Johnny Wylde Page 13
***
“How about those SAWs?” Deon asked Joe and Marcus. The two gunfighters fussed over their new toys, double checking linked belts rolling out of plastic boxes mounted on the receiver.
“Rocking and rolling,” Marcus said. “Wish I’d had one of these back in the day.”
“You make that delivery?” Deon said.
Joe and Marcus exchanged big grins.
“Oh, yeah,” Joe said.
“Hope he doesn’t lose his head,” Marcus said.
He and Joe burst into laughter.
Deon shook his head, guilty pleasure on his face. “Bloody wankers.”
***
Nina pulled her squad into a NO PARKING spot four doors down from the address Mr. Minh had given her.
“How do you want to play this?” I said.
“I’m not very subtle,” Nina said. “How about we go knock on the door, see who answers? If it’s one of our guys, let’s beat the shit out of him, put cuffs on him, and put him in my car. If he goes for something, let’s shoot the shit out of him, put cuffs on him, and call for the Coroner. How’s that for a plan?”
“Are you fucking serious?”
She laughed. “Hang on, cowboy. This here mare is about to kick up a fuss.”
She got out of the car at the same time I did, and it was as though she transformed when her boots hit the pavement. I’d seen it so many times, and it was the validation of my intuition about her -- this was a fighter, a warrior, putting on her game face.
I’d never seen that in a woman before.
There were many facets to Nina Capushek.
She shook her shoulders, settling her gear into place, walked off like a heroine from a manga film. I had to notice, as she walked away, what a great ass she had.
I followed. When in Rome…
I scanned high and far, low and close as we approached the house. This was what was politely called a “transitional” neighborhood; there were plenty of street creatures transitioning themselves to the windows to take a look at what they took for two cops closing in on a neighbor’s house.
Nobody poked a gun out a window.
Nina bounded up the stairs, hammered on the door with the bottom of her fist, stepped to one side. I stood off at an angle. She swept her leather coat back out of the way, acquired a grip on her weapon (Glock 21 with shaved grips, I noted), stood braced.
Hell yeah.
What a woman.
Nobody answered.
Nina hammered again.
Nothing.
“Let’s go around the back,” she said. She led the way through the side yard, opened up a leaning gate, entered a trash littered back yard. There were recent car tracks in the back, out in the snow alley behind the houses. Nina peeked in the back windows. “Nobody here, looks like.”
She tried the door. Locked.
“Let’s try that restaurant,” she said. “Maybe they’re looking for a late lunch.”
***
“What do you want to eat?” Ho asked Vladi.
“Eat? I’m not hungry.”
“You must eat,” Ho said reasonably. “Better to have something in your stomach. I would think you would know that.”
“I can’t eat this slop.”
Ho said something to his friends, who laughed at Vladi, setting his already heated state closer to rage.
“We will eat. I will order you some soup, some spring rolls. Very good.”
He went to the door, opened it and went up a flight of stairs to the restaurant above. Came back in a minute with a tiny Vietnamese girl in black pants and a black sequined tube top, teetering on absurdly high heels. The Vietnamese shooters chattered at her as she scribbled their orders down on a slip of paper.
Vladi stared at her ass as she left.
“Pretty soon,” Ho said. He sat down at a chipped and battered table with his friends, long guns laid casually out on one end of the table. Cigarettes came out, and smoke wreathed the room. The Loner .45 Man, eyes hidden behind his Oakley wrap arounds, stared at Vladi.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Vladi said.
The Loner continued to stare until Ho said something sharply. Then he grinned, drew long on his cigarette, and blew smoke in Vladi’s direction.
Vladi turned and gave him his back, stalked back and forth in the room.
***
“Oh, that’s some nasty shit,” Leroi said. “My main fucking man…”
“We’re not sitting still for this shit,” Steep Ride said. “Get the fucking cars.”
“Where we going?”
“Motherfucker supposed to be in this restaurant down in Viet Town.”
