Four

Handing her phone to Elijah, Susan dashed towards the security room. The monitors still showed nothing on the winding road up to the quarry. A grinding scrape came from the kitchen; Elijah must have been shifting the table aside. Susan returned to see that indeed he had shoved the table away and was tapping away at the floor, listening for a hollow echo.

He found it near the center, then swept a palm across the floor. "What are you doing?" Jenny asked, standing off to one side.

"Here," Elijah said, glancing up at Susan as he flipped up a panel of flooring to reveal a concealed latch. Susan rushed over and together they pulled it up, hinging a trapdoor open.

The Exodus stash wasn't particularly large; the trapdoor had a short ladder that led down to a small chamber, no larger than a closet. A rather crowded closet, admittedly; racks of rifles, handguns, shotguns, and ammunition crammed each wall.

"Huh," said Jenny, stepping over to the edge of the opening and looking down at the small armory. "That would have been a lot stranger before yesterday. Do I want to know what's going on?"

"Some people are coming to kill us," Elijah said.

"And you're gonna kill 'em first?"

"Exactly," Susan said.

"And you guys needed more guns than what you had yesterday?"

"This isn't for us," Elijah said. "When things go loud, I want you to climb in here and hide."

A fiery defiance kindled in Jenny's eyes. "I can fight."

"That's not the issue," Susan said. "Look, as far as the contracts are concerned, you're an outsider. You're not involved, you're not a target."

"It sure doesn't feel that way!"

"The safest thing," she said, "would actually be for you to go hide in the quarry until this is over."

"No way," Jenny said, looking frightened but trying to hold it back. "What if they send people that way to check? If yesterday was any indication, the safest place is close to you guys – even if it does get a bit loud."

"Fine," Elijah said. "When the shooting starts, hide in here. Don't make a sound. We'll try to keep them from getting to the house."

"And you'll do that how?"

"Like you said…" Susan shook her coat off. "We're gonna kill them first."

"I've seen this movie," Jenny said. "If Javier Bardem shows up in a helicopter, I'm out."

Susan picked up her rifle, laughed as she inserted a magazine, and racked the charging handle. "Don't worry; we're not worth that much."

"Somehow, that doesn't encourage me."

Susan stuck her earpiece in and looked at Elijah. "I'll take the forest to the east."

"I'll cover north," he said. "Catch them in a crossfire once they clear the tree line?"

"Yeah." Susan loaded her pistols, and then stripped her shirt off as Elijah did likewise.

"Whoa," Jenny said. "Is this really the time?"

"It's not like that," Elijah said, moving over to their leather garment bags and drawing out ballistic vests. He tossed Susan's to her; she slipped it on over her head, settled the customized fit for her bust around her torso, and tightened it down. "You know," he said, tightening on his own vest, "I'd heard they started doing ballistic linings for suits and regular clothes. Shame we didn't have time to pick some up."

"I'll try to better schedule getting kidnapped next time," Susan said, grinning.

Jenny crossed her arms. "You guys are way too casual about all this."

"I'd say you get used to it," Elijah said, "but I really hope you don't have to."

"Okay," Susan said, slipping her shirt back on and strapping on a chest rig loaded with magazines. Her coat went over it all. "I'm going to head out now, get the lay of the land."

"Watch yourself," he said.

She holstered her pistols, slipped on her knives, stepped over, and kissed him. "I love you."

"Love you too."

Susan grabbed her rifle and headed for the door. She tugged her hood up. Anybody coming for the bounty would regret it, she told herself.


The rain didn't let up. It spattered off tree canopies in a percussive beat, and the fresh, damp forest smell tickled her nose. Susan moved through the underbrush parallel to the lonely road leading to the quarry, keeping an eye out for any sign of their assailants. She also studied the layout of the terrain, seeing where copses of trees clumped together, where brush and undergrowth offered concealment.

"Heads up," Elijah's voice came through her earpiece. "Four cars turning onto the road, two klicks out."

"I don't suppose there's any chance they're Exodus?" she asked.

"No, I asked. They said there's at least another day before any of their people arrive. I'm moving out."

"Better hurry," Susan said as she began moving towards a spot covering the road she'd noted earlier. "I'm starting the party without you."

She didn't have to wait long upon getting into position. The sound of roaring engines broke through the susurrate drizzle of the rain. Susan caught sight of the trio of cars driving up the unpaved road, their tires churning up the wet gravel and mud. They weren't all from the same group; the lead cars were black SUVs like the one they'd encountered in Berkeley, the third a dusty tan pickup truck, and the last a sleek convertible with its top deployed.

