19. Dancing in the Dark
A section of the louvered doors folds back, and an old woman steps out carrying a basket of laundry. She sees us, and lets out an unholy screech. I'm closer, but George is faster. He gets in front of me, blocking me, clamps a hand over the old lady's mouth, and begins hauling her and her laundry across the room. I hear him say something to her in Spanish about being there to hurt bad men, not grandmothers. He dexterously boosts her into the pantry and throws the bolt on the outside of the door.
There are footsteps coming down the hallway. "Philomena?" a man calls. The crone is banging on the door and caterwailing. So much for the element of surprise.
I ease over to within a foot or two of the doorjamb, waiting. After a moment, a gun appears. This is followed by an arm. As soon as I see the guy's chin - before he's in far enough to see me - I slam my fist and the hilt of the knife solidly into his Adam's apple. It's a simple, relatively quiet way to kill somebody - if they don't have their finger on the trigger of an automatic weapon at the time. A short burst of fire turns the tin ceiling into scrap as the guy goes down, choking on his own blood. Oh lovely, another gun. And the damn things keep getting bigger. This is definitely not going to fit in my bag.
Glancing down the hallway shows it clear. When the first gunman appears at the far end, I raise the hand with the gun and shoot him, almost dropping the gun from the recoil. I'm impressed that I actually hit him, since I'm not a lefty. I tuck the knife on top of the stuff in my bag. No question, this is a two-handed gun.
The service way is lit, the rooms on either side are not. Can you say sitting ducks? With a quick shot, George takes out the fixture, plunging the hallway into near-darkness. Together, we start down the corridor.
He covers the right, I've got the left. There's no one in the fancy, formal dining room. George gets off a shot at someone on his side. We continue, carefully, without breaking our pace. It's like dancing back to back, slowly, the length of the hall, which runs about half the length of the house. I have a crazy, random thought: Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.
There's open space ahead; we're both wary - and with good reason. It's a spacious foyer with an upstairs landing that rings the sweeping staircase. George and I exchange glances. He holds up a finger: wait. Backtracking down the hall, he disappears into one of the rooms. He returns pushing a wheeled office chair, with a body in it. I step aside as he moves closer to the end of the corridor. When he gives the chair an almighty shove, the corpse goes sailing like it's diving for cover - and draws a hail of fire from the balcony above.
George darts out and returns fire, moving steadily ahead. I follow, Ginger to his Fred, avoiding the dead man and the chair, making it to the cover under the stairs. There's another gunman on the side we crossed over from, and his shots are coming uncomfortably close. I'm going to have to step away from cover to get off a decent shot at him. Meanwhile, George is blazing away to our left - there are one or more of them in a family room, or something - plaster from the underside of the stairs explodes inches away from me.
Moving out from the overhang of the stairs, I train the automatic on the section of balcony that the fireis coming from, and spray it with bullets, doing my best to ignore the shots coming my way. Close doesn't count.By the time the clip is out of ammo, there are no more shots raining down from the sniper.
As soon as the shots from above cease, I turn to the corridor ahead. "I've got point." The overhead light on that side buys it, and I focus on the distant library doors, a crack of light showing through them.
"Right." He's concentrating on the room behind the stairs, and I dart toward the far end of the hallway, ready to pop anybody who sticks a nose out. I take the opportunity to switch to a fresh gun, discarding the empty one. The heavy pistol seems curiously small after that behemoth. After a moment, George joins me. Navigating the second corridor, we've got the pace down to an artform. No one challenges us. Have we gotten all of them, or are there more waiting, guarding their leader?
The library boasts a set of ornate double doors, slightly ajar, which open inward. From the library comes the sound of a round being chambered. There's a whisper of sound behind us.
Whirling, I nail the creep who thinks he's sneaking up behind us. Coming back around full circle, I make eye contact with George. As if we've rehearsed it, we each kick one of the doors and hurl ourselves into the room in a double dive-and-roll. Buckshot peppers the doors - by then we're low and inside and tackling the SOB with the shotgun. George's head whips around to scan the room for more threats as I crack the cartelista's skull with his own gunstock.
We're alone in the room. Gomez is gone.
mssparrington: Sands is a little spooky sometimes, isn't he? And things are going to get even more tense with RC.
Dawnie-7: Who, Kate? Let's just say when she decides to get something out of her system, it can be fatal.
kerttu: Have you been reading ahead? (grin) That knife may be in her bag for now, but you'll be seeing it again...