Дэвид Балдаччи - The Forgotten

The remaining guards, giving up all hope of defeating the invaders, started pumping rounds into the cages, dropping prisoner after prisoner.

Puller and Mecho did their best to shoot them down, but the smoke was making it difficult to find the right targets. The last thing Puller wanted to do was kill any of the prisoners.

Diaz and Carson’s vantage point from above was quickly turned to a disadvantage because of the smoke. They could no longer fire because they couldn’t see what they were firing at.

Mecho and Puller kept low and moved through the smoke and haze.

They killed what they could.

Puller reached the first cage, shot the lock off, and the prisoners started streaming out after Puller motioned to them to keep low.

Mecho did the same with another cage.

Puller next reached the cage where Diego and Mateo were.

Diego saw him and shouted, “Behind you!”

Without looking Puller whirled with his Ka-Bar in hand.

The guard fell forward with his throat cut, jugular to carotid.

Mateo saw this and started screaming.

Diego grabbed him and pulled him through the opening.

Puller snagged Diego by the arm. “Nice work on leaving your ring behind.”

“It was the only thing I could think to do.”

“You both okay?”

“Yes.”

“Go out the door we came through. Take the steps up. There are people up there who’ll help you.”

Diego nodded and he and Mateo fled.

Puller shouted at the others in every language he knew to follow the boys to safety.

All the prisoners still alive were free now and escaping the room through the door.

Meanwhile, Mecho gutted one guard while he shot another. A pistol round tore through his left forearm, but he kept fighting with his right.

Puller was slashed on the leg by another guard’s knife an instant before he put a bullet in the man’s head.

The two men looked around and saw no more opponents.

Mecho grabbed blankets and attempted to beat the flames down. Puller snagged a fire extinguisher off the wall and hit it from the other side. Smoke poured out of the now dying fire.

Puller dropped the empty extinguisher, turned, and stopped.

Landry stood there with smoke misting around her. She looked like the sole survivor appearing from an apocalypse.

Puller noted that her gun was pointed directly at him.

He said, “I wondered where you had gotten to.”

“Sorry about this,” she said.

“Like hell,” said Puller.

She pulled the trigger two quick times.

The gun fired just as it was supposed to.

Yet Puller still stood there, unharmed.

She pulled the trigger two more times.

Again, her pistol fired twice.

And again Puller simply stood there.

“No body armor,” he said. “You can take a head shot if you want.”

She did, right between the eyes.

Nothing.

She turned when she sensed him behind her. Mecho ripped the gun from her hand and bent her arm behind her back. She cried out in pain as he drove her elbow to an angle it was not designed to go.

Puller took the gun from Mecho and slid out the clip.

“I carry blanks in my duffel, as a means to fire warning shots without doing any damage. I substituted them for your live rounds when I was getting the weapons ready. And if you got your hands on another gun and tried to kill us, Diaz up there had orders to take you out. It was probably why she was nervous, killing a cop and all. Goes against her instincts, I guess. Even when the cop is dirty.”

They all looked up to see Diaz pointing her weapon directly at Landry’s head with a determined look on her features.

Landry gasped, “If you knew, why did you ask me to come out here?”

“Simple. Friends close and enemies closer.”

“I don’t understand how you could have known.”

“It’s all a matter of timing, really, Cheryl. Just timing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d explain now, but we’ve got a few more things on our to-do list. And you’re going to help us cross them off.”

“I’m not helping you.”

“Yes you are.”

“Go to hell.”

It only took a second, but Landry whipped her body around and slammed a knee into Mecho’s crotch. He doubled over. She grabbed the knife from his belt and was about to deliver a killing strike to the back of his neck when the blade was knocked from her hand.

She turned in time to see Puller’s fist coming at her.

That was the last thought she had before Puller slammed his fist into her jaw.

She fell to the floor, unconscious.

Puller stood over her.

“Yes you are,” he said quietly.

They had refueled the boat and were racing back to land.

The freed captives were still on the oil platform, but a Coast Guard cutter was – despite the storm – powering toward them as fast as it could. It had enough space to take them all on board and to safety on the mainland.

Diego and Mateo had wanted to come back on the boat with them, but Puller had refused. “You’ll be much safer on a Coast Guard cutter,” he explained. “I’m not even sure we can get this tub back to Florida.”

However, the tropical storm had made landfall and quickly lost much of its energy. The ride back was bad, but not nearly as bad as the ride out had been.

On the way Puller had gotten a cell signal and managed to make one more call. Carson had gotten on the phone when the conversation started to go downhill. Puller had watched in admiration as the one-star didn’t ask the man on the other end of the line what she would like him to do. She told him what he was going to do.

“This is a national security issue, Lieutenant. And the United States Army takes those very seriously. You have your orders and I expect they will be carried out with all the dispatch and professionalism that the uniform demands. Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the immediate reply from the lieutenant, who was probably trying hard not to allow his voice to crack.

Carson clicked off and handed the phone back to Puller.

He smiled.

She said, “What’s so funny?”

“I guess I just like seeing you being a general.”

Halfway to shore, Landry had regained consciousness. Carson piloted the boat while Puller and Mecho focused on their new prisoner. Landry’s face was bruised by Puller’s blow and she looked angry and unrepentant.

“How?” she demanded of Puller.

“Like I said, timing.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“Lampert’s car blew up.”

“So what? I didn’t do it.”

“It blew up, according to Diaz, at one-fifteen. At one-sixteen you got a phone call while I was with you on the beach. You said it was from Bullock. But there was no way it could have been. Lampert would have had to find out what the hell was going on, call the police, and track Bullock down. He’d have to hear what happened and then Bullock might start phoning people. But you weren’t on duty. You wouldn’t have been the first person he’d call. All of that would take a lot longer than a minute. And just to be sure, I checked with Bullock by phone last night. He said you’d called him that night on the drive over to Lampert’s. Not the other way around. He said you’d heard something on the news about an explosion. The call you got was from Lampert.”

Landry shook her head. “That’s not enough, Puller. There’s no way you’d make a decision like this on something so skimpy.”

“I didn’t. I started to connect the dots. Lampert is from Miami. So are you. You both arrived here around the same time. After I started thinking about the timing of the call you got, I went into detective mode and started making a lot of phone calls. Your father. You said a guy on PCP shot him down at a bar.”