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Bunker called, her voice cool: “The bogie is across from the end of the guest wing... John, can you take him from where you are?”
Kaiser on the radio, said, “I got a bad angle and got cars in the way, I’ll have to come down there.”
Longstreet overheard and shouted back, “Stay where you are, cover our folks. I’ll take this guy.”
Kaiser: “Are you sure about that, Jane? I might be able to take him when he clears the cars...”
“I’m not sure he’s going to do that. He might try to kick the service door at the end of the guest wing,” Longstreet shouted. “I’ll take a look.”
“Careful.”
“Always.” She stepped over to a wastebasket and pulled out the plastic bag inside of it. There wasn’t much inside of it, but what there was weighed it down. She wrapped the top around her left hand and trotted through the entry wing, moving fast past the glass door, around the corner into the guest wing, where some of the very few guests were in the hallway, barefoot in jeans and sleepwear, and she shouted, “Get down, get down, active shooter.”
They saw the Beretta in her hand and most went to the floor, while one couple dodged back into their room. Somebody was screaming like a child might, high-pitched and spasmodic, but it wasn’t a child; Longstreet thought it might be a man.
Another man was moving up behind her, and when she turned, she realized it was Baxter. “Probably ought to stay back,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I will, but just in case you need something...”
She nodded. “Okay. Don’t come through the door, though.”
“I thought you had one of those Uzis,” Baxter said.
“I do, but I like my Beretta,” she said.
At the end of the hall, the door under a red exit sign was closedand locked from outside, but not inside. Longstreet had her Beretta in her right hand, next to her side, safety off, cocked, ready to fire. Taking a breath, she turned the doorknob with her bag hand, whispered to Baxter, “Steady, now, stay back...” then bumped the door open with her hip.
The Russian wasdown to her left, moving toward the door. She pushed out, carrying the bag, turned toward the Russian, who’d frozen when the door began to open. His right hand carried the Mini pointed at the door, and then in Longstreet’s direction, but not exactly at her.
She was a black woman, carrying a garbage bag, who’d stopped, open-mouthed, when she saw him. She registered his face, dark eyebrows, and he registered the garbage bag, and might have mistaken her for a member of the oppressed proletariat. He lifted his left hand and put a finger across his lips, signaling that she should be quiet.
Longstreet said to him,“Quiet, my ass,” snapped the Beretta up to hip height and as he began to react to the gun, shot him through the nose, directly below the lenses of the night-vision goggles he’d pushed up on his forehead. Not quite fast enough, because he’d been fast as well, pulling the trigger at the same instant that she had. A single nine-millimeter slug hit her at the side of her butt, two more in her midsection, and she went down.
Baxter, in the doorway, screamed, “No,” and reached out and grabbed her by her shirt and at the same time looked left at the Russian, who was on his back, not moving. Baxter dragged Longstreet into the motel and she groaned and said, “Sonofabitch hit me in the butt. Get Kaiser...”
Baxter ran to the end of the hall, where it turned to the office, and shouted, “Kaiser! John!”
Kaiser shouted back, “You okay?”
“Jane’s been hit. Bring your med kit.”
Kaiser disappeared for a minute, then came running down the hall with a medical bag. When they got back to Longstreet, they found her lying on the floor, wide-awake, looking more angry than hurt.
Kaiser helped her unhook her jeans, and armored vest, and then he and Baxter rolled her up on her uninjured hip. Kaiser pulled her underpants down to look at the wound, as a stream of blood ran down her hip. He said, “It’s through-and-through. You’re bleeding, but you’re not gonna die. You’re not even gonna limp, but we need to get you to the hospital in the next few days...”
“I... felt like I got hit in the gut,” Longstreet gasped.
Kaiser nodded. “You did. Right in the armor. You got two nine-millimeter holes in the front of your armor, but nothing coming out the back of it. You’re gonna have bruises, you’re gonna look like some asshole jabbed you with a pool cue a couple of times.”
Made her half laugh, but then she gasped and said, “It’s starting to hurt.”
“I got something for that.” Kaiser dug in the med kit and said to Baxter, “Go get some guys. Bring that old man’s, the night manager’s, cot down here, we’ll use it as a stretcher and move her over to the other wing, next to me.”
Baxter ran to do that, was back in a minute with Able and the cot. As they came up, Kaiser was putting an auto-inject syringe back in the med kit and said, “I’m killing the pain, she’ll be sleepy in a bit. Let’s move her.”
As he and Able did that, Baxter went to the outer door, openedit, and stuck his head outside. The Russian hadn’t moved; he was ten feet to the left. Kaiser called, “What are you doing?”
“Be right back,” Baxter said. He ran to the Russian, picked up the Mini Uzi by his side, yanked off the night-vision goggles, turned, saw a couple of Mini magazines poking out of pouches on the dead man’s vest, grabbed them, and ran back into the motel.
