“
P
roblem?” Savage asked as he tucked the folder of papers under his arm and hurried toward the elevator. “What kind of problem?”
He froze when he heard the doors open a second before they came into view of it. His instincts clicked in and he had already reached for the gun tucked into his belt as the doors peeled apart to reveal the seven men who stood inside. All were armed with sub-machine guns and definitely seemed more than ready for a fight.
“That kind of problem,” he quipped and shoved Jessica into the living room of the apartment they’d just exited. His Glock was already clear of his belt and his fingers closed around the weapon smoothly to aim it at the men, who seemed almost as surprised to see him as he was to see them.
“Shit!” one of the team shouted as the operative pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening. The weapon kicked back into his hand as it always did, and three slugs rocketed into the cramped elevator before the occupants could get out and into proper cover. One of the bullets flew high, the second winged one of the targets on the left in the shoulder, and the third drilled into another man’s head, which snapped back, and a red hole appeared in his forehead. A spray of blood and brains stained the wall behind him.
The body fell noisily, but Savage knew his window of surprise was over. Pure instinct powered him back into the living room and into cover of his own as the air behind him erupted in a hail of gunfire a second after he’d left it. It was loud and chaotic, but he suddenly found himself in a place of peace. He could do this and had trained to do it for his entire life. If they intended to try to stop him, he would simply have to stop them first.
“It’s that fucking driver at the compound,” he muttered belligerently as he crawled to where Jessica currently sheltered. “I knew there was something off about that guy. He made me way too quickly. It takes one to know one, they always say, and in this case, they’re fucking right.”
“What driver?” she asked and winced and covered her ears as another volley of gunfire roared in the other room. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“This is my fucking fault,” Anja said through the earpiece. “I put the algorithm to only notify me for security people, but I never thought to put it in for drivers. I don’t know how Carlson knew about the loophole—or if he even did—but I should have kept a watch on the elevator. This is on me.”
“The both of you, shut up!” Jeremiah yelled over the ringing in his ears. “Anja, this is not the time for a fucking pity party. You find me a way out of this fucking penthouse right now, damn it!”
“On it,” she snapped.
“As for you.” Savage rounded on Jessica. He still shouted but only to keep his voice loud since he couldn’t hear much of anything over the sound of gunfire in the penthouse. “You need to get into the bedroom, get under the bed, and cover your head with your arms. Do you understand? Nod!”
She nodded like he told her to. There was a tone in his voice that immediately cut through the panic that threatened to rush through her body. She certainly didn’t feel calm, but she
now had a definite purpose. Something she could direct her attention to so that she didn’t succumb to the desperate need to scream her head off.
“I’ll cover you, but you need to be quick, all right?” He looked unnaturally calm—far calmer than Jessica felt as she watched all hell break loose in the room. The men remained protected and covered for one another with precise barrages that allowed them to move in closer without putting any of them in danger. Soon, the wall that formed a barrier against their bullets wouldn’t be enough.
“When I say move, you move. Got it?” Savage said and she nodded again before she eased toward the wall. The bedroom was across the open door through which the men would enter, and that would leave her vulnerable to their fire for a second. She paused and prepared herself. Savage’s arm dropped onto her shoulder and she realized how close she was to the doorway.
“Move—now!” he roared and thrust out from cover with his pistol ready. She wondered if he had anything to shoot at or if he simply covered for her as she scrambled across the aperture, keeping herself low as she made the most of the distraction he provided. One of their attackers was caught out in the open and immediately dropped when two slugs plowed into his torso. She didn’t have the time to see if he was dead or if he perhaps wore some kind of body armor, but after what felt like the longest second of her life, she was clear of the door.
“Bedroom. Go now!” Jeremiah commanded and shoved the file into her hands with enough force to make her stumble for a couple of steps. Thankfully, they were steps in the right direction, and she pushed into a sprint toward the bedroom.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and realized a second too late that the massive windows that she’d so admired for their fantastic view of the city also provided the
gunmen an unexpected advantage. The corner of the building created an L-shaped apartment. The windows in both the living room and bedroom were comprised of massive plate-glass panes—enough to give the shooters a clear view of her through the empty outside space.
One of them had noted it, seen her flight, and raised his weapon. She screamed as the glass showered around her when the slugs shattered the transparent barrier. It wasn’t an easy shot, she realized, not with two heavily reinforced windows between her and them and a fair amount of wind between. Somehow, though, the man behind the gun didn’t mind that he had to spray and pray that one of the bullets would find her. She sprawled full length on the plush carpet and examined herself frantically. Aside from a couple of cuts and abrasion from the glass, she was thankfully intact.
“Fuck!” Savage bellowed over the intermittent gunfire. She looked back to check that he was all right. He did the same and held her gaze for a moment, his expression grim. “Stay down and crawl to the bedroom! Keep going. You’re doing great.”
She wasn’t sure how she knew that he really didn’t mean the compliment. Still, she didn’t have time to wonder what he was up to. He spun back to the corner, his pistol gripped in both hands, and immediately opened fire. She heard no screams of pain or thuds, which told her clearly that things weren’t exactly going their way.
Why had she done this? Why had she been stupid enough to think that she could actually be a part of this? Admittedly, Savage would have still been stuck in this situation, but he wouldn’t have had to bother with keeping her safe. He could have simply barreled through them and not even had to kill everyone to get free and clear. All he had to do was reach a public place and they wouldn’t be able to continue their attack.
From the lobby, he could probably escape and vanish like
Batman or some stupid spy in those stupid thrillers she loved reading. Jessica breathed deep and looked around once she reached the bedroom. He still held his ground and quickly changed the magazine in his pistol before he resumed his barrage. The hammering her eardrums took as each of the unsuppressed shots exploded through them made her want to curl up, cover her ears, and pretend this was all nothing more than a bad dream.
She could do that…once she reached the bed. Focused again, she remained on her stomach and shuffled as quickly as she could while she ignored the fact that the cuts on her arms and legs left a trail on the carpet behind her.
What the hell did she know about spycraft? She shouldn’t have come. What did she know about breaking and entering? He had let her come because she had insisted. And, stupidly, she’d done that because she had some insane romantic thought that she could actually be useful. The reality was that she was in the way, though, and had to be saved over and over again. She didn’t belong there. Someone like her would be far more useful in a lab somewhere—or maybe helping their benevolent overlords, as Savage had called them, to track down where all the lab materials had been taken. Somewhere safe, in other words.
Somewhere that didn’t put her in a room being shot at and more of a burden than a help.
She continued to crawl and forced herself to keep moving even while the battle inched closer. Finally, she reached the bed—a massive, king-sized monstrosity that could have held fifteen people. There was more than enough room for her to hide under it, she realized, and eased herself into the space. On closer inspection, she noticed that the framing was all some kind of metal—maybe steel, maybe bronze—but hopefully something that would protect her from a hail of bullets that might make it through to the bedroom.
He was a quick thinker, that Jeremiah Savage. A bit of an asshole and someone who was annoyingly cool under fire, but he knew how to come up with solutions on the fly.
Jessica reached the dead center of the bed, give or take. She didn’t want to move anymore so she curled up and covered her ears as the gun battle continued. While she couldn’t tell if Savage was all right, at this point, part of her fought the need to curl up and stay there until it was all over. She wanted to be useful. It wouldn’t be now since she didn’t have a weapon of her own, but she could keep the file safe. That was her job. And if there was an opening that she could pull out of thin air, she would take it.