FREE FREE FREE Chapter 1 to whet your appetites FREE
“Any idea how much I hate your fucking guts?”
“Cork it, bitch. We’re rollin’.”
Everything about A.J. pissed Lenny off.
"TURNNN...THAAAT...DOWN!!!"
"YOU MEAN 'DOWN' LIKE THIS?!" Crank! The knob spun right to the stops. "HA HA!! LET'S SEE IF THIS BITCH CAN TAKE IT!"
And why not? In five minutes we'll be all outta eyefuls of this luscious fuckin' leather and wood-lined interior again. Why not wring this fucking thing dry? At least, that's what Lenny's head imagined the bastard was rationalizing before his own bleeding eardrums shattered.
The windows rattled on the cusp of bursting. A.J.'s head banging grew more furious as he stomped the gas and slapped Lenny playfully in the shoulder. "YEAHHHHHRRRRR!!! FUCKIN' 'WAR NERVE' YEAHRRR!!! Time for a scream along, bitch!
'FUCK THE WORLD FOR ALL IT'S WORTH! EVERY INCH OF PLANET EARTH...!!!'"
They had to be pulling serious g's the way A.J. flung that steering wheel around. With Lenny's eyes and head shut against the sonic fusillade, only the sudden, choking yank of the seatbelt told him they'd screeched back down to zero miles an hour."AAALL THE MONEY IN THE FUCKING WORLD COULDN'T BUY ME ONE SECOND OF TRUST...!!!" A sideways punch in the shoulder prompted him to glare in A.J.'s direction.
"YEAHRR, MAN!!'FUCK YOU AAAALLLLL!!!!'" A.J. continued to growl lyrics at the limit of his lung's ability, long after he ripped the key from the ignition.
In the briefest snatch of solitude when A.J. Tigger-bounced out of the car, Lenny let every ghastly second of tonight's atrocity explode all over his brain. And all he could do was suck air and clench his fists. Breathe. In a month you'll be on a faraway beach where you can drink, toke, and screw this monster out of your memory for-fucking-ever! Just get tonight done. He exhaled. "Shit."
Bang bang!
Lenny jumped and flailed his hands. The pounding on the car's roof tore the rug out from under his meditation session. He would've been staring bug-eyed at A.J. through the passenger window, but his cohort already done whipped the door on open.
Snap! Snap! of fingers right in his face.
Asshole.
"Wakey-wake-wake!"
God! what a sneering tone he puts on too!
"Time ta earn the moolah!" Wink. When Lenny didn't immediately bolt out of his seat, A.J. snatched his lapel. "JEE-sus! You been wearin' lead underwear all goddamned night. Get the fuck out!"
The fucker's perpetual shit-eating grin grated all over Lenny's already raw nerves. Add to that A.J.’s in-yo-face strut. From the moment he'd parked the car, the crazy fuck almost danced his way over to the building, like they were on their way inside a goddamned titty bar or somethin'. What level of hell did Victor and Morton find this fucking psycho nutbag? More importantly, what in the fucky-fuck did I do to get partnered up with him? Fuck almighty! Beaming the whole damn time, A.J. flicked away his cigarette, hopped over to the front door and slashed his card through the reader. Holding it open with a mockingly obsequious bow, he gestured Lenny in. "After you, Monsieur."
A.J. cocked his head the whole time he bowed, scanning the lobby. The place fit more or less exactly the layout of the sketch they'd memorized last night. Some sort of slapped-together cross between that of a really nice hotel and one of the local banks. Spacious. High ceilinged. Walls with a neat two-tone corporate gray trim. A couple plants. Leather couch. Even an assuredly expensive sculpture. All of which, he was sure, no visitor's eyes were ever, ever drawn to.
'Cause ten feet down, a row of ugly, scratched-up, chromed stainless turnstiles straight from the Metro rudely smacked your eyes and made you go "Helloooo, Tacky-Land!" Bisecting the turnstiles marked "Entrada" and those marked "Saída" squatted the central focus of both men's interest. Making up what resembled a good-sized ticket booth, including: a semi-circular desk crowned with yellowed, pulp-paperback-novel-thick Lexan enclosure from waist to near ceiling-scraping height; and more specifically, the guard enclosed in it.
The guard turn-slouched in their direction without a bit of surprise. CMB (aka Compumercobrás) kept employees buzzing all hours. Even though the building was abnormally empty tonight for reasons no one had bothered leave him a note about, two men he hadn't seen before in dark suits, briefcases, and company badges this tedious hour didn't stir the hairs on his neck in any fashion. He wrinkled his nose more in indignation at being jabbed out of his porn-loving, civil-servant-grade sloth than any genuine suspicion. Bloody late hour or not, he'd have to at least act somewhat professional, check their IDs, have them sign in and announce their arrival. Someone might just be watching them — and him — on one the four lobby CCTV (Closed-Circuit TeleVision) cameras. So, while not even bothering to cloak his irritation or reluctance, he sluggishly levered his drowsy eyes away from the fetish mag and shot up to attention. "Boa noite, senhors. Documentos, por favor."
Morton stank. Could absolutely not get the raw stink out of his nose. Or anyone else's, judging by the immense elbow room his two partners allowed him in the cab of an otherwise stuffed-solid delivery truck. Four showers melted away a bar and a half of soap. And he was still so damn rank that the thought of eating... let's just say it'd be several more hours before he could so much as obliquely glance in the direction of a Big Mac with fries without dry heaving.
He and Ernie spent the entire morning fighting acrid, waist to armpit-high sewer sludge not three hundred yards from the complex they now sat outside of. Finding, accessing (i.e. crowbarring open), and isolating the proper fiber optic and copper cables in such a way as to not set off about two billion alarms all over the city dragged into well over an exhausting, tense, and all too nauseating hour by itself. Accomplishing that, he'd still had to mount and run diagnostics thrice on his pet black box. That, in Rio's steamy hot, rot-clogged sewers was no day at fucking Disneyland. By the time he and Ernie scrabbled out of a manhole, no shower or firehose could rinse off all the shit-spawned gel in their coveralls, tools, fingernails, skin and hair.
The stench, however, wasn't what really had him nauseous. Not now. So far Victor and Morton’s lovely little plan was flowing creamy smooth. Trouble was coming to terms with what they'd had to do to get to this tick on the clipboard. Or that is, what that sick fuck A.J. did to get them here.
Springing away from the door, A.J. caught up to Lenny, marching a meter to his left. Lenny set his briefcase on the desk's counter, using his free hand to unclip his pilfered badge from his handkerchief pocket and push it through the gap between desk and Lexan. A.J. oozed over farther left, inching toward the guard's own entry door.
The guard looked down at the ID badge. Lenny shoved his briefcase flush against the Lexan and jerked the trigger on the handle.
A.J. lagged picoseconds behind, ramming his own briefcase into the door lock and firing. The sweet little Swedish armor-piercing nine-millies performed exactly like the scuttlebutt promised, cracking clean through the deadbolt. A.J. bashed his way in, immediately stomping down hard on the guard's right foot, smashing several pencil-thin bones. Before the man could so much as gasp, A.J. slugged him — one, two, three, four! times — upside, downside and all around sideways the head with his briefcase. The guard lolled backwards in his chair, his consciousness wiped black, blood hosing a wild, unkempt spackle pattern from the bullet holes and his mashed head. Panting and drooling like an overheated poon-hound over the limp and motionless sack-o'-beat-down, A.J. grinned, sucked air through his teeth and stuck the briefcase up to the man's neck, firing once more.
"Gawd Damn that's LOUD! Aw man!"
A.J. chuckled and shook his head around, swiggling a finger in his ear to alleviate some of the ringing. Still snickering, he glanced down at his right foot, making sure it still firmly sealed the guard's right foot to the floor, and to the dead-man's-switch Morton said he'd be standing on.
The guard's foot stood on nothing but tile.
"Lennnyyyy! Fuck!!"
"What?!"
"Oh. Oh God, whew! Never mind." A.J.'d dropped to his hands and knees, finding the dead-man's-switch two feet away — where somebody would stand on it with their left foot. He'd had to really look though since somebody had gone and piled five thick and heavy three-ring binders on top of it.