Rizzi shouldered her rifle up and flicked the selector lever to Auto. She drew a bead on the lead car and pressed the trigger. She put a burst through the front left tire, switched her aim to the engine block, and put another burst through that. As the SUV swerved and skidded she emptied the rest of her magazine into the windshield – and grimaced as the rounds left a series of craters and hazed spider web cracks instead of penetrating through. Bullet-resistant glass. Great.

She turned and took off running, leaping over a low log as she moved away, displacing towards the quarry. The screech of brakes and then a soft, wet crash came from behind her. Then the distinctive, flat concussive bang of a grenade launcher. An explosion sent mud and splinters flying from her previous position.

"Sweetheart," Susan said into her throat mic as she ran, "they brought a grenade launcher."

"I noticed," Elijah replied. "Getting into posi- Did you just call me 'sweetheart'?"

"Is now really the time?" she said, flinching as another grenade went off.

"No, I like it." His tone changed from playful to flat and cold. "Don't be near the cars."

"I'm clear. Go."

A long, rippling burst of automatic gunfire sounded from across the road. Susan swung around, pressed herself against the side of a thick redwood tree, and stripped the empty magazine from her rifle. She tucked it away, pulled a fresh one from her chest rig, and slammed it home before running the charging handle. Making her way closer to the road, she saw that the lead car had gone off course and slammed through a brush into a tree, about a hundred meters away from her position. The other black SUV had come to a stop alongside – and the occupants of both were making their way up towards Elijah's position in a loose spread. There were two figures dismounting from the pickup, and at the rear another one from the convertible. The men from the SUVs wore the same suits and ski masks as the ones from the Berkeley library: Two Dragon, most likely.

Susan took aim at the closest one and fired a salvo. He staggered and fell, body out of sight in the forested undergrowth. The others were exchanging fire with Elijah; she couldn't see him from here, but she could certainly hear the gunfire, echoing strangely through the trees and rain. She adjusted her aim-

And jolted as a crossbow bolt buried itself into the tree trunk inches from her face with a wet thud.

The fletching still vibrating from impact, Susan ducked and swung away. Her heart pounded from the sudden near-death. Only one person she knew used a crossbow – and with that degree of skill. Kols van Haag, another assassin she'd had the displeasure of running across. They'd been rivals on a contract once; he'd given her a scar across the ribs with a broadhead bolt, she'd taken his eye with a botched pistol shot. All things considered she'd come off the better from that particular exchange, but she'd also made it a point to avoid van Haag after that. The man carried a grudge, after all.

And now he had the perfect reason to cash it in – literally.

Susan moved again, none too soon. Another flat bang went off from the direction of the pickup; a low hiss over the rain heralded the grenade as it smacked high into the tree she'd run from. Hunching her shoulders against the shower of splinters and wood fragments, Susan threw herself into a roll and barely avoided getting impaled by a falling branch. She snarled as she came up, dirt and leaves clinging to her coat. Seriously – grenades? A part of her might have been flattered at warranting such ordnance. A larger part of her just disapproved of the boorishness of it all. Grenades were so… unprofessional. They made a mess of things and practically screamed I'm trying to cause collateral damage. Even van Haag and his oddball crossbow fetish had a certain style.

She moved again, staying close beneath the trees. Another grenade went off, wide and to her right. Okay, they weren't able to keep track of her every move. The firefight across the road still raged, and the distortion imposed by the trees and rain made it hard to keep track of just where the combatants were. Making her way to the edge of the road again, Susan fired a burst towards the cars, trying to suppress the two assholes with the grenade launcher. She didn't see the figure from the convertible; that must have been van Haag, and he must have made his way into the forest. Great.

Another burst forced the grenade guys apart and she sprinted across the road, crossing perpendicular to minimize her time exposed in the open. Another grenade detonated high and short of her; the foliage working against contact fuses. Susan moved deeper into the woods, trying to follow the sounds of the gunfight. She caught glimpses through the trees and brush of combatants on the move: rain-slicked suits and muzzle flashes.

She almost collided with the first Two Dragon man. Rounding a fork-trunked redwood so wide she couldn't have wrapped her arms around it, Susan stumbled across the suited hitter reloading his MP5. His head swiveled and he snapped off a side kick towards her. She took it on the meat of her hip and jabbed out with the muzzle of her rifle, punching against his chest and knocking him back a step. Susan shot him twice in the chest, then snapped the rifle up and put another round his head in one motion.

