CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN – BECKETT
“And whatever you do,” Peter was saying to me as we sat in the car at the top of the rise, “don’t even think about what I’m up to. I don’t care what you hear, or what I’m doing. You go in there and get her out.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
During the drive he had filled me in on the rudiments of his plan. Now we sat in the car on the slight incline overlooking the harbor. We were perhaps fifty paces from the warehouse, where I knew they were. I looked around, feeling a mocking familiarity to the place. There was the tree, where I used to wait for Alec to come back with the cash. There was the wall, where we would take the drop in through the back door. Into the back of the warehouse.
The plan hinged on the fact that I knew the layout of the place. Odd, that I still did: twenty years had passed between the last time I was there and this present moment. But things like that have a way of staying with you, cloaked in horror as much of it had been for me. I had known it was wrong at the time. I hated it. I just knew there was no clean way out.
So far, I had been right. I watched distantly as Peter pulled things out from the bottom of the seat: a vest, a gun, a holster. I had traveled in his car several times and never guessed what was in there.
“I’m glad I didn’t know about that,” I joked as he drew the pistol from under the seat. He looked up at me seriously and I looked away, embarrassed.
“Come on, Boss,” he said gently. “We’ve got to go.”
I nodded. Stepping out of that car was terrifying. Not only was I here, in the place of so many horrible memories, but I was here as an enemy of those people I had feared for ages. The thought of Hayley, just paces away, in danger, spurred me ahead. I could face it all, to save someone I loved. The fears of the past were nothing compared to the safety of our future: my future with her.
I looked at Pete, whose gray eyes were level. “Let’s go. Good luck, buddy.”
I swallowed hard. Returned his gentle smile as best I could. “Thanks. Good luck to you too.”
As I split off, heading down the ridge and taking the long way into the morass of the docks, facing the warehouse, it occurred to me that I should have called him “buddy” too.
It seemed disrespectful, so I didn’t.
I shook my head, part of me finding that funny. Of all the things to think at a time like this…
The thoughts all stopped as I reached the door.
I knocked, the way we used to knock when I worked here. Three short, two long. Pause. Three short again.
The door opened.
I stepped inside.
“Hey! What the…no way! Get outta here!”
That was Geoff. He was the driver. He recognized me, evidently. He launched himself at me.
I was ready. Years of training in the gym had made me lithe and strong. I was not the college student I had been and as I hit him, the part of me that was still twenty years old reveled in my new capability.
Geoff yelled, his nose bleeding. He ran at me, huge fists swinging. I knew I couldn’t stand against him for long. But I was more fast on my feet. I nipped round him and ran at the door.
A shot went off. It whistled past my ear and I dropped to the floor, trying to zig-zag. I had learned a bit of this, when I was a boy. My uncle Bruce had taught me. I thanked his memory as I ran to the door.
I was in the warehouse part. The scent of it assailed my nostrils—the acrid smell of rust and dust and the fainter scent of mold. I breathed in and looked around. Another shot rang out. Someone screamed.
“Hayley!”
I let out a roar. I hadn’t known I could sound like that. Blindly, without thinking, I ran toward the sound. The bullet hit my shoulder and I fell back.
Wow.
Stupidly, that was the first thought that came into my head as I fell: the power of the bullet awed me. I could smell a burning smell and my shoulder felt bruised. I put my hand up and it was wet with blood. I couldn’t feel anything yet.
Footsteps erupted into the room, someone stepping over me, someone running toward me.
Then the pain came. It was too sore to scream, or I would have. I whimpered. I gasped, and I sobbed. The pain got worse. Burning, searing, bruising—all the pain I had known tied into one. I grunted and reached out toward the legs that were running past across my blurring, splintered vision. I grabbed an ankle.
“Whoa! What the…”
A man crashed to his knees. I grunted in victory and hauled myself to my feet. Someone was running toward me. Someone shouted in a voice I knew.
“Hayley!”
I shouted it but my voice was a thread of sound. My shoulder seared, and my shirt was stained with blood. I could smell it everywhere—the wet tang of iron left in a rainstorm. I grabbed at Hayley with both arms, but only my left arm moved.
“Beckett!”
She slammed into me, knocking me back. I stumbled, then fell. It was a good thing we did. Falling together, her arm was ripped out of Jake’s grip, and he stumbled, then swore.
I wrapped my arm around her, throwing myself between them. Jake fell against me and his head hit mine. I winced as my vision shattered into white and black, but I didn’t collapse. Hayley scrambled to her feet. A shout of anger and effort rang out, startling me into looking up.
“Ugh!”
To my awe, Hayley had fallen on the vast bulk that had toppled against me, her hands around his neck, throttling him. He clawed at her wrists, and probably would have dislodged them if the shot had not rang out across the warehouse.
Which was just as well. Geoff had recovered and was behind me, there were shouts in the next room and I heard a gunshot go off, the bullet whizzing over our heads toward the open door.
Another shot rang out in answer and my heart soared as the room filled with smoke. It was Peter! The plan was working.
I laughed in delight, then coughed as the room filled with powder. Fine as mist, blinding as ash, it drifted over everything settling and clouding the air. Hayley screamed, but she did not let go of her grasp on Jake.
I had my hand free now, and I joined in, pushing him up and back with knees and my left arm, as Hayley screamed at him, using words I didn’t know she knew, her nails tight in the skin of his throat.
I was amazed. I was scared. I was awed as, suddenly, feet rang out through the warehouse, running from the back. The dust and haze spread and Jake and Geoff’s coughing was joined by our own. Hayley cried out aloud as the dust filled her eyes and her grip wavered as I slithered out from under the weight of my fallen foe-man.
“Beckett!” she coughed, breath rasping in her throat as she tried to breathe in the dusty, tepid air. “What’s happening?”
She coughed again, shoulders heaving, throat grating. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Then we were running to the door at the back.
“Out!” I gasped. I was coughing too, and my shoulder was burning, right arm useless.
“No!” she shouted, drawing in enough air from round the door to get the word out, to raise her voice. “What about you?”
“I’m going back in,” I said grimly. I had no idea what I thought I was going to do: I was unarmed, wounded and I could barely take in air. But I had to go in. Peter was in there alone. Armed with a revolver and three canisters of powder fire-extinguisher. I could not leave him in there alone.
“No!” Hayley screamed. At that moment, Jake appeared in front of us. He fired.
Hayley screamed and something in my brain snapped as she fell.
The last thing I remembered was Peter’s voice, shouting at me.
“No, boss. No. Leave it now. It’s okay. You can stop.”
Then I collapsed and everything was silent.