Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

the dead guy off the driver’s seat and onto the grass strip bordering the driveway. Then I did the same with the other corpse. The coming dawn was visible on the higher tree branches, the blue hues of impending sunlight, distant but making an initial announcement.

I turned to the passenger area. The doomed sat back, watching me. I said, “We’re taking a ride. It’s going to be dangerous. There is a serious risk of injury or death. Maybe both. If you want to get off the bus, now’s the time. Otherwise, welcome on board.”

Nobody moved, nobody spoke. Not even a whisper or a grumble. I hadn’t expected them to. They had skin in the game. For them, it was the only game in town. Plus, the extra weight wouldn’t hurt.

The bus fired up. A strong German engine under the hood. As powerful a battering ram as a guy might hope for. I tucked the two Breachers behind my back and kept the headlights off. I made the turn in the cul-de-sac. The house was straight ahead, two hundred yards. No hesitation, no pause. The end was in sight, right there in front of me. My foot pressed steadily down on the pedal. Nice and easy, but relentless.

The engine began to growl hungrily. Momentum was building up.

I hollered to the back, “Assume a brace position, folks.”

Chapman was in the passenger seat. She glanced at me sharply before lowering her head to her knees.

The driveway tore by. We were picking up speed. I could see the building approaching rapidly. The mercenaries on guard were noticing. The familiar form of the Green Gremlin bus, approaching in the half light, rapidly building up momentum.

The guy on the bottom fully realized what was about to happen. He moved indecisively, left, then right, then left again. It was like watching insects in a glass-walled ant colony. Scurrying this way and that way, alarmed but helpless.

The guy up top started agitating in the same way. But he was oscillating between the door behind him and the railing looking out front of the house. He finally turned and opened the door. I figured he was asking a question. It was too late for a satisfactory response. We arrived.

The bus hit the glass-fronted building. We were doing around sixty miles per hour.

The impact made a noise like a giant thunderclap. The whole facade cracked as the vehicle shot through. Like the sheet ice on a frozen lake hit by a meteor. I raised my head. We had come parallel to the guy who had been guarding the bottom stairs. The bullet-proof glass fell in sheets, like guillotine blades.

The guy had ducked for cover and fallen short. He was trying to get under the stairs. He would have made it if he hadn’t slipped on the marble floor. His weapon had come out of his hands and he scrambled for it. I was pulling a Breacher out from behind me. The sheet glass swayed from the steel framing and came loose. The whole thing took maybe two seconds. The guy was scrambling for a weapon. I watched, fascinated. He wasn’t doing badly, a focused operator in condition black. Verifying his weapon, about to be legitimately shot. Like a hero. I had the Breacher up and ready, resting on the driver’s side window frame. The sheet of thick glass came off in one piece, about the size of a small car. It fell off at an oblique angle and sliced him in half from the shoulder down through the groin.

One down. One to go.

I came off the bus with the two Breachers held ready. Chapman was right behind me. I bounded up the stairs. The guy up there fired at me, a triple burst from his Tavor that pinged off the steel beam, like knuckles rapping impatiently on a bar counter. I ducked down and a second burst buried itself in the wall. Chapman raised and fired two bursts in the guy’s direction. I used her fire as cover to vault up the stairs.

The second floor had a little lobby area which fed into a conference room. I could see people in there, at a big wood table. The guy protecting them was down on a knee taking cover from Chapman’s suppressing fire. He came up and we made eye contact. I saw the Tavor muzzle rise. He was doing well. In a second or two he’d be in position to take me out.

The Breacher spoke first.

A slug this time. It caught him below the shoulder and punched a hole through him, showering his viscera and blood in through the open door. I came into the board room. There were six members of the Mister Lawrence executive board. Four men and two women. All of them looking like they’d been roused from bed, wearing pajamas or robes. Like a perfect picture of privileged comfort. The board members sat glumly around the big table with their hands in the air, as if I were going to read them their rights.

The woman spoke first. Same commanding voice as before. She was in her early forties with well-preserved hair. She was examining me with a jaundiced eye. It didn’t surprise me that she'd had the gumption to fix her hair during the emergency. Her face was streaked with blood from the guy I’d shot through the door. She didn’t seem to mind.

The woman said, “Sir, I must inform you that this is an illegal intrusion. The governor is on the way down from Juneau. We are in telephone contact with the mayor, who is at this moment dealing with the federal officers at the front gate. There is no jurisdiction for the FBI here. This is private property, and private property remains sacred, at least in the state of Alaska. That said, we intend to cooperate fully with the authorities.”

I said, “You’re wasting your breath. Save it for God.”

“What?”

“I advised you to commit collective suicide. You didn’t listen.”

She looked up at me. “You must