Bloodshot (17 page)

On the side opposite the guard’s hut I found a row of windows that were small enough to be merely ornamental—if the military ever did anything for the sake of aesthetics. They latched from within, of course, but a quick zip of my glass cutter gave me enough access to open them. I replaced the cork of glass when I was finished. It wasn’t perfect, but unless you were looking for signs of
an entry—I mean
seriously
looking—you’d never notice I’d done anything.

I took a deep breath. Since this inflated my chest and made it bigger, I let the breath out again and then, with my temporarily leaner physique, wormed my way through the ridiculously narrow slot. I nearly lost a boot on my way inside, and if my pants had been even half a size bigger I would’ve gotten stuck. But all went well and I slipped on through, slicker than whale shit through an ice floe.

I caught myself with my hands, and landed with nothing more noteworthy than a muffled
thud
.

As I’d originally suspected, I’d deposited myself into a garden toolshed, though it was almost too big to call a shed. If I’d been bold enough to shine a light in first I’d have known that for certain. But if the place was occupied at all—even if it was by a slumbering old coot with a Barney Fife complex—then discretion must remain the better part of valor.

I tiptoed around the riding lawn mower and perused the shelves as a matter of principle, but I found only bug spray, WD-40, paint thinner, and bundles of greasy rags. It could’ve been anybody’s dad’s garage. And if being undead hadn’t taken care of my allergies, I would’ve been sneezing my brains out. A thick coat of dust covered everything, and I’d disturbed it, which disturbed me. But spring was months away and maybe whatever I’d kicked up would settle back down before anything needed mowing or weeding, or that’s what I told myself as I squirmed my way back out into the open air.

The big barn, then. That’s where I’d try next.

I poked my head out of the window, looked both ways like a first-grader crossing the street, and started wiggling back outside again. I was about two-thirds out—hanging at my hips, working
up the momentum to flip myself forward with enough leverage for a smooth landing—when I heard it.

Somewhere nearby.

The
crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch
, of someone walking briskly through the snow. Nay, not walking briskly. More like … sneaking. Or marching. Sneak-marching. And absolutely nothing about that sound warmed my heart in any fashion whatsoever.

I didn’t quite manage the landing I’d wanted—I toppled forward out the window and fell with more of a “splat” than with tidy cat feet
en pointe
—but it got me to the ground. Funny, I didn’t remember the snow under the window being quite so deep on the way in. I sank into snow that came up over my knees, and I tramped around in it, both trying to be quiet and trying to figure out which direction to run, if any.

I held still for a few seconds and listened hard, hoping to better pinpoint the noise, which had now been joined by more
crunch-crunch
es and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

Stupid woods. Stupid snow. Stupid silent night.

It was coming from the left—no, the right. No, both.

Shit
.

I didn’t panic. Yet.

Perhaps forty yards of open snow stood between me and the big barn, and the side I faced, but I didn’t see any easy point of entry. I could make a run for it, but I’d only be running straight at a blank wall—with no way up it, through it, or inside it. Obviously the thing had to have a door somewhere. I fought to remember: When I’d approached under the fence, down into the main compound … had I seen it?

Yes. It was around on the left side, I remembered now.

But someone was closing in on me by the moment. The
crunch-crunch
was close enough that I could hear the faint, low buzz
of electronic communication. It was probably moving through earbuds or very small radios; the sound wasn’t perfectly clear, but it was distinct.

I’d been spotted. And I had nowhere to go.

Across the yard—around the right side of the barn—something glinted quickly and vanished. It could’ve been anything. Probably moonlight off a button, or a pair of glasses.

I was not frozen, not paralyzed. Just pinned by indecision. I looked up and saw the shed’s gutter above me, and I thought:
What the hell? Might as well try going up
. They already knew where I was; I could sense that much from the way they were closing in. They weren’t hunting, they were coming right for me.

I didn’t see them yet, so they had a leg up on me. They’d see me if I jumped up on top of the shed, maybe; and more likely than not, they’d hear me regardless.