Lenny poked his head in the booth, recoiling away immediately. That lovely red Rorschach on the back Lexan worked Lenny-boy's stomach muscles but good. Already choking good and plenty on the powderburnt smoke dominating the air, a noseful of coppery blood stench piled on the nausea but good. Especially since the latest species of blood reek reminded Lenny all too vividly of his partner's little coppery-smelling foray earlier in the evening.
Damn you, A.J.! "Are you done?"
"Huh?"
"Are you done in here? I'd like to call the others in."
"Yeah." A.J. answered, hauling himself to his feet. "I 'spose. Unless you wanna snap a picture t' send home to the wife n' kids."
"Okay, whatever. Hey..., wait."
"What?"
"Didn't Victor say there'd be two guards?"
"Well ... yeahhh. But I can count, even if you can't," A.J. growled, then broke into his best Sesame Street Count impression. "And I count only one. One dead rent-a-cop! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
"I see only one dead one too. But this is a pretty big booth here. And I count two chairs."
"That means nuthin'."
Not one to miss his cue, the second guard stormed out of the men's room fifty feet away, pants barely belted up and revolver convulsing in his hand. He got off one shot before Lenny backpedaled behind the turnstiles, awkwardly attempting to line up the muzzle on his big square briefcase with the brand new bobbing and jinking target.
A.J. reacted twice as fast, instantly dropping sideways prone to the floor; his own briefcase's internal submachine gun only taking a second to arc directly in line with the guard's midsection. He let loose six rounds before his target fell over, revolver catapulting away from the spasming hand.
Lenny ran over to check for a pulse, eyes scanning towards the elevators and hallway in case any more party crashers came their way. A.J. spat, rolling over to get back on his feet when he saw a red light under the desk strobing accusingly at his face. Glancing at the floor, over-eager A.J. discovered he'd managed to kick every last three-ring binder in the pile off that very same dead-man's-switch they'd been so damned perfervid about not triggering in the first place. Whoopsie, boys!
Lenny turned towards A.J., caught his partner's expression and the "Oh shit!" A.J. mouthed. Then he saw the red light flashing like mad. Goddamn you! His temper past boiling, Lenny quickdrawed the radio from his jacket, spraying the speaker in a barrage of spit and fear. "Hurry the fuck in here already! A.J.'s tripped the alarm!"
"What did I tell y—"
"Shutup, Akira!" Victor'd definitely done roared past the "oh hell fucking no" point when it came to the incessant grumbling and nitpicking from his employer's liaison. "And not a peep out of you either, Morton! I don't have fucking time for it!" They'd all figured out by now A.J. was psycho, but up until this round of icky fun: a ridiculously effective psycho. Well, yay, bitches! The Gods of Ass-Fucked-Circumstances just had to pick this very right now to flip the off switch on A.J.'s competency powers. Fuuuuck!
Victor hissed through his binoculars. "Goddamn it!" The main entrance consisted of a heavy, heavy, and did I say heavy?-gauge solid metal sliding gate coupled with a spacious, square guard booth poured from the same hulking-thick reinforced concrete as the perimeter walls. No way they could ram it. The booth's windows would surely offer a rifle-proof barrier. Its door: most definitely a cast iron bastard to breach. Four once sleepy-looking guards buzzed around inside their armored work station like hornets after a rock pegs their nest dead on. Maybe those guards only wore revolvers, but they might be able to haul out a stashed submachine gun or two to ruin Victor’s ever so meticulous (yet buggered from the start) plans.
A.J. and Lenny had expensive suits, an expensive stolen car, and stolen badges to slip on in past the idiots. And what did Victor have? Seven grubby mutts plus himself, and a whole heckuva lotta hardware in a grotty delivery truck. No chance on easily passing GO or collecting $200. Dammit! We were supposed to have more time!
The plan entailed Lenny and A.J. seizing the front lobby and securing it while they, — the remainder of the uninvited but well-armed bunch — upon notification all was hunky dory, stealthily got rid of the dozing four before sliding in. Morton's black box was supposed to have recycled last hour's video feed from the cameras, thus ensuring the other eighteen or so guards in the building would be yawning, unaware, etcetera, etcetera while all whopping ten of Los Pinche Chingones (Victor’s Bad Boy Club) thoroughly and properly wiped the floor with that lot of rent-a-gaggle.
But with Lenny's breach of radio protocol, every single damnable rent-a-spam inside the complex had to be just as hotly aware and buzzing as those agitated guards ensconced in the guard bunker outside. Those same men were probably all locking and loading submachine guns in preparation for puttin' on a serious hurtin'. This furious few clenched in their grip maybe two minutes to barrel in there and save the remainder of their Chingón crew from being outnumbered, overwhelmed, and no doubt perforated and putrefied. Lives were at a seriously ugly risk, and the sand was hurtling down the hourglass.
All their heavy-hitting stuff was bundled on the hand truck. Locked up. It would take a few minutes to find anything and get it ready. Fuck a schmuck!
"Morton! The door to that guard shack is on the gate side right?"
"Yeah."
"But outside right?"
"Yeah."
"Can they use their phones to call anyone."
"Not if my box kicked in."
Dammit! That meant maybe. Victor hated maybes. CMB's guards weren't all that well paid or aware, or bright. But he had to assume someone, at least a supervisor, was smart enough to punch 190 (Brazil's 911) on a cell phone the moment they discovered their in-house phones dead.
"Dutch!" Victor called to his men huddled with the gear in the back of the truck. "Break open the boxes and holler back when you've got a couple of frags in hand."
A.J. waved Lenny over to huddle for cover behind the guard desk. Lenny plopped down while both men hurriedly flicked open their deadly luggage. Each briefcase coughed up a faceful of gray, noxious smoke. A.J. in particular received a pungent double helping. Spent cartridges jingled onto the tile while they unfastened, wiggled, and jimmied their MP5K submachine guns from the briefcase mounts. Once free of the of the spiffy but awkward briefcase confines, both men clipped their bullet hoses to three-point assault slings and pocketed the loose, spare magazines.
"Nice fucking going."
"Excuse me?! Suck my what, pendejo?! You didn't even get a shot in on that second guard! Your ass would've been creamed corn if it wasn't for me! Where were you running off to hide?!"
"Don't fucking even. If it wasn't for your clumsy ass —"
"That's some braaaave smack talk comin' from somebody with a mouth like a menstruating cunt. When are you gonna do any of the real wet work and not just sucker-kick people already on the ground?"
"You mother—"
"Fuckin' pansy!"
"I'll fuckin' show you—"
The lobby went dark.
Ernie did not like running. Already wheezing, he could feel the steady awful ache creeping up his legs. His arms whipped through the air as he struggled up his best (read: porn-grade) acting attempt. As the only one in the group besides Akira the Grumbler still wearing street clothes and not mail order SWAT gear, Dutch went and threw him out of the truck without so much as a "Good luck." Instead the big bastard grumbled "Don't fuck up."
Ernie built up enough steam, he almost forgot to stop, colliding with the guard booth, and, once he re-planted his feet, rapidly banging on the thick windows as fast and hard as he could. "Socorro! My friends! Accident! My friends hurt!" he stuttered out in pre-school Portuguese.
The four guards, minds already blitzkrieged by the alarms gone feral, all blinked in disbelief. Not able to understand half of what this man was rabidly squealing about through the thick glass, the senior guard cracked open the door. "O que é?!"
Ernie shouldered the door open the rest of the way, plucking the Mk3A2 concussion grenade out of his waistband while jerking at the pin.
The pin, however, did not budge.
For two ghastly seconds, Ernie just stared at the guards. All four stared back, eight huge eyes locked on the fat black and yellow cylinder he held at chest level.
The gears in his head started up again. Ernie shut his gaping mouth and yanked on the pin with every last drop of adrenaline-enhanced strength, grinding his teeth.
The pin held fast.
Two of the guards' brains recovered enough to get them to start drawing their guns.
Ernie screamed like someone schwacked on the big toe with a sledgehammer, cocked his arm back and threw the grenade anyway, pegging the senior guard in the forehead, before tearing into a full-bore run back down the street, blindly jerking off pistol shots behind him.
Victor: "Awwwww, what the fuck now?"
One guard picked the concussion grenade up, ripped away the ninety-mile-an-hour-tape mummifying the safety clip (there to prevent those "Uh-oh!, Yikes!," BOOM!-type of accidents), and straightened out the grenade’s cotter pin prongs back from the considerably bent tail end. Now able to actually pull the dang thing free, he hurled the freshly armed grenade in Ernie's unfortunate direction.
