Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

“Yeah. Felt like it, too.” Dylan stripped off one glove and felt himself with his bare hand until he was sure he was intact.

She’d missed. Somehow she’d missed. He checked his gun, and then he understood.

He’d been holding the H amp; K at chest level, and the bullet had struck the goddamn gun. Shit, what were the odds on that? He could feel the nick in the silencer where the shot had been deflected.

“She didn’t get me,” he whispered, amazed. “Banged my silencer, is all.”

“Fuck, that’s lucky.” Tupelo was shivering with fury and fear. “Fuck.”

Dylan unscrewed the suppressor module and stuck in his pocket. He couldn’t risk firing the gun if the silencer tube had been cramped or bent. A round could get stuck in there and blow up the damn gun in his hand.

He put his glove back on and took stock.

“We take up position there.” He nodded at the midpoint of the hall. “Angle some shots into her hidey-hole. And get Bran in on the game, too.” He keyed his walkie-talkie. “She’s in the last room on the southwest side. Couple windows with curtains. You know the one?”

A burst of static, and Bran’s voice. “I see it.”

“Take a shot or two at them windows. Bitch is armed, so watch out.”

“Old lady’s packing? Cool.”

“Yeah.” Dylan switched off the radio with a sigh. “Cool.”

“Two others?” Andrea whispered, her voice cracking. “You said two others?”

Abby nodded. “We’ll get out of this. I’ve been in worse jams.”

This was probably true, but right now she couldn’t think of any.

“Who are they? What do they want?” Andrea’s questions tailed into a helpless moan. “Oh God, this is bad, this is so bad…”

“Don’t lose control. Just sit tight and keep your head down.”

The advice was punctuated with a crash of glass from behind them. One of the windows had been shot out.

Andrea screamed. Abby silenced her with a hand to her mouth. A cry would only pinpoint their position.

She knew that the man in the backyard had fired through the window. He wouldn’t have done so unless he was in communication with the men inside. They’d told him their quarry was hiding in the bedroom. The outside man was trying to flush out the prey.

And she’d been right about the silencer. She’d heard no report from his gun.

The flying glass, absorbed by the heavy curtain, hadn’t hit them, but the bullet and the glass had left gashes in the curtain that let in more light. If the curtain opened up too much, she and Andrea would be exposed to view. The only saving grace was that the shooter was unlikely to risk coming right up to the window, where he would be vulnerable to her return fire. Most likely he would keep shooting from a distance in an effort to panic them into flight or score a lucky hit.

A second noiseless shot punched through the curtain and thudded into drywall across the room.

“Keep your head down,” Abby whispered.

Beside her, Andrea was shaking all over. Abby had once cradled an injured rabbit in her hands. It shook the same way.

There was one good thing about the sniper fire from the yard. As long as it continued, the two men in the house couldn’t mount another assault on the bedroom.

They could fire from the hall, though, if they chose a position that was safely out of the sniper’s range.

In time with that thought, a muzzle flash lit up the hallway, and chunks of plaster flew off the wall near the bed. She heard that report. No silencer on that gun.

Hell. She was taking fire from two directions. She had five rounds left, and no clear target. Her options were limited. She could sit tight until a ricochet caught her or Andrea, or she could empty the gun and then wait for the enemy to close in for an easy kill.

There was a chance that a report of shots fired had already been called in to the police by a neighbor, but response time would be measured in minutes, which might as well be hours. Anyway, the house next door had looked empty, and the people on the other side might not even be home during the day.

Two quick shots from the hall. One shot was silenced; the other was not. That was bad. It meant there were two guns, which meant both men were still in the fight. Either she hadn’t hit the first one, or the wound hadn’t incapacitated him. It was still three against one. She was outmanned and outgunned, and all out of countermoves. She needed to regain the advantage, and she wasn’t going to do it by crouching behind a mattress with bullets cracking overhead.

Her gaze traveled to the glow of the night light.

“What kind of stuff do you keep in your bathroom?” she asked.

Andrea didn’t understand. “Stuff?”

“Hairspray? You have that?”

“Yes.”

Another shot from outside. Across the room, something shattered.

“Stay put,” Abby whispered. “Head down. Don’t make any noise.”

“You’re not leaving me?”

“Just stay put. I’ve got a plan.”

The distance to the bathroom was about six feet. She could crawl, but once she left the concealment of the bed she might be spotted by the enemy in the corridor. Safer to run for it. But she would have to force the two bad guys down the hall to back off for second.

She sprang up from the bed and angled a quick shot into the hallway, wishing she could pull the trigger a few more times and lay down some decent covering fire, but unwilling to waste ammo.

Before the glare of the gun flash had faded from the room, she sprinted into the bathroom. No shots chased her.

She should have asked Andrea exactly where she kept the hairspray. In the cabinet under the sink she found it. She didn’t have to read the label to know the stuff was flammable. Hairspray was a mix of hydrocarbon propellants like propane and butane, liquid while inside the canister but gaseous when released.

She yanked a towel from the rack and jetted it with hairspray until it was thoroughly doused, using up a good deal of the can’s contents. She hoped there was enough propellant left to get the job done.

Quickly she wrapped the can in the towel, knotting the towel at both ends. Now she needed an open flame, hard to come by in a lavatory.

The sniper outside hadn’t fired in a while. Abby found his silence unsettling. He might have been emboldened to sneak closer to the house. If he got a clear shot through a gap in the curtains, it was all over. She had to act fast.

On the countertop by the sink there was a comb with a rubber-coated handle and metal teeth. Abby popped the nightlight out of the wall, then shoved the towel-wrapped canister alongside the outlet. She took a breath and poked the comb into the wall socket.

Short-circuit. A spark sizzled out of the socket, and the towel, soaked in flammable spray, caught fire.

She dived for the bedroom door and tossed the canister and its flaming wrap into the hallway. Someone shot at her, but she was already scrambling back.

Explosion.

She flung herself facedown as noise and glare filled the hall.

Heat had ruptured the canister, and its pressurized contents had burst free in a cloud of flammable gas, instantly ignited. A flash-bang grenade.

The effect would be brief-rapid combustion would consume the fuel immediately-but the homemade bomb ought to drive the enemy back. She was counting on that.

She spun upright and launched herself into the hall, firing three times as she vaulted the flaming debris and charged into the living room. In the ebbing glow of the fire she could see the bad guys-two men in dark blue outfits, both wearing ski masks, one of them stripping off his mask as he stumbled away. Then he and his buddy disappeared down the back hallway, but for one instant Abby had glimpsed his face.