James Grippando - Money to Burn

“Then I’ll shoot you right now, damn it.”

“That beats burning alive.”

“You son of a bitch,” he said, aiming at Eric’s groin. “I’ll shoot you right in the-”

A loud pop suddenly filled the hangar as a window in the sliding door exploded. My focus had been on McVee’s showdown with Eric, but the strange sensation of a bullet whizzing past my ear shifted my attention right away.

Those next few moments were a blur, and even though many different things transpired simultaneously, they registered in my mind sequentially. A series of sounds and snapshots nearly overloading my ability to comprehend anything. Tiny bits of the shattered window glistening beneath the lights and falling to the floor. Burn’s head jerking to one side, his black beanie flying through the air. The sound of Ivy’s scream as the hot crimson spray showered her neck and shoulders.

Both Ivy and Burn tumbled away from the helicopter, and it was all too confusing to know if I had heard a second shot. Ivy hit the concrete first, and Burn landed on top of her. Somewhere in that moment-before or after Ivy’s fall, it was impossible to know which-I heard the clack of Burn’s weapon on the floor. The top of Burn’s skull was missing, a ghastly wound marking his certain death. His body was still moving, but not on its own power. Ivy was pushing out from under his dead weight.

As if on a sheet of ice, she pivoted on her hip bone, spun her legs around clockwise, and kicked Burn’s weapon in my direction.

“Michael!” she shouted, as it slid across the concrete.

I dived to the floor and grasped it.

And then the lights went out.

THE EMERGENCY-EXIT LIGHT GLOWED OVER THE DOOR, CASTING A surreal orange-red pall over the chaos. It was hard to know exactly what was going on, if the shooting was over, or if more rounds were coming. Obviously, whoever had fired the sniper shot from outside the building had also cut the power. I had no idea if Ivy had been bluffing about the FBI’s being on its way, but if she wasn’t, a SWAT team should have been busting down the door right about now.

No one came.

“Run!” said Ivy.

I looked up and saw Ivy and her mother racing toward the door beneath the exit light, Ivy’s hands still clasped behind her back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eric running in the other direction, toward the office. Wald was in pursuit. And I saw McVee raising his weapon and taking aim at Ivy.

The last time I’d fired a gun I was a fourteen-year-old hell-raiser trying to shoot the NO out of a NO HUNTING sign posted along our dirt-road neighborhood in Loon Lake. My best friend had dared me and loaned me his shotgun. I couldn’t even hit the damn sign. I prayed for better aim with a pistol, squeezing off two quick shots in McVee’s direction. I missed, but it sent McVee diving for cover. Ivy and her mother also dived to the floor at the sound of gunfire.

“Keep running!” I shouted as I sprinted after them.

I turned and, just for cover, fired another quick shot back at McVee. Ivy and her mother were at least ten steps ahead of me. Olivia hit the door first and pushed it open. She made it out, and Ivy was right behind her. Through the open doorway, I could actually see stars in the night sky. Then I heard one more crack of gunfire.

I dropped like a stone. The pain in the back of my thigh was somewhere between getting whacked with a hammer and stabbed with a red-hot screwdriver.

“Michael!” screamed Ivy.

She was halfway out the door when she stopped. I could see that she was about to turn and come back to get me, though what good she could have done with her hands bound behind her back wasn’t clear. Another shot rang out, and I heard the bullet slam into the wall of painted cinder block behind me.

“Go!” I shouted, rolling toward the door.

Two more shots followed, the second skimming off the metal door, missing Ivy by inches. My leg was getting hotter and wetter, and then I saw the blood. Less than I would have expected-clearly no major artery involved. This was a survivable wound, I was sure of it. But I was equally certain that another bullet would finish the job if I didn’t keep moving. The pain and loss of blood was making me light-headed, but I drew on my reserves and kept rolling across the floor in Ivy’s direction.

Ivy was outside the hangar now, crouched low, hiding behind the door and holding it partly open for me. Bullets continued to skid across the floor, ricocheting off the concrete. I lost track of the number of rounds McVee had fired so far. At most seven, and even with my limited knowledge about firearms, I knew there were plenty of pistols with magazines bigger than that.

I continued moving toward the door, but my momentum was slowing. My leg was starting to feel numb, and my head clouded up with congestion in places I had never felt congested, as if my entire brain were turning into cotton. Losing consciousness was an immediate possibility.

Another bullet whizzed past my ear. McVee continued to fire in my direction, but I couldn’t see him. I, on the other hand, was a sitting duck, and as my thoughts became less and less coherent, I had a memory flash of Papa telling me the story of the LST-“large stationary target”-that had transported him and some other very unlucky souls onto the beach at Normandy. I fought off the mind fog, giving it my all, but it felt as though I were moving at a turtle’s pace. Had McVee been a better shot, I would have been dead already. But I couldn’t remain out in the open, an easy target-LST-just waiting for him to finally hit the bull’s-eye. I suddenly recalled Burn’s warning about the fuel. I reached inside for one last burst of energy and sprang toward the open doorway. In midair I reached back and aimed in the direction of the fuel cans Wald had dropped to the floor. I squeezed off a shot as I rolled out the doorway.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” SHOUTED AGENT ANDIE HENNING.

Andie was three hundred yards from the heliport, inside an FBI mobile command unit that was parked on the entrance road. A full hostage negotiation team was with her.

Minutes earlier, FBI tech agents had just completed an infrared-camera scan of the hangar, which picked up a fourth hostage inside the helicopter. A recent corpse could give off enough body heat to be picked up by a scan, but the possibility of a fourth hostage tipped the already shaky balance away from an all-out SWAT assault. A peaceful resolution also seemed highly achievable once Kyle McVee had entered the building, a powerful businessman whose entire life was about cutting deals. The negotiators were just thirty seconds away from initiating contact by loudspeaker when the shooting started. Andie raced out of the command unit and couldn’t believe what she was hearing in her headset. WhiteSands Hangar No. 3 sounded like a war zone.

Andie was immediately on the bone microphone with the FBI sniper, who was on the rooftop of WhiteSands Hangar No. 2, directly across the heliport from Hangar No. 3.

“The order was to hold your fire!” she shouted.

“Roger that,” came the reply. “No shot from here.”

She switched over to the SWAT unit commander. Agent Kowalski and his team had taken various strategic positions, completely surrounding Hangar No. 3, invisible even to Andie, ready to move in the event that the planned negotiations broke down.

“Are you green on breach?” asked Andie.

The breach was forced entry-showtime in SWAT-speak. Green was the assault-the moment of life and death, literally-after yellow, the final position of cover and concealment.

“Negative,” said Kowalski, his voice crackling with radio squelch. “Hot environment, no element of surprise. Holding at yellow.”