Mr. Concussion Grenade seemed to home in the poor boy, bouncing along — skippety..., skip..., skip, skip — and tracking him down the street before — BLAAAAM!! — letting loose with close to a pound of TNT, the explosion not even a foot behind its prey. Even in this wide open space, the sensory assault of white light and noise went way beyond overwhelming. Ernie found the shredded air around him literally drop kicked him up off the ground before he flipped around into one rough mother of a nose dive back down into an ugly-fugly, face-first asphalt smooch.
"Oh, Christ in a coffee cup!" Any lingering hopes of surreptitiousness done went and ka-boomed in front of their faces. People up to and beyond a mile away must have been loudly slapped into a "What the fuck?!" state of mind right about now. That's a helluva lotta folks getting privy to their super secret plans. Shit! Shit! ShiiiiiT!!!
Morton squawked the radio, "Dutch, Plan C in goddamned effect!"
Victor popped the truck's gearshift into L, flooring the pedal. By the time he'd wrenched his steering wheel around the limp n' prone lump-o'-Ernie, he'd wheeled the truck off balance and wayyyy too close to the shack. The truck would've flipped had it not crashed sideways flush into the lengthy end of the guard booth, tottering to a deafening stop.
The rear door roared on its rollers as the hulk known as Dutch yanked it open. Rob and David leapt out while Dutch and Gerard pointed a suppressed M4A3 SOPMOD (a kind of shortened, ultra-pimped M16) carbine and an MP5N submachine gun (SMG) (respectively) straight over their boys' heads in case any of the rent-a-cops should take some damn fool initiative. Rob duct-taped a couple more Mk3A2 concussion grenades over the door's hinges, bolting back into the truck before David even managed to pull both pins. Every man back in the truck sucked floor.
WHU-WHUMP! The whole truck rocked forth then back. A couple door fragments cut through the side panels.
Dutch pounced to his feet, jerking free the pin on the frag grenade he intended to pitch through the door of the now hopefully wide open guard bunker. He watched the grenade's spoon fly away as he jumped down and — Ohhhhh fuck! — tripped and fell mug-first into the asphalt. The grenade rolled away from him and away from the guard shack. The upcoming concussion and fragments though were sure as a fish shittin' in the ocean to slam-bam-wham into him and his buddies still in the back of the truck. They, at best, had three seconds.
Dutch jumped to his feet — Owww! — and into the truck, screaming every obscenity he could think of on such short notice. He pawed onto the rear door, spat a tooth through his bloody lips, hauling the door down and shut about a femtosecond before detonation.
Whump! A bit muffled this time. But the raw concussive power rippled under his skin like a thousand scalpel-sharp fingers. Fuck me!
Doing his best to blot out all the wonderful pain gaining dominion over his whacked raw mouth and facial nerves, Dutch threw the door back open, shouldered his M4A3 and charged. Gerard, Rob, and David blinked a quick look at each other and followed.
Dutch hadn't waited for nobody, dashing to the shack, rounding the ragged door jamb muzzle first, and perforating four very stunned, very ineffective men. The last thing Guard Número 4 ever read were the words "YOU ARE FUCKED!" liquid-papered on the barking end of Dutch's silencer. A puppies in a bucket job really. Half a mag of ammo and they were all strawberry toast.
Taking just enough time to breathe and spit another tooth chip, Dutch called out "All clear! Rob, go get Ernie!", slapped the big red button that opened the gate, and hustled the others back in the truck, whipping out his radio to call Victor. Soon as Rob dragged their stunned and unconscious bud in the back, Dutch mashed his thumb into the talk button. "Go!"
The truck spun around unsteadily, sluggishly fishtailing forward. That last grenade shredded the left rear tire, which Victor only learned when the back wheel started sparking on the ground. Chingao! A quarter kilometer down the driveway still separated them and A.J. plus Lenny.
Three minutes felt like forever in the black. Ever more so when you were crouched behind a desk with a ticklish trigger finger. A.J. could hear what he guessed to be eight or ten of them, none daring any further than the elevator hall. A scared, noisy, and clumsy bunch of rent-a-cops. Provided Morton's box was somewhat nominal, all any of the guards had for intel was reruns of their two dead buddies ogling over beaver shots. Wherever they were, A.J. couldn't discern so much as the tip of a shoe.
His mood teetered from itchy to bored. He rolled over to Lenny's side of the desk, reaching in his jacket. "Here. Take one."
Lenny' eyes widened. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Of course it's what you think it is."
"Where the hell did you get those?"
"Off one of the hand trucks. There was like a hundred of 'em."
"The hand carts are not your personal grab bag."
"Oh, so I should've just left 'em there for the next time we pull off one of these jobs. Gee, mom, it's not like we got a firefight brewin'."
"That's not the—"
One of the guards began hosing the room. They'd all crept forward, fanning out at the other end of the lobby. Hordes of bullets ricocheted off the turnstiles and gouged the desk. Lenny fell to the ground prone, hands over his head as several guards added their lack of fire discipline to the mix, emptying whole magazines in seconds. The ripping cacophony sounded like it was raining ball bearings, only a hundred times louder.
A.J. and Lenny opened up near simultaneously from each side of the desk. Three fell instantly. Two seconds later A.J. spakked one in the neck. That poor bastard flopped backwards, smearing a big red streak down the wall. The inside of a pinball machine couldn't have drowned out the deafening peal of gunfire and ricochets.
Before any of those poor bastards could run, A.J. pulled the pins on his two grenades, rolling 'em one after another towards the guards.
"Oh Christ, A.J., you crazy fuck!"
"Down!!"
The lobby served as a giant echoic chamber sodden with overwhelming noise, light and heat. For the briefest ear-crushing second Lenny felt nothing but a brutish, total and Mongolian-horde-ravenous full-on sensual assault. The dual concussion unreal in its potency as it seemed to rupture the room in half. It felt like the whole world was being violently raped into energy. The sprinkler system jolted on, stuttering from the sheer force of the blast. And then it ended, with neither A.J. or Lenny being able to hear at all.
A.J. had already changed magazines and popped back up and around the desk, seething through his teeth as he scanned for survivors. Seeing nothing of what was left of anybody move or moan, he ambled around, blasting a kick into the ribcage of any guard more or less intact. He found three unsnuffed. A bullet in the mouth each solved that little problem.
The shooting threw Lenny to his feet, feeling more than hearing the punchy concussion through his heavy tinnitus. But gunshots were gunshots, they always hit his nerves like raw electricity.
The back of the room was red up to the ceiling. The blood stuck as if sandblasted on. Lenny just stared at his partner, not in any way sure how to express his outright, total flat-out stunned shock.
"I can't believe you did that!"
"Did what?" A.J. answered, nonchalantly waggling his finger in his ear again.
"Those were frag grenades!"
"Well, duh."
"Those were frag grenades!" He shrieked even louder.
"I heard you the first time, Sherlock. What did you expect them to be?"
"I hoped, in some corner of my brain, they'd be flash/bangs or just maybe concussion grenades or at least something sane, you sick fucking bastard!"
"Call me whatever you fucking want. Least I get the job done. Least I don't pussy out of a fight till the rough stuff's over. Ah-h-hem!"
"You call butchering a little girl in front of her dad a fight, you fucking psycho?!"
"That wasn't a fight. That was the kind of necessary shit that gets the job done. And, survey says: Ding! I got us exactly what we fucking needed, you whiny cunt. Don't tell me you're getting all weepy over that little half-nigglet. 'Oh waaaaa! Oh boo-fuckin'-hoo! The poor wittle half-nigglet!'" A.J.'s eyes rolled. "Why the hell can't you act like a fucking professional, you dickless twerp? This was a fight, 'cept I seem to be the only one squeezin' off rounds on our side!"
"Fuck you, A.J.! You're a psycho and a fucking thief!"
"Awww, fuck YOU, Lenny! Stuff something in your sac already! If I wasn't here you'd probably curl up in the fetal position and start sucking your thumb at the first pop of gunfire, you whiny... nigglet-lovin'... menstruating little pussy!"
"That's IT, God-DAMNIT!!!" Lenny charged, sliding forward on the wet, bloody floor straight at his partner, decking A.J. hard enough to pound out a spray of spit and blood.
