Page 68 of Duke

“Don’t hesitate, don’t think, just shoot. I’ll be there in five seconds.”

“She may not have that long, Duke.Mach schnell.”

I skidded to a stop, scrambled up onto the back deck and yanked open the sliding glass door. The open plan of the house meant I had a clear view of the front door, catching the tail end of a quartet of mercs filing in. My carbine spat and the rearmost operative dropped, writhing, a round in his throat between armor and helmet. I trotted after the rest, slamming my shoulder into the wall to halt my progress and then rolled out into the hallway.

I was thrown backward by a hard punch to the chest, a round slugging into the body armor. I hit the floor on my back, sliding, gasping, chest aching, throat closed and burning as I struggled to breathe. Even in pain and unable to breathe, my training kicked in. Still on my back, I fired from the hip, four rounds, then three, then four more. The merc I’d dropped was behind me, the other four spread out in the hallway, two in front, one in back, the other pivoting to search the other rooms.

The nice thing about throat mics is that they can pick up a whisper in the middle of a firefight; I whispered as I fired, hoping they wouldn’t know who I was talking to.

“Anyone gets near that bathroom, you shoot and don’t stop.”

“O-okay.”

I rolled to one side and fired again, but my rounds hit the ceiling. My first bursts had founds targets, though, dropping one of the mercs and sent the others scrambling for cover.

“You have incoming,” Anselm said. “Zu viele, zu viele.I cannot help you in there.”

I’d found my feet now, and the hallway was empty. I switched mags again, stuffing the partially empty one into a pocket with the other. Crept toward the nearest doorway, swung out to the opposite side of the frame, carbine sweeping the interior of the room, Harris’s study. The operative was in the far left corner, hoping to get the drop on me as I rolled in—dumbass, thinking he could get me with that trick. When you clear a room, you always start at the corners, exactly where that fucker was hiding. I was firing before I even fully registered his presence, ducking into the room to use the doorway as cover.

I heard the Mossberg’s sharp belch, and then a second shot, and then Temple screaming.

Thought and training and caution bled out of me instantly, and I darted out of the room at full speed. I heard an HK chatter behind me as I passed the half-bath adjacent to the study, felt a round whisper past my neck. I hit the far wall of the hallway, twisted in place, fired a handful of rounds to push the shooter back under cover, and then scrambled into the spare bedroom.

Two bodies dressed in tactical black were on the ground in front of the open en suite bathroom door, blood pooling beneath them.

“It’s me,” I shouted, “It’s Duke.”

I heard scrambling on the tile, and then Temple rushed out and slammed into me full force. She was coated in blood spray, but seemed unhurt.

“You got ‘em, babe,” I cooed. “You got ‘em. Good shooting.”

“He—he yanked the door open so fast I didn’t know what had happened. He just stared at me for a second, and I—I froze, I froze. But then the shotgun, it just—went off. I wasn’t holding it right, I didn’t have it against my shoulder like you said, and it almost jumped out of my hands when I shot it. The guy—the shot—” she shuddered, convulsing in my arms. “His head, it’s—”

I glanced down, and realized that she’d shot him at an upward angle, the slug going under his helmet and up through his skull, splashing gore soup all over him, and thus all over Temple who must have been less than a foot away.

“Yeah, a twelve gauge slug will do that.”

Temple gazed over my shoulder, her eyes widening, and I reacted instantly. I threw us both to one side, shoving Temple back into the bathroom as I hit the floor outside it. I fired lying down, took out his knee, adjusted my aim and put two rounds through his facemask. Red sprayed, and he dropped.

It wasn’t over, though. Not by a long shot. I heard footsteps in the hallways, boots on hardwood.

The carbine was too big for close quarters, so I switched out for the HK MP7, a much smaller firearm. The steps were close, now.

I crept toward the doorway, whispering into the throat mic— “Stay there, Temple.”

I took a deep breath, and then rolled out into the doorway, opening fire. The hallway was black with mercenaries. How many? A dozen? Jesus. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My initial burst took down the lead, my second dropped the guy behind, and then they were firing back and I had to crouch and keep firing, feeling bullets whine overhead to smash into the wall behind me, peppering the window and the floor and the bed.

A bullet bit into the floor between my feet, and then splintered the doorframe by my face—time to retreat. Good thing about such numbers in a small space is that they can’t all fire at once, or I’d be dead. I had the last flashbang hanging from my pocket—I pulled the pin and tossed it into the hallway, waited till I heard thewhumpand saw the flash, then pivoted out into the doorway, firing into the pall of smoke.

I heard a thump as a body hit the ground, heard shouting, stepped out into the hallway and pressed against the right hand wall—just in time, as bullets raked the doorway from several rifles. I darted forward, strafing the hallway with a long burst, then let the HK hang by its strap and drew my Glock.

The smoke was still skirling in the hallway, concealing everyone, but I saw a body in tactical black and grabbed him by the front, stuffed the pistol under his helmet and fired, saw another body, fired into the face mask, and then everything was a whirling scrum of chaos, guns going off, cursing and screaming. I was a devil, then, unstoppable, a tornado of death.

Ever seeJohn Wick? I could give that chump lessons.

I yanked a body in front of me, felt him flinch and jerk as bullets hit him, then I fired around him. Threw him into the weltering chaos of moving bodies, and then went in after him. I moved like lightning, then, breaking arms, snapping kneecaps, putting rounds through soft skulls.

Within thirty seconds, the hallway was void of living bodies.