Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [18]
It seemed he’d miscalculated on several fronts.
Carlos turned back to the open door on the side of the Darkwing, which was now looking down at an office building roof.
The roof had a small stairwell access, and that door was open. Carlos saw two people, a man and a woman, rushing toward the door from the stairwell.
When the man made it through the doorway, he slammed the door shut behind him.
The man clambered over the far rooftop cornice out of sight. Perhaps there was a fire escape down there he could use—or maybe he just planned to climb down the façade.
Then the door burst open, and the woman ran out, quickly followed by a sea of zombies.
One of the things that had concerned Carlos in the briefing was whether he’d be able to tell someone who was alive from someone who was undead.
He no longer had that concern. Even from this distance, it was fairly obvious that the woman was very much alive and her pursuers were very much not.
Putting his hand to his ear, Carlos said to the pilot, “Lipinski, take us down!”
Lipinski’s voice sounded in Carlos’s earpiece. “I can’t.”
Carlos wasn’t about to put up with this. “Take us down!”
“Wind shear’s too strong! I’d lose the chopper!”
“Goddammit.” He was not about to let that woman die.
Carlos reached under the bench and pulled out a high-tensile cable. He clipped one end to his belt, and handed the rest of it to his second-in-command. Nicholai still had a grim look on his face.
Of course, the big man always had a grim look on his face when they were on duty. Carlos knew it was an affectation. For whatever reason, Nicholai was determined to live up to the stereotype of the pessimistic Russian. He even retained his thick accent, even though he and his family had emigrated to the United States when he was three.
It certainly had an effect on the people under his command. They responded to him, his accent, bearing, and size making him more fearsome than even Carlos—no slouch himself at intimidation when he put his mind to it.
But Carlos had also seen Nicholai’s true colors, which usually came out after you got a vodka or six in him. Then his shirt became untucked—in fact, you could measure how many vodkas he’d had by how far his shirt had come out of his pants—his accent wavered, and he smiled. Sometimes he even laughed.
“Tie me off, Nicholai.”
Nicholai certainly wasn’t laughing now. “What?”
Carlos didn’t bother to answer. He just unholstered his twin Colt .45s and leapt out the side door toward the roof.
He was not going to let that woman die.
Nicholai’s booming voice sounded both in his earpiece and over the noise of the Darkwing’s rotors. “Carlos! Jesus Christ!”
The wind pounded into Carlos’s face, the roof getting closer and closer. For a second, he was worried that Nicholai wouldn’t actually tie him off.
Then he heard the cursing in his earpiece—it was in Russian, and the only distinct word Carlos picked out was “chyort”—and he knew all was well.
Before the line even went taut, Carlos started shooting. The Colts kicked against his wrists with each shot, but the bullets found their marks, taking down one zombie after another.
The line went taut about six feet above the roof. It felt like someone had gut-punched Carlos, but he ignored it. Pausing just long enough to hit the quick-release on his belt, Carlos fell the rest of the way to the roof, landing squarely on his feet.
Ignoring the shooting pains that his landing briefly sent up his calves, he recommenced shooting, the reports of the Colts drowning out the Darkwing’s rotors and the litany of Russian profanity in his earpiece.
Both Colts clicked empty at the same time. At that point, the only people left standing on the roof were Carlos, the