A.J. rebounded at once, thundering in two turbo-powered punches to the ribs, another to the stomach, then two more square to Lenny's jaw. He clawed Lenny's throat to choke him but they both slipped, crashing on top of one another.
Struggling jerkily and feverishly to untangle from the mangle, his mind suddenly taking a mental shit of a fear dump, Lenny pawed at the floor, failing to crawl on the slippery red tile in a pathetically sad, stillborn effort. A.J. pounced, snatching handfuls of slacks and jacket as he rolled the scared bastard on his back, sure as Death himself pawing hand-over-hand up the guy's body. When A.J. finally straddled his partner's stomach, Lenny tried to swing his gun up. A.J. batted it away, spewing a froth of rage as he stared the other man down.
"Oh is that how you wanna play?!"
Bam! A.J. struck his fist into Lenny's ogle-box. "Huh?!"
Bam! "Answer me!"
Bam! "Answer me you fuckin' cunt breath!"
Bam!
Lenny tried bringing his gun up again but A.J. bashed him in the kisser then knelt on his arm. "I can play like that too, Motherfucker!" A.J. yelled, punching Lenny in the mouth with his personal submachine gun.
"How does this fucking taste?! Huh?!" he hollered, coercing the muzzle centimeter by centimeter down Lenny's mouth.
"ARE YOU DONE?!!"
A.J.'s eyes whipped around to face the voice, his stare white hot.
"Oh, hey Victor," he beamed and winked. "Just give me a few more seconds and I'll be right with you."
"Get off him. NOW!!!"
"Mind your own fucking business."
"This is my business, motherfucker! NOW GET UP!!!"
"Why don't you make me," he said all honey-tongued, broadcasting his trademark maniacal grin.
"I didn't hire you on so I could play high school principal." Victor stood right over A.J. now, easy punching or kicking distance. "Last time."
"Or what?!"
Victor's boot heel thwammed! square into A.J.'s face, launching him off Lenny's body as if he'd leaped to do a back flip and ended up doing a back flop. Before A.J. could shake his head clear his right hand crackled with way too much crunching pain for him to hold on to his gun any longer. Still focusing, he cranked his head to spot Victor's size 10 Danners on his gun hand, then looked up to see his jefe's ferocious scowl. Immediately, Victor's other boot stomped down on A.J.'s other arm, pinning him fully.
"I do NOT have time for this!"
"I—"
"You heard those explosions sounding like they came from the main gate?"
"Uhh yeah...."
"That's cuz they did! We are about to encounter a serious form of police presence and we haven't even had time to lock down the building! You have pissed me wayyyy the fuck off for the last time tonight. Once more and I'm flushing half your cut."
"You ca—"
Both of Victor's hands flashed straight down — Tonk! — bouncing the back of A.J.'s head against the floor tile. Clawed up fingers and thumbs snaked around his throat on the rebound, cinching around and latching onto the back of his jacket collar, squeezing A.J.’s neck between his crossed fists, and throttling off A.J.'s air supply.
"The hell I can't!! F-Y-I!: last I checked, I was the head Mexican in charge!! I'm the spic Hiro hands the money to! I'm the beaner who doles it out to you assholes! And the only one! So do not be telling me what I fucking can and cannot do!"
A.J. only replied with hacking and gakking.
Victor leaned closer, half-whispering, half-snarling. "We got a lot of shit to do in absolutely no time here and I do not need you ass-fucking my program. Clear?"
More gagging. A.J.'s face began to drain from ruddy to pale.
"If you want me to let you go I need a serious favor. I need you to be cool. Not just any cool, we're talking cryo-cool. I need you to be a motherfucking York Peppermint Pattie. I need you to be so cool you can shit ice cubes on command. I’m talkin’ cool as a polar bear in a Coke commercial. I wanna see some fuckin’ Happy Feet, biatch! That means you listen. That means you fucking obey! Motherfucking period. Now...," Victor released A.J. and waited for him to suck in a big gulp of air, "you cool?"
The cocky smile returned, voice sugar sweet again, as if he'd never been choking at all. He actually winked as he spoke. "Hey, jefe, you know me. I'm so cool, I'm fucking refreshing. I’ll be your porch polar bear, Papi Chulo. "
Victor grabbed him by the neck again, this time to roughly heft the little sociopath to his feet. "Okay. Now run your worthless cracker ass outside and help Dutch with the offloading."
"Okey-dokie! I'm just humm-diggedy happy to help th' HMIC, masser. Humm-diggedy happy!" He smirked, winked, saluted and ran off.
Akira leaned over to grumble into Victor's ear, "That man is —"
Victor wheeled on him till their eyes were locked, hard stare to hard stare. "What the hell are doing over here?!"
From the expression on Akira's face, you would've thought Victor had actually and very physically slapped him upside the face. "Quit being such a fifth fucking wheel for Christ sakes! You got a strong back. Get the hell back to the truck and pitch the fuck on in!"
"I—"
"DO IT!!!"
Akira trudged toward the door, muttering in Japanese. "Zakennayo," "baka," and "jingai" were all Victor could understand, but that alone was enough to make him want to cut off another one of that cabrón's fingers. Fuck Hiro's assurances. "Ichiban kobun" my ass! Victor knew who Hiro's real ichiban was anyway, and it sure wasn't this piece of Jap-trash. If they had been dealing with anybody but the Yaks, and then anybody but Hiro, he was sure that big bastard would be here just to shoot them all in the back of the head soon as they got their hands on what they came for. But Hiro didn't do business that way, even for something this astronomically high dollar. 'Least he hoped so.... Sheee-it!
Rob and Gerard dragged Ernie upright into the lobby, one flaccid arm dangling over each man's shoulder. Rob: "What the hell do we do with him? Uhh...! Oh Chrrrist!" Rob recoiled first upon realizing the floor didn't originally come painted dark red. And being strewn with several mangled corpses hadn't been on the interior decorator's master plan either. Then he saw Lenny's mashed, purple face. One eye would be closed for at least a week. "What—"
Victor: "First off, what's the status on Ernie here?'
"Ehhh...." Something not quite drool and not quite vomit dribbled from Ernie's lips, taking several seconds to stretch out before plunging to the floor.
Gerard: "More or less like he looks."
Morton's gotta be seething. Victor gritted his teeth. Not good. "Stick him on the couch stomach down. Set his mouth so he won't choke if he throws up." ¡Carajo! ¡Es una pendejada already!
A couple heavy and overfull hand trucks rolled through the door. Victor gritted his teeth even further as A.J.'s chattering invaded his eardrums again: "Hey, Dutch! Now you'll be able to spit your chew without opening your mouth, huh?" Etcetera. Etcetera. And fuckin' Etcetera!
Victor knelt down to look Lenny over. "How ya feelin', partner?"
I took Lenny a few seconds to overcome his swollen black jaw. Every forced syllable sharply punctuated the constant throbbing. "Like shit on a cracker. Owww!"
"Can you see?"
"Owwww....Barely."
"Can you find your way to the couch in this room?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Good. Ernie's had just as bad a night as you already. I need you to go and watch him. Make sure he's okay. Then radio me when he wakes up, okay?"
"Uhh, 'Kay." Lenny tottered shakily to his feet, swaying side to side as he lurched in the general direction of the couch.
Victor stood as well, immediately locking eyes across the room with Morton. "We set?"
"Ready-Freddy."
"Groovy. David strap your gear on and weld the door shut the very second y'all cart the rest of the party favors inside."
"But—"
"But nothing. Weld it!" Sure the cops could bust through all that glass to get in, but until he got this hole properly locked, latched and sealed, they'd have to settle for any speed bump available. 'Sides it'd keep David busy. "After that detach a couple turnstiles off the floor so we can wheel the handcarts farther inside. Then start setting up the party favors while you hold down the fort. Okay? Okay.
"G-Dawg [Gerard]!"
"Yeah?"
"See that door?" Victor pointed to his right to a faraway door marked "Saída". "That's the stairs. There's maybe twenty or so random people up above us. Prop that puppy open and make sure no one pokes their big snout in our business.
“Lenny!"
"Yeah?" he answered, still better but humbly.
"What's your job, man?"
"Watch Ernie and radio you when he wakes up."
Thumbs up for the cogent punching bag! "Excellent. A.J., Dutch, take point on either side of the hallway. Everybody else, gear up and follow me. And quickly, dammit, you Pinche Chingones! Tick-fucking-tock."
