Hellbent--An Orphan X Novel Read online

  The freelancers spread out, aiming in various directions—up the partially constructed building, across the valley, at the freeway wall.

  The lead man squeezed off a few shots, nicking the edge of the fifth floor to hold Joey at bay.

  The wind reached a howl in the bare beams of the structure.

  “Fuck,” Van Sciver said. “Where is…?”

  Twenty yards away the trunk of the white Lincoln Town Car popped open and Evan burst up in a kneeling stance, a Faraday cloak sloughing off his shoulders.

  He shot two freelancers through the heads before they could orient to the movement. The third managed to and took a round through the mouth.

  The remaining pair of freelancers wheeled on Evan, their rifles biting coaster-size chunks of metal from the Town Car’s grille. Evan spilled onto the dirt behind the Town Car and flattened to the ground. The big-block engine of the old Lincoln protected him, at least as well as it had on the car’s descent into the valley, but time was not on his side.

  The reports were deafening.

  He clicked his bone phone on. “Joey, jump now and get gone.”

  She’d played bait one last time. Her only job now was to vanish.

  Evan had set her up with the camouflage backpack he kept hidden in the planter on his balcony. The pack was stuffed with a base-jumping parachute. A running leap off the backside of the fifth-floor platform would allow her to steer across the immense freeway, land in the confusion of alleys and buildings across from it, and disappear.

  Evan risked a peek around the rear fender. He spotted Candy rolling out of the Tahoe’s backseat with a shotgun an instant before one of Van Sciver’s bullets shattered out the brake light inches from his face. He whipped back, felt the Town Car shuddering, absorbing round after round as the freelancers advanced.

  He spoke again into the bone phone. “Tommy, you’re up.”

  Flattening against the car, he rested the back of his head to the metal, pinned down to a space the width of a rear bumper.

  * * *

  Tommy emerged from the umbra beside Benito Orellana’s chimney and bellied to the edge of the roof where his two Hardigg cases waited, lids raised. The first held optical-sighting technology, and a half-dozen eightball cameras nestled in the foam lining.

  He had no direct sight line onto the valley or the construction site below.

  He plucked free the first eightball and hurled it across the street. It bounced once, disappearing over the lip and rolling downslope, its 360-degree panorama replicated on the laptop screen. The round camera landed behind a backhoe, providing him a view of the dirt slope beyond, the clear blue sky, and nothing else.

  He threw the second and third eightball cameras in rapid succession. The second landed in a ditch, but the third stopped three-fourths of the way down the slope, providing a lovely perspective on the mayhem unfolding at the construction site below. Two freelancers stood in the open, but Van Sciver and Candy were wisely tucked away, using the armored SUVs for cover.

  That was okay. Tommy could still thin the herd for Evan.

  In front of the second Hardigg case, an assembled Barrett M107 awaited him. He’d chosen the self-loader for rapidity—once this shit went down, the boys below would be scrambling every which way, all asses and elbows.

  Firming the .50-cal into position, he lay at the roof’s edge. He would have preferred a spotter, but given the sensitive nature of the mission and Evan’s wishes, no one else could be in the loop. It would be a helluva challenge to crank off two shots in rapid succession, especially since he had to steer the first one in. Microelectronics distorted the shape of the round after it left the barrel, changing its line of flight. As good as Tommy was and as state-of-the-art the technology, there was only so much guidance you could lay on a projo hurtling along at 2,850 feet a second. He checked the optics screen, using the eightball’s feed to index locations for landmarks.

  Then he set his eye to the scope and prepared to bend a bullet in midair.

  * * *

  Evan read the freelancers’ shadows. That was all he could do. Braced against the rear bumper of the Town Car, he watched them stretch alongside him, upraised rifles clearly silhouetted. If he rolled to either side, he presented himself not just to them but to Van Sciver and Candy, who were posted up in the SUVs twenty yards beyond.

  “We got you pinned behind the car and the little girl stuck up on the roof!” Van Sciver shouted. “Even if she has a rifle, she can’t cover you, not from there. I’ve seen her shoot.”

