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I did, however, hear the unmistakable sounds that the train was now moving,
not just rumbling back and forth as cars were switched and disconnected up
front.
That meant traffic would soon be clear, and there'd be an open run from town
to here and back again. This had already gone on longer than the shooter
figured, I
thought with confidence. He counted on maybe nabbing one clear, then keeping
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them pinned down until his partner could get to the room and finish the other
off, counting on the train to block both traffic and loud shots. Clearly they
hadn't expected third-party intervention, and particularly not
third-party-with-a-big-peashooter-of-their-own. At this point, our boy would
either have to run for it or come to us.
He was determined, that was for sure. I saw him now run down along the road,
carrying the rifle as bold as you please, and then run across to the nearest
block of units. He was pretty good, really; Uncle Sam had apparently shown him
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20G.O.D.%20Inc%201%
20-%20Labyrinth%20of%20Dreams.txt the proper way to do things with a rifle and
against hostile fire. Clearly he was going to come up in back of that block of
motel units, maybe all the way back to the tracks, then try and stalk them
and here I was without a weapon to my name.
I went forward, worried about Brandy but also having enough common sense to
realize that I had to act independently with what I had. I made my way around
to the motel office and found the door ajar. Inside, there was nobody, but the
switchboard phone had been ripped out and all the connector cords had their
plugs cut off. It was still connected, though; the thing buzzed like a
hornet's nest and there were four lights flashing.
Under the reception counter, however, I thought I found what I was hoping for.
Two buttons; one red, one white. If the phone lines were still connected, the
odds were that these were, too. I pushed them both, and bells and alarms
started going on all over the place. God bless Oregon for a strict fire code.
About thirty seconds later I heard a loud siren from off toward town; clearly
the fire alarm had triggered the volunteer signal, something I hadn't figured
on at all but didn't mind in the least.
Two cars with flashing red lights arrived within a minute, but they weren't
who
I expected. Both were white cars with security on them in big black letters.
These weren't from town; they were from the corporation. I didn't care who
they were. They had on plant-blue uniforms and they wore .38s. I went up to
the nearest of them.
"Two guys started opening up on the middle unit," I told them. "One from over
there, one from the end. The one at the end's been taken out, but the sniper
is moving up in back there and he has a scope!"
"Who're they after?" the private cop asked, drawing his weapon.
"Two guests and my wife are back there someplace, with one gun."
There was a sudden sharp exchange of fire from in back of the motel. I heard
the rifle go twice, and Brandy's magnum go three times, but it was hard to
tell the order and impossible to say who got who. They didn't wait, though.
One car went to each end of our middle unit and they got out, using the doors
as shields, acting like real pros.
Red and blue lights from a sheriff's car appeared, and it too roared up,
followed by a very large fire engine. I shouted for the firemen to get down it
was a sniper, not a fire then threw caution to the winds and ran back up to
the middle unit. Both rent-a-cop teams had moved in back, while the deputies
split to cover the rear of the two end units. I wasn't worried about myself,
but I was terrified as to what those shots might mean for Brandy. I suddenly
realized just how much I needed her.
It had been over, however, before the reinforcements arrived. As I went around
in back of the rental cops, I heard Brandy shout and then saw the cops move in
back and switch on their flashlights. I followed, and found the trio in the
culvert between the back of the motel and the tracks, with two of the company
cops now putting away their weapons and leaning down to help the wounded. Two
others were examining a form about twenty feet away.
Whitlock looked messy, but he really was pretty lucky. Most of the damage was
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nothing but superficial cuts from the motel window shattering. He'd been
nicked in the side but it wasn't much; he'd simply tried to make it out to the
car, and gotten trapped in the crossfire, playing dead because he was too
scared to move.
Brandy hadn't gotten the shooter; Amanda had a rifle, too, which I'd mistaken
for the hit man's shots. It just had a small, cheap, regular scope on it,
though, useless from inside the room at that distance and in the dark. Braced
here, though, with the hitter walking full-body toward her, she couldn't miss.
"We better get you up to the plant infirmary," one of the rental cops said to
Whitlock. "You all right for the car or should I call for the town ambulance?"
"I I can manage," he said weakly, and I was startled to hear his voice, which
was low, soft, but almost if not all the way into the female register. Close
up he looked smoother,. more I don't know, certainly not an ex-Marine, if you
know what I mean. In point of fact, seeing the pair now, close and off their
guard and not moving about, they did look damned near identical, but not in
the way I
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20G.O.D.%20Inc%201%
20-%20Labyrinth%20of%20Dreams.txt figured. It wasn't a case of her trying to
look like him; rather, it was he who was looking and sounding very much like
her.
I went to Brandy. "You all right?"
"Yeah, I think so," she managed, breathing a little hard. "It was pretty hairy
there, though, wasn't it? If you hadn't pulled that bit with the car lights,
we'd all been dead ducks."
We walked over to the dead hit man, and even Brandy's eyes weren't so bad that
she didn't give a little gasp and cry. This one was a real bloody mess, but
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