Livia popped up and moved in, aiming the suppressed Glock at the nearest target, the man Larison was grappling with.
chapter
eighty-five
LARISON
As soon as Larison saw it was Devereaux, he thought, Don’t shoot him, Dox. This is just the kind of thing we need. But there was no real cause for worry. The big sniper was too disciplined to go for the short-term gain. Though it must have been hard for him to stand down, knowing Livia would be in danger, too.
When Rispel told them to wait, Larison turned just enough to keep a peripheral-vision eye on the guy to his right and behind him. The guy was a long step away—closer than Larison would have stood, because action beat reaction and if anything distracted the guy for longer than half a second, Larison would be on him before the guy could pull the trigger.
And then Rispel shot Devereaux, and Larison almost made his move. But holy shit, Tony and Dutch were suddenly doing a Quentin Tarantino dance, which Rispel decisively resolved by shooting Dutch, too. And it was now or never, and Larison lunged at the guy behind him, got his body to the outside of the guy’s machine pistol, and grabbed the barrel. The gun kicked and vibrated and the barrel was instantly hot as it spit out rounds. Larison twisted, but the guy adjusted and hung on. And then the guy twitched and blood spurted out of his neck and he screamed. Larison heard the suppressed shot and smiled grimly. Livia.
He looked up and saw her moving in, firing calmly and implacably, her Glock close to her chin in a two-handed grip. A warm and improbable thought flashed through his mind—And they call me the angel of death—and he ripped the gun out of the guy’s dying grasp and spun.
Rain had grabbed the gun of the guy nearest him and swept his legs out from under him with some kind of judo throw. Manus was holding the barrel of another guy’s gun with one hand and bear-swatted him so hard in the head with the other that Larison was surprised the guy wasn’t decapitated. Delilah was struggling with the guy nearest her, who was short but with arms like an ape’s. Larison waited a beat—precision shooting with an unfamiliar weapon was always risky—and as the guy tried to wrench his gun back from her, enough space opened between them, and Larison shot him in the head. Delilah kept the guy’s gun as he fell away.
He heard bursts of suppressed fire—probably Rain and Manus—and screams. He saw Maya, frozen in place. Before he left Grimble’s office, Larison had told her and the other civilians to drop down and flatten out the instant any shooting started. But Maya must have been too startled by the noise and the violence for his admonition to have taken hold. He braced to run for her, but Kanezaki beat him to it, tackling her and covering her with his body. Diaz, who was a fast learner, was already flattened out.
Movement in his peripheral vision. One of Rispel’s people, trying to acquire him—
There were two bursts of suppressed shots. The man crumpled and went down—Livia and Delilah had hit him simultaneously. The last man took off running. Manus tracked him and brought him down with a short burst. Larison saw the woman Rispel had brought, Fiona, racing for the trees, too. Fuck that. He dropped her with a single shot to the back of the head.
Grimble, who in that red robe should have drawn a lot of fire, was staggering around unhurt, his hands clasped tightly to his ears.
Where was Rispel? He heard a scream. Oriented on it—
And saw Rispel, her arm around Dash’s neck, the muzzle of her gun jammed against his cheek, dragging him backward. The scream had been Evie, who was following Rispel from a few feet away, but was obviously afraid to do more than that.
“Get back!” Rispel yelled. “Get back or I’ll blow his brains out!”
chapter
eighty-six
DOX
When the shooting stopped, Dox had to work to keep the worrisome images at bay. Of Labee especially. Any of them could have been hit.