This story is based on the 'Gunsmith Cats' manga by Kenichi Sonoda, with a few elements from the 'Riding Bean' OAV (1989). It is set after the last published manga in English as of March 2005.
Tell me what you thought of it, no matter what you have to say. I'm a big girl. :) I always welcome reader reactions, especially ones that go into detail. Please email me at MmeManga "at" aol dot com (address spelled out because this site strips all email addys and URLS) or leave your comments here.
NOTE: The complete version of this story is housed at my Livejournal, which is linked on my main page on this site. I have removed large sections of chapters Two, Eight and Thirty from the postings here because of the current site rules, although this story existed on the site long before those rules went into effect. I am sorry for any inconvenience to readers; this factor is unfortunately not under my control. The complete version will also be posted at Mediaminer. My former dedicated Gunsmith Cats site no longer exists.
DISCLAIMER: Characters of RALLY VINCENT, BEAN BANDIT, MAY HOPKINS, ROY COLEMAN, KEN TAKI copyright Kenichi Sonoda. All other characters, and story, copyright 2000--2005 by Madame Manga. Contact by email at MmeManga Do not sell or print for sale without the express written permission of the author. Do not archive. Permission is granted to circulate this text in electronic form, free of charge and with this disclaimer and the author's name attached. Do not plagiarize, alter, or appropriate this text in any way. This story is intended for personal entertainment purposes only. No infringement of any copyrights or other rights is intended.
ADULT CONTENT WARNING IN BOLD CAPS!
This story is not for kids or the easily offended. It contains explicit violence and extreme profanity. If you object to reading such things, do not read this story.
Chasing the Dragon
by Madame Manga
Chapter Twenty-Three
The firefighters kept speaking into their walkie-talkies, but one man patted Rally's shoulder in a comforting way. "Ambulance is coming!" he shouted loud enough for her to hear.
The smoke cleared slightly in the evening breeze off the bay. Flashing lights approached and two ambulances emerged from the gloom, but the vehicles had to move slowly over the chunks of wood and concrete in the street.
Someone handed Rally a water bottle; she propped up Roy's head and gave him a drink. His lips fluttered and his mouth opened and closed like a baby's. His eyes looked dazed and stunned, his face bleeding under the soot and his hair full of ashes. One of the firefighters took off his oxygen gear and put the mask over Roy's face.
Gradually her hearing returned, muddled sounds and sirens thumping and squealing all around her. A pair of fire trucks pulled in front of the pier and the firefighters scrambled to hook up their hoses. The street was full of emergency workers now; police and firefighters and paramedics and their vehicles thronged the sidewalks and the road.
One of the FBI bomb squad men staggered out of the smoke with two firefighters supporting him; he had lost most of his uniform and all of his hair. Charred skin hung in rags from his arms and face. Another bomb squadder lay on a stretcher, horribly mutilated by blast and fire—whether he was even alive she couldn't tell. The rest of the squad were nowhere to be seen. Paramedics worked frantically over both men and one ambulance sped up the hill, lights flashing. Another arrived and pulled up near them. Roy gasped into the oxygen mask, his eyelids fluttering; Rally held his left wrist, since his hands were blistered and pink. His pulse throbbed under her fingers.
Two more paramedics jogged up to them with a stretcher. "Triage!" said one of the firefighters. "This guy's not breathing real well."
"We'll get him out of here." The paramedics slid a backboard under Roy's body and picked him up; Rally helped them load him on the stretcher and strap him down. They changed his oxygen mask for an ambulance model and took his vital signs. His body felt limp and twitchy; she was sure he was in great pain from his burns. Her own she decided were minor, so she stood aside and splashed water on her face and hands to kill the sting.
"Keep an eye on his pulmonary function," said one paramedic to the other. They rolled the stretcher towards the waiting ambulance. About to follow them into the street, Rally turned back when someone took her arm.
"Rally?" Wojohowicz looked greatly concerned. "Is Coleman alive?"
"Yes, but he's not good." She pointed at the ambulance. "He's got burns and maybe some broken bones—I don't know. Something wrong with his lungs..." She coughed.
"You don't look so great yourself, Rally." Wojohowicz narrowed her eyes and scanned Rally's face. "I think you need medical attention too. You were just as close to the fire."
"No, I'm not really hurt. Roy's body…got in the way."
"Smoke inhalation can kind of sneak up on you. Progressive respiratory failure—you may not realize how badly you're injured until you start drowning in your own fluids. Let me get you to an ambulance too, OK?" Wojohowicz sounded like a concerned elder sister.
