“How many people inside?” he asked.
“Why the fuck should we tell you anything?” one of the guards asked. “You know what’s going to happen to you? You know you’re already dead, right? We work for—”
Wilkes kicked the man in the stomach, hard. He went down.
Chapel turned to the second guard. “How many people inside?” he asked.
“Our boss and one guy,” the second guard said, lifting his hands to show he was cooperating.
Chapel nodded. To Wilkes, he said, “Did you frisk these two for backup pieces?”
“Doesn’t look like they’ve got any,” Wilkes pointed out.
“Check for ankle holsters,” Chapel told him.
As it turned out, neither of the guards had a second gun. But the one Wilkes had kicked did have a knife tucked into his shoe.
“Okay,” Chapel said. “The two of you are going to walk ahead of us. You know what human shields are, right? I’m guessing you can figure it out. You walk inside there with us right behind you. The best way for the two of you not to get shot is for you to keep very, very quiet. We all clear on this?”
The guards just nodded.
The door was locked, but one of the guards had the key. He opened the door and stepped inside. The warehouse was well lit and full of metal shelves, all of which were full of long, flat cardboard boxes.
Two men were standing in the middle of the maze of shelves, checking things on clipboards. Neither of them had weapons in their hands. One of them was Harris Contorni, whom Chapel recognized instantly.
Unfortunately, Contorni recognized him as well. Before Chapel could even shout for the black marketeer to drop to the floor, Contorni broke and ran around a line of shelves, out of view.
“Damn,” Chapel said. He shoved one of the guards aside and started racing after Contorni.
“We don’t need him,” Wilkes called out, but it was too late.
Chapel had already come around the end of a line of shelves and was staring down an aisle at a Gatling gun.
“I just want to talk to—” Chapel said, but before he could even finish his sentence, Contorni opened fire.
Technically, to be accurate, it was not a Gatling gun, since those hadn’t seen service since the Spanish-American War. Instead it was a much newer, much more deadly weapon, an M130 self-powered Vulcan rotary cannon, with six long air-cooled, gas-fired barrels capable of pumping out six thousand 20×202 mm rounds per minute. It was capable of tearing a jeep to pieces, shooting down enemy bombers, or turning human beings into red jelly. It was designed to be mounted on a fighter jet.
As a burst of rounds sped toward Chapel far faster than he could dodge, he was only barely aware of the fact that Contorni was firing a weapon that was just balanced precariously on a wheeled dolly — it hadn’t been bolted down or secured in any way.
Three bullets did hit Chapel, though all of them tore through the silicone flesh of his artificial arm and none of them drew blood. Those bullets escaped the weapon with enough velocity and momentum to knock the entire gun sideways and then backward until it was spraying bullets into the wall and then the ceiling of the warehouse. Eventually the entire assembly — barrels, receiver, feed system, and ammunition drum, weighing approximately three hundred pounds, fell backward off the dolly and rolled on top of Harris Contorni, who gave out a little shriek and then let go of the trigger mechanism.
The noise of the weapon discharging was enough to make Chapel’s ears ring. That passed quickly enough. The surprise he felt at finding himself still alive and mostly in one piece took a lot longer to process.
By the time he could move again, Wilkes had come up beside him, a pistol in either hand, both of them pointing at the ceiling.
“What happened? You okay?” he shouted.
Chapel looked over at Wilkes. Then he looked back at Contorni, who was still wrestling with the M130, unable to get out from under it. He opened his mouth to say something. Reconsidered that thought. Closed his mouth again.
Pinned to the floor, Contorni finally shouted, “One of you assholes gonna help me out here, or what?”
“Your men all ran off, once they heard the shooting,” Wilkes said. “They were smart. You, on the other hand, tried to kill an employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency. You do understand what that means, don’t you, Harris?”
They had Contorni tied to a chair in an office at the back of the warehouse. To his credit he made no attempt to struggle or get free. “I’ve got so many lawyers on my payroll they’re gonna name a library for me up at Columbia Law,” Contorni insisted. “I was defending my property, wasn’t I? I had no idea who broke in, just that they got past my security. I was afraid for my life.”
Chapel shrugged. “You’re right. We don’t need this guy.” They had, after all, come here looking for weapons. Not to charge Contorni with any crime.
Wilkes didn’t seem to get that, though. He pressed the barrel of his silenced pistol against Contorni’s cheek. “I might start by blowing your teeth out,” he said. He moved the pistol down to Contorni’s chest. “Then again, maybe we just puncture a lung.”
Chapel fought to keep his face under control. This was not at all how he’d imagined the operation would go down. “Wilkes,” he said, “just—”
“Just kill him?” the marine asked. “I could. But then we wouldn’t get to find out why he’s been lying low the last couple of months.”
“I know people,” Contorni insisted. “I know the kind of people, if you kill me here, they’ll come find you. Find you when you’re asleep and—”
Wilkes pressed the barrel of his pistol against Contorni’s arm and pulled the trigger.
The black marketeer howled in panic and distress, and Chapel had to look away. He knew perfectly well that Wilkes had at most just grazed Contorni’s skin. He would get a nasty powder burn, but the wound was unlikely to even scar.
Given what Wilkes had been threatening, though, it must have felt like a real gunshot wound.
“For months now,” Wilkes said, “this dickweed and I have been watching you. Tracking your every movement. We know what you do for a living, Harris. We know you steal guns from the Proving Ground and then sell them to whoever has the money. Street gangs. Hit men. White power groups. But the last couple of months, you haven’t so much as sold a bayonet to a Civil War reenactor. You want to explain why?”
Contorni was still howling. Chapel could barely hear Wilkes over the noise. Somehow, though, the screams turned into words. “Knew you — were there — not stupid — enough to—”
“You knew we were watching you?” Wilkes asked.
Suddenly Chapel was very interested in this interrogation. “How?” he asked.
Contorni calmed down enough to explain, a little. “There was this, this guy, this little creep, I only saw him one time. Came to the place where I, where I get my breakfast. Sat down in front of me. Told me the DIA was on my trail. Told me your names, gave me pictures of you. I saw you at the motel and—”
“This guy, was he wearing a sweater vest and a tie?”
The look on Contorni’s face was answer enough.
Wilkes didn’t bother asking Contorni any more questions. He kicked over the black marketeer’s chair and left him there, his cheek pressed up against the concrete floor, still whimpering.
Chapel and Wilkes left the office and closed the door behind them so they could talk. “Moulton wrecked our case,” Wilkes pointed out.
“I guess he wanted to make you resent Hollingshead even more, by making your assignment as boring and pointless as possible.”