I stretched to reach the overhang, but couldn’t quite make it. The snow felt like quicksand, and even though it wasn’t, I couldn’t help but feel that it was holding me down. I picked up my left leg, covered in snow as it was, and braced it against the side of the building, using it to give myself a boost. I hoisted myself up out of the snow and latched both hands around the gutter. The damn thing squealed as if it’d been shot.

Too late to double-think. With a pop of my arms and a fling to toss my weight up onto the gently peaked surface, I was up.

No time for a false sense of security, either. As I scrambled to find a good foothold that wouldn’t leave me sliding right back into the snowdrifts, somebody below opened fire.

Bullets sprayed toward me and I ducked, flattening myself on the roof—which had a good foot of snow on it, thank you very much. I wondered if they could see me, if I just went facedown in it, wearing my white suit and everything. It would’ve been nice if
I could hide there, smushed into the snow. I’d freeze my tits off, but if they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t shoot at me, right?

Boy, howdy. The bullshit I’ll tell myself when I’m completely out of ideas.

Then somebody below barked an order and all bets were off. Two more people were shooting from the other side of the shed. They didn’t know exactly where I was, thank God, so the snow was good for something after all, and the peaked roof threw off their angles. It’s hard to shoot something that’s above you, and reclined on a plane.

But it wouldn’t stop them for long.

I blew a frantic second or two wondering how many bullets I could take before going down. In a moment of crisis? I mean, absolute and pure desperation—still having the stamina to run like hell? Maybe three or four to the torso, more if they just winged me. But man, that kind of worst-case-scenario thinking wasn’t going to help me. Not then. Not when it was far too late for any preventive measures.

Right. No time to wish for what I didn’t have (solitude) and think instead about what I did have (a .38 Special inside my Useful Things Bag).

I didn’t want to open fire back. Not immediately. Not while they still were foggy on precisely where I was, apart from “up there someplace.” Any gunfire would tell them my exact location immediately and with great clarity.

So I left it stashed for the moment, and writhed around in the snow until I had my bag slung across my chest, leaving both hands fully free and maneuverable. I tightened its strap to keep it close—I didn’t want it flopping around during any of the acrobatics I was about to try—and I kept my head low while the bullets clipped shingles closer and closer to where I was hunkering.

This
sucked
. How had they found me? Had I missed a camera? Had they found my car? What easy fuckup had I committed this time? Jesus.

I guess they could’ve been expecting me. After all, someone, somewhere knew what was in that PDF and knew what it’d tell me. All I could do was hope they didn’t know
what
, exactly, they were dealing with.

Me.

I couldn’t make a forty-yard hop to the barn. It wasn’t going to happen. But I could make it in three or four good hops, especially if the first hop came from an elevated position—or that was my reasoning, anyway. Maybe starting from a rooftop only made me feel better. I couldn’t say, and it didn’t matter, because I was going to have to make a run for it.

And people were still shooting at me.

They weren’t shooting a lot, at least. Nobody was wasting much ammo. Mostly they were taking potshots. I could hear them below, splitting up and surrounding my hiding spot—at least it was a
big
little building—and closing off my avenues of escape. Or so they thought.

I rolled over flat, facedown in the snow, and lifted my head enough to peer out over the compound. The crew that’d surrounded the shed … I couldn’t see those guys. They were too close, and I’d earn myself a bullet up the nose if I looked over the edge to get a gander at them.

Pulling myself up to the lowest of all possible crouches, I took a deep breath. I braced myself. I dug my boots deep into the packed snow and ice, and I jammed my knees down into it, and my hands as well. I needed traction. I needed to jump.

Shit, what I really needed was to leap a tall building in a single bound. But since we all knew that wasn’t in the cards, I’d settle for a good launch and a mad dash. If I moved fast enough, and if they
didn’t know to expect a vampire, I might surprise the hell out of them.

They might not even see me. I might appear as nothing more than a streak, and those very far-spaced footprints over there someplace.

Below I heard them talking into tiny microphones, and receiving instruction through their tiny earbuds. They were close enough that I could hear whoever the honcho was. He was giving hand signals, and I could hear the rustle of his clothes as he fired them off.