"I'll go with Roy." Suddenly Rally gulped and suppressed a sob. "Is this it? This is what 426 wanted us to walk into? He triggered the detonation as soon as we were in range!"
"For you," said Wojohowicz. "And for anyone who happened to be with you, obviously."
"What's happened to the rest of the bomb squad? Are they all…?"
Smith came up to her with a walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. He wasn't shouting into it; he was listening, his lips so tight they were gray-white.
"Pete…oh, God." Rally reached out to touch his shoulder. "How bad is it?"
"Don't ask me how many casualties we have. I don't want to add them up yet." Smith glared in the direction of the pier and briefly showed his teeth. "A few of them may still be alive on the other side of the gap, but it's hard to tell with that wall of fire. We're trying to raise their radios." He looked at her; the whites of his eyes were scarlet with smoke irritation, but his glance looked as hard as blue ice. "At least he didn't get you."
"I'm sorry, Pete. I'll be back—I'm going to go in the ambulance."
"You do that. Hope Coleman's OK." Smith spoke into the walkie-talkie and turned away.
Rally stepped off the sidewalk to follow Roy. The paramedics opened the back of the ambulance and prepared to roll Roy's stretcher inside.
A loud whiz and a sound like a harsh cough.
One of the paramedics straightened up with a surprised expression. A small black spot winked in the middle of her forehead like a third eye. A glistening cloud of brain matter hovered behind her, a cone-shaped haze. The paramedic crumpled and fell beside the stretcher. The other gaped at her, and then his face blew out from his head in a shower of bloody fragments, splattering Roy with the remains of his eyeballs and teeth. He fell over Roy's lap and slid down to the road.
A sniper rifle—
Rally found herself in the middle of the street, sprinting as fast as she could run towards Roy's stretcher. She seemed to move only slowly through the hot, thick air. Roy lay alone and helpless, strapped down and half unconscious, and she knew in the depths of her gut that he was the next target. Unless the sniper fired at her instead.
Combat senses flaring at full intensity, Rally crouched low and zigzagged her path. Screaming people ran in every direction, blocking her way and her line of sight. The rifle coughed again and a man fell dead directly in front of her.
She vaulted over the corpse, tucked and shoulder-rolled the last few feet to Roy's stretcher. A bullet threw up fragments of asphalt that stung her face.
Shoulders to the stretcher, she heaved and tried to get it rolling. It was stuck. One of the dead paramedics had an arm wedged under the wheels.
Rally kicked the body aside and propelled the stretcher behind the ambulance. She reached up to find the buckles of the straps that restrained Roy. In a moment she had them open, and she yanked at his arm to roll him off the stretcher. As best she could, she broke his fall, but he landed on her so hard that her wind was knocked out.
A bullet clipped the top of the ambulance from a high angle and struck very close to Rally's feet. The sniper had a good perch, but she had roughly triangulated it by now. A high window somewhere in a warehouse façade thirty yards away. Rally had no weapons, and the perch was bound to be protected somehow. O'Toole was a professional.
And 426 was—the devil incarnate. Possibly the most dangerous team imaginable, and both of them wanted Rally Vincent's blood. This had been well planned. Far too well to allow her to solve the immediate problem without even a gun in her hand.
Another bullet penetrated the ambulance's body and thwacked into the padding of the stretcher. The ambulance's two right-hand tires blew out a moment later and it lurched to the side. All the emergency workers fled the street, abandoning their vehicles. One ambulance took off at high speed, but drew fire. It also lost a tire, spun out and crashed into a building. A body smashed halfway through the windshield and rolled over on the hood, the face ripped off the skull.
"Having fun, O'Toole?" Rally screamed aloud into the din. "I hope you burn in hell!"
"Rally?" Roy sounded dull and vague, his voice hoarse.
"Roy?" she gasped. "Can you walk? We've got to get out of here!"
"Wha's happ'ning?"
"Get underneath and grab the legs of the stretcher, Roy. I'll push it. You just come along for the ride, OK?"
Rally shoved him into the understructure of the rolling stretcher, his upper body half-supported on its struts, and reached up to grab the edge. Roy's shoes dragged on the asphalt when she pushed the stretcher. The top would conceal him a little from the high windows—she had to get him across the road and into a safe place.
