Sean pressed the breech lever aside and broke open the shotgun.
Russo came up from behind the bar and aimed the revolver at Sean, who was waiting for Sam to hand her shells.
Seeing Russo with the magnum, Sam lunged in front of his daughter, took the bullet, and, as he fell to his knees, a half dozen shells poured from the box in his hand and scattered on the floor. He slumped heavily between Sean and Russo's gun.
Winter turned at the sound of the magnum, but Russo was already back down.
Shell casings rained in the hall as the MP5s chewed up the front of the beam Winter was using for cover. When the pair stopped to reload, Winter placed both guns' barrels on the vertical flat of the beam so only his forehead was exposed to the cutouts' guns. Holding the SIG in his left hand, six inches higher up the beam than the Browning in his right, Winter fired rhythmically.
The pair was advancing slowly. The smaller figure had a long dark tail of hair dangling below the back of the assault helmet. A woman? He hit her helmet with a Hi-Power round, knocking her off balance, then put a round from the SIG in her pelvis, seating her on the floor. His next two rounds pierced the upturned soles of the woman's boots. She screamed out as the bullets hit their marks. Winter was back behind the beam before rounds from the man's freshly reloaded machine gun chewed mercilessly at it.
Russo fired again, that bullet slamming into the beam inches from Winter's face. Before Winter could turn and get a shot off, Russo had ducked again. He yelled, “I got Sam in the gut!”
Blood seeped out from under Sam. His skin had turned cigarette-ash gray.
Kneeling beside him, Sean took up two of the ten-gauge shells, pressed them into the chambers, snapped the breech closed, and aimed it at the bar.
Seated on the floor, Sam picked up the handcuff key and opened the lock on his left wrist, letting the open cuff dangle from his right.
“You can't shoot for shit, Johnny,” Sam called hoarsely.
Woman or not, the seated figure in the hallway was just a target. Five seconds after he had shot through her boots while her partner was trying to help her up, Winter fell to the floor. When he leaned out, aiming down the hallway, he was four feet lower than the man had anticipated. Winter shot at the woman's helmet, just above the visor. The impact levered her head back so his second shot drilled in under her exposed chin. She flew straight back, dead. When Winter turned his attention to her partner, he took immediate cover in the stairwell. Less confident in that armor now?
Winter ejected the empty magazine and sat up fast, reaching into his jacket to get the last full SIG magazine from his holder. He heard, behind him, the crunching and snapping of someone putting weight on broken window glass and the phit-phit-phit, of a silenced three-shot-burst. Like blows from a baseball bat, two of the rounds hit him in his armored lower back and one his thigh. A full magazine in one hand and the SIG in the other, Winter looked back in time to see a third figure outside on the porch, aiming into the room at him through the window.
A blast from Sean's shotgun made vapor of the left half of the man's neck and the gun's enormous recoil rocked her back. The cutout was dead on his feet, but with his gun's barrel rising as he fell back, the bullets harmlessly peppered the cypress ceiling.
Winter fought to catch his breath. He felt the warm blood, the dull ache, and knew that the third bullet had done serious damage to his thigh. He didn't have time to check on it.
“You're hit!” Sean cried out.
When the assailant in the stairwell fired again, Johnny pointed his gun over the bar and fired blind at Sam and Sean. He missed. Sam reached for the shotgun, but Sean wouldn't give it to him.
Winter popped the cutout as soon as he stepped back into the hallway and reached for his dead partner, perhaps to recover her unused magazines. Winter hit him in the side of his knee and in his left glove as he leaned over. Judging by the way he twisted out of sight, Winter knew he'd made an impression on the man.
Winter pantomimed the motion of tipping up a bottle to Sean, pointed to the bar, and opened his hand to imitate an explosion. Sean fired at the liquor bottles behind the bar, raining liquor and glass down on Johnny. “Stand up, Johnny!” she called out. “I got a bone to pick with you.”
“Woo-wee,” Sam said, coughing. “I believe she 'bout to shoot you good.”
The cutout in the hallway fired three-shot bursts to keep Winter pinned, and when he paused, Winter leaned out and emptied the SIG's last magazine. He was out of time, but he was going to try and sneak a round from his Walther PP under this cutout's visor when he came. The air was thick with cordite as Winter lay there with the gun aimed up, waiting. But the cutout didn't pass through the arch and appear above him. Winter heard the cutout's boots on the stairs, going down them fast, making no effort to be quiet.
Winter looked at Sean, aimed at the bar, and called out, “Sean, slide me your shotgun!”
Winter slid the empty Hi-Power across the floor.
Primed, now thinking the sound was the shotgun on its way across the floor to Winter, Russo stood anticipating a shot at an unarmed and wounded deputy. When Russo went down, it was because Winter's bullet had struck his shoulder. Winter could have killed him, but he only shattered his shoulder so he couldn't shoot at them. Winter wanted to ask him some questions.
Sean fired after Russo was down, breaking more of the bottles. When the alcohol hit the wound, Russo cried out in pain.
“Hooray, you, Dep'ty. You a bright one, boy, you!” Sam howled. “You a damn idiot, Johnny!” He laughed, then began coughing.
Russo screamed. “You fucking shot me! You're all gonna die!”
“I think your friend, Lewis, went home, Russo,” Winter said.
“Bullshit!” Russo croaked. “He wouldn't do that.”
Sean called out, “Hey, Johnny?”
“What?”
“Crybaby.”
It was remarkably quiet for a long second-air coming in from the broken windows caused the hanging cordite cloud to swirl and ebb.
Winter knew why the man had run when he heard a familiar thumping sound and the Blackhawk's brilliant halogen spotlight lit up the windows.
“Looks like the war's over,” Winter called to Russo. “Why don't you resist when they come in? They'd like nothing better than to blow your head off.”
“I give up.” Russo tossed his revolver over the bar. It smacked the floor and slid under the couch. He stood up slowly with his right hand holding a bar towel against his shoulder wound.
Sean laid the shotgun down and hurried over to check on Winter's leg. Winter held the Walther on Russo, who stood inside the bar looking down at Sean, a sour expression on his face. “Think I'm done? This is no biggie. I'll turn state's evidence and walk away from this. The feds want Sam, not me. I can put him away for keeps and they'll give me anything I want to do it. Sam gave me the money I passed to Herman Hoff-”
The sound of the ten-gauge's blast caught Winter off guard.
Russo still stood there. His eyes were still fixed on Winter and Sean but were now bulging, froglike, from their sockets. His jaw and his tongue were gone, and the cypress wall beside him looked like someone had hurled a bowl of spaghetti against it.
Winter swung the Walther's barrel toward Sam, who dropped the shotgun down by his side. He had reached down, lifted up the weapon and fired at his criminal protege's mouth.
“Tell 'em about me now, you rat bastard!” Sam yelled.
Russo tried to talk, but all he could manage was a series of gurgling noises.