Extinction Machine

Chapter Thirty-eight

Blue Diamond Security Regional Office #5

East Pratt Street

Port of Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 8:44 a.m.

When Black Bess rolled off the AM General assembly line in South Bend, Indiana, it was a Humvee intended for use by the United States Army. This particular vehicle was purchased as part of a fleet by Mr. Church and turned over to Mike Harnick, the head of vehicle maintenance. Now she had extended shock-absorbing crash-plate bumpers, a reinforced frame, and her already considerable fifty-nine hundred pounds was amped up to sixty-eight, most of which was the result of a retractable cannon platform for launching TOW missiles or a M134 Minigun. The sides were heavily armored and the advanced ALON window glass could take sustained fire from a fifty-millimeter heavy machine gun.

Black Bess was neither a very fast nor highly maneuverable vehicle, but it was as close to a tank as Harnick could make it without putting an Abrams on the street. Black Bess also had faux spinner hubcaps, a vanity plate that read GAMER, and lots of decorative chrome. It looked like a big, expensive toy for a slacker who’d made some money.

Sam Imura was behind the wheel. Top Sims sat beside him. Ivan and Peter were in the backseat. Bunny and Lydia were already on the far side of the Blue Diamond compound.

“Call it, Top,” said Sam.

The regional office of Blue Diamond Security was a short block away, a squat one-story box tucked behind a security gate with a barrier bar. Behind it, massive tower cranes lifted containers from cargo ships and stacked them into multicolored mountain ranges.

A thermal scan of the building showed where everyone was. Most of them were clustered in neat rows in what was probably a mess hall. A few others were scattered around the building. No one in the receptionist office on a Sunday morning, and no one in the rear loading bay. Eighteen men in all.

Top tapped his earbud for the team channel. “Okay, kids, we’re going in softball. Nobody dies but don’t take any shit. Combat call signs from here out. Hellboy, you’re on street sweep.”

“Copy that,” said Ivan. He slipped out of the car and ducked down behind a parked Honda.

“Prankster, as soon as we’re inside make some noise.”

Pete Dobbs said, “Rock and roll.”

“Okay, Ronin, let’s bust down some doors!”

Sam Imura—Ronin—kicked down on the gas and Black Bess rolled forward, slowly at first, but as her mass got into motion the ponderous vehicle picked up speed. By the time it hit the drop-bar barrier at the front gate Bess was cruising at sixty. The barrier disintegrated into splinters. Two guards threw themselves out of the way, landing hard, rolling awkwardly, rising to their feet in shock but still reaching for their guns. Ivan dropped them both with beanbag rounds from his combat shotgun. Each round was a small cloth pouch filled with number-nine birdshot. They went down hard.

“Green Giant,” growled Top, “knock loud and knock hard.”

There was a five count of silence and then a huge whump shook the whole building as Bunny’s blaster-plaster blew the back door off its hinges and hurled it twenty feet into the loading bay.

Black Bess was racing at her top speed of seventy-five miles an hour when she slammed into the front of the building. The double doors exploded inward across the empty reception office, smashing the desk flat against the far wall and then punching all the way through into the main room beyond. This room was a large empty training hall, with a walled pistol range, taped-off combat circles, free weights, and racks of practice weapons. Sam jammed on the brakes and spun Bess around so that she slewed across the gym in a big turn that destroyed equipment, vending machines and the outer wall of the shooting range. Then he threw it into park and he, Top, and Pete piled out.

Pete pulled flash-bangs from his harness as Top yanked open the door to the next room—a crowded mess hall. The flash-bangs arced over the tops of the long mess tables. Men tried to dive out of their chairs, to turn and run, to crawl through each other.

In all those things, they failed.

The flash-bangs exploded with massive booms, filling the mess hall with blinding white light.

Men screamed and fell, pawing at eyes, pressing hands to ears, temporarily blinded, deafened, and shocked.

One man clung to the frame of the doorway, dazed but still on his feet as he clawed for his holstered pistol. Top drew his sidearm, an X26-A multishot Taser, which had a three-shot magazine with detachable battery packs. Top shot the man in the chest and immediately the battery sent fifty thousand volts into him. Top then released the battery pack to allow his gun to automatically chamber the second round. The dropped battery was still connected to the target by silver wires and would continue to send a maintenance charge through the flachettes until the twenty-second battery ran dry. As the man fell, Top saw that the back door of the mess hall was open and Bunny and Lydia were already rushing in to join the fun.

Bunny grabbed one man by the sleeve and hair and whipped him around in a half circle, giving the swing a vicious upward tilt so the man left the ground and crashed into two of his colleagues. Then Bunny grabbed one of the big mess tables and with a growl like an angry bear upended it atop men who were trying their best to get out of his way.

But Lydia was there. She was lightning fast, firing beanbag rounds as fast as she could pump, but when that ran dry she didn’t bother reloading or switching to the Taser. She waded in with wickedly precious kicks to calves and knees and groins, and used crosscutting palm strikes to wrench necks and smash noses.

“Warbride,” Top called to her, “on your six.”

She whirled to face a big man with a steak knife in his fist, but Top sat him down with the Taser, and took out a second man who was swinging his pistol up. Those were the last two charges of his Taser, so Top dropped it and drew a short black rod holstered at his hip. With a flick of his wrist it snapped down to the length of a baton. It was made of durable sponge rubber over a tight spring. The rubber kept it from being lethal, but it was not a toy. Bones broke and men screamed.

One of the Blue Diamond men managed to get off a single shot, but suddenly he pitched back and out of the corner of his eye he caught Sam Imura leaning in through the window, a smoking shotgun in his hand.

Counting the two men at the gate, there were eighteen Blue Diamond guards to Top’s six-person team.

Eighteen wasn’t enough. The flash-bangs had changed those odds, and the brutal efficiency of Echo Team had skewed the math in their favor. When the last man fell—Ivan head-butted the man; Ivan wore a helmet, the other man did not—the room dropped into sudden silence.

“Cuff ’em,” snapped Top, and everybody pulled out fistfuls of plastic flexcuffs.

Some of the men were conscious and very vocal, threatening legal action, threatening worse. One, a shovel-jawed bruiser with a gray buzz cut and a livid bruise in the shape of Lydia’s fist over one puffed eye, seemed to be in charge.

Top directed Bunny to bring the man into what was left of the other room. The man wasn’t yet trussed up, so Bunny hauled the man to his feet, screwed a pistol into his ear and said, “This one’s loaded with hollowpoints, dickhead.”

When they were in the adjoining room, Top kicked a chair toward the prisoner and Bunny shoved the man down into it.

“What’s your name?” asked Top.

“F*ck you.”

“Well, Mr. F*ck-you, would you like to tell me why four of your people thought it was a good idea to pull a car stop on a federal agent this morning?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know who the f*ck you think you are, Tupac, but I’m going to hang your balls from my rearview mirror.”

“Is that a genuine fact?” asked Top, raising his eyebrows as if interested. “Bunny … why don’t you go in the other room. Mr. F*ck-you and I are going to sort out a few talking points. I believe he wants in his heart of hearts to tell me who ordered a hit on Captain Ledger.”

Bunny looked from Top to the seated man, then he smiled and left.

Top was smiling, too.