Smith, Wojohowicz and several firefighters and cops crouching in a narrow windowless alley between the warehouses waved their arms at her. Wojohowicz grabbed a ballistic riot shield from a cop, held it over her head and started out into the street. An enormous hole blasted through the shield and she staggered, but kept running towards Rally.
Roy fell out of the understructure of the stretcher and rolled over on the asphalt. Rally desperately heaved at his body. Wojohowicz scrambled up to them, discarded the useless shield and grabbed Roy under the armpits. Rally took his ankles and they ran as fast as they could with their burden. Roy's body jerked—he was hit!
Blood spurted from a wound on his left thigh. Many hands reached out for them and supported Roy when they gained the shelter of the alley and relative safety.
"Fuck it, ladies—this is combat!" yelled Smith.
He tore off his sport coat and flung it down. Someone rolled it into a pillow. The firefighters lowered Roy to the ground and cut the leg of his pants to deal with the gunshot wound.
Smith kept raging. "This is the 'Nam! Snipers and booby traps! They're even firing at the medics! Dammit, girls, you might as well be in the goddamn infantry!"
Rally and Wojohowicz exchanged glances. "What's your point?" said Rally.
"So how can a couple of broads go out and rescue a wounded man under fire when all I ever scored was some fucking service ribbons?" He snarled and muttered to himself. "Lost my chance again…"
Rally laughed, but suddenly wobbled in the aftermath of her adrenaline rush. "Pete, was the pier only a decoy?" She leaned against the wall to support herself. "426 just wanted O'Toole to have plenty of people to shoot?"
"I don't know. I have a feeling this isn't over yet." Smith glared upwards. "He's reloading up there somewhere. The building has six floors, the place is bound to be just as booby-trapped as the pier, and I've got no bomb squad."
"So you can't send in a SWAT team." Rally squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to think. "If he's firing out a window, maybe someone can pick him off when he starts it up again. Obviously he's not going to be moving very fast, wherever he is. But I've lost my CZ-75. Maybe the police sharpshooters…?"
Smith's walkie-talkie squawked. "Hold that thought." He moved a few paces away and shouted into the receiver.
"Rally…" Roy groaned in pain as the firefighters tried to stop the bleeding with the supplies from their first-aid kits. A red stream meandered under him, soaking into the dirty ground. "Rally, you there?"
"Right here, Roy." She went down on her knees beside him. He groped for her hand.
"Gimme your cell phone." O'Toole began to fire again, the whiz of the bullets ripping through the dark air. Glass shattered in the abandoned fire trucks and police cars.
"Huh?" Rally could barely hear Roy's weak voice.
"Cell…phone. You still got it?"
Rally felt in her jacket. "Yeah, here it is. I lost my gun, but kept my phone!"
Someone tapped the butt of a heavy weapon against her shoulder; it was Smith. "Here's your HK11. Someone had the presence of mind to haul it along when we ran for cover." He passed it to her and turned to talk to Wojohowicz.
"Thanks, Pete." Rally laid the HK11 on the ground and brought out her phone. "Here, I'll dial for you if you want—did you lose yours?"
"Uh, yeah. Guess I did." Roy succumbed to a fit of harsh coughing. "No, give it to me." He squinted at the little screen and fumbled at the buttons with blistered fingers. "You…you got numbers saved, right? In the…phone book?"
"Lots. Your, uh, your home number is in there." Rally pressed her knuckles to her mouth for a moment. So Roy wanted to call his wife before he—
She couldn't finish the thought. Burned, bleeding fast, no rescue possible while the sniper remained in his perch. A firefighter who had tried to hide in his rig made a dash for safety, and in the next instant collapsed in the road with the top of his head blown off. The alley dead-ended in a six-story wall and all the doorways had been bricked over, so no one could get out of this rat trap except in full view of O'Toole's night scope.
At least the firefighters were there to take care of Roy. If shock didn't set in too soon, perhaps they could keep him going for a while. She knew first-hand what extreme blood loss could do to a man, and Roy wasn't an indestructible young monster like Bean—he was forty-eight and a chain-smoker. But no matter what her emotions were on seeing one of her best friends dying at her feet, first aid wasn't her job. It was her job to do something about O'Toole. Rally set her teeth and got up.
For a minute she watched the .308s blast through the car doors, trying to figure the angles. Which window? From this vantage point, it was impossible to calculate the origin of the bullets. If she stepped out into firing position, she would only have a moment to choose, and a mistake would be fatal. O'Toole probably hated her more than 426 did.
