Matt Hilton - Dead_s men dust

"You hear what I'm hearing?" Rink asked.

"Yup. But you didn't expect this to be easy, did you?"

"Easy ain't a word in our vocabulary, Hunter."

Maybe the dogs were extra security Siggy employed after dark. I severely doubted that he was conducting doggy obedience classes. Rink and I shared a glance. Dogs, large or small, always made extreme stealth an issue.

We waited another half hour before leaving. Rink went?rst, shambling out through the gap in the fence. His pace was that of a man addled with drink and with no?rm destination in mind. When he was out of sight around the side of the building, it was my turn to follow.

I followed the same route, joining Rink in the deep well of murk at the side of the building. There was an overpowering stench of vomit and urine. Welcome home, Hunter. It doesn't matter where my work takes me, it's always the same. I was only pleased that I couldn't see what I was standing in.

"Ready?" Rink whispered. He had the shotgun out of its bag, ready for action. I pulled out my SIG, held it at my side.

"Ready," I said.

Mounting the?rst set of stairs on a rusted?re escape, my mission to discover the whereabouts of my brother was?nally under way. Whether or not John was inside the building, I wasn't sure. Petoskey was, and he knew something about John's disappearance. Taking Petoskey was the order of the day.

Gaining the?rst landing, I laid a hand on the door. The locking bar, like much of the remainder of the building, was an item lost in the past desecration of this place. The door swung open at the slightest tug. Rink immediately stepped past me, sweeping the darkness with his shotgun.

"Clear," he whispered, and I entered.

We stood still, acclimating ourselves to the ambient light leaking in from outside and listening to the natural sounds of the building. Far above, voices formed a discordant chorus. Someone was laughing. Then there were the dogs. No longer were they yapping, but snarling and barking maniacally.

"Dog?ghts," I whispered. "Son of a bitch," Rink snarled. In the half-light, I saw his face grow hard. "I'm going to feed the punk his own balls."

"Yeah," I agreed. For one instant my mind shifted half a world away and I saw my own dogs, Hector and Paris. The thought of their being forced to?ght to the death for the sick pleasure of the likes of Petoskey was enough to sicken even the stone-cold assassin in me.

Shake the anger loose, Hunter, I cautioned myself. It was bad enough that we were going in outnumbered. Never mind doing it in the wrong frame of mind. Go in in a rage and we'd be dead before we reached the next?oor. I reached out in the dark to grab Rink's forearm.

"Go easy," I cautioned him.

"I'm cool," Rink replied. And I knew that he was.

"Okay. You take point."

"You want I go up or across?" Rink asked.

"Across," I said. In all likelihood, this stairwell was used exclusively by the dropouts who squatted here during the daylight hours. We had to go up by the route Petoskey would take, to ensure that we took out any possible reinforcements.

The corridor could have been a set from a horror movie. Cobwebs brushed our faces. Dust sifted from above and clung to my lips. From behind closed doors, the specters of this place tittered at our bravado. They beckoned to us; come and join us in hell, there's plenty of room for two more.

The far end of the corridor didn't come too soon for me.

Rink was waiting in a vestibule area. A door that had once held wire-reinforced glass but was now blocked by a tarpaulin hung on bent nails, barred our progress. The faint buzz of conversation?ltered from beyond.

"What do you think?" Rink whispered.

Ever the smart one, I made a quick calculation. Held up three?ngers to Rink. Not that he didn't trust me; Rink placed his face at the edge of the tarpaulin to con?rm the estimate. We moved back down the corridor a safe distance.

"Two guys on the stairs. Looks like another one sitting down in a chair to the left of the door, but I could only see his feet."

"Armed?" I asked Rink.

"Nothing I could see." Rink shrugged. "Doesn't mean anything. They could still be packing."

Armed or not, it didn't mean a thing. I could chew my lips all day, but it wouldn't change our options. "We treat them like they're armed. Okay?"

"Yup," Rink said, hefting the shotgun so the barrel was skyward.

It's not what you want-and to be fair, it didn't lie straight with either of us-because it meant we were going in with what's known in our trade as extreme prejudice. In layman's terms: shoot to kill. These weren't international terrorists or even enemy soldiers, just half-assed gangland hoods. Killing them was extreme. Maybe too extreme under the circumstances. As Rink had reminded me last night, we didn't have a license to kill anymore.

"No, Rink, we can't. You happy with defense only?" I suggested.

Talk about weight coming off shoulders. I'd swear we both grew a head taller. "Okay," I said. "We only shoot when necessary. Otherwise it's hand-to-hand."

"I'm happy with that," Rink said.

Rink again laid an eye to the edge of the tarpaulin. His raised thumb showed no change to the tableau. Okay, we're rolling. Action! Rink ripped aside the tarpaulin and stepped into the hallway be yond. I was a fraction of a beat behind him.

Confusion is the result of prolonged inactivity dramatically kick-started into life. The three men in the stairwell were caught catching?ies, with their hands in the cookie jar, with their trousers down, whatever your choice of metaphor. The sudden intrusion of two armed men in their midst caused shocked silence. But that was only one frame of the action. Time jumped to fast-forward.

To my left a man erupted out of a wicker chair. He had a sawed-off across his lap and was snatching for it. It was an easy decision for me. I snapped my left hand sideways. Put a back?st strike to the bridge of his nose. The man went down into his seat like the world champion of competitive musical chairs. The fact that his hands didn't reach for his broken nose in re?ex meant he was unconscious. The shotgun slipped out of his lap onto the?oor and I swiped it away with the edge of my boot.

Giving them their due, the other two had more sense than to challenge Rink's shotgun. They stood like mute statues until he ordered them to come forward. The one-two was on; I immediately mounted the stairs. From below me, Rink said something. Knowing him, it would be funny, but no one was laughing. The silence was followed by the thump and scuf?e of feet, and I guessed my suggestion of handto-hand was being followed.

The second landing was devoid of movement. I crept forward, stepping into dim light that leached from the?oor above, bringing up my SIG to sweep the space before me. My darkness-adapted eyes sought the next?ight of stairs. Below me, Rink mounted the stairs, and you'd assume that it was safe for me to go on. Bad move. You know what they say about assuming anything; it certainly made an ass out of me.

Maybe I'd grown a little rusty. I should have checked the corridor to my left before proceeding. As I committed myself to the stairs, a door opened behind me and a voice challenged me.

"The hell are you?"

Then a second voice shouted, "Five-O in the house."

I've undergone extensive hand-to-hand training in the Fairbairn method of combat. What I neglected to mention is that I've also trained in Fairbairn's armed technique known as Point Shooting. Like the hand-to-hand, it's based on the principle of immediate and re?exive action. Point. Shoot. Simple as that.

While the two men were stunned at my appearance, I could have spun and put a couple of rounds into their bodies. They would have been on their backs and I'd have been up on the next landing.

But as I'd so recently agreed with Rink, unless necessary this mission was to be carried out without lethal force. Shooting was out of the question. With that in mind, I'd no option but to turn around slowly, giving them ample opportunity to take stock of me on the stairwell. Not that I was about to give up an advantage. I kept my gun by my side, hidden from view by the angle of my body. If it came to it, I could shoot from the hip and take out both of them in a fraction of a second.