Someone was forcing the shed door.

They were going to come inside and shoot through the ceiling to get me if they had to, and that meant I’d officially hit the “now or never” moment.

One more deep breath. I tensed. I held my head low, checked my bag one more time, then shoved myself off with such force that half the snow slid off the roof … collapsing onto the guys who’d been lurking underneath it.

I’m going to go ahead and pretend I knew that would happen, and I totally meant to do it.

The victims of the impromptu avalanche cried out in surprise, but it was muffled by a few hundred pounds of snow. And then it was far behind me.

The frigid air stung my ears as I ran, leaping so fast and so far that I might as well have been flying for all any of the mere mortals could have seen. I hoped.

The largest building, the one I’d mentally denoted as a “barn,” was close enough that I reached it in the span of a couple of leaps and a couple of seconds. I skidded around its side, clamoring up to the door. It was locked, no big surprise there. It only took one hard shove for me to figure out that I could open it, yes—but it’d take more time than I wanted to invest in the endeavor. More time than I could
afford
to invest.

My pursuers were running in circles, shouting and trying to reorganize. And I guess someone might’ve gotten busy trying to dig those poor bastards out from under all the snow I’d kicked off the roof. But they’d be on my tail again before long.

How long did I have? Maybe seconds. Maybe minutes. No longer than that—no way, no how.

Like the storage shed, the barn’s only windows were high up and designed for passage by few things larger than a leprechaun—which is not to say that they thwarted me, but I’ll confess to being inconvenienced. But while I still had the benefit of uncertainty on my side, I jumped, hopped, and scrambled into position, popped out some glass, and skooched my way into the interior.

My shoulders and hip bones ached from the scraping press of forcing my body into what was, essentially, a ventilation portal, but my first glance around the interior suggested it might have been worth it.

It’d better be. And it’d better be worth it
fast
.

I knew this, because my first glance also told me that there were cameras inside this big-ass information dump. If they didn’t know where I’d gone yet, they’d figure it out before long.

And to think, I’d been fantasizing about taking a leisurely poke around the place, maybe having a nice picnic lunch and a nap before heading on my way. If there has been any doubt in your mind about the state of my sanity, I hope this revelation cinches that up for you.

Anyway, I dropped down onto a level that was something like a hayloft, loaded up in rows and stacks of crates and boxes, stamped from various facilities around the world and around the country, too. I saw
FORT SAM
HOUSTON
as a return address on one package, and
FORT KNOX
on another one. I had no earthly idea where info on The Other Thief might have hailed from. I’d never find anything about him by sifting through postmarks, but it gave me an
idea. I wondered if anything might’ve been shipped from Jordan Roe, in Florida—but that seemed unlikely, if it was only a facility and not a town.

I shimmied between the rows of stacked containers and let my eyes dilate as widely as they could. My one slight advantage—and the one thing that might buy me extra snooping seconds—was that there weren’t any windows low enough for the exterior commandos to actually watch me do my investigating. But boy, I could hear them outside, buzzing like a hornet’s nest.

The darkness opened enough that I could see piles and rows of discarded secrets, unlabeled and unorganized as far as I could tell. And there I was, standing in the shadow of a towering stack of sawdust-covered crates, with no earthly idea of what I was looking for. And I could’ve hung around and looked in that barn-sized depository for days.

Not an option.

Frantic and serious, I set to work flinging open drawers, smashing open crates, whipping open filing cabinets, and bashing in boxes.

Outside, someone practically shouted into his tiny microphone, relating a string of military abbreviations and acronyms I didn’t understand, but I got the thrust of “Subject in Alpha Building Four. Copy.”

Ah. So I was in Alpha Building Four. For all the good knowing it did me.

“Roger,” the same shouter replied.

And then they surprised me. They didn’t come bursting in—which I’d expected, and begun to prepare for. I was just thinking that the loft where I’d first entered would be a fairly easy place to defend, or at least exit. All I had to do was get the hell away from them, after all. I didn’t have to fight them all to the death in a cage match.