426. Rally's eyes narrowed. Even if she somehow got to O'Toole, he wasn't even the half of it. 426 would have calculated this to the last degree, and so far, it was all going his way.
"This is Roy…Roy Coleman." Again Roy coughed as he spoke into the phone. "Yeah, I'm hurt...never mind. I need to tell you something…"
That didn't sound like he was talking to the woman he loved. Still, he deserved a little privacy at this time. The shooting had stopped: O'Toole was reloading. Rally hoisted the HK11 and moved through the hunkered-down groups of people to the corner of the building.
"What're you doing?" asked a cop. "Isn't that a little heavy for a girl?"
Rally threw him a smile. "I like a gun with some kick. I'm just taking a look-see."
She darted her head out for a moment and made a quick mental snapshot of the dark windows above her. Their dirty panes dully reflected the light of the fire. Half of them seemed to be either cracked open or just plain cracked. Any of those could be a sniper nest.
Behind her, Roy's voice rose with a note of hope. "That's right. You know it. No…she didn't." A pause. "Hello? Hello?...Shit." Roy clicked the phone off and let his hand fall. He breathed out a sound like a sob, with a dreadful rasp in his throat. Who had been on the other end of the line? When Rally reached him again and crouched at his side, he had passed out.
"Yeah, three are still mobile—sort of." Smith spoke over her head while the firefighters put an oxygen mask on Roy. "They say they've retreated into the warehouse for shelter from the fire. That won't last. There's a hell of a lot of smoke in there."
Rally listened for a moment to the agents and firefighters arguing over the situation. Most of them seemed to be teetering on the edge of panic, if they hadn't already fallen over it. "Can they swim? If you get a boat here and put some divers in the water to pick them up—"
"They're too badly injured to take a dip. Anyway, there's a lot of fuel on the surface, and some of it is burning." Smith pointed to the water. The orange light of the fire showed an ugly, oily slick. "There's a risk it will light the decks and pilings of the piers from underneath. I've called the fire boats in. If they can spread retardant in time, they might be able to save the whole waterfront from going up."
"Coast Guard air rescue is coming," put in Wojohowicz. "We'll pull those guys off the pier somehow."
"And then watch that goddamn thing burn to the waterline!" snarled Smith.
Rally blew out her cheeks and stared at the pier. The stub of wooden decking on the shore side jutted out at an angle like a ramp, apparently pushed up by the force of the blast. She hated this place. She hated the oily water, the looming hills behind her, the potholed road strewn with wrecks and bodies. San Francisco was a beautiful city on the whole. But some parts of it she would be happy to put permanently in her rear-view mirror. Get this over with and go home to Chicago. It had crime, sure, and gangs and mayhem. But it was her crime and mayhem. It was where she belonged.
"Home…" she said in a longing tone. "It's time to go home."
Smith looked at her with an odd expression, but said nothing.
Wojohowicz cupped a hand to her head. "Listen, the chopper's here." The hard whack of its blades grew louder.
Smith let out a sigh of relief and put his radio to his ear, speaking to the survivors of the bomb squad. "Move farther into the warehouse and get out the door to the walkway. Then the chopper can drop you a basket and winch you up one by one."
"Thank God." Rally watched the helicopter's lights approach across the water as Smith issued orders on the radio. She touched his elbow. "Pete—uh, before they go too far inside, you mentioned booby traps."
"Didn't they trip it already? The one at the gate?"
"Of course. I'm wondering if there's something else waiting inside...I don't know. It's just a hunch."
His face changed in comprehension. "Yeah, good point. The chopper can use its searchlights to take a peek through that hole in the roof."
The chopper came closer, hovering straight above the pier in the plume of smoke. The fire lit its belly from beneath as it moved to the side and dipped lower. The strong beams of its searchlights swept the water and the roof of the pier, thick with the smoke in the air. Rally gritted her teeth and crossed her fingers, watching for the descent of the rescue basket.
A strange sound—a loud click above the roar of the flames. Rally jumped upright, but Smith instantly pulled her down. Almost simultaneously, a barrage echoed inside the pier warehouse. It sounded like ten or twelve shotguns going off at once. Pellets crashed against the walls and shot across the road to richochet off the brick walls. Several flew into the alley; one struck a policeman, who cried out. The chopper rose and circled.
Rally turned to Smith to ask what on earth that had been, and to her utter shock, found him fallen to his knees, weeping. "A Claymore! A fucking Claymore!" shrieked Smith. He tore at his hair and rocked from side to side. "Haven't heard that sound since the 'Nam…"
"What?" Rally stood appalled. "A Claymore mine in the pier?"
