Read Online The Nature of the Beast by G.M. Ford - Free Book Online

vision pulled his attention toward the nearest intersection, where a young woman was dodging cars and sprinting in their direction, crossing the four way stop at full gallop, reaching for something as she ran. Pointing. Shouting something he couldn’t make out. Instinctively, Jackson Craig reached for his weapon as the woman hurdled a curbside flower bed and rocketed in their direction.
    He moved quickly, stepping between Karen and the sprinting woman, pushing his sister to the ground with one hand while bringing his weapon to bear with the other. As he thumbed the safety off, her voice tore the air like a chainsaw.
    “Craaaaaaiiiig,” the woman running screamed. Pointing again.
    Craig snapped a look in that direction. Just in time to see what appeared to be a homeless guy drop something thick and red onto the sidewalk. In time to see the wicked looking Ingram dangling from the end of his arm.
    His blood began to eddy in his veins as he threw himself to the ground, covering his sister’s body with his own. Karen began to scream. The running woman got off a shot in the gunman’s direction before diving for the lawn in the half second before the Ingram filled the air with buzzing chunks of molten metal.
    The young woman did a barrel-roll across the carefully tended lawn, finding shelter behind a raised flower bed. Hardly a second passed before she propped herself into the prone position and began firing at the guy with the MAC10. Craig raised his own automatic just as a burst from the Ingram exploded the plate glass front of the Pasadena Oaks Care Center. He ducked his head, covering his cowering sister as it rained glass. Bells began to ring. Glass continued to cascade. In and around the building, three separate alarms were sounding simultaneously. Shouts of fear and panic could be heard above the clanging mechanical melee. Beneath him, Karen was shaking uncontrollably. “Easy. Easy,” he whispered.
    The guy with the machine pistol had ducked from view, disappearing between the solid line of parked cars on the far side of the street. Craig kept his weapon trained on the spot where he’d last seen the shooter, sweeping his eyes back and forth over the area, hoping to pick up any movement, a muzzle flash, a shadow…anything.
    And then without warning a second burst of automatic weapon fire blazed from directly across the street. The shooter was moving their way. A steady stream of automatic weapon fire churned the beauty bark above the young woman’s head, sending shards of bark spinning upward into the loam laden air. Craig watched as she covered her head and tried to push herself down through the soil as the ground around her erupted.
    “Stay down,” Craig shouted.
    The shooter skittered across the sidewalk in a lumbering crouch, firing intermittently as he moved along, before finally disappearing around the stone garden wall that comprised the suburban street corner.
    They waited. Nothing happened. More glass tinkled to the ground behind Jackson Craig. The young woman was lying on her back now. Reloading and looking to Jackson Craig for instructions. A siren whooped and wailed.
    Jackson Craig was speaking into his radio. “Shots fired.” He recited the address. “Federal Officers under fire,” he said. “Suspect armed with an automatic weapon. I repeat…suspect armed with automatic weapon.”
    As if on cue, the gunman poked the Ingram around the corner and let go another burst. Craig could see half a sweaty face as it peeked around the field-stone corner.
    He snapped off a shot. The edge of the wall burst to powder. Craig thought he heard the gunman yelp but couldn’t be certain.
    Several new sirens had joined the others. All of them moving in their direction.
    “Stay down,” Craig shouted again.
    She nodded her understanding and then rolled back over into firing position.
    “Special Agent Craig,” a hoarse voice sounded from within the building.
    The floor-sweeping half of the Secret Service