Page 99 of The Fourth Option
Walker depressed the pressure pad. An IR laser appeared on Cooler’s chest.
Cooler’s hand holding a Glock 17 was rising when four of Walker’s bullets tore through his chest. His body contorted around the wounds, and he fell forward into the weeds. Walker put another round in his head as he passed by.
Had Flat Brim and the cops heard the gunfire? Even though suppressed, his shots were not completely silent. Whether or not they heard would depend on how loud things were inside the house.
He climbed the stairs, crossed the rotting porch, and put his hand on the knob. He doubted it was locked with a sentry out front.
He paused for a moment. Were they waiting for him inside, weapons trained on the door? Maybe.
He thought he heard Belle’s voice telling someone to “fuck off” coming from deeper inside the house. She was probably loud enough to have kept them from hearing the suppressed shots.
There was no time for a safer, deliberate combat clearance. This washostage rescue and required a more dynamic approach. Walker turned the knob and entered, breaking left to clear the corner and then sweeping back to the right as he continued out of the doorway’s fatal funnel. The room contained an overturned card table and a couch with springs exposed. Insulation drooped through gaping holes in the drywall.
As he moved down the wall of what was once a living room, he tripped over something at his feet. He regained his balance, confirmed the room was clear, and then looked down at what he thought was a pile of old blankets to find that he had stumbled over a skinny naked black woman. Now awake, she looked up at him, her eyes wide with annoyance and confusion.
“Just a bad dream,” Walker whispered, pushing across the room to a threshold hung with strings of Mardi Gras beads.
He could hear the woman muttering behind him.
The house was dark, which still gave him the advantage.
He pushed through the beads, this time going right.
He was in a kitchen filled with trash, smelling of rotting food, decay, and mold. The counter was cluttered with cardboard boxes filled with plastic bags. He stepped closer. The Ziplocs contained pills and small sealed pouches that he didn’t recognize. The pouches were about the size of ketchup packets at a McDonald’s.
A stairway was to his left. He heard male voices and stepped past the still-swaying Mardi Gras beads.
I’m coming, Belle.
The blow landed on the back of his helmet, which took the brunt of the hit. Walker staggered forward and spun to see the naked woman he had left behind holding a wooden Louisville Slugger. Her scream was almost as painful as her first hit.
As she wound up to deliver another home run, Walker rotated and drove his rifle into her chest, reset, and slammed it into her neck. She paused the bat mid-swing, like she was checking up on an outside ball, allowing Walker to pivot his feet and send her careening through a flimsy plywood-covered window with a spinning back kick.
With that scream, they know I am here.
He heard footsteps on the stairs. A second later Flat Brim appeared, stainless Beretta 92FS in his right hand.
“Patricia, shut the fuck up, girl!” he shouted.
Walker’s first three rounds ripped through the Pelicans logo on Flat Brim’s chest. A fourth found his forehead, knocking the hat free. As gravity took hold of his body, he tumbled down the narrow staircase, coming to rest in a heap at its base.
“NOPD!”
The shout came from the top of the stairs. It was followed by the beam of a flashlight.
“Drop your weapon and show me your hands!” Same voice. Commanding, with a tinge of arrogance like it came from someone whose orders were usually obeyed.
“Coming up. Don’t shoot,” Walker said.
“Hands!”
Walker stepped over the dead body at the base of the stairs, pressing the IR pressure pad twice in quick succession, which engaged the IR laser’s constant mode so that it stayed on without the pressure of his left hand. He lifted his left hand high above his shoulder so it would be the first thing someone at the top of the stairs would see. He dropped the rifle to his right side, angled up, on fire, finger on the trigger.
Through his monocular NOD he saw the beam of light coming from the top of the stairs. He took a step, then another.
“Don’t shoot,” he said again, trying to make his voice as feeble and weak as he could.
He took another step and saw the top of a ball cap, the same one worn by the two men who had exited the Charger. With his weapon still below the officer’s line of sight, the IR laser landed on the man’s forehead just below the brim of his NOPD hat. Walker pressed his trigger to the rear.