"That son of a bitch! That fucking, cocksucking, ass-reaming piece of shit! He does not deserve to be called a human being!"
"Does that mean 426 is IN there?" She whirled to look at the pier again.
"Come in! Come in!" Smith shouted into the radio.
"No way," said Wojohowicz. She patted Smith's shoulder in a solicitous manner. "He must have set a trip wire or detonated it by remote. He can't be in there—he'd be committing suicide."
A man wrapped in monk's robes, his eyes closed in serene meditation. And burning: wreathed in flame, yet impassive; calm, welcoming. Rally saw the vision as clearly as if 426 stood before her in the guise of a self-immolator; she seemed to see into his mind as well, for a brief, terrible instant.
"Oh, my God..."
"I can't raise the bomb squad." Smith let his radio fall to the ground. "He cut them all to bits."
As if impelled, Rally rose and moved forward. She left the shelter of the alley and took a step out on the sidewalk, hypnotized by the still-raging fire. Someone seized her jacket from behind and yanked her back.
"Where are you going?" Wojohowicz pulled her into the alley.
At that instant, a bright streak ripped from the roof of the pier and into the sky. It left a slash across her vision. Rally blinked, and in the moment that her eyes were closed, a huge white-hot flash blasted light through her lids. Debris hammered the walls facing the pier with a sound of breaking glass and chipping brick. A horrible groaning noise. The smoking fragments of the chopper rained like a hailstorm into the water. Instantly the light went out and screams erupted.
"A rocket! Was that a—"
"Surface-to-air missile—probably a Stinger! Holy fucking shit!"
"Who? Who fired that? The sniper?"
"It wasn't O'Toole. It came from the pier! It's 426!" shouted Rally through the welter of voices. "He IS in there!"
"What the hell is he going to do next? How much military ordnance has that bastard got!"
"Call the National Guard. Call the fucking US Army." Smith stood up, his face white and working. "They can toss a Hellfire in there and wipe out the son of a bitch for good!"
"Uh, sir, this is an urban area—"
"And what if he's got more Stingers? He could knock out an Apache from a couple miles away!"
A cell phone rang: her ring tone. Rally glanced down. Still in Roy's inert hand, her phone was ringing. She craned between the firefighters to pick it up. Was this the person he had been talking to? Who—?
"Yes? Rally Vincent here." Sticking a finger into her other ear, she strained to hear the faint response.
"Rally…please, Rally…"
She jerked upright. "Larry? God, where are you?"
"Larry?" echoed Wojohowicz.
"I'm…I'm in the pier…" He trailed off into coughing. "Sorry. Lots of smoke…getting hard to breathe..."
"In the pier? How? Where?"
"426 has us. Me and Agent Bui, I mean. He's…holding the phone to my mouth so I can talk. He wants me to tell you…" He coughed again. "He just wants you to know that he has no intention of getting out. You're welcome to come in, but none of us are leaving…"
Silence for a moment, then another voice. Stronger, colder. She recognized it instantly, though she had heard it only once. 426. The Red Pole, chief assassin of the Eight Dragon Triad.
"I am ready to meet my ancestors, bounty hunter. I wonder if you are similarly prepared."
The phone went dead.
"Larry!" shouted Rally. "Oh, my God, Larry!"
Smith looked at her. "What? Where is he?"
"In there!" She pointed to the pier. "He said—"
"Bullshit," said Smith. "That's crazy!"
"No, this is for real! Agent Bui and Larry Sam are in the pier with 426!"
"Why the hell would 426 tell you that? What's he going to get?"
"You can't call in a strike—you'll kill the hostages. I think he knew you'd be seriously considering it right about now."
"Then what are we going to do? That bastard is waging war here!"
Wojohowicz grabbed Rally's shoulder. "No. You are not going in there."
"Why the hell would anyone go in there?" Smith's head jerked around. "What?"
Rally's teeth set in a snarl, but her voice shook. "This is what he wants. This is what the scenario is all about. Not about the bomb, not about the sniper—taking out cops and agents is just a means to an end. He doesn't want any interference or any reinforcements. He wants me to go in there to get the hostages. Alone."
"You are not going in there," said Smith. The agents linked arms and stood across the mouth of the alley. "You'll never get them out—if they're even really there. What proof do you have? Before you go straight into a burning building, you gotta have proof!"
