Keeper Seeker: future chapter (spoilers!!)

gregory ducked behind the counter, clutching his benelli tight. he hunkered down next to me and shot me a crazy grin.
"open yer mouth and cover yer ears boy. it's about to get noisy."
i figured it was best to listen to the man with a gun whose barrel could swallow my finger. and so i opened my mouth and covered my ears. gregory opened his mouth and flipped a bright orange switch under the counter. 1

i don't know what the counter was made out of. i'd always thought wood. foolish me, i should have realized it was closer to reinforced concrete with 2" steel gilding and reactive armor. whatever it was, the cocktail of c-4 and claymores that eliminated the better part of the half block around the bar couldn't penetrate it. there were screams of agony that rose above the noise of the explosions. fireballs blossomed, and ball bearings cracked through the air, red hot and pushing the sound barrier. the buildings on either side collapsed with a roar, showering rubble on us as shaped charges shot the streetside walls outward like architectrual shrapnel.2

we moved before the dust had settled, creeping through the cloud of dust and rubble with guns up, eyes sweeping, nerves jittery. gregory led me toward the north end of the street. groans rose from the wreckage around us, cries of pain.3

"gregory," i whispered, "you just slaughtered your neighbors."
he chuckled, which seemed downright unfitting.
"i didn't kill anyone who didn't have it comin boy. my 'neighbors' as you call them, were all gone. see, i own every piece of property within four block of here. i let the people live in those houses for a bargain, on the agreement that when i tell them, they vacate immediately. when you came looking for those guns earlier, i called."4

"there's no way you could have known this was going to happen!"
"on the contrary m`boy. you wanted to make a point you said. with you, making a point always involves a few things: corpses, guns, explosions, and some angry people who want to get even. anoyone who wanted to get even with you would obviously have to hire an army, or else do some carpet bombing. so it seemed reasonable to batten down the hatches and load my toys."5

"oh god..." i whispered, "your guns... i'm so sorry."
once again, a chuckle.
"you think i'd evacuate my neighbors, people i barely know, and leave my babies to burn? hardly. i sent them to a secondary location about twenty minutes after you left the other day."6

Gregory should have been a boy-scout...