Standoff: A Vin Cooper Novel by David Rollins Page B

ripped into his buddy’s thigh and groin. I felt the impact of the absorbed rounds jumping through the man’s hand and into my own as he screamed.
    The Sheriff’s cruisers skidded to a halt in the gravel behind me and the doors flew open.
    “DROP THE WEAPON!” a man shouted.
    This time I wasn’t going to argue. I twisted the Sig and felt the weight come off it as the man fell away to the ground and kept up with his screaming.
    “On your knees!” the shouting continued. “Hands where I can see ’em!”
    He meant mine, so I put my hands behind my head, interlocked my fingers and got down on my knees, like I’ve made folks do a hundred times. He didn’t know that I was one of the good guys, and opening my mouth now in this highly charged situation might get me shot.
    The deputies felt confident enough to approach, and rushed at me with their weapons raised, one either side of me.
    “I know this guy,” said a woman.
    I recognized the voice. It was Deputy Basketball.
    “He’s OSI,” she said.
    “What the fuck’s that?” replied the guy who seemed in some kind of command.
    “OSI – United States Air Force,” I answered.
    “Shut the fuck up,” he said. “Who asked you?”
    “I’m gonna get my ID,” I replied. “It’s in my back pocket.”
    “You ain’t gonna do shit. Don’t fuckin’ move. Not a fuckin’ muscle.”
    I heard more voices through the radio in one of the Sheriff’s vehicles.
    “What are you doing?” the boss behind me wanted to know.
    “Calling this in, sir,” came the reply.
    BRRRAAT!
    Automatic fire.
    I turned in time to see the deputy in the car lose the side of his head and slump sideways out of the car, toppling onto the dirt. The shooter was the guy giving the orders, a Sheriff’s deputy. He had one of the MP-5s, and he was bringing it round, looking for more targets. He found one.
    BRRRAT!
    Deputy Wilson’s mouth was open. I watched her fall down dead, one of her eyes a black hole.
    BRRAT! BRRAT!
    The weapon discharged a couple more times, but I didn’t see who wore the rounds as, at that moment, I was diving between the wheels of the trailer. I crawled forward as fast as I could, my hands, knees and feet kicking up the dust. What the fuck was going on? I asked myself. I didn’t need to think too hard about that to come up with an answer. In the trailer above me was over a hundred million dollars’ worth of reasons.
    I scrambled out from under the chassis and crossed beneath another one beside it, went forward and crossed again, putting as much distance and metal as possible between me, the killer and his Heckler & Koch.
    A flashlight beam swept beneath the trailers. “You can’t hide forever, asshole,” the rogue deputy called out. “Gonna be just you and me out here for another ten minutes at least.”
    A burst of automatic fire exploded and a spray of jacketed rounds rattled and pinged off heavy metalwork somewhere nearby. The deputy was firing randomly, spraying the shadows beneath the trailers, hoping for a low percentage shot to take care of business.
    “You a cop killer, Mr OSI!” he shouted into the night. “Ought’a be ashamed of yourself. They gonna hunt you down, gonna kill you right back for what you done here.”
    I crawled out from under the trailer and rolled beneath its neighbor as another burst of machinegun fire shredded the quiet. The flashlight beam played beneath the trailers was reaching out for me, its thrust blunted in a brown halo of dust. I sat with my back to a tire and caught my breath, each exhalation a hoarse wheeze, my throat constricted and raw, coated by the same fine dust diffusing the flashlight beam. I coughed to clear my throat, spat on the ground and sat there for a minute, listening, the noise of my thumping heart obscuring almost everything. I looked down at my hands and saw the Sig cradled in my left. I couldn’t think when I’d had the opportunity to grab it. I’d been lucky, the weapon’s weird design foible saving