"This is 426 we're talking about."
"That's my point. The murdering, torturing, sadistic—"
"But not a liar. Whatever else he does, he doesn't lie." Rally's eyes fixed on the plume of smoke. "That's why he hates Brown so much. Because that guy couldn't tell the truth with a gun to his head."
"I'll give you that." Smith bit his lower lip. "But O'Toole is still up there with a rifle. Forget about how the hell you get through the fire. How does 426 expect you to even get across the road?"
"Larry said I was welcome to come in. Maybe that means O'Toole has orders not to shoot me."
"Oh, come on. He was aiming plenty of slugs your way!"
"Yeah, but he didn't hit me. Perhaps that was on purpose. He's done that before—he was herding me in the direction he wanted me to go. Or rather, in the direction his boss wanted me to go."
"So he's up there killing people just because 426 wants you on the pier and the rest of us pinned down and helpless?"
"Yes." She closed her eyes for a moment. "Look, Pete, if I don't go out there and do something, we can't get Roy to a hospital. I'm not going to stand here and watch him bleed to death."
The agents exchanged looks. "No, I guess you aren't."
"And Larry…well, Larry's already told me about his feelings for me. He's counting on me. I'm his only hope."
Wojohowicz sighed. "There's a buddy of ours in there too."
"They're all going to b-burn to death…" Rally's voice trembled. Even for Sylvester Brown, she would have risked her life. For Larry Sam and Agent Bui? How could she do any less? "And just maybe I can take out O'Toole as well."
"I guess you can give it a try." Smith wiped a hand over his face. "Putting in for the Medal of Honor?"
"Pete…I want to give you a message for someone." Rally looked down, trying to compose her thoughts. Her pulse beat hard in her throat. "You're the most likely to get hold of him…afterwards."
"Afterwards?" Smith's eyes slid towards the pier. "I won't pretend I don't know who you're talking about."
"So, uh, when you get in contact…well, you can tell him that I, uh, mentioned him."
He raised a brow. "Is that it? The message?"
"Well, no." She swallowed hard and gripped the HK11. This wasn't the time to think about Bean. If she did, she might start thinking about all the things she had to live for. That wouldn't be such a good idea right now. May's baby…and Roy, and Misty and Becky…and Daddy. She loved them all. She hoped they might understand, eventually, that in order to be who she was, she had to do this. Any other course would destroy her, because as long as there was the slightest chance she could save innocent lives, there was no other choice she could live with. "What do you think he would have told me right now? I mean, if he was here?"
Smith slowly shook his head. "Bean would have told you not to try it. He would have said it was hopeless."
Rally rubbed the back of her head, where the big sore lump hadn't entirely disappeared. "Maybe he would have. Tell him I said…that there's always hope." She turned to look towards the water. "Of one kind or another."
"Look at that," said Wojohowicz.
Something flew from the side of the burning pier; a grappling hook and cable thrown by an unseen arm. The hook hit a cleat on the edge of the secondary pier, the half-rotted section of the Y. It held, and the cable tautened as it was secured from the other end.
"Looks like he's set up a zip line between the piers." Smith peered at the cable. "426 chickening out? Maybe he decided he'd better take a powder after all. Fine, we'll be waiting."
Rally stared at the pathway. "That's for me, not for him. He's showing me the way inside."
"Holy crap, I think she's right," said Wojohowicz. "O'Toole's been told not to shoot."
"Bullshit! Even if he has orders from 426, he's one hell of a trigger-happy little fuck!"
Rally took a deep breath, slid past the arguing agents and stepped out from the shelter of the alleyway.
"Hey! What do you think you're—"
"Doing my duty," said Rally.
The street, strewn with disabled vehicles and bodies, was lit mostly by the fire. Parts of the pavement glistened dark in the red light. Rally stepped over a pool of blood and glanced over her shoulder at the warehouse. Nothing stirred. Every breath she took sounded like the rasp of a chainsaw. She crossed the charnel house of the sidewalk and stepped off the curb. The crumpled, contorted bodies of the dead appalled her. Police, firefighters, paramedics.
Rally recognized many of the dim faces—people she had spoken to not half an hour ago, people she had thought of as her comrades. There was the firefighter who had carried Roy off the pier, the woman paramedic who had told her to check the batteries in her smoke detector. All of them had meant to protect, to rescue, to help others, and this was their reward.
