Chapter Twenty-Five
People Who Live in Glass Houses . . .
El used the alarms and the consternation they caused as his cue. Two guards apiece on himself and Lorenzo. The first three seconds before he could reach the weapons would be extremely hazardous. Oh well.
He crouched, leaped, and spun a flying kick at one man's head, intending to land where he could easily reach a second. Unfortunately, the second man moved, and, though the first man went down, his gun went flying away. Now there were three weapons turning straight at El.
Make that two. Lorenzo also knew their only chance when he heard it, and he sucker-punched one guard into immediate unconsciousness. That man's handgun also flew, and El caught it. Lorenzo grappled with his second guard, trying to get his Uzi, so El shot the fourth man.
Two of his three seconds of surprise were gone and he had only a 9mm handgun and no cover. He and Lorenzo stood too close to each other - a single burst of fire could kill them both. All the Delgados were armed, though only Julio Delgado had his gun in his hand, and Sands's single guard ...
Was about to shoot El.
El sprinted, shooting, for the pile of weapons stacked by the cocaine pallets. He didn't deserve to make it, but luck was on his side. He didn't hit the guard, but, having no cover at all, the man was sufficiently frightened by El's hail of bullets that his aim was worthless. Behind him, El saw, Sands, still 'cuffed to the arm of the chair, leaped over it to use the high back of the chair as cover. His medical watchdog, apparently unarmed, also cowered back there.
Delgado shot at El, but missed him, his slugs crashing into the large plates of glass that comprised one wall of the large room. Lorenzo and his opponent, still in a tight clinch for possession of the Uzi, fell to the floor.
El reached the weapons, dropped his 9mm, and scooped up the first two weapons that came to his hands, a shotgun and a .44 Magnum. He leaped on top of the stacks of cocaine bricks, landing on his stomach. Delgado. He wanted Delgado, but the drug lord now ran forward, head down, toward the three other men at the map table. He managed to move right into the area of El's view that was blocked by the forward corner of the cocaine pallets he lay on.
El had only to wriggle forward to get his shot, but behind him, the entire glass wall split and fell, showering El with shards, some large enough to impale him. El covered his head and prayed.
"Kill them all," roared Delgado.
As if El and Lorenzo were the ones obeying him, Lorenzo finally won free his guard's Uzi, and ended the man's life, while El lifted his head and shot Sands's guard, the only man he could see while glass rained on him. The recoil from the Magnum reminded him painfully of his injured hands.
His .44 round went through Sand's guard and still had enough force to explode one side of the thick wooden chair Sands had been sitting on. Sands was now free, something for El to keep in mind.
For later. Right now, Lorenzo had no cover, and, drawing, the Delgado men were half-seconds from firing their own, personal weapons. El came to a kneeling position amid the twinkling glass and fired both his guns. The range to the men clustered at the table was too short for the shotgun blast to have much spread, but it would delay their own shots. What he aimed at, with the .44, was the anchor of the immense chandelier that hung above the map table.
"Over here, Lorrie!" he yelled. The closest thing to useful cover in the whole damn room was the pile of cocaine bricks. The furniture, with the possible exception of the "throne" was too small and too insubstantial.
The power of the Magnum splintered into the huge wooden beam supporting the chandelier, just like it had splintered the entire arm and side of Sands's chair. The chandelier, tiered to a point like an upside down wedding cake, began to pry loose.
Pablo screamed as the buckshot from the 20 gauge shotgun tore his arm into ribbons. Pablo had not hit the floor as quickly as had David and Vasquez. The shot that didn't grate Pablo's arm barreled past the men, finally spreading out just in time to hit the glass. A second glass wall, already penetrated by El's shots at Sands's guard, shuddered, cracked, and toppled, not far behind Sands's chair. The room which had been inside was now outside, and the sounds of fighting on the grounds were now part of their combat arena.
Someone, possibly Delgado himself, had had the presence of mind to fire at Lorenzo despite the shotgun blast and Pablo's screaming. Lorenzo was forced to use the dead body as a shield and didn't dare join El by the cocaine stack yet.
Plastic and cocaine powder exploded next to El. He tumbled off the stack, landing next to his stash of weapons without any orders from his conscious mind. Someone had shot at him from what had been the outside.
Mierda! So much for any kind of cover.
Lorenzo, still on the floor, reached over the dead guard and fired his Uzi on semi-automatic, low, beneath the table at the Delgados. Pablo stopped screaming. Good, that gave El a chance to deal with the men behind him, in the courtyard. He scooped up a fully automatic machine gun and emptied an entire clip into the topiary. He followed that with the second barrel of the shotgun, which did some impressive damage to the landscaping.
Back in the ballroom a huge tinkling crash announced the fall of the immense chandelier. Whether it killed anyone or not, it isolated the mariachis from the Delgados for a few moments. Lorenzo scrambled to El's side.
Keeping one eye on the garden and another on the area around the still collapsing chandelier, El stuffed every weapon he could manage onto his person. Lorenzo slung two rifles over his shoulders, which had to hurt. The younger man's face was pinched with pain, but he seemed to be moving all right.
"Delgado," Lorenzo said.
El glanced up as the sound of a helicopter approached. This really was a paramilitary operation.
They were entirely too exposed, surrounded by enemies, and under attack by a force that wouldn't distinguish them from its prey. As much as El also wanted to make sure Delgado was dead, and, if he wasn't, to blast the man's face off, there was a time to run, and this was it.
Before El could answer him, powerful weapons fire from the helicopter peppered their entire area.
"Puta Madre!" El yelled. "Run!"
They charged, directionless, into the courtyard, using the slender trunks of trees, usually palmettos, for cover. Fortunately the airborne gunmen didn't seem interested in pursuing them and the helicopter lumbered on, over another part of the estate.
"The gate is this way!" El yelled, heading for a corridor that would take them outside the immediate building of the estate.
"Maria!" Lorenzo yelled back. He turned around and started for an opposite corridor, leading back toward their rooms.
"No! Wait! Lorrie!"
El cursed, but followed him.
A/N: Sorry this update took a while, but this stuff is really hard to write! ::petulant look:: And I'm not going to like writing this next part, either . . .