| |
The flash-bang grenade was small and cylindrical, its highly reactive magnesium core partially shielded by a heavy-duty aluminum shell that was perforated with holes like a piece of Swiss cheese. Bones instantly recognized it as it sailed through the air toward them. Before it could hit the floor, he turned away and dove across the desk, tackling Rose to the ground behind it. The desk would shield them from the one million candle-power magnesium flash, but there wasn’t much he could do about the bang except tilt his head to the right, partially covering his ear with a shrugged shoulder. The standard stun grenade produced 180 decibels of sound, a noise louder than a jet engine or a shotgun blast.
In the confined space of the small office, it hit like a sledge-hammer.
Bones’ bell had been rung by flash-bangs plenty of times during SEAL training exercises, and he knew how to cope with the disorienting aftermath, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant. A loud whining sound, like the noise of a hospital EKG flatlining, pierced through Bones’ skull. He felt like he was on a spinning merry-go-round, unable to tell which way was up, and knew that if he tried to stand, he would immediately crash sideways.
He knew what he would not be able to do, but he also knew what he still could do.
Twisting around, he got his hands on the edges of the desktop, and then without rising, started pushing, shoving the desk across the room.
He got only a few feet before the desk struck something. The sudden jolt caused Bones to slip and fall forward, but as his face hit the floor, he glimpsed a pair of shoes protruding through the narrow gap at the bottom of the desk.
That explained the abrupt stop. He had just run into someone.
They weren’t Willis’ shoes, so Bones figured they had to belong to the same person who had tossed the flash-bang into the room.
Bones scrambled forward again, thrusting head and shoulders into the kneehole beneath the desk, and then stood up, erupting off the floor like a jack-in-the-box, heaving the desk forward as he did.
The desk tilted away, the top slamming the unseen attacker backward, but because Bones was still woozy from the flashbang, he reeled sideways and crashed onto the overturned desk. There was a stabbing pain in his chest as he struck its underside. That discomfort would be nothing compared to what a bullet might do if he didn’t keep moving, but he allowed himself a triumphant smile as he spotted the shoes again, now protruding from under the desk like the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East sticking out from under Dorothy’s house. It was too soon to declare victory though. Bad guys, like Wicked Witches, usually had back-up.
The air in the office was thick with smoke, but through the haze, Bones saw Willis darting toward him, evidently a lot more steady on his feet than Bones was. Willis knelt and scooped up a pistol, outfitted with a sound suppressor, and aimed it toward the door.
It took Bones a few seconds to register the fact that Willis was shouting at him. He still couldn’t hear a thing, but when Willis pointed back at Rose, he was able to make a rough guess.
Get the girl.
Something like that anyway.
Bones rolled off the desk, but stayed on hands and knees, unsure of his equilibrium. He reached Rose a few seconds later, shaking her gently to get her attention. Her eyes met his—a good sign—and her lips moved.
“I can’t hear you,” he shouted.
She shook her head and pointed to her ears.
“Oh. You can’t hear me either.” He pointed at the door, where Willis was poised to shoot at the first sign of a threat. “We have to go.”
She nodded, seeming to understand, but then reached out and grabbed something off the floor beside her.
The tomahawk head.
Bones brought himself to one knee, then cautiously rose to his feet.
So far, so good. He extended a hand to Rose, helped her to her feet, and without letting go, led her toward the door, tapping Willis’ shoulder to let him know they were ready to move out.
There was a body lying just beyond the entrance, a Caucasian man wearing a hoodie, splotched with blood from a pair of entry wounds in his chest, and still holding a silenced pistol in one outstretched hand. As they stepped past, Bones bent down, planning to help himself to the weapon, but Rose squeezed his hand to get his attention and shook her head. She lashed out with a foot, kicking the pistol, sending it skittering away across the carpeted floor. Then she grabbed Willis’ hand, indicating that he should leave the other gun behind as well.
He stared at her like she was crazy, and said something, possibly to that effect.
Rose shouted something that was either an obscenity or Trust me.
Probably the latter.
Willis frowned, but then thumbed the magazine release and racked the slide to clear the chamber, before wiping the pistol down with the edge of his T-shirt and tossing it back into the office.
“Great,” Bones muttered. “Now we’re unarmed.”
But just a few seconds later, he realized the wisdom of her decision.
Although he couldn’t hear it, a fire alarm was blaring, probably triggered by the smoke from the flash-bang. Flashing strobe lights mounted high on the walls were showing the way to the fire stairs, and people were already streaming out of the other offices on the floor, heading for the exit. He assumed that they had all heard the noise of the grenade detonating, but not the subsequent shots. As far as anyone knew, it was a fire emergency, not an active shooter event, which would have necessitated a different, more defensive response—locking down the building and sheltering in place until the SWAT team arrived. If he and Willis—who were not only physically imposing, but conspicuously not white—were spotted running through the building with guns drawn, they probably wouldn’t make it past the front door. Unarmed as they were, they could simply go with the flow.
That would get them out of the building at least, but if the two goons who had just tried to kill them had brought along reinforcements, they would be up the creek.
Hang on a sec, Bones thought. What the hell just happened?
While he was no stranger to life-and-death situations, he usually had some idea of who the bad guys were and what they wanted. This attack had come completely out of the blue.
Suppressed weapons. Flash-bang grenades. Military-grade hardware. Whomever their enemy was, they had access to some serious firepower, and they weren’t afraid to use it in a crowded public place.
But who had they been targeting? And why?
This wouldn’t be the first time that he stumbled into the middle of someone else’s problem. Maybe Rose had pissed somebody off with one of her lesson plans. But the timing of the attack just didn’t feel like a coincidence.
The tomahawk? He shook his head. No. That’s crazy.
Even if the hatchet had belonged to the real Captain Falcon, at best, it was a collector’s item. And who else besides them even knew of the discovery?
He would have posed the questions out loud, but since he wouldn’t have been able to hear the answer, what was the point? If Rose knew the answers, she would tell them when they were safe—and able to talk with their inside voices. Until then, all that mattered was staying alive.