Swords of Exodus [Dead Six 02] Read Online Free PDF

fine particulate mist seemed to hang in the space that he had filled. I fired down the narrow passage, dropping another pirate.
    “Magazine! Magazine!” Katarina shouted. I reached into my pocket and tossed one to her. She was at slide lock, gun empty, and barely looked up to catch the mag. She slammed it home, dropped the slide, and kept shooting.
    I dove behind a stack of boxes. Bullets zipped right through. Glass bottles shattered, splashing me with wine older than I was. There was only one more pirate on my side of the truck, and he was firing wildly, trying to retreat, to get away from us. He disappeared around the rear of the truck . . . only to reappear a moment later, falling head-first onto the pavement. The crack of a .223 echoed through the alley.
    The radio crackled. It was Carl. “Got him! Now hurry up. There’s more coming. It’s like a fucking pirate convention out here.”
    “Clear right!” Katarina shouted. I pulled the last mag and reloaded without thinking.
    “Clear left. Let’s go.” The worker who had been shot was still moving, but he wouldn’t be for long. Blood was welling from his chest in great violent gouts. He was lying on his back, hands twisted into claws, blood flowing from his mouth as he coughed. His dark eyes were open, staring at the buzzing fluorescents, seeing Allah, or Buddha, or Vishnu, or who knew what in this country.
    Standing over him, gun dangling loose in my hand, I froze. I had seen this hundreds of times, and didn’t know why this hit me. He looked right at me, and extended a hand, probably wondering why I wouldn’t help him, wondering why he hurt so bad, why his heart was pumping blood out of his chest instead of to his brain . . .
    “Lorenzo! Let’s go!” Katarina shouted.
    The old lady with the headscarf pushed past, oblivious to danger, oblivious to the stranger with the gun. She fell at the young man’s side, cradled his head in her hands, and began to scream. He was already dead.
    “Murderer!” she shrieked in Malay.
    “But I didn’t kill him,” I said in English, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was trying to stop the bleeding that had already stopped forever.
    “Lorenzo!” Katarina shrieked. I snapped out of it and ran for the exit.
    The next hour was a blur. There were more of Keng’s men in the alley. And I killed them as I had killed so many before. The cops arrived, and Carl eluded them by driving like a madman through the streets of KL. Nobody could catch Carl, nobody.
    All I could think of was that old woman with the headscarf. Murderer . . .

    Dawn found us at a safe house in the Malaysian countryside. We pushed the van with bullet holes into the lake. Datuk Keng was dead. Big Eddie’s work was done.
    The new guy, Reaper, may have been young, but he’d done well. Carl had cracked open a beer and was sitting on the couch, surly as usual. Train was his usual jovial, goofball self. A nerdy computer kid, my best friend the angry mercenary, and a mountain of muscle with a teddy bear’s heart. This was my crew, this was my family. They did this for me. They were watching the news coverage about what the local authorities were calling the Independence Day Massacre.
    I left the room, wanting to be by myself. Carl studied me as I walked away. He knew me better than anybody, and I had no doubt he knew what I was about to do. I watched Katarina through the window as she paced back and forth on the lawn. She was on her cell phone, giving details to Big Eddie’s representatives. She was dressed down now, just wearing normal clothing, not made up at all, and even then I had to admit that she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever known, and fun, and amazingly smart, talented, pretty much everything I could ever want.
    Too bad she was evil.
    I overheard Reaper whisper to Train. “A massacre? Man, that was crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that before . . . How many people have you guys killed?”
    “That’s a stupid question,