A burst of gunfire drilled into the trunk beside her with a staccato rhythm of wet thuds. Rizzi danced back around, swinging the other way. She leaned out, located the shooter, and sent two shots his way. As he fell back she glanced around, trying to ascertain the state of the fight. Motion: further away, blurred and obscured by the trees in the way.

Susan advanced in a rapid gait, firing with each step. She landed three shots on the Two Dragon hitter and broke into a run as he collapsed. More bursts of gunfire came from up ahead, and then an angry shout. The trees were too thick to see clearly, forcing her to balance speed with caution.

She peeked around a clump of brush and low branches – and blanched. Elijah dueled Hirawa in a small clearing, their blades moving so fast they were just silver blurs in the rain. Steel rasped and sang in the air, ringing off each other in a series of strikes and parries. Three of the surviving hitters stood at the clearing perimeter, their weapons at the ready. One watched the fight, the others looked outwards. She circled around the clearing, moving towards the men. Hirawa undoubtedly wanted to kill Elijah himself in another duel – a reprise of their confrontation in New York – but the way he'd set it up, Elijah lost either way. Even if Hirawa lost the sword fight, the other Two Dragon men would kill him.

To hell with that.

She couldn't win in a stand-off fight. Launching herself through the underbrush, Susan took the closest man down in a rolling tackle, pumping round after round into him. Her rifle clicked empty as the others swung her way. She pushed off into another diving tackle, releasing her rifle to hang on its sling. Susan hit the next man across the knees, taking both of them down to the wet, leaf-covered ground. Planting one hand across his mask-covered face, she drew her pistol and pressed it into his chest. She squeezed the trigger several times, then threw herself to the side, hauling the Two Dragon man's body up before her as the last hitter fired a burst at her.

The rounds drilled into her victim. Susan leaned up and put two rounds into the last man's chest. She rode the recoil, letting it carry her aim to his head, and put another shot through his head. Susan rolled forward to her knees and swiveled her pistol down, delivered a point-blank headshot to the man beneath her. The whole thing had taken just a handful of seconds; Elijah was still trading blows with Hirawa. Pushing to her feet, she swung around towards the first man, her pistol leading the way, and-

Cried out in pain as a crossbow bolt sliced through where her torso had been an instant ago. It cut across her right bicep, the edge slicing through the leather of her coat sleeve and drawing a red line of blood. Susan spun to see a fit European man in a hunting jacket and cap striding towards her through the trees. He was drawing another bolt from the quiver at his hip and his face was an expressionless mask, save for the manic glint in his one eye. An eyepatch covered his right eye – the one she'd put out.

Kols van Haag loaded the bolt into the crossbow in his hands. Susan snapped off a shot – a hasty, ill-aimed one between the exhaustion and pain. The shot kicked up a clod of mud from beside his boot and van Haag dashed to the side, circling for the trees and growth around. Susan broke into a run. She closed the distance, firing to suppress the other assassin, but the dense foliage kept her from finding a clear shot. A snapping twang announced another bolt lancing out from the brushes; it streaked past her in a dark blur. The pistol locked empty as she charged through a brush.

Van Haag plowed through to meet her. They came together in a bone-jarring crash as he bulled her back towards the clearing. He jabbed at her with the crossbow; Susan swayed aside – and realized it was a feint as van Haag twisted his wrist and hooked her pistol with its limbs. He wrenched the weapon from her hand, dropped the crossbow in the same motion, and surged forward as he drew a large hunting knife with his other hand.

Susan parried his first thrust with her forearm. Van Haag snapped his head into hers, smacking against her brow with painful force. She stumbled back two steps, caught his knife hand's wrist with both her hands, and barely stopped it short of her ribs. Van Haag's sole eye glared at her with a manic, hateful intensity, and his lips twisted as he seized her neck with his other hand. Susan tucked her chin down and twisted her hands, trying to redirect the knife.

"I want you to know," van Haag said, his voice a low snarl, "that I'd do this for free."

She kicked out at the side of his knee, dropped her weight, and used her grip on his hand to lever him towards the ground. Van Haag swept his leg behind her ankles as he fell, bringing her down with him. Susan arched her back, throwing her stomach back away from the blade. She hit the ground on her side, lost her grip on van Haag's arm, huffed hard as the breath escaped from her lungs, and-

Threw her arms up desperately before her face in a crossed block as his knife whipped towards her eye. She stopped it inches away, the point a threatening gleam in the rain. "I'm going to return the favor," van Haag said, pushing down with both fists clenched around the handle.