  Tommy still hadn’t announced himself. The technology was fledgling; Evan had always known that any help would be a literal and figurative long shot.

  Cast forward, the shadows on the earth inched past his position crammed behind the Town Car. They advanced in unison. Any second now Evan would have to make the choice to move one way or the other.

  He decided to expose his right side. He could shoot with either hand but was stronger with his left, so if an arm went down, better the right one.

  If he was lucky enough to merely take a round to the limb.

  He sucked in a breath, tensed his legs, counted down.

  Three … two …

  The whine of a projectile was followed by a snap on the wind. The shadow to Evan’s right crumpled, a body falling just out of sight by the side of the Town Car. A bright spill oozed into view by Evan’s boots, staining the dirt.

  Twenty-four down.

  One left.

  The last freelancer pulled back. “Holy shit. How the fuck…?”

  Evan popped up to drop him, but Candy was waiting by the other Tahoe. She unleashed the shotgun, and Evan dropped an instant before the scattershot hit the trunk. The trunk slammed down, nearly sawing off his chin, and banged back up. The edge clipped his shooting hand, the ARES flying out of reach, landing ten yards in the open.

  Slumped low at the rear fender, he panted in the dirt.

  The bullet holes in the raised trunk cut circles of light in the shadow thrown on the ground behind Evan. He rose to reach for a backup pistol in the trunk, but Candy fired again, the slugs tearing through the metal, whistling past his torso. The trunk slammed down, banging his forearm. Evan hit the ground again, dust puffing into his mouth.

  The freelancer was crawling away; Evan could see him for an instant beneath the carriage of the Town Car. Another of Tommy’s rounds whined in and bit a divot from the dirt four inches from the freelancer’s pinkie finger.

  The man bellowed and rolled away, grabbing at the screen of the Boomerang Warrior unit mounted on his shoulder. A third round clipped the butt of the man’s slung rifle, kicking it into a hula-hoop spin around his shoulder.

  He dove behind a heap of gravel next to the tower crane, shouting, “How the hell does he see me? I’m showing nothing in our line of sight!”

  Van Sciver’s calm, deep voice rode the breeze. “Check for cameras.”

  A moment later, “The Boomerang Warrior’s picking up a remote-surveillance unit in the valley with an angle on us.”

  Evan debated going again for the backup ARES in the ravaged trunk of the Town Car, but there were enough holes now that the raised metal no longer offered protection; it would be like standing behind a screen door. He got off a glance around the punctured rear tire, catching Van Sciver’s thick arm reaching past the Tahoe’s door to haul in a fallen FN SCAR 17S.

  Even without an earpiece, Evan heard Van Sciver say, “Send me the coordinates.”

  The simple directive landed on Evan like something physical, the weight of impending defeat.

  Twenty seconds passed, an eternity in a battle.

  Then the rifle cracked, and Evan saw metal shards jump up from the earth upslope, glinting in the dying sunlight.

  Van Sciver’s voice carried, ghostly across the dusty expanse. “We are clear. Candy, haul ass up there and find who’s behind that camera.”

  At the Town Car’s rear bumper, Evan heard Tommy’s voice come through the bone phone. “I’m blind.”
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  “Fall back to the rally point,” Evan said quietly. “Immediately. Do not engage any further.”

  Tommy was a world-class sniper, but past his prime. If he went head-to-head with Candy, an Orphan at the top of her game, she would kill him.

  Evan heard one of the Tahoes screech away. It barreled upslope, giving Evan’s position wide berth. He caught a glimpse of Candy’s hair in a side mirror as the SUV bounced across the razed lot.

  Through the radio Tommy’s voice sounded scratchier than usual. “What about you?”

  Evan stared at his ARES 1911 where it had landed in the dirt ten yards away. His backup was out of reach in the trunk behind him. Tommy neutralized. Van Sciver beaded up on the Town Car with his rifle.

  “I got you covered,” Van Sciver called to his freelancer. “Make the move.”

  A crunch of footsteps signaled the man’s emergence from behind the gravel pile.

  Evan realized what Van Sciver’s countermove was, the genius of it turning his insides ice-water cold.

