would be long gone before the DEA could get access. At worst, they’d blow it up and cave in half the town.
Everything had to go right and, for once, it did.
The Tesla directly across from the elevator was on remote and its DEA controller floored the accelerator. It collided with the van, forcing it back until its rear end dropped into the gap in front of the closing cover. At the same time, Flores leapt from the trunk, listening to the crunch of metal as the cover slammed into the rear doors of the van.
He sprinted to a predetermined position behind a pillar as the two men in the van struggled to open doors that had been jammed by the flex of the overloaded vehicle as it had dropped over the edge. The sound of distant screeching tires could be heard from above, suggesting his backup was on the way. Power should have already been cut to the passenger elevator leading to the garage and the lane down to this level would now be blocked by a Special Response Team.
“DEA! Put your hands where I can see them!” Flores shouted, aiming his weapon around the pillar.
There had been no way to put more men than him on this level. There were only so many 1970s Caddies you could pack into mall parking without someone taking notice. And while he agreed with that assessment, it didn’t do anything to make him feel less alone. Particularly when the men, instead of following his orders, hunched forward and reached for the floorboards.
Flores held his fire. Maybe they were just scared and dazed from the impact of the Tesla. They could be cartel enforcers, but they might also just be twenty-dollar-an-hour drivers. No need to have soldiers pilot your transport vehicles. In fact, it would be worse, right? They’d look suspicious.
Unfortunately, his theory fell apart when the men’s hands reappeared holding MP5s.
The weapon in Flores’s hand wasn’t what he would have liked. Something terrifying like the DEA’s Rock River LAR-15. Or maybe a Daniel Defense DDM4 with a sweet integrated suppressor and an oversize mag. Nothing shouts down on your knees like thirty rounds of .300 Blackout ready to rock.
Instead, he had a punk-ass grenade launcher filled with tear gas rounds. The first two shots went in quick succession, and he pulled down the full face mask he had riding on top of his head. The gas was made even more effective by the confined, poorly ventilated space. Within a few seconds it was already getting hard to see.
That didn’t bother the men in the van, though. They just started shooting on full auto through windows they’d unwisely rolled down. The haze around him lit up with the barrel flashes and Flores dropped to his stomach, covering his ears. Those assholes’ eyes and noses would feel like they were on fire by now and it would be getting hard for them to breathe. At this point, they wouldn’t be able to pick out targets smaller than a battleship if they were standing on a mountaintop on a clear day. He just needed to avoid getting tagged by a ricochet.
The guns went silent and he could hear shouting in Spanish as the men hunted blindly for fresh magazines.
Flores’s position on the concrete was right where he wanted to be but he couldn’t stay. His backup was going to come around that corner in a few seconds and by then the assholes in the van might have reloaded. If they weren’t deaf from the shooting they’d done already, they could aim by sound at the approaching car. Not high percentage, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get lucky.
Flores toggled his throat mike. “I’m going for the van. Don’t shoot me.”
He pulled his sidearm and ran through the gas mostly by memory. It took less than five seconds to make it to the van’s open window but he was having a hard time picking out what was going on inside. The click of a magazine being driven home made it fairly obvious and he slammed the butt of his pistol into the side of the driver’s head. He slumped unconscious onto the steering wheel and Flores aimed his pistol at the man struggling to get the passenger door open.
“Hands up, dickhead!”
The man froze, trying to decide what to do. There weren’t many options. He was out of ammo, blind, and his breathing was coming in choking gasps.
Flores’s backup came around the corner and skidded to a stop.