Chapter 64

CHAPTER 64

" T hirty seconds," Pike announced, followed by, "I've got movement in the SUV."

Then there was a muted shot inside Oddities.

The driver's door to the big G63 opened fast and in the glow of the door light I saw Jane leap out, her assault rifle in hand, a big suppressor on the end of the barrel. She ran for Norman's van. Which meant she knew it wasn't Norman in the van.

So much for two minutes.

"Weapons free," I announced.

Pike fired his silenced pistol twice and Jane dropped like a stone. I heard the roar of the Barrett above and behind me. Luke's big fifty-caliber round blasted through the brick facade at the top of the building diagonally across the street from Oddities and took out the sniper.

I jammed my foot on the accelerator and the minivan took off. I headed straight for the front of Oddities when Serena's ace in the hole, another mercenary, opened fire with a suppressed rifle from a position on top of Oddities, where he'd probably been hidden under a reflective blanket to prevent the heat signature from being spotted.

The round hit the windshield directly in front of me and should have killed me except I now learned that the windshield had been replaced with bulletproof glass.

The minivan was growing on me.

"Contact twelve," I yelled. "On the roof." As if Luke and Pike didn't already know that.

Luke had ducked down at the shot since he was exposed out of the roof and Pike had jumped back behind Norman's van.

The guy shot again, and I jerked the steering wheel to the right and we crashed into the front of Oddities.

I was out the driver's door.

Luke was back up in the hatch and got a fix with his thermal sight on the roof gunner as the gunner stood up, knocking the reflective blanket aside, trying to look down over the front of Oddities. Luke fired the Barrett upward on an angle, blowing a huge chunk out of the roof. And out of the shooter; the body came tumbling over the edge and landed with a solid thud on the sidewalk.

I ran into Oddities.