As Charlie headed off to find an alternative entrance, Victoria met the eyes of each member of her team in turn. She looked at her closest friends—her brothers and sister—and smiled. They had been with her through thick and thin, and they’d follow her to the ends of the Earth. These were some of the most dedicated people she’d ever met—not to mention the most skilled. It was for this reason that she knew her team would succeed. Four mercenaries stood between her team and victory, and X-Ray refused to be stopped. They would do anything in their power to make sure that Mason had not died in vain.
“Ready?” was all she said.
Her team nodded their assent and checked their weapons. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew how to do it better than anyone else in the world. X-ray Team was widely known for their success, and the Company paid them well to be the best.
“Let’s do this,” she said, before breaking cover and running directly through the frame of the shattered window. Gunfire erupted from multiple weapons in front of her, but she was able to take cover behind a large potted palm, free from injury. Weapon in hand, she looked back toward her team. Kalani and McCoy were still outside, but Jen-Jen had made it to cover behind the potted palm opposite hers. Thankfully, she made it without being hit. She flashed a quick thumbs-up at Victoria before refocusing herself.
Thinking quickly, Victoria leaned out from behind the palm and fired off five quick shots, giving McCoy and Kalani the support fire they’d needed to reach cover next to Victoria and Jen-Jen.
“We’re in the shit now,” Kalani pointed out as a volley of return fire slammed into the planter and surrounding walls.
“Only way out’s through ‘em,” Victoria sighed, before slapping a fresh magazine into her pistol.
Kalani grinned and lifted his left pant leg. Attached to his ankle was a small cylindrical object, roughly four inches long and about the diameter of a D battery. He removed it and held it out to Victoria. She recognized it instantly, but had not known that he’d brought it along.
“Flashbang!” she whispered, laughing aloud in triumph—this was exactly what they needed to turn the firefight in their favor! “You big, beautiful Hawaiian bastard—I love you!”
Victoria energetically kissed Kalani on the forehead as she graciously accepted the small stun grenade from him.
Strangely enough, aside from the volleys of gunfire that had erupted from the Chaos mercenaries when X-ray Team had forced their way into the room, the lobby was eerily silent. There was no heavy breathing, no metallic clatter of weapons being checked or shouted threats—just deafening silence. Victoria found it slightly intimidating that her enemies could operate so smoothly under pressure; they had supreme self-control and a remarkable amount of training and experience.
X-ray could—and would—handle them; these mercenaries were still only mortal. Sure, Victoria’s team was loud, brash and unorthodox, but they always got the job done. Chaos Squad had been doomed from the moment they’d taken up arms against her team—they were just too confident in themselves to know it.
Jen-Jen and McCoy looked toward Victoria for orders and she held up a closed fist—the signal to remain in place for the time being. Victoria gestured again, indicating she would flank the enemy from the left after throwing the flashbang. Kalani would provide covering fire and McCoy and Jen-Jen would cut down the soldiers stunned by the blast—she didn’t need to explain this part; it was something her team had been trained to do. It was a tactic that had worked countless times in the past, and Victoria was confident that it would work this time—even against such well-trained opponents.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Victoria pulled the pin from the flashbang and held it in her hand. She knew that this particular nonlethal weapon had an internal five-second fuse, so she cooked the grenade for three seconds before throwing—a dangerous but effective way of guaranteeing that the intended targets wouldn’t have time to clear the area. After an internal three-count, she lobbed the grenade over the potted palm and it landed directly next to a pillar that she’d seen a Chaos mercenary take cover behind. Covering her ears and closing her eyes, she waited for the deafening blast of the stun grenade.
It came almost instantly—a loud bang resonating off every surface. To the unsuspecting victims, the concussive blast and blinding flash would effectively stun anyone within fifteen feet.
