Dan Simmons - Hardcase

Warren blew concrete dust. "Seneca Social Club. Nigger place. Sent Darren out to make contact. They have a warehouse full of guns, but they took us there blindfolded. Don't know where the fuck it is. But we knew the Bloods'd knocked over the arsenal and—"

Kurtz did not give a shit about the history of Malcolm's weapons heist. He moved the muzzle to Warren's temple and pressed harder. "What did—"

At that instant, the radio squawked in Andrew's voice. "Warren? Douglas? Darren? Y'all all right?" Kurtz turned his head slightly and Warren lunged upward, throwing Kurtz off balance, clambering to his hands and knees.

Kurtz staggered backward but had enough balance to go to one knee six feet from Warren and to aim the.45.

The huge man was on his feet, staring over Kurtz's shoulder at the bodies just visible in the rising light.

"Don't," Kurtz whispered, but Warren opened his hands and came on like a grizzly bear.

Kurtz could have gone for a head shot, but he had more questions. He aimed at the center of the man's Kevlar-covered chest and pulled the trigger.

The impact drove the huge man six feet back, staggering, but—amazingly—Warren did not go down. At that range, with this pistol, the impact must have been incredible—the equivalent of Mark McGwire swinging a bat full-force into an unprotected chest—certainly there were broken ribs, but Warren stayed on his feet, arms still swinging. In the brightening light, Kurtz could see the man's eyes wide and enraged. Warren came on again.

Kurtz fired twice. The big man threw his head back and growled like a bear, but he was driven another seven or eight feet back toward the plastic-covered atrium opening.

"Stop," said Kurtz.

Warren came on.

Kurtz fired. Warren staggered back, then came on again as if leaning into a hurricane-force wind.

Kurtz fired again. Another several steps back. The giant was five steps from the edge of the mezzanine, his huge form silhouetted against the brighter plastic tarp of a wall. Saliva and blood sprayed from his open mouth. Warren actually roared.

"Fuck it," said Kurtz and fired twice more, putting both shots high on the Kevlar vest.

Warren was driven backward like a hammered railroad spike. The huge man hit the plastic, staples ripped out, he teetered, fingernails grabbing the sagging tarp, and then he went back and over the ledge, pulling one hundred and twenty square feet of tarp out of its frame and down with him.

Kurtz walked to the edge of the mezzanine to watch the shrouded figure hurtle downward into the darkened atrium, but had to step back as the man far below opened fire with an automatic rifle. Kurtz had time to realize that Andrew was shooting at Warren before the big man hit the concrete. Andrew screamed and ran out of the atrium. Kurtz swept up the Colt M4 carbine and jogged down the short access hall to the east wall. He had pried blocks and bricks out of their moorings there, and the result was a sort of gun slit that let him look down on the east entrance to the building and the streets beyond.

The predawn glimmer gave enough light for Kurtz to see Andrew running heft-bent-for-leather toward the wire fence along the east side of the lot. Sighing again, Kurtz lifted the M4 into the open gap in the wall and used the optic sight to pick up the running figure. He took a breath, but before he could squeeze the trigger, there came the pop and rip of automatic-weapons fire, and Andrew was batted down as if a huge, invisible hand had smashed him away.

Kurtz swung the sight toward the line of cars across the street. Movement. Several dark figures behind the vehicles there.

Kurtz could feel his heart pounding. If Malcolm's men came after him now, he was in a bad place. Kurtz never liked Alamo scenarios.

One of the men jogged forward, crawled through a cut in the wire, and came out onto the lot as far as Andrew's sprawled body. The shooter raised a radio, but it wasn't tuned to the frequency Warren and his pals had been using. The man went back to the line of cars and several men got into the back of an Astro Van parked at the curb.

Kurtz used the telescopic sight to read the license tag.

The van pulled away and drove out of sight.

Kurtz waited at the gun slit for another thirty minutes, until it was light enough to see easily. He listened very carefully, but the icehouse was silent, except for water dripping and the occasional rustle of torn plastic on the mezzanine.

Finally Kurtz dropped the M4, stepped over the bodies of Douglas and Darren on his way to the stairwell, and went down to the sixth floor. He'd left nothing in his little cubby except an old cot—found in a Dumpster—and an untraceable sleeping bag. But he'd been in here without gloves, so there was always the risk of fingerprints and DNA sampling if the cops got too earnest about solving this multiple murder.

Kurtz had been keeping a five-gallon jerrican of gasoline in a closet. Now he poured gas over his sleeping area and the bathroom, dropped the Kimber.45 onto the cot, and lit a match. He hated to give up the.45—he trusted that Doc was telling the truth in saying the weapons were absolutely cold—but there were at least seven depleted slugs in or around Warren's Kevlar vest that Kurtz did not have the time to retrieve.

The heat and flames were intense, but he had little worry that the whole icehouse would burn down. Too much concrete and brick for that. Kurtz also doubted that the bodies would be burned.

Backing away from the flames, Kurtz turned and jogged down the north stairwell to the basement. The tunnel there was closed off by an ancient steel door that was secured by a new chain and Yale padlock. Kurtz had the key.

He came out in another abandoned warehouse half a block away. Kurtz watched the streets for another ten minutes before stepping out onto the sidewalk and walking away quickly from the icehouse.

"Joe, you look terrible."

Kurtz opened one eye as he lay on the sprung couch in their office. Arlene was hanging her coat and setting a stack of folders on her desk. "Where'd you get that terrible army coat? It's about three sizes too big…" She paused and looked at the bundle of straps and optics on her desk. "What on earth is this?"

"Night-vision goggles," said Kurtz. "I forgot that I had them in my pocket until I tried to lie down here."

"And what am I supposed to do with night-vision goggles?"

"Put them in a drawer for now," said Kurtz. "I need to borrow your car."

Arlene sighed. "I don't suppose there's any chance that you'll get it back by lunchtime."

"Not much," said Kurtz.

Arlene tossed him the keys. "If I'd known, I would have packed a lunch."

"There are places in this neighborhood where they serve lunch," said Kurtz. "Why don't you eat around here?"

As if in answer, Arlene turned on the surveillance monitor. It was 8:30 a.m., and already there were half a dozen men in raincoats looking at racks of XXX-rated videos and magazines upstairs.

Kurtz shrugged and went out the back door, making sure that it locked behind him.

While driving on the state road toward Darien Center and Attica, Kurtz listened to the morning news on WNY radio tell of a fire in an old Buffalo icehouse and four bodies found by firefighters, all four men killed in what authorities described as "a gangland-style slaying." Kurtz was never sure what constituted a "gangland-style slaying," but he suspected it did not involve plummeting seven stories with seven.45 slugs embedded in one's Kevlar vest. He turned up the radio.

Authorities had not revealed the identities of the four dead men, but police had announced that all of the military-type weapons recovered had been stolen in the previous summer's Dunkirk arsenal raid and that the Erie County District Attorney's office was now looking into the involvement of several local white-supremicist groups.