“We going to shoot up a fucking restaurant?”
“You got a problem, nigger? That’s my homie, there…”
“Fuck no. You want to shoot up a fucking restaurant, I’m down. Shit. Maybe we get something to eat, too.”
There was no laughter in the room.
Only the metallic song of weapons locked and loaded.
***
The Vietnamese waitress brought down a tray with several bowls. It took her three trips up and down the stairs to bring all the food and drinks they’d ordered. Vladi grudginly accepted the iced coffee that Ho made for him. It reminded him of sweetened Russian tea, the way his father had made it in an ancient samovar back in Slovenia. The rest of them dug into their soup, wielding chopsticks and soup spoons in a deft display of ambidextrous eating.
Vladi shoved a chair into a corner, beside a door that led to another basement store room with a delivery chute for sliding boxes down from the sidewalk above.
He hated to wait.
***
Two black Escalades rolled, a three man crew in each. One driver up front, the wheelman, two shooters in the rear seat, one at each window. Weapons were out of sight, and the tinted windows hid the occupants from other cars and pedestrians.
“What you want to listen to?” Steep Ride’s wheelman, Bump, said.
“Classic shit,” Steep Ride. “Give me some Tupac.”
The massive speakers mounted in the back began to shake the SUV.
***
“What’s the name of this place?” I said.
“The Golden Rooster,” Nina said. “Should be half way down the block, left hand side.”
Two black Escalades, windows shaking with heavy bass, whipped past us on the left, the tinted windows hiding the occupants.
Nina slowed the car, let the Escalades speed ahead.
“I don’t like the look of that,” she said.
I’d already eased my Sokol Combat Commander out, had it ready in my right hand. Sometimes you just know.
This was one of those times.
I took mental inventory: I only had the one pistol, with two spare mags, gave me a grand total of 29 rounds with the two spares being 10-round McCormick’s. Should have thought about that before -- no such thing as too much ammo in a gunfight. At least Nina had a .45, though I couldn’t see myself reloading a mag on the fly.
Fuck.
I hate to be caught short.
Nina slowed more, came to a stop, ignored the horns from behind her.
“Are they pulling up in front of the restaurant?”
“Looks like it.”
Fuck.
Nina picked up her handset. “Dispatch, this is 894. Roll back up to 147 West Lynnette, Golden Rooster Restaurant. Two black Escalades, looks like a drive-by…tell them to come heavy.”
“10-4, 894. Rolling heavy to 147 West Lynette.”
Nina stared, hawk-like, at the two Escalades as they rolled to a stop right in front of the Golden Rooster. The rear doors popped open, and two teams of two shooters rolled out, rifles out and ready; the drivers got out and stood by the doors of the SUVs.
“Well, fuck me,” Nina said. She hit the rear trunk release. “Let’s go.”
We rolled out of the squad. Nina ran to the rear, pulled out a M-4 carbine and an Active Shooter shoulder bag. “Here,” she said. �
�You’re probably better with this than me.”
I probably was. I pulled a magazine from the shoulder bag, slammed it home, racked back the bolt, pulled back the retaining handle to make sure I had a round chambered, thumbed the safety to Semi. Slung the shoulder bag, ran after Nina, who was already jogging ahead, big Glock in her hand…
***
Steep Ride hit the door first, kicked it open, entered and fired a short burst into the ceiling.
“Get the fuck down! Get the fuck down!” he shouted.
They got the fuck down -- customers diving for the floor, tables tilting, soup bowls flying -- screams in English and any number of Asian dialects, and Steep Ride didn’t give a fuck about understanding them, everybody speaks gun when one is pointed at them, and that’s what counts when you enter kicking and shooting.
He grabbed the nearest waitress by the neck. “The Russian, bitch! Where the fuck is the Russian!”
She screamed in Vietnamese.
“Speak English, bitch! Where the fuck is the Russian?”
