Mason changed magazines, and then the wreckage behind them exploded. Two bodies rag-dolled through the air, blasting off of the edge of the platform and into empty space. Mason heard the boom of a shotgun and saw the man by the stairwell collapse. A moment later, one of his friends followed. Melvin came jogging up, carrying his Mossberg. Christian was right behind him. They saw the two hostiles inside the security office and stacked up outside the door. The men inside pulled further back. Melvin pulled out a grenade, yanked the pin, then tossed it in. Seconds before it detonated, both of the attackers came running out, guns lowered. Christian shot them in the back. The grenade went off a second later, shattering the windows and blasting the inside of the security bunker to bits.
One man remained.
He was backing along a catwalk but still firing at them with a pistol. Mason saw Peter St. Croix walking after, reloading his grenade launcher like he didn't have a care in the world. He had that monkey grin on his face, the one that made him look like a serial killer. Today, that grin was like a ray of sunshine.
The would-be assailant dropped his pistol. No, that wasn't right. He threw it down. He began waving his arms, yelling and bucking his feet. The man was acting like a bull. He's going to charge, Mason thought. It was crazy, but that's what it looked like. He looked like he was going to run straight into the barrel of a loaded weapon. Peter saw it too, and his grin faltered.
Then, the man did. He actually charged straight ahead, his head thrashing, his mouth screaming.
“Don't kill him!” Mason yelled, but it was too late.
Peter fired and hit the poor bastard in the stomach. The force of the impact launched the man backwards, flinging him twenty feet into the side of the security bunker. His body exploded in a ball of fire and disgusting black fluid. The spray went further than the flames, spattering Christian with black gore. He opened his palms to Peter. “What the hell, man?”
Peter just shrugged and held up his weapon. “Not bad for a Chinese piece of crap, huh?” The crazy, monkey grin was back on his face.
4
“Step back,” the voice on the other side of the door said. It began to count. “We're live in five, four, three…”
AJ looked at Kate. “You might want to cover your ears.”
“What?” she asked.
The door to the stairwell blasted backwards, flying off its hinges and tumbling over the railing. It clanged over the side and fell, bouncing off every level before ending up in the ocean. And just like that, the doorway to the helipad was open.
AJ took his hands away from his ears.
Kate regarded him with what looked like… contempt? Nah, couldn't be; she liked him. “You asshole! Why did you let me get this close?”
Because you wanted to and wouldn't listen to me, was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't say it. With some girls, it was just damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
“Say something.”
He pointed one finger to his ear and shook his head. “Can't hear,” he mouthed. Then, with what might have been a over-the-top, even for him, “That was loud, wasn't it?”
She made a disgusted noise and went back to the helipad.
“What's up with her?” Dutch asked.
Before he could answer, Mason passed through the doorway and pushed past them, looking around as if he expected trouble. Given what they had just been through, he wasn't surprised. AJ himself wanted answers, but now wasn't the time to press.
Mason looked at Hal. “Any word from Reiner?”
“No. And still not much on the radio, even up here.”
“Cell phones?” Mason asked.
AJ pointed to one of the crumpled towers. “Collapsed. You're not going to get a signal out here.”
“I wasn't talking to you.”
AJ saw the fury in Mason's eyes, reading it for what it was — post-battle stress — and he let it go.
Mason looked back at the pilot, but the man only shook his head. “Like the man says.”
“Get the equipment from the chopper. The fifty caliber, too. Meet us below on Deck Two, and make sure everyone's with you.” He indicated the others.
The stairwell stood open to the air, and AJ peered over the railing to the carnage below. He could see Melvin's bald head leaning over Nick, Christian and St. Croix wrapping up a dead-check. The bodies lay scattered across the deck, crumpled in those poses that didn't quite look like sleep, even from a distance.
When they arrived, he had thought this could have been as simple as a downed communications tower, but he supposed they wouldn't have bothered to track him down if that's what they had expected. They wanted someone who knew the platform in and out. They wanted someone who knew the blueprints by heart, who could make decisions about how to isolate and protect various wings of the facility. They wanted someone who could do a little shooting if he had to.
“You all right, buddy?” Dutch asked. He was behind AJ now, following his gaze.
“Yeah. This is just turning into one fuck of a weird day.”
“You got that right. You ready to head down?”
Once they were below, AJ got a better sense of the damage. It didn't look like any of the Black Shadow team were downed save for Nick, though.
“You missed the fun.”
He turned to see the kid looking at him. Melvin had wrapped his ankle and was busy splinting it with a pair of metal rods. Even from where he was standing, AJ could see that the area above the kid's foot was as soft as putty, the bandages soaked through.
“We got 'em,” he said. “Whoever they were, whatever they did to this place, we got 'em!”
“How about you? How are you doing, kid?”
“Okay, I guess. Doc says I'll never line-dance again.”
“If you dance anything like you play football, that's not necessarily a bad thing.”
Nicholas shot him the bird, but he was smiling. That stopped as soon as Melvin tightened the splint, and the kid hollered.
“What's his status?” Mason asked.
Melvin looked up and shook his head. “He can't stand. We need to sedate him.”
“No!” Nicholas said. He was gritting his teeth. “One shot! Just one. I can take it.”
Melvin looked at Mason, who only shrugged. Reaching into his vest, the medic withdrew a small ampoule and jammed it into Nick's thigh. The kid relaxed, his breath slowing into great, long gasps.
“Okay, that's one. You start to act a fool, I got another one here for you. Got it?”
“Yeah,” the kid said. “Thanks.”
AJ wandered around the circumference of the platform, watching as the others took inventory. The men were maintaining a perimeter, but they were too few to cover every gap.
Dutch, who was trailing a few steps behind, seemed to come to the same conclusion. “I wish I had my rifle with me.”
“Why don't you go help secure the northwest corner? They're light there.”
Dutch, effusive under the most somber circumstances, only nodded. He headed towards the bridge to the barracks, close to where Peter and Christian were keeping watch.
Meanwhile, AJ stuck his head into the destroyed security bunker. There wasn't much left. Any hopes of gathering intel were shot, though he reminded himself that gathering intel was Kate's job, not his. Not that he could do much. Aside from the brief conversation at the top of the helipad, Mason didn't seem interested in taking his advice. He grimaced. At least the girl had a level head. That was good, especially now. He looked around and found her outside the door, bent over one of the new bodies by the bunker.