Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [344]
“Yes,” I said, “yes, I am.”
He gave a smaller laugh. “You’ll follow orders once we’re inside, yes?”
I sighed. “I’ll try.”
He shook his head.
“If I just say yes, it’ll be a lie, but I will do my utmost to do what I’m told. I promise.”
“That’s the best I’m going to get, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yep, unless you want me to lie to you.”
“No, truth from a federal agent is downright refreshing.”
“Well, then I am just going to be a breath of fresh air.”
He looked at me, shook his head, and started back toward the dry erase board. “Now that I do believe Marshal, that I do believe.” They went back to their briefing, and I went back to counting the minutes and wondering if there was going to be anything alive in the condo by the time we hit the door.
76
AT MY SUGGESTION they put the sniper where he could see the windows, not at the front door. One, we didn’t know what they looked like, so the sniper couldn’t just drop the people coming out the front. There might be law-abiding vampire citizens in the building, so the sniper couldn’t even just shoot vampires. If he could tell for dead certain they were vamps. Even I wouldn’t want to say yes or no on the vamp question through a scope. I mean, what if you’re wrong? High silver content, there would be no apology. But anyone that flew out of the windows of our condo, they would be bad guys, and the sniper could drop them with impunity. Green-light city.
The rest of us were huddled around the van. In the movies the van is sleek and roomy. In real life, it’s narrow, cluttered, and looks like a cross between a plumber’s van and the Good Humor truck, if it sold guns instead of ice cream. There wasn’t room for us and the guns. Hell, as empty as it got, most of us wouldn’t have fit. It was an equipment van, not a transport vehicle. I was still in the vest, even though I’d pointed out that nothing we were about to go up against would be shooting at us, and vests were useless for stabbing or tearing. I’d run into this before with both military and law enforcement. They just couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that the body armor, their best defense, didn’t help against someone that could crush steel. It was like going up against Superman, and thinking Kevlar would keep you safe. Finally, Sergeant Melbourne said what few special tactical units will ever admit out loud, “We’re using bullets. Bullets can ricochet, and we’d just feel better if we knew you were safe from friendly fire.” The microphone was integral to the vest and attached to a little earpiece, like the Secret Service wear. They showed me the button for the mike in the center of the vest, near your gun when you were holding it. They made sure the mike worked, someone patted me on top of my helmet, and I was good to go. Or as good as it was going to get. Not going in would have been the good thing, but the vamps had kidnapped that option away from us.
The woman they’d taken was Dawn Morgan, twenty-two, and had only worked at the club about three weeks. They had a picture of her up on their Web site and we’d all seen it. It was a publicity shot for a stripper bar, so we tried to look at her face. Brown hair, about shoulder length, and enough makeup that it was hard to really see her face. She was all blue eyes and red pouting lips. I didn’t ask if the men had a harder time looking at her face than I did. She was covered by hands and a few well-placed pieces of cloth, but the illusion was that more skin was showing than really was. Distracting, and meant to be. I’m sure if Ms. Morgan had been told she’d be kidnapped by murderous vampires, she’d have left us a nice, less glamorous face shot. But you just don’t plan for these kinds of things. We memorized the face of the hostage so we wouldn’t accidentally shoot her during the action. Yeah, that would be bad.
I think that if I hadn’t had my own dangerous toys to play with they would