Leroi laughed from behind him. “Hung duc thao!”
Steep Ride threw the girl down, turned to Leroi. “What the fuck is that?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I saw it in a movie.”
***
In the basement, all of Ho and Vladi’s crew turned their heads in the direction of the gunfire.
And reached for their weapons.
***
“Fuck me,” Nina said when she heard the shots go off.
We were almost on the drivers, three cars away, but the rear guard saw us, pointed his AK and let off a burst. Windows shattered on the car we hid behind. I popped up, carbine snug against my neck, centered the front sight post on his chest, squeezed the trigger once twice three four five times (Non-Standard Response, my inner coach murmured) watched with a familiar satisfaction as he fell out of my sight picture…
Nina rolling out in a crouch from behind the wheel well of the Ford Escort chipping away in pieces from the rifleman’s rounds, now joined by his partner, angling out away from her cover (stay behind, I thought, till I saw that she was addressing her back stop, civilians on the walk…) the Glock rising, falling in her grip, brass gleaming in a slow motion arc from the pistol to the sidewalk…
….I angled to my right, ran forward to the next car up, muzzle of the carbine tracking, saw the remaining rifleman take a hit to his hand, a round glancing off the receiver of his AK (woman could shoot, focused in on the gun, happens all the time in a gun fight) walked the rounds into his chest, staggering him, a big guy, her shots a steady cadence punching red holes in his white jersey, till he toppled, slowly, a building falling into dust and ruin…
…I put two in him just on general principle…
…Nina ran forward, tactical reload on the run, dropping the expended mag in her jacket pocket…
…and I would always remember the look on her face: grim determination, a face pinched white with adrenaline, eyes narrowed, fierce, a bird of prey swooping down, fixated on her target, and under that the exultation of a killer, something you will never understand till you’ve crossed the line into that country…
…something we’d both done…
I heard sirens, far off and growing.
“Wait, Nina!” I shouted.
She made no sign that she heard me, ran toward the screams and the gunfire inside the restaurant. It wasn’t a question of whether she was going in or not; it was a question of who was going with her.
Hell yeah.
Lead the fucking way.
We went through the door shoulder to shoulder.
***
“Downstairs! Downstairs!” the frightened waitress shrieked.
Steep Ride threw her aside, punched his AK out to arm’s length, and went down the stairs, emptying a magazine on full-auto as he went, plucking a new one from his pocket as he knelt, Leroi shooting over his head, keep up the fire…
***
The thin wooden door shredded with the bullets coming through it. Vladimir leaped up and grabbed his rifle, turned to face the door…
…Ho and his friends moved with the quick efficiency of a military team, began to return fire with disciplined bursts at the unseen opponents coming down the stairs…
***
Nina and I entered hard, weapons ready.
The last of the black gunmen, facing to the rear, a disciplined rear guard, fired in our direction. I never heard the shots -- hearing was gone -- but saw the flash and felt the percussion as his weapon went off, saw in the strange slow motion that comes with that adrenaline dump the graceful arc of brass casings rising out of his weapon even as I acquired the sight picture and side stepped clear of Nina, rolled the trigger again one two three times was all it took before he fell out of my sight picture, and then Nina was moving forward in an economical scuttle, pistol locked out, and I saw the flash of weapons firing in a stair well going down to the basement…
***
“Who the fuck?” Steep Ride said, his attention split as he looked back as rounds came from behind him and in front of him…
The rearmost shooter, Pee Wee, turned and fired a burst back up the stairwell.
“Somebody! I think it’s cops!” Pee Wee shouted.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Steep Ride screamed in frustration.
Fucked either way. May as well go straight ahead.
So he did, shouting, “C’mon motherfuckers!”
***
Ho and his crew held their line. Vladimir fell back towards the door that led to the deep basement and the delivery chute. He ran in, tugged the lever that released the chute and jumped out of the way as the heavy iron ramp dropped with a clang that could be heard even over the heavy boom and rattle of automatic weapons in the next room.
