Out of the Black - Lee Doty [81]
Of course, he might have lost Kaspari too. They would hopefully know soon... whenever Dek got back.
He had gone to find him, rescue him possibly.
"Good luck, my friend." Ping said softly, closing the safe.
***
After the initial jump, Hawthorne didn't move; she knew the intruders had the drop on them. Mendez, lacking somewhat her finesse, or perhaps having a more pessimistic view on the intruders' intentions, went for his gun. Immobile, fascinated, Anne watched. He was fast! In one fluid movement, he dropped his Mega Slim Quick shake and drew his gun. The gun left its holster and extended toward the men at the door; his finger was already squeezing the trigger when the half empty shake can hit the floor.
Not fast enough. The intruders clarified their intentions somewhat by drilling Mendez twice. Ironically, Mendez's shot went wild, striking the ceiling, but Anne didn't think the guys at the Bureau were going to tease him about it. The two high velocity needles put him down hard, coloring the wall behind him red.
Hawthorne kept her passive game plan intact, but there was now fear available for view in her eyes, if not in the set of her face. At this opportune moment, Anne's x-deity, Fear, put in a final plea for her renewed oblations- half price paralysis, bonus regret.
Anne wasn't buying. She realized that she had a game plan too, or at least the new bee-juggling part of her did. She was moving. She came out of the chair, twisting away from the door, grabbing the back of her chair, swinging it like a thirty year old high school freshman swings a poodle-skirted co-ed in a sock hop movie. With a start, she realizes that both her legs are in the air. She's twisting, spinning with the chair through a 360-degree orbit, the ballerina she had desperately wanted to be as an awkward third-grader.
Her left foot reaches out for the floor and she lands, more panther now than ballerina. The chair leaves her hands as her right leg comes down before her. One of the invaders leaves the ground with a sickening chair-body crack. Bet he didn't think he'd be killed by a plastic chair when he woke up this morning, Anne thinks, already moving forward. She doesn't run directly toward the invaders, but at an angle that requires them to swing their weapons a few more degrees to track her. The dead man and chair still fly through the air, now heading earthward. Anne reaches the wall in mid stride, leaning away as her extended foot connects with the wall about a half-meter up. Anne pushes gently, but the wall still cracks. Her other leg comes up, and she runs along the wall, feet tearing into the sheet rock with each stride, finally finding purchase in the studs behind. She adjusts her gait to catch the recurring pattern of studs behind the shattering sheet rock. She doesn't have much time here, as her momentum into the wall is almost spent.
But she doesn't need much time- she's already above her prey. Trailing a plume of gypsum dust, closer to the ceiling than the floor, she realizes just how much trouble these poor killers are in. Their guns track her, firing, adding damage to the drywall, but no one can touch the bee juggler.
And then she's on them. Her assault comes from a thirty-degree elevation as she leaps off the wall above the doorframe. Her arms tangle with the first invader as she flies over him in a somersault. She lands on her feet, throwing him through a too-tight arc that is punctuated by three distinct cracks as the bones in arm, shoulder, and neck give before her torsion. The