St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

control room. Now he could see a Glock pistol with an extended magazine lying on a narrow table beside one of the screens. A Glock tricked out like that was a mini machine gun, twenty shots on semi- or full automatic.
    Using Kayla’s muffled thrashing, Rand eeled to the place where another catwalk cut across the shooting house. Bertone hadn’t moved from his ambush spot.
    Now, Kayla thought. Time to see if those yoga classes live up to their ads.
    It was her last chance. If Bertone found her, she would die. But then, he was planning to kill her anyway.
    After he made her scream some more.
    She shifted and wiggled and strained until she fell over. She glanced at the screen and saw that Bertone hadn’t moved. She forced her cuffed hands over her butt, down her legs, then fought her ankles and feet through.
    Her blood helped to grease the way.
    When she was finished, she was sweating, her chest was heaving, and she felt like she’d strained every muscle in her arms. She was still cuffed, but at least her hands were in front of her.
    She peeled down enough of the gag to breathe more easily, then dragged herself over to the ugly pistol Bertone had left behind. Her shoulders ached in time to the rapid beat of her heart.
    She watched the screen.
    Bertone hadn’t moved.
    She pushed herself to her knees and grabbed the gun. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked, but she guessed it would have a hard recoil. She knew enough to recognize the safety. It wasn’t on. Very carefully she set the pistol next to her on the floor. Watching the screen, she started clawing at the duct tape around her ankles. This time the blood got in her way, making her fingers slip. An inch at a time, she managed to peel the sticky stuff off.
    She glanced up at the catwalks as she pulled the tape free.
    Rand was grinning like a pirate. He gestured with one hand, sweeping her back out of the line of fire he would have to use if Bertone came back into the room.
    She glanced at the screen again.
    It was empty.

79
    Arizona Territorial Gun Club
Sunday
2:44 P.M. MST
    B ertone moved with incredible speed for a man of his bulk. By the time Kayla caught the motion on another screen, he was in the hallway just outside, his heavy gun pointed at the catwalk.
    Rand saw him before Kayla did. He threw himself to the side and tried to pull the AK-47 into firing position. Something hung up on the catwalk. Suddenly the gun spun off and fell down into the opening below. He lunged for a narrow steel observation platform as he grabbed his pistol.
    The sound of the M-60 deafened him all over again.
    The hail of heavy slugs punched and clanged and sang around him as he wriggled on his stomach to the edge of the steel platform. A fragment of metal ricocheted so close that he felt a burning line drawn across one eyebrow. Pistol ready, he leaned over the edge just enough to see Bertone.
    Too far for a pistol.
    But not too far for the machine gun.
    Bullets punched and exploded around Rand. Bertone was chewing the observation platform into ragged steel lace.
    Rand rolled over and over. It was suicide for him to stay on the platform and certain death if he went back to the catwalk. Ignoring the blood dripping down his face, he took a new position, leaned over the edge, and fired two times, the shots a bare instant apart.
    Bertone jerked and swung the machine gun. Rand kept firing as he watched the muzzle brake of the M-60 turn into a tunnel of death looking for him.
    Finding him.
    He kept pouring bullets into Bertone. He might as well have been pumping bullets into a tree for all the good it was doing. At this range, the little bedside pistol just wasn’t getting the job done.
    Or Bertone was wearing body armor.
    Kayla stepped out of the control room and closed in until she couldn’t miss Bertone. Eyes open, jaw clenched, she aimed at the back of his head and held the trigger down. Bullets and fire came in a continuous stream until the magazine was empty and the slide locked back.
    With a violent shudder she flung the gun away and turned her back on the twitching Bertone. She had taken all she could, and then she had taken more.
    She was done.
    Distantly she heard sirens screaming and Rand talking to her. His arms held her.
    “Easy, love, easy,” he said. “It’s over.”
    She closed her eyes and sagged against him. “You sure?”
    He looked at what had once been Andre Bertone. “Yeah, I’m sure. Body armor only protects what it covers.”
    Leaning on each other, they