He stuck his head back in the room and waved his arm.
“This way! Out this way!”
Ho and his crew paid no attention.
Loner .45 Man was laughing, his shotgun shouldered, spraying heavy rounds of 00 Buck up the stairwell. He dropped back, grabbing a handful of shells out of his bag and thumbing them into the magazine of his Benelli.
Bullets tore into the wall above Vladimir’s head.
He stepped in, grabbed at Ho’s sleeve. The Vietnamese snarled as he tore his arm away.
“Shoot!” Ho shouted.
“This way! Out to the street!” Vladimir shouted back.
The blood lust cleared in Ho’s eyes, then he fell back, his crew, all of them untouched despite the rain of metal pouring through the funnel of the door, moving back, discipline still with them, short controlled bursts into the doorway, and then two of them held a position while the rest scrambled up the metal ramp…
***
It seemed as though there was a lull, and that was enough to get Steep Ride running forward. He was hit someplace on his legs, and he felt wet on his face. He hit the door and emptied his weapon in a wild spray across the room.
Empty.
And suddenly quiet as the rest of his crew rushed in, weapons at the ready.
“What the fuck?”
***
I grabbed Nina by the back of her jacket.
“We’re not going down there,” I said.
She spun and knocked my hand away. “Don’t ever touch me.”
“Easy,” I said.
She was high on the rush, her eyes slitted in the killer’s glare.
“We’re not going down there,” I said again, lowering my voice and bringing my hand down slowly and carefully.
She leaned forward to hear me better, and that was what I was looking for…break the state just a little to get her cooled down enough.
“Wait for the big guns,” I said. “Is there a way out of the basement?”
The gunfire ceased downstairs.
Nina grabbed a waitress. “Look, you’re okay,” she said. “Is there another way into the basement?”
“To the street,” the girl said. “On the street behind.”
&n
bsp; “Call that in,” I said. “Let the responding units go around back. We’ll stay here in case they come up, protect the civilians…”
***
Vladimir and Ho and the rest of the shooters backed away from the lowered ramp, weapons at the ready.
“Where are the cars?” Vladimir said.
“In the fucking parking lot where we left them, where do you think?” Ho snapped. He shouted something in Vietnamese, and his shooters formed into two pairs, making the base legs of an X around the open delivery chute gaping in the sidewalk. “They will watch…we will get the cars.”
He walked quickly around the corner, Vladimir in his wake.
Across the street, laid out prone in the back of a pick up truck with the gate lowered, a tarp over his head, Marcus whispered into his headset.
“Should we let them go or take them now?”
Further down the street, proned out beneath a high clearance 4x4 Bronco, Deon whispered, “They’ll be back for the others. Wait.”
On the rooftop of the old warehouse across the street, Joe peered through the Kahles scope mounted on his HK PSG-1 and whispered, “Roger that. Acquired.”
***
“Motherfuckers went up that!” Leroi said, pointing.
“No shit?” Steep Ride. “You think? What the fuck you waiting for?”
Preceded by bullets, up the ramp they ran.
***
Ho’s shooters were patient as they had learned to be. Fresh magazines were in place, they rose up on their toes and back down, controlled their breathing with a sharp in and hold for two, exhale for two, inhale for two…
They were ready.
They didn’t fire back as the rounds came whistling up the ramp; they gave themselves plenty of room for the massed undisciplined pack of Steep Ride’s shooters to come into their sight pictures.
And now they were there…
***
“SHIT!” Steep Ride screamed as he saw Ho’s shooters.
And it was on…
***
Marcus couldn’t control his laughter. “Jesus, what a goatfuck,” he whispered into his headset. “Where’s Quentin Tarantino when you need him?”
“I think this is more John Woo,” Joe said over the net. “Dig the guy with the two .45s, will you?”
Deon laughed, then said, “Right then, okes…on my fire…”