Dan Simmons - Hardcase

Suddenly the radio crackled again. It was Darren.

"Warren? Warren? We found this Kurtz's guy's hidey-hole on six! He ain't here, but we found a cot and sleeping bag and shit. Warren?"

Warren did not answer.

"Warren?" came Douglas's voice.

"Warren?" said Andrew from his place near the front hall on the first floor.

"Shut up, Andrew!" said Darren and Douglas together. Then, also together, they said, "Warren? Warren?"

Warren didn't answer.

"Y'all better get back up there," said Andrew.

This time his two older brothers did not tell him to shut up. There was a silence broken only by static-crackle and then Douglas said, "Yeah. You stay where you are, Andrew. If you see somethin' move, don't shoot until you're sure it ain't us comin' down. If it ain't us, kill it."

"Okay," said Andrew.

"An' stay the hell off the radio," said Darren.

"Okay," said Andrew. He could hear the clicks as they turned their radios off.

Andrew stood silent for what seemed a very long time. He was still turning slowly, trying to get used to the glowing greenish world of the night-vision goggles, but even the light-saber game wasn't any fun anymore. Nothing moved from the east stairwell. The elevator remained silent. Water dripped. Finally Andrew couldn't stand it any longer. He pressed the transmit button on the small sports walkie-talkie. "Warren?"

Silence.

"Douglas? Darren?"

No answer. Andrew repeated the call and then shut his own radio off. He was getting nervous.

It was lighter in the big middle part of the warehouse—the part that Warren had called the atrium—and Andrew moved into the huge, echoing space, looking up more than seven stories to the glowing skylight almost one hundred feet above him. It was only reflected city light bouncing off clouds coming through the skylight, but it flared up so much in Andrew's goggles that he was blinded for a second. He raised his free hand to wipe the tears from his eyes, but the stupid night-vision goggles were in the way.

Andrew looked up at the top floor, where floor-to-ceiling plastic reflected the light differently than did the cold brick of the first six floors, but nothing was visible through the thick plastic. He lifted the radio again.

"Warren, Douglas, Darren? Y'all all right?"

As if in answer there came seven shots—very rapid, very loud, not silenced at all—and suddenly a terrible ripping and screaming from high up near the skylight.

Andrew swung the Bullpup assault rifle up.

There was a hole in the plastic way up there on the seventh floor. Worse than that, something huge and loud was screaming and flapping its way down toward him. Through his goggles, the thing looked like some gigantic, misshapen, greenish white bat-thing with one blazing eye. Its wings must have been twenty feet long, and they were flapping wildly, now streaming behind the body of the bat like rippling ribbons of white fire. The bat was screeching as it fell toward him.

Andrew emptied the generous clip of the Bullpup at the apparition. He had time to see that the burning eye of the thing was actually the dot of his laser beam and also to see several of his slugs hit home, tearing into the spinning, flapping bat-thing, but the screaming continued—grew worse, if anything.

Andrew jumped back into the atrium doorway, but kept shooting— phut! phut! phut! phut! — he had never heard a silenced weapon on full-auto before and the ripping sound mixed with the screaming and flapping noises weirded him out.

The giant bat hit the concrete floor about thirty feet from Andrew. Now it sounded and looked more like a giant Hefty bag full of vegetable soup hitting the ground than any sort of bat that Andrew had ever seen. Green-white liquid spilled and spurted in every direction and it took only a few seconds for Andrew to realize that it was blood and that it would be quite red in real light.

Andrew ripped off his night-vision goggles, threw them down, and ran for the front door.

Kurtz had sapped the big man lightly: enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to kill him or keep him out for long. Kurtz jumped from the scaffold and worked quickly, moving the moaning man's Colt M4 carbine out of reach, patting him down for other weapons—he carried none—confiscating his radio and night-vision goggles, and finally pulling off his filthy army jacket and donning it himself. Kurtz was cold.

The radio crackled again. Kurtz listened to the one on the first floor talking to the two on the sixth floor who'd found his cot and sleeping bag.

"Y'all better get back up there," came the braindamaged drawl from the cracker downstairs.

Kurtz heard either Darren or Douglas say, «Yeah» and then he got busy retrieving the Colt M4, checking that the magazine was full and the safety off, and then lying prone behind the moaning—but still unstirring—facedown figure of Warren. Kurtz did not prefer to use long guns, but he knew how to use them. Lying there, the barrel of the M4 propped on the big man's back, Kurtz felt like a figure in an old cowboy painting—the cavalryman who's had to shoot his horse to use as cover when the Indians are attacking.

If these particular Indians used the nearest stairway, they'd be coming up the north stairwell next to the elevators just ten yards away. If they came up the south stairwell, they could approach from either the east or west mezzanine, but Kurtz would hear them either way.

They came up the north stairwell and made enough noise to make the groaning Warren almost wake.

Kurtz sighed just before the two came into sight. If they paused at the doorway to the stairwell, he might be in trouble lying there behind Warren. But he did not think they would pause and come onto the seventh floor one at a time. Everything they'd done so far had been stupid or stupider. Kurtz sighed because he had no anger toward these idiots, even though they'd obviously come to kill him.

They exploded onto the landing, rifles seeking a target, laser beams whipping left and right, shouting at each other, both men obviously half-blinded by the glare of the ambient light in their goggles. Kurtz took a breath, sighted on the pale faces above the black Kevlar, and shot twice. He noticed how efficient the titanium silencer was on the M4. Both men went down heavily and did not rise again.

"Warren?" crackled the radio in Kurtz's army jacket pocket. "Douglas? Darren?"

Kurtz gave it another minute, made sure that the two men's rifles had fallen far from their hands, and then rose and moved quickly to the fallen figures. Both were dead. He dropped the M4 and walked quickly back to Warren, who was beginning to stir.

Kurtz set his boot on the big man's neck and jaw and forced the face back down against the concrete. Warren's eyes flickered open and Kurtz pressed the muzzle of the.45 pistol forcefully into his left eye-socket. "Don't move," he whispered.

Warren groaned but ceased trying to rise to his knees.

"Names," Kurtz whispered.

"Huh?"

Kurtz pressed harder with the pistol. "Do you know my name?"

"Kurtz." Warren's breath kicked up concrete dust.

"Who sent you?"

Warren's breathing slowed. Kurtz was certain that he had not been conscious during the shooting. The big man was obviously thinking things over now and trying to come up with a plan. Kurtz didn't want him to have that luxury. He thumbed the hammer back on the.45 with an audible click and pressed the muzzle deeper into Warren's eye socket. "Who sent you?"

"Nigger…" said Warren.

Kurtz pressed harder. "Names."

Warren tried to shake his head, but the pressure from Kurtz's boot and pistol made that impossible. "Don't know his name. Guy who runs drugs to the Bloods. Has a diamond in his tooth."

"Where?" said Kurtz. "How'd you contact him? Where do I find him?"