Horrible, sickening grief and anger roiled inside her, threatening to burst out into uncontrolled fury. She tightened her grip on the stock of the HK11, which she held close to her body, along her hip and thigh. If she could get O'Toole in her sights now, she wouldn't content herself with crippling him. The moment she saw the least sign of him—
"Heheheh." A dry, rasping chuckle, somewhere behind her—for a moment Rally thought a wounded man was calling to her. She whirled, searching for the source of the sound.
"Hello? Does someone need help?" She bent over the nearest body.
"Oh, I'm not lyin' down on the cold, cold ground. No, me sweet girlie, I've come up a bit in the world." He laughed again, the sound floating over her head, and let off a rapid pair of shots. Asphalt kicked up on each side of her.
"I'm going to kill you, O'Toole!" Rally threw up her chin and snarled. "You're dead!"
"Straight in me sights, girlie. I've got the crosshairs a-restin' right between yer titties."
Rally instinctively put a protective hand to her chest, but immediately removed it. Where the hell was he? Frantically she scanned the windows above her and to right and left, the dim red light revealing almost nothing. Could he see the weapon at her side? If she raised it, he just might fire immediately.
"Ye'll never pick me out with yer wee nine-millimeter, yeh Paki bitch! And even if yeh did, I've been armor-plated."
"What are you ranting about?" Good, he hadn't seen it!
"I'm welded into me perch. Surrounded by steel plates an' concrete blocks, with a wee slit to spy out've. There's not a sharpshooter in the world that could do the job now. Yeh'd need a fockin' tank grenade!" He laughed raucously.
"Oh, you proud of yourself or something?" Stomach dropping, she kept scanning. Welded in? Maybe it was hopeless—she would have to leave him where he was and keep going. And then be picked off when she emerged with the hostages, if she ever made it out?
"Didn't expect that, did ye?" Singsongy, taunting. "Oh, I've got a wee bit more experience than ye have, an' earned it hard, didn't I? Little Paki—"
"And you'll be a sitting duck when the FBI pulls in some artillery! Say, when I exploded the gas tank in your crotch, did you lose the head you think with?"
"Fock ye, yeh bitch!" A note of hysteria—he was close to losing it. Could she exploit that? The pier still burned behind her, but her hatred for cowardly murder burned even hotter. If she could nail the little bastard, this would be a good day!
Rally took a deep breath and yelled. "Hey, O'Toole's missing his tool! Good riddance too—if you hadn't been interrupted while you were kicking off the gang-rape, you'd probably still be trying to get it up!"
O'Toole let out an inarticulate growl. "Get along with ye before I get a twitch in me trigger finger. I still got a bead on yer—"
"Who cares, you overcompensating loser? If 426 wanted you to shoot me, you'd have done it a long time ago. So shut the hell up!"
"Yeh think I take me orders from that fockin' Chink faggot?" screamed O'Toole. "Yeh think so?"
Rally dropped to one knee, simultaneously flicking on the tactical light mounted to her HK11 and raising the rifle. The intense white beam swept the walls above her. If he hadn't been lying about where he liked to aim, she had a bare chance.
From one fourth-floor window winked a small round reflected glint. The lens of O'Toole's scope! Their shots cracked out at almost the same instant, the sound reverberating from the brick walls. The HK11's belt chattered as she kept the trigger depressed, firing off twelve rounds in one desperate, manic burst.
Rally felt the tug of a bullet in her hair, but no impact. Bullets hit metal with loud clangs and whines. The small round glint went out, shattered. At least one of her shots had hit the scope pressed against O'Toole's eye. She'd never have done it with her CZ75, not a snap shot in this light. Had the bullet gone straight through the tube and into his brain?
Sudden silence; she heard a faint thud and creak from above. O'Toole in his death throes? She had only a moment to wonder, for orange flame belched from the window, outlining the narrow rifle slot like a grimacing mouth of hell. She hadn't heard a detonation—it wasn't a bomb. It looked like a gasoline fire. Dead or alive, he would roast in his steel coffin.
Her cell phone rang. With numb fingers, Rally flipped it open.
"You…need to hurry, Rally…please…"
"I'm coming. God, Larry, I'm coming to get you!"
"The way is now cleared," said 426 with a sigh. "I apologize for O'Toole's disobedience."
"What? You mean you triggered that—"
"When he was sealed into his turret, he knew full well that he would not emerge alive. Think no more of him; he has gone to join the only person he ever truly loved." Ammunition cooked off in O'Toole's pyre.
