Impact (Book 5): Black

they doing?” he asked.
Haley was on the deck again, holding Liam beneath her. Victoria, the orange tabby cat, was in her cage under Butch’s seat.
Please, Susan, help us get through this mess.
With the wind and engine noise, he couldn’t hear the gunfire from the men on the bridge, but he figured out they were firing when three-foot spurts of water erupted in his vicinity. At first, the bullet impacts were fifty or even a hundred feet away, but they dialed in on him as he approached. By the time he was a few hundred yards away, the shots were almost on top of them.
Butch returned fire as the first bullet plinked against the aluminum of one of the pontoons. He fired several shots toward the middle guy, hitting the concrete rail and causing him to duck down. The other two shooters kept firing, though one had to duck down for an unknown purpose.
A few seconds later, as the shots were hitting the boat all too frequently, the second guy had to drop down.
“They’re reloading!” Butch yelled.
The middle shooter popped up and leaned over to shoot almost straight down at them. Butch had already been zeroed in on his location. When the man presented a target, Butch put one into his head, causing the man to slump over and drop his rifle.
“Nice!” Ezra cheered. He figured they’d make it to the safety under the bridge, but the rifle picked up speed on its fall, and Ezra reacted a fraction of a second too late. The flying object slammed into his replacement canopy, ripping the tarp as it struck the back railing, then bounced into the water. “Holy hell! It almost took my head off!”
Butch looked at him. “You good?”
“Not really!” he replied. Ezra ran his fingers through his hair, marveling at how close he’d come to a freak ending. However, when the boat crossed to the far side of the bridge, the missing men appeared above them.
This time, the men were ready.
Another hail of bullets came down on the boat.
Denver, CO
Aarons came back armed to the teeth. He stood outside Petteri’s office with two other men. As expected, he’d taken the reprimand seriously. Since he didn’t know Nerio’s game, he’d instructed Aarons to let him know the instant the Venezuelan woman reentered the building.
The sound of gunfire alerted him to trouble out on the streets.
“Aarons, would you come here for a second?”
The man came through the door. Petteri didn’t know him personally, but Howard had mentioned him several times over the years, and they’d been in the same room on occasion. The guy was in his forties. He’d done a few tours in sandy wastelands throughout the Middle East. Special forces trained. Aside from the beard, which Petteri couldn’t stop hating, he looked the part of a mercenary. The man’s tall height and stout build reminded him of a high-school linebacker who’d gone off to war and come back a veteran.
“Sir?”
“Why is there shooting still going on? It sounds close.”
Aarons’s eyes darted to the exterior window, then back to him. “We’ve managed to secure a single street leading out of the dig site. Most of our men are guarding it, and we’re getting dump trucks in and out, but it has weakened our lines in other parts of the perimeter.”
“And the other mining companies keep coming at us? Haven’t they gotten the point?” He only had to look out the window to see the bodies of dozens of non-TKM employees who got the message delivered via high-velocity slugs.
Craig Aarons stiffened. “We’re losing men…and women. For each one of us who goes down, there are two of the bad guys who stand up. We’re holding our own, mostly because of the big payoff the men have been promised, but…”
Petteri didn’t like where the conversation was going. “I see. And what can you tell me about the breakout last night? How did Mr. Gagarin get out of his confinement?”
Aarons didn’t know. He saw it in the operative’s eyes.
Petteri continued. “He had help, didn’t he?” It wouldn’t have been his new security chief. The man was new to Petteri, but not new to the TKM organization. He’d seen Howard take care of disloyal employees. In the old days, before the rock fall, “taking care” of personnel meant escorting them from TKM property. More recently, taking care of problems had gotten a lot bloodier. The paychecks had also gotten several zeros fatter. There was no way he’d take the risk of crossing Petteri on day one of his promotion.
“It looks like it, sir. The door was unlocked from the outside. Maybe he got the jump on a guard, and the guard is afraid to come forward…”
They were Aarons’s guards. Petteri was tempted to chew him out for not knowing the answer to such a basic question. However, if it was someone from the inside, there might be a more logical explanation.
Petteri had a pistol pointed at Misha the previous night. Nerio licked her lips as if about to watch a prize fighter take down a hated challenger. However, before he could pull the trigger, she’d put out her hand and asked him to spare the hitman. Petteri could have shot anyway, being the boss of the woman, but Nerio’s big green eyes were very persuasive, and he fell prey to her charms. In the end, he’d decided it didn’t matter to him if the guy was alive or dead, as long as Misha was out of play.
Or so he thought.
“No, I think it’s a lot more complicated. Keep doing what you’re doing. Please shut the door on your way out. I’ve got to make a phone call.”
Nerio had released Misha. He was sure of it. Earlier, he’d made the claim the hard-driven woman enjoyed playing with her food. However, what he couldn’t figure out