Susan breathed in. Her arms protested against the strain. Rain spattered her face. The scent of wet leaves and dirt filled her lungs as she shifted against the ground. Twisting her hips, she rolled one leg under and launched her other knee into his side. Once, twice, then another time before he finally gasped and the downward pressure gave way for a moment.

A grunt and another rasp of metal rang out from the side, where Elijah and Hirawa struggled. "Susan!" she heard Elijah call. Then a rustling thud nearby. She glanced over; saw Hirawa's katana lying on the ground with its hilt facing towards them. How the hell had he managed that? No matter: she'd take whatever she could get.

Throwing her arms to the side, Susan guided van Haag's blade into the soft, wet dirt while she rolled the other way towards the curved sword. Seizing the hilt with both hands, she lunged to her feet with a simultaneous upwards slash that drove van Haag back. Still glaring at her, he tugged his knife from the dirt and raised it before him.

For a moment, Susan could almost respect the sheer depth of hatred and tenacity needed to face down a sword with just a knife like that.

The moment passed.

She swung the katana, stepping into the blow. Van Haag didn't pull quite fast enough and lost his knife – and a good bit of his arm – as the blade sliced into his forearm. Susan followed through with an upwards diagonal slash that cut across his chest, and then one final slash across his throat. Three cuts in under a second. Van Haag blinked, put a hand to his throat, and then collapsed to his knees. He gave her one last glare before toppling facedown.

Breathing hard, Susan lowered the blade and looked over at Elijah. He and Hirawa stood close together, face-to-face. Only when Elijah stepped back did she see that he'd run Hirawa through; his bloody sword emerged from Hirawa's back, the red running and mixing with the rain in slow droplets, dripping down to the ground.

Elijah tugged his sword loose and took another step back. Hirawa's eyes glazed over as he collapsed to the side and struck the ground with a wet thud. The rise and fall of Elijah's shoulders revealed how hard he was breathing. Susan retrieved her pistol from the ground, shoved it back into its holster, and began walking towards him. "Nice move with this," she said, hefting the katana.

"Wasn't sure I got the distance right," Elijah said, panting.

"It worked," Susan said, reaching out to take his left arm. A gash ran through the sleeve of his forearm, revealing a shallow cut underneath. She looked it over more closely; nothing vital, so at least he wouldn't bleed out immediately.

"You should keep that," Elijah said. He nodded at the katana in her hand, reached down to Hirawa's body, and plucked the lacquered wooden sheath from his waist. He held it out to Susan. "To the victor and all that… plus it looks good with you."

"A girl's gotta accessorize," she said dryly, sliding the saya through her harness. She scanned the forest around them again. "I lost track of the grenade guys. Pretty sure they're-"

A crumping explosion came from the distance, back towards- "The cabin," said Elijah.

Susan cursed. "Forty-mils and trees don't play well together. They must be trying to draw us out. Doesn't matter if they know about Jenny or not."

Elijah wiped his blade off and put it away. "We'd better move then." Another grenade explosion came from the distance and he started running.

Susan ran to catch up with him, breathing hard as she leapt over fallen branches and assorted foliage. Screw all this jungle – sorry, forest – warfare bullshit. This was just uncivilized, damn it. Firefights really ought to take place in nice, neat locations – preferably with even flooring and thick walls. Roofs were good too, she thought as she swiped her unwounded arm across her face, wiping some of the rain off. She reloaded as they ran, changing out the magazines of her rifle and pistol while weaving between trees.

They ran back towards the cabin and the quarry beyond, aware of the terrible rhythmic grenade detonations. Fortunately, as they got close enough to see it through the trees, the cabin still stood. The grenadiers hadn't been targeting it directly, instead showering the ground around it with grenades. Their car, however, was a different story; it had been reduced to a pile of mangled, smoking scrap metal. The pickup had driven up to the clearing edge, its occupants deciding not to pursue Susan and Elijah into the woods. Not that she could blame them – van Haag and Hirawa had shown the dangers of that.

Instead they'd set up an automatic grenade launcher mount in the bed of the pickup. One of the figures from earlier crewed the beast of a weapon. Angular armor plates surrounded the launcher like shades at a street market.

Susan cursed under her breath and shouldered her rifle. A pair of shots from off to her right sounded as Elijah opened fire; she glanced over at him and got a nod in return. They split, moving in opposite directions to circle the grenade-spewing truck. Susan snapped off a quartet of rounds as she swung left. She saw the grenade launcher swivel towards her. A blur flew over her with a metallic bang and a buzzing whistle. A hasty shot: the assassin hadn't got the range down. Don't give them the chance.

