Hayden rolled onto her good hip, grimacing as pain shot through her wounded side, and slipped her gun out. Before she could aim, she heard the loud report of gunfire and glanced across to see Dahl already shooting. Belmonte was on his knees behind Dahl.
Hayden saw one of the combatants spin around as a bullet took him in the shoulder. She fired at the other, creeping forward as she did so. Her bullet struck his helmet, flipping him backward. Dahl fired again, but another of Gates’s secret service agents cried out.
Blood sprayed from his neck, showering Hayden.
The CIA agent loosed more bullets. Both combatants were now down. Belmonte was screaming.
Was he hit? Hayden wondered. Gates was barely moving, but then his last surviving bodyguard was pinning him tightly to the ground.
“Evac!” the guard shouted. “It’s a fuckin’ ambush!”
Even now, Hayden could hardly believe her eyes. Had Russell Cayman, a DIA agent, just tried to take out a US senator? Where was the psycho getting his orders? Or was this some other kind of terrorist plot? Either way, they were screwed.
A high, keening sound preceded the impact of something big against the side of the building. Hayden suddenly realized this was far from over and hit the deck.
“Cover!”
A huge explosion shook the building to its very core. Behind them, the elevator shaft groaned and shuddered. Hayden saw the elevator buckle out of shape. In another second, it shook and seemed to hang at a precarious angle.
“No way out,” she whispered.
“Yes!” Belmonte suddenly shouted. “Yes there is. There’s a freight elevator on the other side of the building.” He pointed across the expanse of the devastated room. “Across there.”
He stood up, Emma cradled in his arms.
Tears shone in the thief’s eyes.
Hayden gasped. “Is she? Is she…”
“Dead,” Belmonte said quietly. “Yes, she is.”
Gates threw his bodyguard off. Dahl gauged the ground they’d have to cover to make the freight elevator. “Run the gauntlet,” he said. “It’s the only way. And quickly.”
“Do it!” In close formation they ran, Hayden, Kinimaka and Dahl on the outside, guns drawn and aimed at the shattered windows. Gates, Belmonte with Emma in his arms, and the last secret service agent on the inside. As they passed by the windows, a great flash preceded the launch of another rocket. This one impacted where they had been a few moments before, destroying the elevator shaft.
They all managed to keep their feet, scrambling and struggling on. A barrage of gunfire blasted through the holes in the side of the building and they found themselves actually running a gauntlet of hot lead. Hayden felt something flash by her temple like a heated breath of air and another rip apart the hem of her jacket. Dahl grunted as something nicked an arm, but still managed a crazy laugh.
“Move!” he shouted.
“Who the hell are these people?” Hayden yelled.
Bullets zinged around them, a forest of whistling death. A third rocket exploded against the side of the building and something inside its structure suddenly lurched. Hayden crabbed sideways for a second. The last secret service agent caught a round in the thigh and collapsed in their wake. Dahl reacted instantly, grabbed him, and hauled him through the destruction.
Hayden ran beyond the edge of the last window. The rest of the team sprinted behind her, reaching safety without any more casualties. Gates reached out to press the elevator’s call button, but paused in uncertainty.
“Call it,” Dahl said. “But we’re going down the stairs.”
“And quick,” Hayden said. “Even Cayman’s plan B has a back-up plan, it seems. If Cayman’s behind this.”
“Too convenient not to be,” Gates muttered. “Boy, does he have a god complex. I’ll see his ass burn in jail for this.”
“Those bloody alarms are pissing me off,” Belmonte said. Hayden guessed he wasn’t used to hearing them.
“No. It means people will be evacuating,” Dahl told him. “A good thing.”
“I don’t get it. Cayman’s American government,” Hayden said. “Like us. CIA. DIA. Doesn’t matter what agency you belong too, we all serve the same boss.”
Gates eyed her. “I’m guessing not.”
More gunfire erupted behind them, the walls getting shot to crumbling confetti.
“You think those crazy rumors about an elite group directing the world governments are true?”
“I’m betting my career on it. And my life too, it seems.” Gates looked back at the dead agents. “There has been too much death around me lately.”
“Maybe you should take a break.” Hayden followed Dahl as he pushed through the exit door and began to head down the concrete staircase. At that moment, from the room behind her, came a deep roaring blast, the kind of noise that doesn’t just frighten a person, it evokes a feeling of such intense terror it might stop a heart between beats.
“Bomb!” Dahl cried. “Oh God, run!”
They ran for their lives. The deep, ominous sound of girders shattering and load-bearing walls collapsing stung their ears. A terrible rumble preceded the ceiling collapsing behind them, and just for a second, for one mortal heart-stopping instant, Hayden saw the entire room begin to tilt and shift.
The skyline was moving. The entire top floor of the building was shearing off!
They pounded down the stairs. Gates tripped and began to roll, but Dahl twisted in mid-flight, scooped the US Senator up and flung him over a shoulder without losing more than a stride.
A supersonic mass of glass, concrete, brick and plaster exploded in all directions, shattering the windows of surrounding skyscrapers and blasting debris across the entire block. A deadly heap of shale slid away from what was left of the top floor and plummeted to the ground, trailing dust and shards and chunks of wreckage. The heap shattered against the parking lot below, sending out a plume of crushed rubble. Tiny fragments of waste fluttered away in the wind.
Hayden heard it all. They all heard it. The roar of the explosion and its aftermath was like a charging dinosaur on their heels. Smoke billowed around them and it was all they could do to see the way ahead. Shards of the wreckage, compressed by the collapse of the roof and then sent ballistic by the explosion, speared past faster than bullets.
Belmonte almost dropped Emma’s dangling body, but caught it and went headlong for half a flight of stairs before arresting his fall. They raced down the stairs without pause, without feeling even a hint of fatigue until they reached the lobby.
Dahl took a moment. “Everyone alright?”
The agent he had saved groaned.
Belmonte glared at him. “Fuck off, you toffee-nosed twat.”
Dahl let it go. He surveyed the parking lot and roads outside the lobby, then turned to Hayden. “His men will be out there.”
“I know. But there’s no other way.”
Dahl spared a dispassionate glance for Belmonte. “If they give chase, you’ll need to leave her behind. Or die with her.”
The Swede stepped through what was left of the front doors. A thin cloud of dust swirled around them as they moved carefully into the parking lot. Hayden glared, practically stripping the paint off cars and the facades off buildings, such was the intensity of her appraisal. Kinimaka, as ever, walked beside her and Torsten Dahl positioned himself out front — the target man, as always. Civilians stood outside, coughing and staring, dumbstruck. Ambulances wailed and flashing cop cars were arriving on scene.