Страница 74 из 93
Ciro stood as if he were on a firing range with zero regard for the possibility of anybody shooting back. He had the barrel of the assault rifle between the iron bars of the fence, his aim rock steady. He fired shot after shot into the engine block, placing twelve bullets into an area no larger than a square foot.
Joey B obliterated the front tires and the windshield.
Within five seconds, the Chevy had become a useless wreck.
* * *
Bullets continued to zing around Ma
Before he had taken his position in the doorway, Ma
Ma
Once, twice, three times, and the lighter ignited with a hiss. Ma
And then Ma
* * *
Seconds can seem like an eternity when people are shooting at you. But it hadn’t taken Demarco Jones more than ten seconds to make his move. He’d been concealed behind a patch of overgrown bushes and scrubby trees that ran along the fence of the empty industrial lot opposite Beck’s building.
He’d waited patiently for Kolenka’s men to start shooting at Ma
In his left hand he carried a Spyderco Warrior combat knife, in his right hand a crude fifteen-inch galvanized iron pipe with the bottom taped for a secure grip. A beautifully designed and expertly honed cutting tool in one hand. A crude bludgeon in the other.
Demarco moved like a wraith behind the five men shooting at Ma
Demarco’s first slash severed the thick hamstrings on the legs of the two men leaning over the SUV’s hood. One fast hard slash cut through the muscles and tendons of four legs. Both men screamed, reached backward toward the searing pain, turning toward the iron pipe that smashed into their heads with two fast hits. Both were down in just under three seconds.
The third shooter, leaning over the roof of the SUV, turned toward Demarco as the pipe crunched into the middle of his forehead, splitting the skin, breaking his nose, and knocking him unconscious. The combat knife’s blade swept down and sliced through the arm that held his gun, cutting through muscle and tendon, all the way into the hard humerus bone just above the elbow.
The fourth shooter holding the rifle turned it toward Demarco, but way too late. Demarco was already too close to him, the barrel of the rifle pointing past him. Demarco punched the iron pipe into his stomach and slashed the rifle out of his hands.
The last shooter crouched behind the back end of the SUV had been shooting with his left hand. He had to spin all the way around to get a shot at whoever was attacking them from his right.
Demarco wasn’t even breathing hard. He spun toward the last man, his back now against the SUV. He was so calm, so fast, that he actually had to wait a beat for the man to finish turning toward him, and then Demarco slashed his blade down on the man’s gun hand, cutting all the tendons ru
The gunfire had stopped almost as suddenly as it had started.
Ma
He stood up, holding the Mason jar filled with homemade napalm, the soaked piece of dish towel burning and smoking.
He stepped out from behind the light pole and stepped toward the SUV, taking no chance that he would be throwing it from too far away. But Ma
He took aim. Ma
The momentum of Ma
The jar shattered. The homemade napalm splattered into the gasoline. The driver pulled off a panicked second shot, but Demarco Jones had already thrown his iron pipe. It smashed into the driver’s back. The shot went wide. A soft whump sounded and everything burst into a roaring black inferno of flames.
* * *
Stepanovich’s men were caught between two impulses.
Shoot back at whoever had shot up their SUV. Or, keep ru
Stepanovich stood near the middle of the lot, about twenty yards back from Beck’s building, yelling orders.
Beck moved closer to the gate now, to keep his eye on what Stepanovich and his men were doing.
His original plan had depended on the cops being in the neighborhood by now, responding to gunshots, while Ma
He looked across the street to make sure that the Porsche was moving. It was. Ciro and Joey B were driving out of the lot to swing around to get Ma
Demarco was supposed to head quickly in the opposite direction and get the Mercury which was parked over on Beard Street, meet Beck, and drive out of the neighborhood.
But there were no cops swooping in and taking out whatever was left of the Russians on Conover and the Bosnians in the empty lot.
He checked again after the Porsche. It was out of sight. Good. Ma
Beck could have turned around and hustled over to Van Brunt, where Demarco would find him, but no. No way. Not now. Not with these bastards and that bald maniac alive and able to come after them.
He went through a quick calculation. His men were safe. He had all the weapons he could carry. His Browning was registered. The Benelli legal. He could hear Phineas making the argument that his client had been forced out of his home, only to be ambushed, whereupon he had no alternative but to fight to save his life.
Beck smiled in the dark red glow that pulsed on the other side of his building. It would end here and now, one way or the other.
68
Beck kept moving toward the disabled Suburban blocking the entrance to the empty lot, watching Stepanovich and the others as best he could. They were midway in the dark empty lot, having spread out behind his building.
He saw Stepanovich pointing and ordering two of his men to go back to the Suburban and see who had shot the SUV to pieces. That left six, plus Stepanovich out in the lot.