She rushed towards the truck, firing single shots. The armor plates surrounding the launcher, however, shrugged off the small-caliber rounds; the impacts rang out like strikes against steel targets at an outdoor range. Another grenade whistled past and detonated in the trees beyond.

More movement caught her attention; somebody rounding the engine housing of the truck. Susan shifted her rifle – but not quickly enough.

A sledgehammer blow hit Susan in the chest, knocking her off her feet onto the sodden ground. A groan burst through her lips; the stinging, throbbing pain erupting in her chest suddenly engulfed the world. Susan forced it aside enough to raise her rifle, thumb the selector to automatic, and dump the magazine in one long burst. Most of her bullets went wide in a messy scatter – hardly a surprise given her aim and firearm control, or lack of it.

But it worked well enough that the assassin, a tawny-skinned man, jerked and stumbled. She'd tagged him with several shots – not lethal, but enough for him to sag against the tan, mud-spattered pickup. Then he collapsed as Elijah put a pair of rounds through his head.

The truck-mounted launcher spat yet another grenade, accompanied by a woman's wild laughter. Susan glimpsed Elijah diving aside from the corner of her eye; she fumbled for a rifle magazine with trembling fingers, cursed, and dropped the rifle in favor of snatching her pistol. Squirming back through the muck, she fought to get an angle on the grenadier, firing off several shots that rang off the armor plates.

The launcher started pivoting towards her. At this range, the rounds wouldn't have enough distance to arm – but that wouldn't matter. A forty-mil fired from an automatic grenade launcher would be moving fast enough that a direct hit would be like getting hit with a pneumatic hammer.

Elijah fired another burst to no avail. Sharp metallic impacts sang out through the rain – rounds striking the armor. Susan rolled to her right the barest instant before a smoking grenade struck the mud where she'd been, sending a small geyser of mud through the air. The launcher tracked towards her, and-

A single sharp, resonant screech cut the air, followed by a sharp crack an instant afterwards, and immediately after the echoing report of a high-powered rifle in the distance. The grenade launcher went quiet; from her low angle Susan could see a new, ragged hole that had been punched through the armor surrounding the beastly weapon. The sudden quiet somehow seemed more deafening than any of the fighting that had come before it; just the pitter-pat of the rain and her own harsh, pained breathing.

Elijah was at her side a moment later. Covering the pickup with his bullpup rifle in one hand, he reached down and brushed her coat aside. "Susan," he said, his voice low and tense. She reached up with her free hand and clasped his, pushing herself up to her elbows.

"I'm good," she said after wheezing for a second. She prodded at where it felt like a hammer had hit her torso, felt a trio of hot, deformed bullets flattened against her vest. Susan let her head fall back, tilted her face up to the cool rain. "Okay, maybe good is overstating it. Ow."

He left her for a minute, advancing on the truck with his weapon ready. Elijah looked up over the edge of the flatbed, then hurried back over to where she lay. He slipped an arm beneath her shoulders, cradling her up and helping her to her feet. "That wasn't me," he said quietly.

Right on cue her phone started buzzing. It took Susan a moment to realize it, her senses numbed and tingling with pain and shock. Draping an arm around Elijah and leaning against him, she fished the device out. "Yeah?"

"Still alive?" came a familiar woman's voice.

"Lisa?" Susan breathed in and glanced around, the surprise overriding the pain for the moment. She looked over at the truck and the holed armor plate. "Was that you?"

"Nothing like a good penetrator."

"Marx?" Elijah asked. "She's here too?"

"Tell lover boy I'd appreciate it if he held his fire. I'll come down to the cabin."

Susan shifted against Elijah. "Lisa, you-"

"You guys made a hell of a mess on that road, by the way. I'm impressed."

"Why-" Susan coughed. "Why are you here, Lisa?"

"What? A girl can't keep an eye on her friends? Look what you get into when I'm not around. See you in a bit," Marx said, and cut the connection.

"Let's get you inside," Elijah murmured in her ear, and started shuffling towards the cabin.

"Lisa's coming," Susan said, and nodded at the pickup. "Her shot."

"She's watching out for us?"

"Seems like it."

"Can we trust her?"

"She hasn't shot us yet," said Susan.

"Good point. Come on." Elijah tugged her forwards, half-carrying and half-dragging.

Susan forced herself to put one foot before another. She chuckled, then winced and groaned. "Okay, bad idea."

"Just take it easy," he said.

"Another week of this. Yeah, no problem."