chapter ten
Michael hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud. He could still hear Kitt yelling at him, trying to get him to respond. To his relief, the desk shifted enough for him to squirm out from under it. He was fighting the pain in his arm and the dust in the air, not to mention the sick feeling he got if he bothered thinking about the people that might be under him. The thought only crossed his mind briefly, though. He was on the ground level, he had one good arm, and both legs were functional as far as he was aware. That had to be enough to get the job done.
He pulled himself from the wreckage just as one of Zerek's henchmen came at him. Michael didn't hesitate. He punched the man in the nose and dropped him. Michael knelt down and relieved the unconscious man of his gun. It hurt to breathe – the fall must've bruised his ribs. Gunfire caught his attention, and he spun towards the sound. Two shots, and the assassin was dead. Michael stalked towards the door.
There was no destruction around him in his eyes. On the few occasions where someone was stupid enough to try and take him out, he shot them. He was no longer a cop or even a FLAG operative. To do what had to be done, he had slipped back into the soldier he had once been long before being a cop had ever crossed his mind. He had learned long ago to shut out what would only distract him from his mission. It wasn't something he had ever intended to use again.
"Michael, please, are you all right?"
Michael stopped for a moment, breathing hard. "I'm fine, Kitt." he said, his voice harsh from pain. "What's going on out there?"
"Zerek's assassins have surrounded the building. John is standing between me and the door."
"Kitt." Michael was going to regret this, he knew it. "Do whatever you have to do to get out of here."
"You want me to ignore my programming?"
Michael grinned. "Something like it. Get back to FLAG, find Devon and Bonnie, and get back here with reinforcements. I need to get this battle away from the bank."
"Don't worry about that, Michael. Most of the people were cleared out by Coltrane's men. There's only a small handful, and all of them are hiding in offices. The mob has officially taken over."
There was a grim amount of satisfaction in that. It made his job so much easier. "Get reinforcements, Kitt. It's the only way I'm getting past Zerek's dogs."
"You have reinforcements." Kitt shot back. "Me."
Michael sighed. So much for keeping Kitt out of the line of fire. "Then for the love of all things holy, don't get hurt." he pleaded. "See what you can do about distracting the assassins."
"You got it, Michael. What about Coltrane?"
"This ends now, Kitt." Michael hesitated at the outer wall. He checked the gun. Still had most of a clip left. It would have to be enough. "Let me know when you start."
"You'll know as soon as the rest of the world does."
Michael almost laughed at that, but the sound would have hurt too much. Instead he waited, watching outside. Kitt was right – the place was surrounded. All of the assassins had high-powered sniper rifles that still wouldn't do a thing to Kitt's MBS. Michael just hoped none of them found a way into Kitt's interior. He didn't want to think about what would happen then.
Suddenly, he heard Kitt's engine. The black Trans-Am accelerated towards the building, skid to a halt just short of John's kneecaps, and spun around, tearing off in the opposite direction, every sound he had in his anharmonic arsenal blaring. Half of the assassins went after Kitt. The other half circled around to the back, fully anticipating Michael coming out that way. Michael grinned. "Thanks, pal."
"Just get out alive."
"That is the plan." He took a deep breath and stepped out the door.
Coltrane and Zerek were waiting for him, standing side by side not fifty feet from the door. John was only a couple of feet behind them, a smug smirk on his face. Michael wanted nothing more than to shoot John right where he stood, but a longstanding habit of not killing people outside of the heat of battle stopped him. It wasn't like John was shooting at him. "Looks like we're all here." he said, his voice surprisingly steady despite the pain. "Now what?"
"Now you die." Coltrane said simply. "You are such a hard man to kill. I figured both myself and Zerek unloading our guns into you ought to do the trick."
Michael smiled darkly. "You think I'm going to let you?"
"If it makes you feel any better, we're going to kill John too." Zerek assured him. "The 2000 will be perfectly safe."
"Wait a second." John took a step back. "Since when did you turn on me?"
"They're bad guys, John." Michael said with a sigh. "They turn on everybody. And I don't care what you say. Kitt's only safe with me."
Coltrane shrugged. "Then we'll bury you with it." he said. "Good-bye, Michael Knight."
Four gunshots rang out. Three bodies hit the ground.
/----/
Kitt knew something was wrong. He had left the assassins in the dust a long time ago (what did they expect, chasing a car on foot, much less one like him?) and now he was getting that feeling that usually told him Michael was in danger. He spun back towards the bank, wheels spinning as he struggled for traction and finally got it. The speedometer reached 250 mph a few seconds before he got the bank back in his scanners. He quickly listened in through Michael's comm. link.
"Kitt's only safe with me."
"Then we'll bury you with it. Good-bye, Michael Knight."
Kitt wanted to scream. He heard the gunshots ring out, and if he had a heart, it would have stopped in fear.
He skid to a halt just in time to see Michael fall to the ground, shot in the leg by John. Coltrane and Zerek were dead – from the looks of things, Zerek was cleaning house. Michael had taken out Zerek while the assassin had taken out Coltrane. John had shot Michael.
John adjusted his aim. "Too late now, Knight." he said blandly. "Everything for nothing." His finger tightened on the trigger.
Kitt was too far away to get in between Michael and John. He wasn't too far away from John. He just needed a distraction –
"JOHN!"
The AI's scream made John swivel the gun from Michael to Kitt. He got off three shots before Kitt's front fender slammed into him. John didn't go flying over the hood like Michael thought he would. He watched as the FBI agent disappeared underneath the car, his blood smearing across Kitt's fender. The car stuttered to a halt, Kitt's equivalent of heavy breathing.
"Are you all right, Michael?" he asked quietly.
"I'm still here." Michael grunted. "That counts for something. Kitt – are you all right?" Kitt watched as his driver's gaze flickered from the Trans-Am to the dead man on the ground. Kitt hesitated.
"You're life comes first, Michael. It always has."
Michael pulled himself to his feet and staggered over. Kitt fired up his engine and met him half-way. The sirens of the inevitable ambulance could already be heard in the suddenly silent air. Michael guessed the assassins had cleared out when Zerek got taken out. He leaned heavily on Kitt's hood, trying to take the pressure off of his injured leg and arm. "Well, I gotta tell you buddy, I think this is the best we've ever come out in a case."
"We killed." Kitt sounded confused.
Michael smiled. "Yeah, but it was the lesser of two evils. No one is going to separate us, Kitt. Not now, not ever."
Kitt seemed to smile. Michael closed his eyes and allowed the doctors to take him away, knowing his partner would be following him the entire time.
/---/
AN: Wow. This is coming to an end. One, maybe two more chapters left. Oh, and I suck at battle scenes, so please go easy on me.