Shotguns are bad news; the wide spread of buckshot cuts down your edge.
But the holes in the door were small, fist-sized.
He’s firing double-or even triple-ought shells. Call it six nine-millimeter pellets in each. Incredibly lethal, but intended for tactical operations, which means a full choke in the barrel for precision. The lead will only spread about eighteen inches over fifty yards.
And he’s not even ten feet away.
—his finger tightening on the trigger, and Cooper stepped sideways ten inches as a blast of fire bloomed from the barrel of the shotgun and metal shards hurtled through the space he had been standing in. He raised the Beretta and sighted down it. The man in the T-shirt leaped back into the dining room, taking cover around the corner. Cooper tracked the motion, lowered his aim about two inches, and fired. The bullet tore through drywall like Kleenex. The man screamed and collapsed. The shotgun clattered on the hardwood floor.
Cooper moved fast, came around the corner with his weapon up. The man was on the ground weeping and moaning and squeezing his thigh. Thick streams of blood pulsed between his fingers. The room had a card table and two chairs; there was another archway through which he could see the kitchen. No other targets. He picked up the shotgun, locked the safety, tossed it back toward the front door. “Where’s Dusty Evans?”
“My goddamn leg!” His face was pale and sweaty as he rocked back and forth. “Jesus, oh Jesus Christ, it hurts.”
“Evans. Where is—”
A sound from the other room, a squeak and then a bang. Cooper jumped over the man’s extended legs and the growing pool of blood and sprinted into the kitchen. A wooden door stood open; the sound had been the storm door slamming. He shouldered his way through into a small backyard. A tangle of rosebushes, all thorns and no flowers; a small toolshed; a grill beside a picnic table. The whole thing was framed by wooden privacy fencing eight feet high, which Dusty Evans was in the middle of hauling himself over. Cooper grabbed his leg and yanked.
The man landed on his feet, came up ready to fight, six foot two inches of pissed-off bar brawler. Cooper still had the gun in his hand, but the thing with guns, they had unpredictable consequences. Bullets didn’t necessarily stop in flesh, and in this neighborhood, that flesh could belong to a kid. He waited until Evans made his move, a feinted cross that concealed a jab, then stepped where the punch wasn’t and brought his gun hand into the side of the man’s neck in a brutal chop. Evans collapsed like his bones had vanished. By the time he could move again, Cooper had patted him down and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“Hi,” Cooper said, then jerked the man to his feet by his bound wrists.
“Ow, shit.”
“Yes.” He pushed the man forward. “Walk.”
The inside of the kitchen had the burned smell of gunfire. Cooper pushed Evans ahead of him. “Bobby?”
“Yeah.” The reply sounded heavy, forced. “Here.”
He marched his prisoner into the dining room. The wounded shooter flopped on the floor, pushing down against his thigh with cuffed hands. “Jesus Christ, oh Christ.”
Cooper ignored him, looked at his partner, who leaned against a wall, one hand holding his sidearm, the other hugging his chest. “The vest catch everything?”
“Yeah.” Quinn forced the word through clenched teeth. “Broke at least one rib, though.”
“Messed up your suit, too.”
His partner barked a laugh and then winced in pain. “Shit, Coop, don’t.”
The adrenaline was beginning to fade, leaving Cooper with that rubbery-limbed feeling. He holstered the Beretta, then flexed his fingers, took a deep breath. “You check the house?”