St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

the soft, sandy dirt. Then he popped up onto the asphalt parking lot. He accelerated toward the helicopter, then spun the wheel at the last instant. The butt of the Humvee smashed into the pilot’s seat. One skid collapsed.
    Let’s see you fly that, Bertone.
    Fifty yards in front of Rand, something red flashed. A man’s hair.
    Foley.
    Using some landscape shrubs as a blind, he was firing a long gun with a telescopic sight. It looked like an American M-16.
    High velocity, small caliber. Hope this glass is as good as Bertone is paranoid.
    Foley poured bullets into the Humvee’s windshield. Lead smacked and whined and skipped off the tough glass.
    Then came silence except for the roar of the engine.
    Now, do you have an extra magazine? Rand thought grimly.
    Foley threw the M-16 to the ground and yanked a heavy revolver from the belt holster at his waist.
    Rand put the accelerator on the floor.
    Two bullets hammered, cracking the windshield.
    Rand pointed the Humvee toward Foley and shielded his eyes against flying glass in case the windshield gave way.
    No more bullets came.
    Rand risked a quick look. Foley was running toward the big glass doors of the clubhouse.
    Bulletproof, no doubt, Rand thought. Let’s see how they hold up to a battering ram.
    The doors slammed shut behind Foley.
    One-handed, Rand took a folding knife from his pocket and flicked open the serrated blade. He didn’t want to get pinned in the seat if the airbag deployed and then didn’t deflate fast enough.
    The stately parade of steps up to the club’s impressive entrance slowed the Humvee’s charge. It was making less than fifteen miles per hour when the armored radiator smashed through the glass-and-aluminum doors of the club. The airbag deployed with an explosive sound. Within seconds it began to deflate, its job done. A slash from Rand’s blade speeded the process.
    As he pocketed the knife again, he caught a glimpse of Foley scrambling behind the heavy concrete fountain in the center of the lobby. From there, the banker ran until he could launch himself up and over a long, waist-high counter where shooters registered for courses and arms.
    The Humvee had enough momentum to climb the lip of the fountain before it crunched to a halt.
    For a few seconds the only sound was the trickling of the fountain. Then the lobby exploded with the deafening chatter of a big machine gun.
    The Humvee’s bulletproof glass wasn’t designed to withstand that kind of close, heavy fire. As Rand dove to the floor and kicked open the driver’s door, the windshield exploded. He rolled out onto the lobby’s tile floor, dragging the AK-47 with him. A heavy burst of machine-gun fire rattled off the Humvee’s body as he crab-walked forward and hunkered down behind the concrete fountain.
    Judging by the angle of the bullets, they were coming from somewhere behind the waist-high reception counter. Rand ducked back down. Lead thudded into the black Humvee, chewed chunks of concrete out of the fountain’s pedestal, and ricocheted crazily.
    Rand stayed down. He wasn’t facing some handy, portable, rapid-fire weapon. This machine gun was the kind trucks and go-fast raiding boats used on fixed mounts.
    Does the bastard have a machine-gun emplacement behind the counter?
    Rand grabbed another quick look over the concrete rim of the fountain. He caught a glimpse of Bertone standing, firing a heavy M-60 machine gun from the hip. It was a feat that took strength, skill, and balls.
    Another burst of bullets rattled and ricocheted through the clubhouse lobby, leaving behind a ringing kind of silence.
    Rand heard a snarl of Russian curses, followed by the sound of retreating footsteps.
    Ran out of ammo.
    He sprang to his feet, AK-47 nestled against his shoulder, ready, willing, and quite able to kill Bertone.
    Kayla screamed from somewhere just in front of Bertone, telling Rand that she was alive and somewhere in the private quarters behind the desk and down the hall. He kept his finger loose on the trigger, afraid of hitting her with a ricochet or having a bullet go clean through Bertone into her.
    Foley sprang from behind a tile-covered concrete pillar and leveled his heavy revolver. The weapon went off with a roar. The impact of the bullet flung Rand against the front fender of the Humvee. The gun roared again as he slid limply down the vehicle and into the shelter of the front wheel. The AK-47 clattered to the tile.
    Everything faded into the sound of a woman screaming