“Cork it, bitch. We’re rollin’.”
Everything about A.J. pissed Lenny off.
"TURNNN...THAAAT...DOWN!!!"
"YOU MEAN 'DOWN' LIKE THIS?!" Crank! The knob spun right to the stops. "HA HA!! LET'S SEE IF THIS BITCH CAN TAKE IT!"
And why not? In five minutes we'll be all outta eyefuls of this luscious fuckin' leather and wood-lined interior again. Why not wring this fucking thing dry? At least, that's what Lenny's head imagined the bastard was rationalizing before his own bleeding eardrums shattered.
The windows rattled on the cusp of bursting. A.J.'s head banging grew more furious as he stomped the gas and slapped Lenny playfully in the shoulder. "YEAHHHHHRRRRR!!! FUCKIN' 'WAR NERVE' YEAHRRR!!! Time for a scream along, bitch!
'FUCK THE WORLD FOR ALL IT'S WORTH! EVERY INCH OF PLANET EARTH...!!!'" They had to be pulling serious g's the way A.J. flung that steering wheel around. With Lenny's eyes and head shut against the sonic fusillade, only the sudden, choking yank of the seatbelt told him they'd screeched back down to zero miles an hour.
"AAALL THE MONEY IN THE FUCKING WORLD COULDN'T BUY ME ONE SECOND OF TRUST...!!!" A sideways punch in the shoulder prompted him to glare in A.J.'s direction. "YEAHRR, MAN!!
'FUCK YOU AAAALLLLL!!!!'" A.J. continued to growl lyrics at the limit of his lung's ability, long after he ripped the key from the ignition. In the briefest snatch of solitude when A.J. Tigger-bounced out of the car, Lenny let every ghastly second of tonight's atrocity explode all over his brain. And all he could do was suck air and clench his fists. Breathe. In a month you'll be on a faraway beach where you can drink, toke, and screw this monster out of your memory for-fucking-ever! Just get tonight done. He exhaled. "Shit."
Bang bang!
Lenny jumped and flailed his hands. The pounding on the car's roof tore the rug out from under his meditation session. He would've been staring bug-eyed at A.J. through the passenger window, but his cohort already done whipped the door on open.
Snap! Snap! of fingers right in his face.
Asshole.
"Wakey-wake-wake!"
God! what a sneering tone he puts on too!
"Time ta earn the moolah!" Wink. When Lenny didn't immediately bolt out of his seat, A.J. snatched his lapel. "JEE-sus! You been wearin' lead underwear all goddamned night. Get the fuck out!"
The fucker's perpetual shit-eating grin grated all over Lenny's already raw nerves. Add to that A.J.’s in-yo-face strut. From the moment he'd parked the car, the crazy fuck almost danced his way over to the building, like they were on their way inside a goddamned titty bar or somethin'. What level of hell did Victor and Morton find this fucking psycho nutbag? More importantly, what in the fucky-fuck did I do to get partnered up with him? Fuck almighty! Beaming the whole damn time, A.J. flicked away his cigarette, hopped over to the front door and slashed his card through the reader. Holding it open with a mockingly obsequious bow, he gestured Lenny in. "After you, Monsieur."
A.J. cocked his head the whole time he bowed, scanning the lobby. The place fit more or less exactly the layout of the sketch they'd memorized last night. Some sort of slapped-together cross between that of a really nice hotel and one of the local banks. Spacious. High ceilinged. Walls with a neat two-tone corporate gray trim. A couple plants. Leather couch. Even an assuredly expensive sculpture. All of which, he was sure, no visitor's eyes were ever, ever drawn to.
'Cause ten feet down, a row of ugly, scratched-up, chromed stainless turnstiles straight from the Metro rudely smacked your eyes and made you go "Helloooo, Tacky-Land!" Bisecting the turnstiles marked "Entrada" and those marked "Saída" squatted the central focus of both men's interest. Making up what resembled a good-sized ticket booth, including: a semi-circular desk crowned with yellowed, pulp-paperback-novel-thick Lexan enclosure from waist to near ceiling-scraping height; and more specifically, the guard enclosed in it.
The guard turn-slouched in their direction without a bit of surprise. CMB (aka Compumercobrás) kept employees buzzing all hours. Even though the building was abnormally empty tonight for reasons no one had bothered leave him a note about, two men he hadn't seen before in dark suits, briefcases, and company badges this tedious hour didn't stir the hairs on his neck in any fashion. He wrinkled his nose more in indignation at being jabbed out of his porn-loving, civil-servant-grade sloth than any genuine suspicion. Bloody late hour or not, he'd have to at least act somewhat professional, check their IDs, have them sign in and announce their arrival. Someone might just be watching them — and him — on one the four lobby CCTV (Closed-Circuit TeleVision) cameras. So, while not even bothering to cloak his irritation or reluctance, he sluggishly levered his drowsy eyes away from the fetish mag and shot up to attention. "Boa noite, senhors. Documentos, por favor."
Morton stank. Could absolutely not get the raw stink out of his nose. Or anyone else's, judging by the immense elbow room his two partners allowed him in the cab of an otherwise stuffed-solid delivery truck. Four showers melted away a bar and a half of soap. And he was still so damn rank that the thought of eating... let's just say it'd be several more hours before he could so much as obliquely glance in the direction of a Big Mac with fries without dry heaving.
He and Ernie spent the entire morning fighting acrid, waist to armpit-high sewer sludge not three hundred yards from the complex they now sat outside of. Finding, accessing (i.e. crowbarring open), and isolating the proper fiber optic and copper cables in such a way as to not set off about two billion alarms all over the city dragged into well over an exhausting, tense, and all too nauseating hour by itself. Accomplishing that, he'd still had to mount and run diagnostics thrice on his pet black box. That, in Rio's steamy hot, rot-clogged sewers was no day at fucking Disneyland. By the time he and Ernie scrabbled out of a manhole, no shower or firehose could rinse off all the shit-spawned gel in their coveralls, tools, fingernails, skin and hair.
The stench, however, wasn't what really had him nauseous. Not now. So far Victor and Morton’s lovely little plan was flowing creamy smooth. Trouble was coming to terms with what they'd had to do to get to this tick on the clipboard. Or that is, what that sick fuck A.J. did to get them here.
Springing away from the door, A.J. caught up to Lenny, marching a meter to his left. Lenny set his briefcase on the desk's counter, using his free hand to unclip his pilfered badge from his handkerchief pocket and push it through the gap between desk and Lexan. A.J. oozed over farther left, inching toward the guard's own entry door.
The guard looked down at the ID badge. Lenny shoved his briefcase flush against the Lexan and jerked the trigger on the handle.
A.J. lagged picoseconds behind, ramming his own briefcase into the door lock and firing. The sweet little Swedish armor-piercing nine-millies performed exactly like the scuttlebutt promised, cracking clean through the deadbolt. A.J. bashed his way in, immediately stomping down hard on the guard's right foot, smashing several pencil-thin bones. Before the man could so much as gasp, A.J. slugged him — one, two, three, four! times — upside, downside and all around sideways the head with his briefcase. The guard lolled backwards in his chair, his consciousness wiped black, blood hosing a wild, unkempt spackle pattern from the bullet holes and his mashed head. Panting and drooling like an overheated poon-hound over the limp and motionless sack-o'-beat-down, A.J. grinned, sucked air through his teeth and stuck the briefcase up to the man's neck, firing once more.
"Gawd Damn that's LOUD! Aw man!"
A.J. chuckled and shook his head around, swiggling a finger in his ear to alleviate some of the ringing. Still snickering, he glanced down at his right foot, making sure it still firmly sealed the guard's right foot to the floor, and to the dead-man's-switch Morton said he'd be standing on.
The guard's foot stood on nothing but tile.
"Lennnyyyy! Fuck!!"
"What?!"
"Oh. Oh God, whew! Never mind." A.J.'d dropped to his hands and knees, finding the dead-man's-switch two feet away — where somebody would stand on it with their left foot. He'd had to really look though since somebody had gone and piled five thick and heavy three-ring binders on top of it.
Lenny poked his head in the booth, recoiling away immediately. That lovely red Rorschach on the back Lexan worked Lenny-boy's stomach muscles but good. Already choking good and plenty on the powderburnt smoke dominating the air, a noseful of coppery blood stench piled on the nausea but good. Especially since the latest species of blood reek reminded Lenny all too vividly of his partner's little coppery-smelling foray earlier in the evening.