  He heard the clang of footsteps on metal rungs. Then the door to the elevated operator’s cabin of the crane hinged open and slammed shut.

  Evan was finished.

  He still owed Tommy an answer. He set a finger on the bone phone, said, “I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re clear?” Tommy asked.

  Evan swallowed. “I’m clear.”

  “Falling back,” Tommy said. “Call me for extraction?”

  The Tahoe creaked as Van Sciver posted up and slotted a fresh twenty-round mag into the big rifle.

  “Sure thing,” Evan said. His mouth was dry. “And, Tommy?”

  “What, pal?”

  “Thanks for everything.”

  73

  The Black Hereafter

  Joey stood at the edge of the fifth floor, the poured-concrete slab solid underfoot, the base-jumping pack snug to her back, fist gripping the rip cord. The sound of gunfire carried up, pops muffled by the concrete wall and the roar of traffic beyond. She picked her spot across the fourteen lanes of traffic, a parking lot glistening with shattered glass. The city had started to granulate with dusk. Night wasn’t far off, and blackness would aid in her escape.

  From her perch she’d watched most of the action unfold. Tommy had rolled off the roof of the Orellana house and disappeared well before Candy McClure had forged upslope in the Jeep. Her pursuit would be in vain; Tommy had too much of a jump on her.

  That left Evan pinned down without a weapon, facing off against Van Sciver and a freelancer. Last Joey had peeked, they’d taken up strategic positions at a ninety-degree spread, vectoring in at him from two angles he couldn’t cover even if he had a gun.

  But he was Orphan X, and Orphan X always found a way.

  And so she’d donned the backpack and retreated to the far edge as promised.

  Now she was here, freedom a single leap away.

  A mural decorated the far wall of the freeway, visible to the eastbound passing cars. Cesar Chavez and Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. A cacophony of quotations and languages painted the drab concrete, but one sentence in particular stood out.

  “If you’ve got nothing worth dying for, you’ve got nothing worth living for.”

  She read it twice, felt it pull at something deep inside her.

  Pushing away the sensation, she took a few backward steps to allow herself a running start.

  Then she heard another sound.

  A large piece of machinery rumbling to life.

  At the dead center of the uppermost slab, she hesitated.

  Run.

  Or turn.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, heard a voice that was part Jack’s, part Evan’s, part her own.

  The Sixth Commandment, it said. Question orders.

  She turned.

  Easing to her former position, she had a perfect vantage on the scene below.

  Van Sciver in the embrace of the armored Tahoe, rifle raised. Evan hidden behind the increasingly frayed Town Car, his 1911 well out of reach on the ground.

  The slewing unit of the colossal crane below squealed, the horizontal jib lurching into motion. The freelancer had climbed up into the operator’s cab and swiveled it into position directly below the orange cage of the raised platform lift.

  Directly below her.

  The freelancer worked the controls, getting the hang of the massive unit. The jib rotated unevenly and then halted, aligned with the Town Car. The massive steel lifting hook lowered, scooping up the carry cables of an I-beam.

  The I-beam rose.

  But only a few feet off the ground.

  The trolley engaged, running the load out from the crane’s center. The I-beam traveled a few yards, nosing the Town Car like a rhino checking out a Jeep full of safari-goers. The Town Car tilted up onto the tires of its left side, not quite high enough to expose Evan. Then it settled back down.

  The load hadn’t acquired sufficient momentum.

  The crane screeched, the trolley pulling the I-beam away from the car toward the mast. It drew back and back, like the windup of a massive battering ram. The Town Car stood directly in its path, an empty can awaiting a mallet.

  If you’ve got nothing worth dying for, you’ve got nothing worth living for.

  Joey let the camo backpack slip from her shoulders. She stepped onto the platform lift and clicked the big red button to lower herself.

  * * *

  Evan knew what was coming, and this was not an instance where that was a good thing.

  The crane hummed, its motor a low-grade earthquake that rumbled the ground. He stretched his neck, watched the I-beam reach the end of the track and pause, swaying mightily, preparing its journey back along the jib and into the side of the Town Car.

