Caught in the makings of a cross fire, Ryan had no choice. Trusting his comrades in arms to match his movements, he pulled the SIG-Sauer in a practiced fast draw the most hardened of the mythical old Western gunslingers would have been envious of and squeezed the trigger. A single 9 mm bullet blasted out of the end of the pistol, the explosive sound muffled to a large degree by the baffle silencer.
Lopez never even had a chance to use his rifle as the slug from the SIG-Sauer punched through his forehead, lifting the red headband from his hair, along with a bloody chunk of his bony scalp.
Even as Ryan was taking the most direct method of reasoning with the sec man blocking their path, J.B. was following through on his own end with the Uzi, lifting the half-hidden machine pistol from under his jacket and sending a string of steel-jacketed bullets in a wavy pattern across the midsection of the backup sec man. Two of the slugs struck true, into the sec man’s muscled torso.
At such close range, neither bullet stayed in the body, but instead hurtled out the back of the falling figure with enough energy to strike the stone wall behind the sec man. One went into the wall and stayed, the other ricocheted off and buried itself in the stone floor.
Unlike his brother, Garcia was able to fire off a few shots from his Tec 10, but they went high and wild, sailing over Jak and Dean, plucking at their hair. They also passed over Krysty’s red head, since she had used her full body weight to shove the two boys to the floor.
She hadn’t worried about the use of her own pistol. If Ryan and J.B. had failed in their attempt to take down the twin sec men, the group of friends would have been chilled faster by the autofire than a succeeding hail of returned fire would have allowed anyway.
The firefight was over in a handful of seconds.
Ryan stood calmly, not looking back to see the status of those behind him, but keeping his eye on the fallen sec man in front of him. “Everybody okay?” he asked.
The voices of his friends and family chimed out in affirmative.
Stepping forward lightly, Ryan nudged Lopez with his toe, but it was obvious that the sec man wouldn’t be moving ever again. On the other end, Garcia took a few more seconds to die, but no parting words of defiance came from his lips as he blew bloody bubbles of saliva. A spreading pool of red was on his chest and pouring out from his back where he lay in wet vermilion.
Ryan held on to the SIG-Sauer, having reloaded the clip outside El Morro. “This is getting bloodier by the bastard minute. I want to find Doc and Mildred and get the hell out of this place in one piece.” “I agree, lover,” Krysty said. “Seems sunny Puerto Rico has lost all of its appeal.”
“WHAT WAS that noise?” Jamaisvous asked, having sent the sec man ahead before bringing Mildred out from the control room of the mat-trans unit. He paused, and sealed the gateway and comps behind him with unbreakable vanadium steel.
“What noise?” Mildred replied.
“Gunshots. I heard gunshots.” Jamaisvous was moving now and gestured with the barrel of his weapon for her to step ahead of him. He kept the heavy Czech target pistol leveled at Mildred’s head, the pleated braids of her hair clacking gently against the barrel of the blaster every time she took a breath. His right hand was now handcuffed to her left, and he used the handgun with the ease of the ambidextrous as he moved her along.
“Going somewhere, Silas?”
The man in the long white coat jerked Mildred closer, startled by the sound of Ryan’s voice. “Caw-dor. Back from chasing chupacabrasT’
“Yeah.” Ryan stepped forward, backed by J.B. and Jak. Krysty and Dean hovered as closely as they could, their weapons also ready if Ryan gave the word. “Your mutie buddies back at the redoubt send their regards.”
“How nice. You’ll have to thank them for me.”
“You okay, Millie?” J.B. asked softly.