John Miller - Inside Out

Sean handed Max her room key and said good-bye.

As Sean walked toward the glass doors, a man wearing a black trench coat started inside, straight-arming the door open. He had a wallet in his left hand, which he held up as he entered. Through his open coat Sean saw a gun and a bulletproof vest covering his shirt. He glanced into the lobby, to his right, then immediately drew his gun.

Looking for an escape, Sean turned and saw the young woman from the couch striding toward the man. The large silenced pistol in her rising hand rocked gently as she fired it at the man in the trench coat. He fell backward from the impact of the shots. Sean saw that the object, now open as it fell from the man's left hand, was a badge case. She decided her only chance was to get behind the counter.

After firing steadily, the young woman ejected the empty magazine, which clattered to the stone floor, and took another from her purse.

Wire Dog dropped Sean's duffel and ran behind her toward the counter.

The older woman, walking toward the counter, raised a silenced pistol and began firing just as Sean and Wire Dog sprang over the counter.

Max stepped back, straightened, and stumbled backward as a bullet passed through his throat and slammed him against the antique room-key board, skewing it so violently that dozens of keys rained to the floor.

Sean jerked her pack around and pulled out her gun. She aimed the Smith over the counter at the advancing younger woman and squeezed the trigger. The compact gun roared, bucking in her hand. Before Sean fired a second time at the running figure, the woman had scampered into the lobby, taking a dive behind the heavy couch.

A plastic donations box on the counter near Sean exploded, scattering coins on the carpeted floor. Without looking, Sean reached the gun over the counter and fired in the older woman's direction. Sean had only three shots left.

Wire Dog seemed perplexed as he stared down at the blood covering his fingers. As the red stain on the side of his T-shirt blossomed, he shuddered and his soiled hand fell to the floor.

Sean heard the elevator door clanging shut and the car slowly rising.

When the front door burst open, Sean chanced a quick peek over the counter. Another man, also in a trench coat and carrying a shotgun, had come into the lobby. As he ducked behind the wide marble column on his left, three shots from the older woman's gun chipped plaster from its face. The man behind the column fired back. Sean assumed that if the woman was firing at him, he might be on her side.

When the man brought the shotgun around the column and fired, the older woman yelled out and went down hard.

“United States marshal!” the man yelled. “Sean Devlin?”

“There's another one. I think she's behind the couch,” Sean called out from her hiding place.

Wire Dog's key fob hung from his pocket. Instinctively, Sean pulled at the chain and palmed the keys. Gripping the. 38 in her left hand, Sean shifted her weight, swung up over the counter, and ran for the door on a course that would take her between the man and the young woman in the lobby. She understood that if he wasn't really a marshal, he might be working for Sam, and he'd kill her. For all she knew the two groups were competitive mercenaries-winner take all.

Sean extended the pistol out and fired the remaining three shots as she ran for the door, where she would be sheltered from the woman killer by the column between them.

Her backpack swung violently to the side as the young woman fired at her. After Sean was past his column, the man fired out into the lobby-thankfully not at her. He dropped the empty shotgun to the floor, pulled out a dark automatic, and began firing again.

Since Sean's gun was empty, she pocketed it, picked up the dead marshal's Glock beside her boot, and crouched behind the column, her back to the man behind the other column ten feet away.

“Go now,” he ordered. “Taurus is across the street-key's in the ignition. Get in it and drive away fast. Call Shapiro from the cell phone in the console. It's secure. Only that phone. Got it?”

Sean nodded. Her hand holding the dead man's Glock trembled. As the marshal peered out and aimed at the lobby, the young woman fired and he fell. His violated skull smacked against the marble, making a sickening wet sound.

Sean ran through the door. She saw the Taurus parked across the wide street and Wire Dog's taxicab at the curb. Figuring she'd get shot if she crossed the street, she went for the taxi.

Sean opened the driver's door and got in. She pushed Wire Dog's key into the ignition and the engine sprang to life.

The killer broke from the building, her ponytail flying behind her. She had her gun in a two-handed combat grip, aiming across the street. Before the killer spotted her, Sean pointed the Glock out through the windshield and emptied it at her through the glass.

The killer dived for cover behind a planter.

As Sean jerked the shift lever and floored it, the woman fired, hitting the old, big-bodied Chevrolet's windshield and grill as Sean roared up the street in reverse.

The killer ejected her spent magazine as she ran after the taxi, then shoved in a new one and resumed firing.

Her ears ringing, Sean tossed the empty Glock onto the floor as the car flew away still in reverse. Once she had enough speed, she stomped the brakes, and jerked the wheel to the side forcefully, spinning the car 180 degrees. While the Chevrolet was swapping ends, Sean pulled the shift lever down into drive and, when the car was aimed up the street, she floored the accelerator. Sean had learned the maneuver from a “special” driving instructor she had had in her fifteenth summer. Until that moment she had never had occasion to use the maneuver, but she performed it perfectly.

The wind coming in through the ruined windshield buffeted her stiff hair. She wasn't safe, but she was free.

She took a few turns at random in case the assailant had come after her. Steam poured from under the hood. Dash warning lights blazed. Less than two miles from the hotel, the wounded radiator finished bleeding out through the. 45-caliber holes and the motor seized. Sean put the car in neutral and coasted to a stop at a curb.

As sirens wailed in the distance, Sean grabbed her backpack and ran for her life.

From her seat in the corner booth Sean could turn her head to watch the rigs pulling in from the service road, see the activity at the gas pumps, or watch the southbound traffic up on Interstate 95. Although she forced herself to appear disinterested, Sean was very much aware of each of the customers who came and went through the restaurant's doors-the majority of whom were truck drivers.

Three miles from where she'd abandoned Wire Dog's cab, she had met a seventeen-year-old couple in a convenience store and had offered the boy twenty dollars to take her to a restaurant near the interstate, which turned out to be a truck stop. The good thing about kids that age was that they didn't ask a lot of questions and would forget her as soon as she stepped from the vehicle.

According to her name tag, Sean's waitress was Bernice. She was so emaciated that Sean was amazed she could carry the coffeepot without snapping her wrists, which were hardly thicker than spools of dime-store thread. Ruby, the other waitress, was a strapping blonde with breasts like honeydews. She looked as though she had been plucked from the helm of a Viking ship, her face still red from the bitter North Sea winds. She roared at the drivers and made comments that elicited howls of laughter from the male customers.

Sean looked down at the backpack on the seat beside her, and studied the small hole in it. As she had run from the counter to the hotel's front door, the younger woman missed her rib cage by inches but had hit her inch-thick titanium-shelled computer. Sean had tried to turn it on just after arriving at the restaurant, but the sleek machine was dead. She didn't care, except that the hard drive contained information she wanted. She had $242 in her pocket, three credit cards, a driver's license in the name Sean Devlin, no extra clothes, no bullets for her pistol, and, now, no passport.