  Once it went, the car would be swept away, laying Evan bare.

  The I-beam stilled, readying to reverse course.

  Evan calculated five possible moves, but they all ended the same way—with Van Sciver putting a tight grouping through his torso. When the time came, Evan would choose one of them. His instinct and training demanded as much.

  But this time he already knew the outcome.

  * * *

  Riding the platform lift, Joey watched the I-beam dangling way below the jib. It had reached the terminus of its backswing. Her thumb jammed the DOWN button so hard her knuckle ached. She willed the orange cage to descend faster, but it kept its infuriatingly steady pace.

  The freelancer was partially visible inside the operator’s cab—a downward slice of forehead and one cheek. The noise of her descent was lost beneath the roar of the motor driving the slewing unit.

  The platform lift inched lower, the operator’s cab coming up below. The freelancer’s hands were locked around two joystick-like controllers.

  He threw his right fist forward.

  The I-beam rocketed toward the Town Car an instant before Joey’s orange cage struck the top of the cab.

  It was too late.

  * * *

  Evan couldn’t see anything, but he felt the rush of a forced breeze, the air shuddering as the I-beam swept for the Town Car.

  Five seconds to impact, now four.

  He had to go for the backup 1911 in the trunk even if it meant getting shot by Van Sciver.

  He sprang up, painfully aware of the full presentation of his critical mass, and grabbed the ARES where it lay against the carpeted cargo space. Through the holes in the raised trunk, he could see Van Sciver twenty yards away, shielded by the armored door of the Tahoe.

  He expected to be staring at the full-circle scope of the rifle, the last sight he’d ever see.

  But miraculously, Van Sciver wasn’t looking at him. He was aiming up at the lowering platform lift, firing round after round.

  His shots sparked off the edge of the lift as it crushed into the top of the operator’s cab. The freelancer leapt out of the cabin an instant before it crumpled and gave way. As the lift continued its descent, he began monkeying dow
n the caged rungs, staying ahead of it.

  Was that Joey riding the orange cage down?

  Before Evan could react, the I-beam swept in, a massive blur in his peripheral vision.

  He snatched the backup gun from the trunk and whipped down out of sight.

  One instant the Town Car was at his back, solid as a bulwark.

  The next it was gone, Evan alone on the open stretch of dirt.

  The mass of metal had hurtled close enough to him that its wake spun him around onto one knee.

  He achieved a single instant of clarity.

  The freelancer at the base of the tower, jumping free of the rungs, a second or two away from being able to aim his rifle.

  Van Sciver twenty yards away, his SCAR rotating back to lock on Evan.

  In an instant Evan would have two targets on his head from two angles, a 7–10 bowling split.

  Evan got off the X, throwing himself to the side, hitting a roll, elbows locked, ARES extended before him. He had nine shots to spend—eight in the mag, one in the spout.

  Upside down, Evan aimed at the space beneath the Tahoe’s door. One of Van Sciver’s rounds flew past his ear, trailing heat across his cheek.

  Evan kept rolling, lining the sights, the target spinning like a vinyl record. He fired one, two, three, four shots before a round clipped the back of Van Sciver’s boot, tearing free a chunk of durable nylon and Achilles tendon.

  Van Sciver grunted but kept his feet, cranking off another round that buried itself in the dirt two inches from Evan’s nose, blowing grit in his eyes.

  Evan shot at the armored door. The impact drove the door back into the frame, hammering Van Sciver with it. The blow disoriented him, the rifle joggling in his hands.

  Evan used the pause to flip himself into a kneeling position.

  The freelancer now stood in a sniper’s standing pose, feet slightly spread, right elbow tucked tight to the ribs to support the rifle, butt held high on his shoulder to bring the scope into alignment.

  Evan fired through the scope atop the rifle and blew out the back of the man’s head.

  He quick-pivoted to Van Sciver, who was hauling his weapon into position again, still protected by the armored door.

  Evan advanced and shot the door again, slamming Van Sciver backward into the truck. The rifle spun free. Evan pressed his advantage, firing again into the door. Van Sciver banged into the Tahoe once more, this time spilling partially out from his position of cover.