Damn you, A.J.! "Are you done?"
"Huh?"
"Are you done in here? I'd like to call the others in."
"Yeah." A.J. answered, hauling himself to his feet. "I 'spose. Unless you wanna snap a picture t' send home to the wife n' kids."
"Okay, whatever. Hey..., wait."
"What?"
"Didn't Victor say there'd be two guards?"
"Well ... yeahhh. But I can count, even if you can't," A.J. growled, then broke into his best Sesame Street Count impression. "And I count only one. One dead rent-a-cop! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
"I see only one dead one too. But this is a pretty big booth here. And I count two chairs."
"That means nuthin'."
Not one to miss his cue, the second guard stormed out of the men's room fifty feet away, pants barely belted up and revolver convulsing in his hand. He got off one shot before Lenny backpedaled behind the turnstiles, awkwardly attempting to line up the muzzle on his big square briefcase with the brand new bobbing and jinking target.
A.J. reacted twice as fast, instantly dropping sideways prone to the floor; his own briefcase's internal submachine gun only taking a second to arc directly in line with the guard's midsection. He let loose six rounds before his target fell over, revolver catapulting away from the spasming hand.
Lenny ran over to check for a pulse, eyes scanning towards the elevators and hallway in case any more party crashers came their way. A.J. spat, rolling over to get back on his feet when he saw a red light under the desk strobing accusingly at his face. Glancing at the floor, over-eager A.J. discovered he'd managed to kick every last three-ring binder in the pile off that very same dead-man's-switch they'd been so damned perfervid about not triggering in the first place. Whoopsie, boys!
Lenny turned towards A.J., caught his partner's expression and the "Oh shit!" A.J. mouthed. Then he saw the red light flashing like mad. Goddamn you! His temper past boiling, Lenny quickdrawed the radio from his jacket, spraying the speaker in a barrage of spit and fear. "Hurry the fuck in here already! A.J.'s tripped the alarm!"
"What did I tell y—"
"Shutup, Akira!" Victor'd definitely done roared past the "oh hell fucking no" point when it came to the incessant grumbling and nitpicking from his employer's liaison. "And not a peep out of you either, Morton! I don't have fucking time for it!" They'd all figured out by now A.J. was psycho, but up until this round of icky fun: a ridiculously effective psycho. Well, yay, bitches! The Gods of Ass-Fucked-Circumstances just had to pick this very right now to flip the off switch on A.J.'s competency powers. Fuuuuck!
Victor hissed through his binoculars. "Goddamn it!" The main entrance consisted of a heavy, heavy, and did I say heavy?-gauge solid metal sliding gate coupled with a spacious, square guard booth poured from the same hulking-thick reinforced concrete as the perimeter walls. No way they could ram it. The booth's windows would surely offer a rifle-proof barrier. Its door: most definitely a cast iron bastard to breach. Four once sleepy-looking guards buzzed around inside their armored work station like hornets after a rock pegs their nest dead on. Maybe those guards only wore revolvers, but they might be able to haul out a stashed submachine gun or two to ruin Victor’s ever so meticulous (yet buggered from the start) plans.
A.J. and Lenny had expensive suits, an expensive stolen car, and stolen badges to slip on in past the idiots. And what did Victor have? Seven grubby mutts plus himself, and a whole heckuva lotta hardware in a grotty delivery truck. No chance on easily passing GO or collecting $200. Dammit! We were supposed to have more time!
The plan entailed Lenny and A.J. seizing the front lobby and securing it while they, — the remainder of the uninvited but well-armed bunch — upon notification all was hunky dory, stealthily got rid of the dozing four before sliding in. Morton's black box was supposed to have recycled last hour's video feed from the cameras, thus ensuring the other eighteen or so guards in the building would be yawning, unaware, etcetera, etcetera while all whopping ten of Los Pinche Chingones (Victor’s Bad Boy Club) thoroughly and properly wiped the floor with that lot of rent-a-gaggle.
But with Lenny's breach of radio protocol, every single damnable rent-a-spam inside the complex had to be just as hotly aware and buzzing as those agitated guards ensconced in the guard bunker outside. Those same men were probably all locking and loading submachine guns in preparation for puttin' on a serious hurtin'. This furious few clenched in their grip maybe two minutes to barrel in there and save the remainder of their Chingón crew from being outnumbered, overwhelmed, and no doubt perforated and putrefied. Lives were at a seriously ugly risk, and the sand was hurtling down the hourglass.
All their heavy-hitting stuff was bundled on the hand truck. Locked up. It would take a few minutes to find anything and get it ready. Fuck a schmuck!
"Morton! The door to that guard shack is on the gate side right?"
"Yeah."
"But outside right?"
"Yeah."
"Can they use their phones to call anyone."
"Not if my box kicked in."
Dammit! That meant maybe. Victor hated maybes. CMB's guards weren't all that well paid or aware, or bright. But he had to assume someone, at least a supervisor, was smart enough to punch 190 (Brazil's 911) on a cell phone the moment they discovered their in-house phones dead.
"Dutch!" Victor called to his men huddled with the gear in the back of the truck. "Break open the boxes and holler back when you've got a couple of frags in hand."
A.J. waved Lenny over to huddle for cover behind the guard desk. Lenny plopped down while both men hurriedly flicked open their deadly luggage. Each briefcase coughed up a faceful of gray, noxious smoke. A.J. in particular received a pungent double helping. Spent cartridges jingled onto the tile while they unfastened, wiggled, and jimmied their MP5K submachine guns from the briefcase mounts. Once free of the of the spiffy but awkward briefcase confines, both men clipped their bullet hoses to three-point assault slings and pocketed the loose, spare magazines.
"Nice fucking going."
"Excuse me?! Suck my what, pendejo?! You didn't even get a shot in on that second guard! Your ass would've been creamed corn if it wasn't for me! Where were you running off to hide?!"
"Don't fucking even. If it wasn't for your clumsy ass —"
"That's some braaaave smack talk comin' from somebody with a mouth like a menstruating cunt. When are you gonna do any of the real wet work and not just sucker-kick people already on the ground?"
"You mother—"
"Fuckin' pansy!"
"I'll fuckin' show you—"
The lobby went dark.
Ernie did not like running. Already wheezing, he could feel the steady awful ache creeping up his legs. His arms whipped through the air as he struggled up his best (read: porn-grade) acting attempt. As the only one in the group besides Akira the Grumbler still wearing street clothes and not mail order SWAT gear, Dutch went and threw him out of the truck without so much as a "Good luck." Instead the big bastard grumbled "Don't fuck up."
Ernie built up enough steam, he almost forgot to stop, colliding with the guard booth, and, once he re-planted his feet, rapidly banging on the thick windows as fast and hard as he could. "Socorro! My friends! Accident! My friends hurt!" he stuttered out in pre-school Portuguese.
The four guards, minds already blitzkrieged by the alarms gone feral, all blinked in disbelief. Not able to understand half of what this man was rabidly squealing about through the thick glass, the senior guard cracked open the door. "O que é?!"
Ernie shouldered the door open the rest of the way, plucking the Mk3A2 concussion grenade out of his waistband while jerking at the pin.
The pin, however, did not budge.
For two ghastly seconds, Ernie just stared at the guards. All four stared back, eight huge eyes locked on the fat black and yellow cylinder he held at chest level.
The gears in his head started up again. Ernie shut his gaping mouth and yanked on the pin with every last drop of adrenaline-enhanced strength, grinding his teeth.
The pin held fast.
Two of the guards' brains recovered enough to get them to start drawing their guns.
Ernie screamed like someone schwacked on the big toe with a sledgehammer, cocked his arm back and threw the grenade anyway, pegging the senior guard in the forehead, before tearing into a full-bore run back down the street, blindly jerking off pistol shots behind him.
Victor: "Awwwww, what the fuck now?"
One guard picked the concussion grenade up, ripped away the ninety-mile-an-hour-tape mummifying the safety clip (there to prevent those "Uh-oh!, Yikes!," BOOM!-type of accidents), and straightened out the grenade’s cotter pin prongs back from the considerably bent tail end. Now able to actually pull the dang thing free, he hurled the freshly armed grenade in Ernie's unfortunate direction.
