacks of the Leonardo super computer.
The molten metal slapped and scraped and bashed its way through everything in its path.
The screams of Amir’s men echoed into the hall as they failed to flee in time.
And Amir? He was nowhere to be seen, when the dust settled. Only bodies and twisted metal remained.