vs. secret service agents

The hangar doors were tall and wide enough to fit a decent sized airplane, but I’d pulled them nearly all the way shut, leaving a gap the breadth of my wingspan. Just wide enough for four guys to walk through unencumbered. As they approached I retreated into the darkness. I’d locked the roof-top fire escape and chained the sliding escape ladder. There was only one way in.

I watched Sarge closely. He figured it out pretty quick, but not quick enough if I’d been up top with a rifle. He glanced up and saw the line of sight and his whole body jolted and he yanked his P229 from a hip holster and at the same time grabbed Roman by the shirt collar and yank-sprinted him sideways. Roman yelped and fell but Sarge got him around the waist and the two of them disappeared from view. I retreated to a sidewall and ducked behind a vertical I-beam. I’d stolen that one from Skinpeeler.

I counted to a hundred while Sarge deliberated with himself, then saw him edge his eye around the hangar door, low near the ground where a waiting rifle would have to adjust. He’d worked out the kinks. I knew he couldn’t see far in the darkness, just far enough to spot the folded piece of A4 paper I’d placed on the floor ten feet inside the door.

'Here, kitty kitty.'

I counted another hundred as Sarge conferred with himself again. He did not have the proper firepower nor the proper team to infiltrate a darkened, open environment like this airplane hangar. It was suicide if the people inside were anywhere near competent. But I figured he hadn’t dealt with much in the way of competence lately working for Tannen. And he was getting paid to do whatever the useless *bleep* next to him told him to do. I heard Roman whisper to him urgently, so loud I could make out their exact location behind the steel door. I could have shot the stupid *bleep* straight through the corrugated any time I felt like it. Roman wanted that video. Badly. And there was only one way for Sarge to get him to shut the *bleep* up.

Sure enough, ten seconds later Sarge came in low and fast while Baldy and Deep Tan spun in from either side covering the darkness with their P229s. Very fucking stupid. I could have taken them out with a sling shot. As it were, I just stood there and watched it unfold. Sarge snatched the paper and was quick-stepping back toward the opening when there came a loud zzzziiip! Then Roman screamed and came flying in through the doors off his feet. Deep Tan and Baldy spun, but too late.

Roman and Deep Tan freaked out for the first fifteen seconds while Baldy and Sarge flicked on their flashlights and searched the darkness behind the sights of their P229’s. Their flashlights had strong narrow beams but the hangar was enormous and had a few decent spots for cover which I’d paced out earlier.

It took Roman and Deep Tan another minute to realize they were wasting energy on a hopeless exercise. They let go of the doors and turned to stand alongside Sarge and Baldy. Deep Tan got his flashlight out, but Roman didn’t have one, so he cowered behind Sarge, sneaking occasional looks over his shoulder at the silently beckoning darkness.

I watched to see what they’d decide, or rather, what Sarge would decide. If they split up, I’d have to keep track of multiple lines of visibility, which could be problematic for someone my size trying to hide behind shit in a wide open space. If they stuck together, it’d be easier to stay in the dark, but it’d be four on one, three guns to none, which didn’t sound like a whole lotta fun either.

“Thank yer pretty fucking slick, huh?” said Roman. His voice was loud and brash in the darkness, but he couldn’t hide the waver in it. “Fucking Labyranth.”

“Shut the *bleep* up, Roman,” said Sarge.

I couldn’t have agreed more. In the darkness behind his flashlight beam I saw Sarge signal to Baldy and Deep Tan. They split up, Deep Tan edging along the front wall, toward me, Baldy edging the other way, their backs to the hangar wall, guns and flashlights levelled at the darkness. Roman stayed behind Sarge and they broke for the nearest cover behind a refuelling truck parked near the entrance. Sarge knew the game. Protect the asset, send the other dumbasses out to die if it was going to be that way. Eventually, if it was Roman we wanted, we’d have to come to him.