Mr. Concussion Grenade seemed to home in the poor boy, bouncing along — skippety..., skip..., skip, skip — and tracking him down the street before — BLAAAAM!! — letting loose with close to a pound of TNT, the explosion not even a foot behind its prey. Even in this wide open space, the sensory assault of white light and noise went way beyond overwhelming. Ernie found the shredded air around him literally drop kicked him up off the ground before he flipped around into one rough mother of a nose dive back down into an ugly-fugly, face-first asphalt smooch.
"Oh, Christ in a coffee cup!" Any lingering hopes of surreptitiousness done went and ka-boomed in front of their faces. People up to and beyond a mile away must have been loudly slapped into a "What the fuck?!" state of mind right about now. That's a helluva lotta folks getting privy to their super secret plans. Shit! Shit! ShiiiiiT!!!
Morton squawked the radio, "Dutch, Plan C in goddamned effect!"
Victor popped the truck's gearshift into L, flooring the pedal. By the time he'd wrenched his steering wheel around the limp n' prone lump-o'-Ernie, he'd wheeled the truck off balance and wayyyy too close to the shack. The truck would've flipped had it not crashed sideways flush into the lengthy end of the guard booth, tottering to a deafening stop.
The rear door roared on its rollers as the hulk known as Dutch yanked it open. Rob and David leapt out while Dutch and Gerard pointed a suppressed M4A3 SOPMOD (a kind of shortened, ultra-pimped M16) carbine and an MP5N submachine gun (SMG) (respectively) straight over their boys' heads in case any of the rent-a-cops should take some damn fool initiative. Rob duct-taped a couple more Mk3A2 concussion grenades over the door's hinges, bolting back into the truck before David even managed to pull both pins. Every man back in the truck sucked floor.
WHU-WHUMP! The whole truck rocked forth then back. A couple door fragments cut through the side panels.
Dutch pounced to his feet, jerking free the pin on the frag grenade he intended to pitch through the door of the now hopefully wide open guard bunker. He watched the grenade's spoon fly away as he jumped down and — Ohhhhh fuck! — tripped and fell mug-first into the asphalt. The grenade rolled away from him and away from the guard shack. The upcoming concussion and fragments though were sure as a fish shittin' in the ocean to slam-bam-wham into him and his buddies still in the back of the truck. They, at best, had three seconds.
Dutch jumped to his feet — Owww! — and into the truck, screaming every obscenity he could think of on such short notice. He pawed onto the rear door, spat a tooth through his bloody lips, hauling the door down and shut about a femtosecond before detonation.
Whump! A bit muffled this time. But the raw concussive power rippled under his skin like a thousand scalpel-sharp fingers. Fuck me!
Doing his best to blot out all the wonderful pain gaining dominion over his whacked raw mouth and facial nerves, Dutch threw the door back open, shouldered his M4A3 and charged. Gerard, Rob, and David blinked a quick look at each other and followed.
Dutch hadn't waited for nobody, dashing to the shack, rounding the ragged door jamb muzzle first, and perforating four very stunned, very ineffective men. The last thing Guard Número 4 ever read were the words "YOU ARE FUCKED!" liquid-papered on the barking end of Dutch's silencer. A puppies in a bucket job really. Half a mag of ammo and they were all strawberry toast.
Taking just enough time to breathe and spit another tooth chip, Dutch called out "All clear! Rob, go get Ernie!", slapped the big red button that opened the gate, and hustled the others back in the truck, whipping out his radio to call Victor. Soon as Rob dragged their stunned and unconscious bud in the back, Dutch mashed his thumb into the talk button. "Go!"
The truck spun around unsteadily, sluggishly fishtailing forward. That last grenade shredded the left rear tire, which Victor only learned when the back wheel started sparking on the ground. Chingao! A quarter kilometer down the driveway still separated them and A.J. plus Lenny.
Three minutes felt like forever in the black. Ever more so when you were crouched behind a desk with a ticklish trigger finger. A.J. could hear what he guessed to be eight or ten of them, none daring any further than the elevator hall. A scared, noisy, and clumsy bunch of rent-a-cops. Provided Morton's box was somewhat nominal, all any of the guards had for intel was reruns of their two dead buddies ogling over beaver shots. Wherever they were, A.J. couldn't discern so much as the tip of a shoe.
His mood teetered from itchy to bored. He rolled over to Lenny's side of the desk, reaching in his jacket. "Here. Take one."
Lenny' eyes widened. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Of course it's what you think it is."
"Where the hell did you get those?"
"Off one of the hand trucks. There was like a hundred of 'em."
"The hand carts are not your personal grab bag."
"Oh, so I should've just left 'em there for the next time we pull off one of these jobs. Gee, mom, it's not like we got a firefight brewin'."
"That's not the—"
One of the guards began hosing the room. They'd all crept forward, fanning out at the other end of the lobby. Hordes of bullets ricocheted off the turnstiles and gouged the desk. Lenny fell to the ground prone, hands over his head as several guards added their lack of fire discipline to the mix, emptying whole magazines in seconds. The ripping cacophony sounded like it was raining ball bearings, only a hundred times louder.
A.J. and Lenny opened up near simultaneously from each side of the desk. Three fell instantly. Two seconds later A.J. spakked one in the neck. That poor bastard flopped backwards, smearing a big red streak down the wall. The inside of a pinball machine couldn't have drowned out the deafening peal of gunfire and ricochets.
Before any of those poor bastards could run, A.J. pulled the pins on his two grenades, rolling 'em one after another towards the guards.
"Oh Christ, A.J., you crazy fuck!"
"Down!!"
The lobby served as a giant echoic chamber sodden with overwhelming noise, light and heat. For the briefest ear-crushing second Lenny felt nothing but a brutish, total and Mongolian-horde-ravenous full-on sensual assault. The dual concussion unreal in its potency as it seemed to rupture the room in half. It felt like the whole world was being violently raped into energy. The sprinkler system jolted on, stuttering from the sheer force of the blast. And then it ended, with neither A.J. or Lenny being able to hear at all.
A.J. had already changed magazines and popped back up and around the desk, seething through his teeth as he scanned for survivors. Seeing nothing of what was left of anybody move or moan, he ambled around, blasting a kick into the ribcage of any guard more or less intact. He found three unsnuffed. A bullet in the mouth each solved that little problem.
The shooting threw Lenny to his feet, feeling more than hearing the punchy concussion through his heavy tinnitus. But gunshots were gunshots, they always hit his nerves like raw electricity.
The back of the room was red up to the ceiling. The blood stuck as if sandblasted on. Lenny just stared at his partner, not in any way sure how to express his outright, total flat-out stunned shock.
"I can't believe you did that!"
"Did what?" A.J. answered, nonchalantly waggling his finger in his ear again.
"Those were frag grenades!"
"Well, duh."
"Those were frag grenades!" He shrieked even louder.
"I heard you the first time, Sherlock. What did you expect them to be?"
"I hoped, in some corner of my brain, they'd be flash/bangs or just maybe concussion grenades or at least something sane, you sick fucking bastard!"
"Call me whatever you fucking want. Least I get the job done. Least I don't pussy out of a fight till the rough stuff's over. Ah-h-hem!"
"You call butchering a little girl in front of her dad a fight, you fucking psycho?!"
"That wasn't a fight. That was the kind of necessary shit that gets the job done. And, survey says: Ding! I got us exactly what we fucking needed, you whiny cunt. Don't tell me you're getting all weepy over that little half-nigglet. 'Oh waaaaa! Oh boo-fuckin'-hoo! The poor wittle half-nigglet!'" A.J.'s eyes rolled. "Why the hell can't you act like a fucking professional, you dickless twerp? This was a fight, 'cept I seem to be the only one squeezin' off rounds on our side!"
"Fuck you, A.J.! You're a psycho and a fucking thief!"
"Awww, fuck YOU, Lenny! Stuff something in your sac already! If I wasn't here you'd probably curl up in the fetal position and start sucking your thumb at the first pop of gunfire, you whiny... nigglet-lovin'... menstruating little pussy!"
"That's IT, God-DAMNIT!!!" Lenny charged, sliding forward on the wet, bloody floor straight at his partner, decking A.J. hard enough to pound out a spray of spit and blood.