"Brown? Brown's alive! Look, 426, you're not finished. You have to deal with him too, not just with me. Come on out of there and I'll—"
"That will not be necessary, bounty hunter. I await your arrival." He clicked off.
"Smith! Wojohowicz!" screamed Rally. Heads poked out of the alleyway. "O'Toole's taken care of—get Roy to an ambulance!" Smith stepped cautiously to the sidewalk, glanced up and saw the new fire. He beckoned with a wave of his arm.
In a moment, firefighters bearing a stretcher came out and jogged up the street towards Rally. A police lieutenant yelled into a radio and the paramedics scrambled to look for survivors on the street. Apparently some of the wounded were still alive, but the road was almost blocked by ruined vehicles. Two squad cars ventured down the hill and the officers got out to help. Roy's stretcher went past. Rally caught his hand and ran alongside for a moment, feeling cold spreading along his limbs. His eyes opened.
"Rally…wait, don't do it…don't go in there alone…"
"Roy, I have to. I'll see you later—" She started to pull away, but he grabbed at her wrist, his grip surprisingly strong.
"Wait! Just wait—"
"For what? There's no time left! I HAVE to do this, Roy! Let go of me!"
"Wait…for the love of God, Rally...he might…" His clutching hand fell away and his eyes closed. She took one last look, turned away and started for the secondary pier. Emergency workers gave her frightened glances. One policeman used his squad car to move a crippled ambulance to the side of the road. Firefighters hooked up hoses and deployed ladders to deal with the warehouse fire, which had not yet spread beyond the window. Wojohowicz jogged up to her and kept pace with her rapid stride as she approached the chain-link fence.
"I'll come with you, Vincent."
Smith caught up to them, panting. "Hell, we'll send in a whole SWAT team! Do this by the book, kid! We'll call in a bridging tank to get over the gap and—"
"The whole place will have burned down by then." Rally kept walking. "He's killed dozens of people already, and probably has the means to kill hundreds more. No one else is getting in harm's way tonight." They halted at the fence, and Smith scowled at her.
"What are you, a one-woman army?
"You bet your ass I am." She grinned with high-strung bravado and hefted the HK11, its barrel still warm. "I'm the only one 426 wants. So that is exactly what he is going to get." Rally slung the rifle to her back, grabbed the chain-link and started to climb. "This is where it ends."
Oh, it was going to end, all right. She had few illusions of success, but she clung to them. What better way to go? She threw a leg over the top of the fence and cast a look at the night sky, not entirely obscured by smoke and searchlights. If she never came out of that pier, someone would still carry on the work no matter what the cost. Someone would keep doing the right thing.
"Oh, Christ." Smith turned away and put a hand over his mouth. "Good luck…"
"Vincent!" Wojohowicz shouted. "Listen!"
"What?"
"BbbbrruummBBRRRRUUUUUMMMMMmmm…" said something in the distance. "BBBBBRRUUUMMM."
Through the commotion, the sound of a tremendous engine penetrated to Rally's suddenly alerted ears. Deep, confident, throaty. Like the voice of a friend calling above the chaos of the crowd.
As if in slow motion, she turned to look over her shoulder. The car's headlights gleamed like jewels, flashing along the waterfront towards them with squad units in pursuit. Buff described a swooping curve through the parting policemen, pulled up ten feet from her and rumbled to a stop.
Bean kicked the passenger door open and bent down to look at her. Rally dropped from the fence and leaped for the car. Buckling the seat harness around her waist with one hand, she slammed the door.
Bean threw Buff into reverse, spun around and raced up the hill. He stopped at the peak of the ridge two hundred feet above the water, turned and inched forward to the edge of the slope. Angling the gearshift into first, he flexed his braking foot and stared straight ahead and down the hill. Far below them, people scattered, clearing the road in front of the twin gatehouses. Between the wrecked engines there was a lane just wide enough for the passage of a car.
The angled stub of pier, the gap: the landing point on the other side. Narrow-eyed, Bean gave a slight nod and seemed to calculate his path. His trajectory, rather: Rally had known what he meant to do the moment she had heard Buff's voice. As if she perfectly knew his mind, as he knew hers. Their eyes met.
The man, the woman, the car, the gun. This was it—their perfect moment. They would have it forever. However long forever turned out to be.
"Ready, babe?" Bean cracked a smile. It lanced through her like lightning and made her heart pound like thunder in her ears. She gave him a sharp nod and set her teeth together.
"Here goes," said Bean, and floored the accelerator.
