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Turning the crank with a sot the barrels to rotate The shells were drawn in and a half turn later began punching holes in the night Joe turned the weapon slowly and s to use up too much ammunition too quickly

“Lower,” Kenzo said

Joe tilted the weapon down and fired again, as the entire room filled with a cloud of blue smoke

• • •

KURT WAS halfway across the parapet when the first stuttering shots froun s out of the n below, a spread of bullets stitched a line in the water and across the bow of one of the speedboats

The driver gunned the throttle, turned the wheel and sped off into the dark At the saun fire into the atriurenade

With sustained cover fire hitting the building, the Gatling gun went silent Joe had been forced undercover, but Kurt had a shot He rose up, aier

The arms of the old weapon snapped forward and the bolt fleith surprising ease, but its feathers arped fro and turning like a badly thrown curveball Instead of hitting the h his foot

He cried out in pain and dropped the grenade He stretched for it and shouted, but his foot was nailed to the fiberglass His shouts were cut off as the boat erupted in flames

Men in one of the other boats spotted Kurt and began firing his way He dropped down behind the thick eed off the stone behind him

“One down, three to go”

• • •

JOE WAS on the floor, taking cover, when the explosion flared outside He crawled to theto get a look

The speedboats werethe castle walls and peeling back