Firepower by John Cutter (ebook reader online .txt) 📕

was sure his target would be a “good kill”, he did the job with ruthless, methodical efficiency and put the kill behind him.

He was aware he might have lost touch with something in getting to that point. But he was… who he was.

The sentry got closer, humming tunelessly under his breath. Vince waited till he was past him, then he went over the barbed-wire fence in one smooth motion — knowing the sound would make the sentry turn around.

The man turned, frowning, probably expecting to see a possum.

Instead, the Neo-Nazi saw a knife flashing, two dark eyes in a black mask… as Vince brought the knife out in a tantojutsu side-slash, flashing it out tightly, arcing into the guy’s throat — cutting through his larynx. The sentry couldn’t even get a gurgle out. The target flailed as Vince jerked the knife free and instantly drove it back into the man’s temples, the razor-sharp knife and Vince’s practiced thrust punching through skull bones and into brain.

The sentry slumped, already dead when Vince pulled the knife free. Vince wiped the blade on the man’s Nazi memorabilia, sheathed it, and — careful to avoid the gushing blood — rolled the body under the lowest strand of wire. He reached under, gave it an extra push so it started rolling down the slope into the brush. He put the goggles back on and looked around, half expecting to see another sentry. No one so far.

Vince moved through the shadows across the weedy lot to the side of the house.

He looked toward the guy in the gatehouse. Still staring at his phone.

Maybe being a dumbass will save your life, Nazi boy, Vince thought.

He turned toward the back of the house, moved to crouch under a curtained window, listened, heard unintelligible male voices. One of them laughed.

Still crouching, Vince moved on to the back corner of the house. He listened, then looked — and saw no one. He slipped up to the back door, drew the Glock, and quietly tried the knob. The door was unlocked.

He opened the door a crack and looked through onto a well-lit hallway with polished oak walls. The corridor led to a door into a room where a brawny man in a t-shirt stood with his back turned, his hands in his pockets, talking to someone Vince couldn’t see. On the back of the t-shirt were the words White Lives Matter. A swastika was tattooed — clumsy blue jailhouse tattooing — around the man’s right forearm.

“Yeah I don’t know, if they are going to bitch about us on the Whitesite, then we got to stand up for Ragnar and call ’em out for it,” said the big man down the hall. “Anyway, I gotta go up and talk to Dex…”

So Dex Stirner is upstairs, Vince thought.

To Vince’s left were a landing and a stairway to the second floor. He slipped through the door, closed it quietly, and stepped close to the stairwell, around the corner from the corridor.

He heard the big t-shirted man’s approaching footsteps and moved quietly two steps up the stairs, drew his knife and flattened against the wall. But his boots made the floorboards squeak, and the man called out, “Boss, that you?”

The guy stalked up to the stairs — as Vince swung the knife underhand so that it came up and caught the big man in the throat, cutting through his larynx. The big guy — square-jawed, flattop hair — clutched at Vince’s hands.

Vince yanked the knife loose and within a tenth of a second had buried it in the big guy’s left eye, all the way to the hilt, so that the blade was deep in his brain.

White Lives Matter guy went down. Vince cleaned the knife on him, thinking, So far so good. He turned to climb the stairs — and saw a bald, heavy-set older man on the landing above, glaring down at him.

He was wearing a flak jacket, swinging a Smith & Wesson .44 toward Vince’s center-mass. Dex Stirner.

The feds hadn’t gotten the message through.

Vince hissed, “I’m with the Bureau!”

Not exactly true, but close enough.

Stirner hesitated. “What?” He had a deeply lined face, and his teeth were bared and his forehead sweaty as he stared down at Vince.

Vince used the only Bureau name Deirdre had mentioned. “Agent Chang sent me. You’re leaving with me!”

“Boss!” someone called from the downstairs hall. “What’s going on?”

“Code?” Stirner grated.

“Wind of freedom!” Vince whispered.

Stirner lowered the gun. “You’ll have to kill the others.”

Vince nodded, hearing footsteps hurrying around the corner below. He sheathed his knife and drew his gun — two quick motions with his right hand.

He turned around and fired point-blank in the face of a scarred, blond Neo-Nazi. The man had an Uzi in his hand and he squeezed the trigger convulsively — but it wasn’t pointed at a target yet and the burst crack-crack-cracked into the wooden wall to Vince’s left, spitting oak splinters.

The militiaman staggered one step back, then fell, already dead. He slid down against the corridor wall to a sitting position, staring at Vince’s boots in death. His mouth was replaced by a gaping wound. Gun smoke choked the stairwell.

Vince turned back to Stirner. “They were supposed to warn you.”

“I haven’t been able to monitor the… never mind, shit, here comes Tiso!”

Another rush of bootsteps in the hall downstairs. This wouldn’t be so easy — the guy was warned, now.

“Tell him you’ve killed an intruder,” Vince whispered. “Then back up — real quiet.”

“Tiso! Some motherfucker broke in!” Stirner yelled, backing up away from the stairs. “I killed him but he got Conklin!”

“What the fuck!” Tiso called.

“Get up here!”

Vince went up the stairs, taking three at a time, and stepped out of view in the upstairs hall.

“Dex!” the man called as he pounded