Page 142 of Agency

I body slammed the door hard as I could.

The door thudded against the opener, producing a shout of sudden surprise.

I rebounded with weapon readied and rushed forward into the warmly lit living room beyond, keeping myself low and fluid and always moving. I trained my weapon on a combatant already up from the couch, his weapon raised.

Buzzing like wasps, three bullets meant for the head of a combatant eight inches taller flew past and smacked the wall behind me, high and to my left.

Fort Bragg must have lived in my veins like a lingering virus, because my training grabbed hold of my fingers and directed them. I didn’t even shout. Didn’t even think.

I returned fire–crack crack crack–three rounds right into his center of mass, dropping him like a sack of flour back onto the couch. Moving forward, shooting twice again into his head, then sweeping left, over the back of the overfilled couch and towards the kitchen.

Door closed on left, window curtains open on right, kitchen island in the middle.

Moving forward, I trusted my comrade to be able to handle his shit. Shooter’s crouch, walking, walking, walking, weapon always trained on where the next combatant would most likely appear from.

The door opened then–pulling in, rather than pushing out.

I lit up the doorway before a combatant could appear. Ten more rounds into the door frame he had to be hiding behind as I steadily circled around, as if I were the pendulum at the end of a long string. Another ten rounds. My carbine’s bullets pocked and marked the wood-lined walls, cracking off panels and dropping them to the floor. I continued to fire and move, lowering my trajectory with each shot to account for my unseen combatant’s crouching.

Around I went as I fired again and again and again, splintering the doorframe as Morgan continued to fight his assailant.

Until I went dry.

I dropped behind the kitchen island while still facing my earlier target. A split second later, the thundering boom of a shotgun thudded from the doorway I’d just been dismantling by way of small arms fire.

Hands working and dropping my dry mag, I slapped in a fresh.

Glass from the kitchen sink’s window shattered above and behind me. Another shot. Something wet and viscous splattered across the back of my neck.

Hand soap. Fuck me, I’d been slimed by fucking hand soap.

I went to raise my head a split second later.

A quick shotgun pump sounded, so distinctive and unique out of every weapon out there, and I dropped back to the floor without even seeing the weapon.

Another blast sent shards of something ceramic, or maybe granite, across my neck and back.

I kicked back from the island, pushed myself to the wall of surprisingly solid kitchen cabinets forming the sink’s base.

Another blast, and another, buckshot chipping away chunks of my surrounding environment with every shot just inches above my head, and my combatant steadily working his trajectory downwards.

With each shot I fired, though, I adjusted my barrel. Once inch this way, another inch that way. Another inch down, then one to the right.

There.

Another shell from the combatant, and I could practically feel a ball of .38 shot graze my beanie’s knit dome even as I saw the top of his head advancing towards me, ready to deliver what he thought would be the killing blow.

I opened fire. Angled up and slightly to the right, I let recoil climb my barrel a little. Trigger going, my weapon kicked against my shoulder before I’d firmly braced back. I didn’t care about the jackhammer pounding, not as I sent those dozen bullets punching through the kitchen island’s wooden cabinets, tearing through his calves and thighs.

He screamed as his head dropped from sight.

I kept firing as I threw myself right. My cheek slapped cold linoleum.

Linoleum? Linoleum?! That’s what this shadowy spy master had coating his floor? This shit?

Another shotgun blast from my combatant deafened me, punching a hole in the kitchen island cabinet, and exploding the cabinet panel I’d just been seated in front of. Splinters and toothpicks showered my body.

Outstretching my arms and thrusting my weapon in front of me so the barrel was perpendicular, I directed the muzzle where my assailant should have been based on his firing trajectory. Bracing my carbine’s stock against the kitchen cabinet’s base, I took a deep breath.