I stayed behind the I-beam and let Deep Tan make his way slowly toward me. I lost Baldy on the far side of the hangar behind a tow car. I listened. Deep Tan was breathing loudly through his mouth, making it easy to pinpoint his location without have to stick my head out. I waited. When he got close enough I pulled a small picture-hanging nail from my pocket and tossed it into the darkness at his feet. It made a tiny metallic ping on the concrete floor. His breath caught and I heard him freeze, right in front of my pillar. I stepped out and swung the edge of my stiffened hand into his neck. If you hit the carotid artery with enough force it shuts the brain down instantly, which is exactly what happened.

Deep Tan’s legs gave out and he fell and I slid behind him and caught him under the armpits and caught the flashlight. But I missed the gun. It slipped through my fingers and clattered deafeningly on the concrete floor. I held Deep Tan up and played him like a puppet, moving the flashlight around in the same pattern he’d been using.

“Don?” said Sarge. “You OK?”

“Fine,” I said.

I looked backed toward the refuelling truck. Sarge had turned his flashlight off. I held my breath and bobbed Deep Tan’s flashlight around and listened intently. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Sarge was good. He’d known something was off immediately and slipped into the darkness. Now he knew my location, and I didn’t know his.

Three things happened in quick succession after that. First, I hefted Deep Tan under the armpits and tossed his unconscious body along with the flashlight through the air, back the way they’d come. Then I dove the other way, headfirst, low and fast across the floor. Third, Baldy started shooting.

The stupid trigger-happy *bleep* must have spotted me, but he was way over on the other side of the hangar. A three hundred foot shot at a moving target with a .357 takes great skill. Baldy didn’t have it. But Sarge might, and he was right there.

His flashlight came back on and he spotted me lying on the floor not twenty feet from him and I was pretty much dead. Then Baldy’s dumb ass fired again and the bullet pinged somewhere close-by and I saw Sarge flinch and I was up on my feet with legs full of high-octane adrenaline, sprinting at Sarge and imminent death.

Sarge must not have expected me to move so quickly because he fired from point blank range and missed. From the flash I saw the .357 pointed low at where I’d been and then I was on him. He was one tough son of a bitch. I’ll give him that. He brought the gun up and fired at my head but I got an elbow in the way and the bullet must have missed by an inch because the gunpowder blast seared across my scalp and I went both deaf and blind. The world was searing white and a high-pitched whine and a hard fist and another two gun shots very close by and then I got my forearm locked around his and wrenched and felt his elbow dislocate and through the high-pitched whine I heard him yelp in pain and the gun drop to the floor.

I couldn’t see and could barely hear but I could feel and even with one arm Sarge was really putting me through it. I took a heavy fist to the temple and another to jaw, which wobbled me, and then a knee to the groin which folded me at the waist. He was right up next to me now which was right where I wanted him if only I wasn’t doubled over in gut-wrenching pain. Somehow I got both meat hooks into his armpits as he pounded on my face with his fist and I wrenched him away and reared back my head and pulled him in and slammed my forehead into his face once then again and again screaming and roaring and raging until he went limp.

I dropped him there and spun, teeth barred, spittle flying, in full Leviathan-mode now, blinded by gun and blood and bone, beckoning death. It came in the form of Baldy, sprinting through the darkness, gun blazing. He was panicked and screaming and shooting for his life and missing but not for long. I still had my grip in Sarge’s pits and as Baldy got near I spun a hammer-thrower’s pirouette and tossed Sarge blindly into the oncoming gunfire. I didn’t wait to find out what happened but dove again wide and low, hopefully under the firing line. I came up to the sound of colliding bodies. Baldy must have taken the hit and spun and kept firing because I heard gunshots spraying in a wide arc across the hangar. I blinked and blinked and my vision started coming back and I skirted fast and low across the concrete with nowhere to hide and came up behind Baldy with hammer unleashed as he turned and fired. Hammer nudged skull and the firing ceased.

Everything went quiet.

I felt in the darkness for Baldy and grabbed a limp wrist then pulled the zip ties from my back pocket and secured him to Sarge. I found Deep Tan in the darkness further on, still unconscious, and secured him as well.
-Sledge vs. The Labyrinth, pg. 208-215