Chapter 83

CHAPTER 83

“ GO! GO! GO! ”

The SWAT team leader pressed his men forward with hard shoulder slaps. Holmes was crouched in front of Poe and Marple—all in fresh armored vests—a few feet behind the four-man team. In seconds, they were facing one of the warehouse’s side doors.

A single blow from a sledgehammer demolished the padlock. An officer with a ballistic shield breached the doorway first. His squad-mates followed, rifles pointing left, right, up, down. “Police!” the lead officer shouted. His voice echoed as if he were shouting into a canyon.

Holmes listened for gunfire or voices. He heard nothing but the sound of shuffling boots and rattling gear. The air inside reeked of construction dust, warm metal, and human sweat. He slipped inside.

The vast space was lit by hanging banks of fluorescent lights. Industrial shelving rose two stories into the air, packed with cardboard cartons. A massive cargo container was lined up in front of one of the cargo bay doors. Thirty feet up, a metal catwalk ran across the entire width of the warehouse.

“Stay the hell back!” One of the cops shoved Holmes, who knocked into Poe, who almost toppled Marple. As Holmes reached back to steady her, a two-inch hole blasted through the wall right behind her ear. Marple’s hands flew to her head. Then three more shots. Like hammer blows on metal.

“Contact left!” shouted the cops, firing off a flurry of single shots in return.

Holmes grabbed Poe and Marple by the backs of their vests and pulled them behind the nearest shelf. They ended up flattened side by side, faces pressed against the battleship-grey floor.

Then the whole place erupted.

Gunfire came in rapid-fire bursts from at least two directions. The noise was stunning, disorienting, deafening. Holmes pulled his pistol out of its holster and peered through a gap in the cartons on the lowest shelf. On the catwalk above, he could see muzzle flashes silhouetting black-suited shapes. Oily smoke hung in the air.

“AR-15s,” Holmes shouted. He could smell the factory grease from the chambers and the ammonia from the ammo. He turned to Marple. “Margaret! Do not move! Do you hear me?” She looked stunned from the concussion of the first shots. When Holmes looked up, Poe was gesturing with his pistol. “I’ll go right,” he shouted, starting off down the long aisle between the first shelving row and the outside wall.

Holmes waited for another burst of gunfire to end. The length of a single clip. Then he dashed across the gap in front of the door and moved down the long row of shelving on the opposite side. He could see SWAT teams pouring in from another door on the far side of the building. One cop swung his rifle toward the catwalk as a blast from above kicked up chunks of the floor. The cop fired back with two quick shots.

Holmes saw a blur in the air, then heard the sickening crack of a body hitting concrete.

A second later, another officer spun around as if he’d been struck with a pipe. Rolling onto his back, he returned fire, blasting a stack of boxes to shreds. From behind the stack, another body fell.

Holmes rounded the corner of the shelving row, his gun held straight out. Suddenly, a figure in a black mask whipped around to face him. A blur, then a flash. The round banged into a metal shelf behind him. The figure stepped forward, then crumpled as if hit by an invisible punch. Holmes looked to the side, ears ringing. He saw Poe, pistol raised, advancing toward him.

In seconds, the aisle was full of cops, shoving them both back, surrounding the still figure on the floor, as a dark pool of blood spread underneath. One of the cops looked up at Poe. “Clean kill,” he said. “Center mass.” He leaned forward and yanked the black mask off.

It was a woman.

Holmes leaned down. Dark hair. Late twenties. He recognized her face from the hospital surveillance video. “HavenCare,” he muttered. He looked over at Poe. Poe nodded. They were staring at one of the women who’d posed as a HavenCare executive.

“Runner!” The shout had come from a few aisles over. Holmes heard hard panting and the pounding of feet. Then he saw the flicker of a shape racing past the cartons in the next aisle, heading toward where he’d left Marple.

“Margaret!” Holmes shouted. As he shoved past the cops, he heard a fierce, high-pitched scream, then caught an acrid smell.

He rounded the shelf unit and started running, Poe at his heels. At the far end, a masked figure was on the floor, writhing and wailing, a gun at her side. Margaret was standing over the figure with her feet planted, one arm extended.

In her hand was a purse-sized canister of pepper spray.