A.J. rebounded at once, thundering in two turbo-powered punches to the ribs, another to the stomach, then two more square to Lenny's jaw. He clawed Lenny's throat to choke him but they both slipped, crashing on top of one another.
Struggling jerkily and feverishly to untangle from the mangle, his mind suddenly taking a mental shit of a fear dump, Lenny pawed at the floor, failing to crawl on the slippery red tile in a pathetically sad, stillborn effort. A.J. pounced, snatching handfuls of slacks and jacket as he rolled the scared bastard on his back, sure as Death himself pawing hand-over-hand up the guy's body. When A.J. finally straddled his partner's stomach, Lenny tried to swing his gun up. A.J. batted it away, spewing a froth of rage as he stared the other man down.
"Oh is that how you wanna play?!"
Bam! A.J. struck his fist into Lenny's ogle-box. "Huh?!"
Bam! "Answer me!"
Bam! "Answer me you fuckin' cunt breath!"
Bam!
Lenny tried bringing his gun up again but A.J. bashed him in the kisser then knelt on his arm. "I can play like that too, Motherfucker!" A.J. yelled, punching Lenny in the mouth with his personal submachine gun.
"How does this fucking taste?! Huh?!" he hollered, coercing the muzzle centimeter by centimeter down Lenny's mouth.
"ARE YOU DONE?!!"
A.J.'s eyes whipped around to face the voice, his stare white hot.
"Oh, hey Victor," he beamed and winked. "Just give me a few more seconds and I'll be right with you."
"Get off him. NOW!!!"
"Mind your own fucking business."
"This is my business, motherfucker! NOW GET UP!!!"
"Why don't you make me," he said all honey-tongued, broadcasting his trademark maniacal grin.
"I didn't hire you on so I could play high school principal." Victor stood right over A.J. now, easy punching or kicking distance. "Last time."
"Or what?!"
Victor's boot heel thwammed! square into A.J.'s face, launching him off Lenny's body as if he'd leaped to do a back flip and ended up doing a back flop. Before A.J. could shake his head clear his right hand crackled with way too much crunching pain for him to hold on to his gun any longer. Still focusing, he cranked his head to spot Victor's size 10 Danners on his gun hand, then looked up to see his jefe's ferocious scowl. Immediately, Victor's other boot stomped down on A.J.'s other arm, pinning him fully.
"I do NOT have time for this!"
"I—"
"You heard those explosions sounding like they came from the main gate?"
"Uhh yeah...."
"That's cuz they did! We are about to encounter a serious form of police presence and we haven't even had time to lock down the building! You have pissed me wayyyy the fuck off for the last time tonight. Once more and I'm flushing half your cut."
"You ca—"
Both of Victor's hands flashed straight down — Tonk! — bouncing the back of A.J.'s head against the floor tile. Clawed up fingers and thumbs snaked around his throat on the rebound, cinching around and latching onto the back of his jacket collar, squeezing A.J.’s neck between his crossed fists, and throttling off A.J.'s air supply.
"The hell I can't!! F-Y-I!: last I checked, I was the head Mexican in charge!! I'm the spic Hiro hands the money to! I'm the beaner who doles it out to you assholes! And the only one! So do not be telling me what I fucking can and cannot do!"
A.J. only replied with hacking and gakking.
Victor leaned closer, half-whispering, half-snarling. "We got a lot of shit to do in absolutely no time here and I do not need you ass-fucking my program. Clear?"
More gagging. A.J.'s face began to drain from ruddy to pale.
"If you want me to let you go I need a serious favor. I need you to be cool. Not just any cool, we're talking cryo-cool. I need you to be a motherfucking York Peppermint Pattie. I need you to be so cool you can shit ice cubes on command. I’m talkin’ cool as a polar bear in a Coke commercial. I wanna see some fuckin’ Happy Feet, biatch! That means you listen. That means you fucking obey! Motherfucking period. Now...," Victor released A.J. and waited for him to suck in a big gulp of air, "you cool?"
The cocky smile returned, voice sugar sweet again, as if he'd never been choking at all. He actually winked as he spoke. "Hey, jefe, you know me. I'm so cool, I'm fucking refreshing. I’ll be your porch polar bear, Papi Chulo. "
Victor grabbed him by the neck again, this time to roughly heft the little sociopath to his feet. "Okay. Now run your worthless cracker ass outside and help Dutch with the offloading."
"Okey-dokie! I'm just humm-diggedy happy to help th' HMIC, masser. Humm-diggedy happy!" He smirked, winked, saluted and ran off.
Akira leaned over to grumble into Victor's ear, "That man is —"
Victor wheeled on him till their eyes were locked, hard stare to hard stare. "What the hell are doing over here?!"
From the expression on Akira's face, you would've thought Victor had actually and very physically slapped him upside the face. "Quit being such a fifth fucking wheel for Christ sakes! You got a strong back. Get the hell back to the truck and pitch the fuck on in!"
"I—"
"DO IT!!!"
Akira trudged toward the door, muttering in Japanese. "Zakennayo," "baka," and "jingai" were all Victor could understand, but that alone was enough to make him want to cut off another one of that cabrón's fingers. Fuck Hiro's assurances. "Ichiban kobun" my ass! Victor knew who Hiro's real ichiban was anyway, and it sure wasn't this piece of Jap-trash. If they had been dealing with anybody but the Yaks, and then anybody but Hiro, he was sure that big bastard would be here just to shoot them all in the back of the head soon as they got their hands on what they came for. But Hiro didn't do business that way, even for something this astronomically high dollar. 'Least he hoped so.... Sheee-it!
Rob and Gerard dragged Ernie upright into the lobby, one flaccid arm dangling over each man's shoulder. Rob: "What the hell do we do with him? Uhh...! Oh Chrrrist!" Rob recoiled first upon realizing the floor didn't originally come painted dark red. And being strewn with several mangled corpses hadn't been on the interior decorator's master plan either. Then he saw Lenny's mashed, purple face. One eye would be closed for at least a week. "What—"
Victor: "First off, what's the status on Ernie here?'
"Ehhh...." Something not quite drool and not quite vomit dribbled from Ernie's lips, taking several seconds to stretch out before plunging to the floor.
Gerard: "More or less like he looks."
Morton's gotta be seething. Victor gritted his teeth. Not good. "Stick him on the couch stomach down. Set his mouth so he won't choke if he throws up." ¡Carajo! ¡Es una pendejada already!
A couple heavy and overfull hand trucks rolled through the door. Victor gritted his teeth even further as A.J.'s chattering invaded his eardrums again: "Hey, Dutch! Now you'll be able to spit your chew without opening your mouth, huh?" Etcetera. Etcetera. And fuckin' Etcetera!
Victor knelt down to look Lenny over. "How ya feelin', partner?"
I took Lenny a few seconds to overcome his swollen black jaw. Every forced syllable sharply punctuated the constant throbbing. "Like shit on a cracker. Owww!"
"Can you see?"
"Owwww....Barely."
"Can you find your way to the couch in this room?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Good. Ernie's had just as bad a night as you already. I need you to go and watch him. Make sure he's okay. Then radio me when he wakes up, okay?"
"Uhh, 'Kay." Lenny tottered shakily to his feet, swaying side to side as he lurched in the general direction of the couch.
Victor stood as well, immediately locking eyes across the room with Morton. "We set?"
"Ready-Freddy."
"Groovy. David strap your gear on and weld the door shut the very second y'all cart the rest of the party favors inside."
"But—"
"But nothing. Weld it!" Sure the cops could bust through all that glass to get in, but until he got this hole properly locked, latched and sealed, they'd have to settle for any speed bump available. 'Sides it'd keep David busy. "After that detach a couple turnstiles off the floor so we can wheel the handcarts farther inside. Then start setting up the party favors while you hold down the fort. Okay? Okay.
"G-Dawg [Gerard]!"
"Yeah?"
"See that door?" Victor pointed to his right to a faraway door marked "Saída". "That's the stairs. There's maybe twenty or so random people up above us. Prop that puppy open and make sure no one pokes their big snout in our business.
“Lenny!"
"Yeah?" he answered, still better but humbly.
"What's your job, man?"
"Watch Ernie and radio you when he wakes up."
Thumbs up for the cogent punching bag! "Excellent. A.J., Dutch, take point on either side of the hallway. Everybody else, gear up and follow me. And quickly, dammit, you Pinche Chingones! Tick-fucking-tock."