Cliff Ryder - The Finish Line

"Aragorn, why?" She looked to him, hoping that there was a reasonable answer for all of this, hoping he would say they had forced him to do this. The expression on his face, however, said such things.

"Sorry, Mags, but you should have been more honest with me in the first place. You got me curious about just who you had crossed, so I did some poking around. A friend of a friend told me there was a PMC spending a lot of time looking for someone who had done a huge hack job in London, where you had just been. Well, I put two and two together, and made them an offer they couldn't refuse."

"You son of a bitch!" Aragorn hadn't moved that far off, and Maggie's roundhouse slap caught him completely by surprise, the sharp crack resounding in the squalid room. Aragorn reeled away, his hand going to his reddening cheek in shock. The other man said nothing, didn't even shake his head or crack a smile.

"You fucking bitch!" Aragorn had regained his composure, and now glared at her, his eyes blazing. "Always lording over the rest of us, thinking you were better than everyone else. How's it feel now? How high-and-mighty do you feel now, you arrogant ass?"

"There were times I didn't like you very much, but I never would have sold you out, you fucking, betraying bastard…" Maggie's legs wobbled, and she stumbled to the nearest chair. "Oh God, I'm going to be sick." She hunched over, clutching her stomach with both arms while trying to figure a way out of this mess. The car! If she could just reach the still running car, she had a chance.

Aragorn gloated over her distress. "You're going to feel a whole lot worse when they're done with you, my dear." He turned to the silent man. "Well, there she is. Once your people have transferred the agreed amount to my Swiss account, she's all yours."

"Yes, you've done exactly what was asked of you, and you shall receive the price that is due." The man pulled out a small cell phone, and Aragorn, visions of his payoff dancing behind his eyes, turned back to Maggie, a fatuous smirk on his face. He didn't see the silenced pistol the man drew with his other hand. Before Maggie could say anything, he placed the muzzle an inch from the back of Aragorn's head and pulled the trigger.

A gout of blood and brains spurted from the hacker's eye socket as his short-circuiting body crashed to the floor, arms and legs twitching in shocked response to the assassination. Maggie stared in shock, but realized that if she had any chance of escaping, it had to be right now, as the man was still checking the dead body.

She forced her leaden limbs to move, rising from the chair and grabbing the table. With all her remaining strength, she threw the sagging piece of furniture at him, the veneered top spinning through the air toward the hired killer. Maggie didn't wait to see if it hit him, but ran for the front exit. Rebounding off the desk, she scrambled toward the door, fingers questing for the handle, knowing she only had one chance to get it open and get out before he caught her. She grabbed, pushed and almost fell out onto the concrete steps.

Outside, everything was as she had left it — the idling car, the quiet cluster of houses down the road, the leaden sky overhead. Sobbing with fear, Maggie flew down the steps to the car, wrenched the driver's door open and threw herself behind the wheel. She fumbled for the gearshift with fingers numbed by fright, and had just jammed the car into Reverse when the hood of the Peugeot seemed to flex and groan as something thudded into it. Maggie watched in dumbfounded fascination as a neat row of holes appeared in the front of the car, causing the engine to sputter and hiss. With the realization she was being shot at, she pressed the gas pedal to the floor, but the once pristine car only shook and jerked, rolling a few yards, then wheezing to a halt as its engine died.

Maggie knew that her attempt to escape was not going to go unpunished. All she could do was watch in helpless, frozen terror as the man strode down the steps of the house toward the car. Without pausing, he raised his arm and hammered the butt of his pistol on the window glass, shattering it into hundreds of pieces that sprayed across her. Reaching in, he grabbed her neck and dragged her out of the car.

Maggie's hands pried at the fingers clamped around her neck like bands of steel, trying to dislodge them, but to no avail. He hauled her out of the dead vehicle, then raised his pistol again and slammed the butt across her mouth, sending her sprawling to the ground. Through the shocking pain, as Maggie spit out thick, red blood and a broken tooth, she was dimly aware that her captor was speaking. Suddenly her head was wrenched back, and she stared into the dark, black hole of the man's pistol, still smoking from when he had shot Aragorn. Is this the last thing my brother saw before he died? she wondered.

"I'm through being nice. The next time you try to escape, I will shoot you in the wrist. If you try again, I will shoot you in the elbow and keep moving up your arm. Do you understand?"

Holding her mouth, Maggie nodded, a dim part of her brain aware that she had no fight left in her.

"All right. Get up." He waved to another man, who had been positioned in the second-story window, a submachine gun in his grasp. "Do exactly as I say, and I won't have to do that again…"

His attention was drawn to the road, where a speeding gray SUV was heading right for them. He grabbed Maggie's arm and yanked her to her feet. "Into the house, now!"

"There she is!" David could only watch as the brown-haired man pulled Maggie toward the building. His arm extended, pistol aimed at them, rounds spitting from it to strike the SUV's bulletproof windshield.

"Hang on." Jay cranked the wheel over, sending the SUV skidding into the parking lot. "Julio, Fritz, there's a shooter on the second story."

"I see him." The two men in the backseat had produced two compact HK MP-7 A-l submachine guns, inserting magazines and pulling back the cocking levers with practiced efficiency.

"I'll pull up to block the front. Once we're inside, take the upstairs man out or force him to cover, then head round back to cut them off. Mr. Vert and I will take the front." He nodded at David. "Open the glove compartment."

David did so, finding an HK USP 4.6 mm pistol resting in a special compartment, its butt protruding toward him. Next to it were two full magazines. He drew it and checked the load, keeping the gun near his waist to not aggravate his injured arm, and slipped the spare magazines into his back pocket. "I'm ready," he said.

"Okay, here we go." Jay hit the brakes, stopping the vehicle right in front of the door, cutting off most of the avenue of fire the second-story man had enjoyed until now. It did not stop the hail of bullets that were still thudding into the roof, however.

"David, give me covering fire," Julio said.

David and Julio both rolled down their windows and pointed their guns toward the upper window, triggering several rounds from each weapon. Glass shattered and wood splinters rained down on them as the bullets chewed up the front facade.

"Fire in the hole!" Julio held the live flash-bang grenade for a second after he had pulled the pin, then launched it toward the window. His timing was perfect.

The flash-bang went off in the window frame with a bright burst of light and a loud bang, even outside. As soon as it did, David ran around the front of the SUV, following Jay, who was at the top of the steps. He looked back to see Julio and Fritz checking around the front corners of the house before progressing down the sides.

"Go!" he told Jay, who pulled the door open and covered the right side, while David held his pistol steady and watched the left. No gunfire answered their preliminary recon, so Jay motioned David inside, holding the door open and covering him.