David Robbins - Nevada Run

We’ve got to make tracks.”

“Sorry,” Mindy mumbled. “I’m just so happy! I feel like I could walk on air.”

“I wish we could walk on air,” Hickok commented. “It’d make gettin’ out of here a lot easier.” He stopped in the center of the hallway and gazed in both directions.

No mobsters were in sight.

“Maybe we lucked out,” Hickok observed. “Maybe no one heard my shot.”

“Which way?” Mindy inquired.

“The stairwell,” Hickok suggested, retracing his steps. Once they were in the stairwell, he increased his pace.

“Where does this lead?” Mindy questioned.

“Whisper,” he whispered.

“Where does this lead?” Mindy repeated in a hushed voice.

“Down,” Hickok stated the obvious. “There might be an exit door at the bottom.”

“I can’t wait to see my mother again,” Mindy mentioned.

Hickok abruptly halted.

“What is it?” Mindy asked apprehensively.

Hickok stared at the steps in perplexity. “The polecat is gone!” He peered over the railing.

“What polecat?” Mindy inquired.

“Later,” Hickok said. They descended to the eighth floor. He told her to wait, entered the hall, and returned in ten seconds with a rifle slung across his back. “My Henry,” he explained, taking her hand once more. Down they went.

From far below came the muffled, yet unmistakable, report of an explosion. They heard the faint sound of gunfire.

“What’s going on?” Mindy questioned.

“I wish I knew,” Hickok muttered. He hastened ever lower, pondering the ramifications of the conflict being waged. From the sound of things, a full-fledged war had erupted. But who would be attacking Don Giorgio? And why? His friends must have come looking for him, and somehow managed to get into hot water. Leave it to those dummies to get into trouble when he had everything under control!

The noise of the shooting, intermixed with shouting and screams, grew louder and louder.

They passed landing after landing until they were between the fourth floor and the third, not ten feet from the landing door, which abruptly opened.

Hickok drew Mindy back against the stairwell wall. Her fingernails bit into the palm of his hand.

Six mobsters appeared and promptly descended the stairs. None of them bothered to look upward.

“Whew!” Mindy exclaimed. “That was close!”

“Come on.” Hickok stepped down to the landing. He released Mindy’s hand and cautiously approached the door. Don Giorgio’s suite was on this floor. He looked through the window, verifying the hallway was vacant.

“Don Giorgio was responsible for kidnapping you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Mindy said.

“No one else?” Hickok asked.

“Just Giorgio’s goons,” Mindy replied. “Why?”

“Did you ever hear of a Don Pucci?” Hickok inquired.

“I heard the name mentioned,” Mindy answered. “But I never met him. I was under the impression that Giorgio and Pucci are not on the best of terms.”

Hickok nodded. “Everything is fallin’ into place. I want you to stick close to me.”

“I’m not about to wander off,” Mindy promised.

“Walk directly behind me,” Hickok instructed her. “If one of us is going to take a slug, I’d rather it be me.”

“What do you mean by take a slug?” Mindy responded nervously.

Hickok didn’t reply. He yanked the door wide and boldly proceeded along the corridor.

Mindy was about to inquire about the reason for leaving the stairwell, when a door ahead opened and two hit men emerged. They both toted machine guns, and their eyes widened as they saw the Warrior. She quickly stepped behind Hickok, but peeked around his right shoulder.

“Who are you?” one of the button men demanded.

“Where is Giorgio?” Hickok rejoined, his arms draped at his sides.

“Who the hell wants to know?” snapped the mobster.

“His executioner,” Hickok replied.

The button men tried to bring their machine guns into play.

Mindy was opening her mouth to screech in mortal terror, momentarily forgetting who she was with and overlooking his reputation, certain they were both about to be shot.

But it was the other way around.

She glimpsed a blurred streak as Hickok pulled his revolvers and fired, the twin shots deafening in the corridor.

Each mobster was hit in the face just above the nose. Each one stumbled backwards and toppled over. Hickok suddenly began walking quite rapidly toward the door at the end of the hall.

Mindy dogged him like a shadow.

A burly mobster stepped from a room on the left, a pistol in his right hand.

Hickok plugged him between the eyes, then walked even faster then before.

Mindy detected an urgency in his movements. She marveled at the shootings she had witnessed. He had slain four men in twice as many minutes, and she wondered if she would see him kill more.

She did.

They were eight feet from the door at the end of the hall when it swung inward, framing a trigger man with a shotgun in the doorway.

Hickok shot him in the forehead.

Mindy was within an inch of the Warrior’s back, craning her neck to look over his right shoulder. She intuitively sensed she was about to witness an exploit few Family members had been privileged to observe at close quarters: Hickok in action. She had heard stories of his deeds during the war against the Doktor and elsewhere, but she had never personally been an eyewitness to his prowess.

Now she was.

Hickok went through the doorway at a brisk clip, striding over the corpse blocking the door.

Mindy found herself in a large room containing a lot of chairs. On the other side of the room was a closed door, and the Warrior stalked up to it and flung it open.

A pair of trigger men were running toward them. One was armed with a machine gun, the other a pistol.

Hickok went for the most dangerous adversary first, the man with the machine gun. His right Colt cracked, and the trigger man reacted like he had been pounded in the head by an invisible sledge hammer; the mobster flipped backward onto a desk.

But even as Hickok had fired, so had the trigger man with the pistol.

Mindy saw Hickok’s left shoulder jerk, and something tugged at her red hair. With a start, she realized the Warrior had been hit!

Hickok’s left Python boomed, and the second mobster sprouted an extra nostril and pitched forward.

Mindy went to touch Hickok, to ask if he was okay, but he was pressing toward yet another door in their path. He was reaching for the doorknob when he did a very strange thing; he unexpectedly swept his left arm around, forcing her away from the shut door.

Not a second too soon.

The door was rocked by a machine-gun burst, the slugs bursting the wood outwards and crashing into the walls and furniture surrounding them.

Mindy flinched, covering her face with her right arm.

As abruptly as it began, the firing ceased.

And Hickok moved. He reached the door in a leaping stride and rammed his right foot into the lower half. The ravaged door swiveled inward.

Mindy, remembering his instructions to stay near him always, darted behind him in time to see a heavyset man fumbling with a mechanism on the large machine gun he was holding. He looked up, staring calmly at the Warrior, and he actually grinned.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” he commented pensively. “The damn thing jammed.”

“Better luck next time,” Hickok said, and his left Colt blasted.

The heavyset mobster stiffened as his left eye vanished and the rear of his cranium exploded, showering hair and flesh all over the thick carpet.

He sagged to his knees, then fell forward.

Hickok strode into the huge chamber, glancing from left to right.