With no hesitation, Victoria shot to her feet and launched herself from cover, just as her team members opened fire on the mercenaries. Sliding across the smooth floor, she made it behind the lobby’s leftmost desk unscathed. It concealed a single mercenary, and his attention had been momentarily drawn away from her, toward the blast. Raising her weapon, Victoria put two rounds into the center of his back, knocking him from his feet and causing him to land face first on the hard floor. She heard her team’s weapons continuously barking from behind cover—and also heard the intense cry of agony as another Chaos member went down under the heavy fire rained down by her allies.
Sticking her head out from around the desk, she noticed that no attention was on her—the team had been successful at diverting the mercenaries and her flanking maneuver had, as far as she could tell, gone unnoticed. From her position, she could only see one Chaos member, but she couldn’t risk a shot from this distance—a miss would surely draw attention to her—so she decided that she needed to move closer. Suddenly, Kalani was at her side—taking cover behind the same desk.
Ignoring the big Hawaiian, Victoria once more took flight from cover, staying low and heading for the lone mercenary. At the last moment, the mercenary wheeled upon her and brought his weapon to bear. Fortunately, she was prepared for the move. Her sidearm already held before her, she squeezed off three shots mid-run—two missed wide to the left but the third punched a neat hole through the man’s upper chest. Dropping his weapon, the man clutched at his wound futilely, even as Victoria put a final round through his eye. Wasting no time, she slid into cover behind a pillar near the dead man. Ten feet from her new position, she spotted another mercenary lying in a pool of his own blood. Jen-Jen and McCoy had racked up at least one kill.
The lobby was silent aside from the sound of her final shell casing rolling to a stop on the floor. Had the four mercenaries all been killed? It was a possibility, but something made the hair rise on the back of Victoria’s neck. Something just didn’t feel right. She decided to hazard a look in the direction in which she assumed the final mercenary must be. What she saw caused her stomach to churn and bile to rise into her throat.
The final mercenary stood next to one of the potted palms with a pistol placed firmly to Jen-Jen’s temple. A second pistol swept the area, pinning Kalani and McCoy behind their respective covers. Jen-Jen looked livid, infuriated that she’d been caught. Looking closely, Victoria recognized the mercenary. It was Masters, one of the men who’d abducted Charlie the night before. Slowly, Victoria rose to face him. She leveled her gun at his head, the iron sights hovering over his eye.
“Everyone drop your weapons,” Masters demanded.
“Can’t do that,” Victoria called back.
“I’ll paint these fucking walls with her brains,” he threatened. “You want to lose another one? Drop your weapons. Now.”
From behind nearby Victoria heard Kalani and McCoy set their pistols on the floor. She knew that these men were determined to protect their friend, but she had no intention of letting this asshole gain any leverage. She kept her weapon raised, leveled directly at Masters’ head.
“She knows the risks,” Victoria bluffed. “Shoot her. But if you do, there will be no way out for you. It’ll be just like signing your own death warrant. You don’t want that—there are other options.”
“Fuck you,” he shouted, and cocked back the hammer on his pistol, pressing the barrel harder into Jen-Jen’s temple. “I ain’t rotting away in fucking Gitmo. Now, for the last time, drop your—”
Victoria shot him.
Masters’ head snapped back violently from the destructive impact of the .45 caliber slug and he went down hard on the floor, pistols skittering away in either direction. Jen-Jen looked shaken, but completely unharmed—Victoria’s gambit had paid off.
“Jesus, Vee!” Jen-Jen breathed, an involuntary shiver running through her body. “You could have shot me, you know that?”
“He could’ve shot you too,” Victoria offered, inserting her final spare magazine into her pistol. “Though I’d imagine that you like this outcome a little better.”
Jen-Jen sighed with great relief. The mercenaries in the lobby had been dealt with, and the conclusion was nearing. A great weight was about to be lifted from their shoulders, and the anticipation was so great that it was nearly palpable.
After making sure that all of the mercenaries in the room were dead—and that her team was not—Victoria hurried everyone to the large elevator that would carry them to their final destination. Victoria prayed that Charlie had survived his inevitable encounter with the last remaining mercenary. She willed the lift to move faster as the seconds ticked away at an agonizingly slow pace.