He held the extra rifle out to the girl.
“I don’t know how to shoot.”
“Point and pull the trigger. Anyone you see who is not in this group will want to kill you.”
As soon as she took it, he led the group down the hallway toward the loading docks. It wasn’t the closest exit, but he thought it would give them their best chance to get away.
The girl stayed with him step for step. After a few moments, she said, “You’re not the UN, are you?”
“No. No one here is.”
“The others who were locked up with us and taken out earlier?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
She was silent for several seconds. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t ask me that, either.”
Five yards ahead, another hallway branched off to the right. Terrell held up his hand, telling everyone to stop, then proceeded to the intersection alone and took a look around the corner.
Shit.
A couple of techs were standing outside a door maybe twenty feet down, drinking coffee and talking. Worse, a dozen feet farther down the hall, a guard was heading toward them on rounds. If it had been only the techs, Terrell and the survivors could have waited a few minutes and hoped the two men went inside the room. The guard, though, would come all the way to the end of his hall, turn the corner, and see them standing there.
Terrell leaned against the wall, unsure what to do.
Who’s more important? a voice in his head said. The three people in the hall who work for the organization responsible for more human deaths than ever in the history of the world? Or the innocents behind you?
He cursed to himself and then took a deep breath. Gripping the rifle in his hands, he pushed himself from the wall into the middle of the intersection.
The only one to notice him was the guard, but the man only had time for a puzzled look before Terrell squeezed the trigger.
The burst of bullets filled the hallway, cutting down all three men. Off to Terrell’s side, several of the survivors screamed.
“That way!” he yelled, waving down the hallway past him. “Go! Go!”
“What the hell was that?” Evie Ruiz asked.
The unmistakable sound of gunfire had come from the warehouse.
Alonzo Knox moved his binoculars back and forth as he examined the building. “Don’t see anything.”
“That wasn’t one of ours, was it?” She brought up her radio. “Blue One to all. Who fired that?”
Her three satellite teams all reported back that it wasn’t them.
“And none of you are receiving fire?”
None.
Had someone been doing target shooting inside the building? Seemed a little late at night for that.
As Evie started to bring up her own binoculars, more shots rang out, at least two different guns, maybe three.
“Sounds like a firefight,” Alonzo said. “Should we do something?”
Evie grimaced. They were supposed to do nothing until told otherwise.
She grabbed her pack and pulled the sat phone out of the main compartment. She hesitated a moment before punching in the quick-dial number.
“Ward Mountain.”
“Ruiz. Chicago.”
“This is Leon. Go ahead, Evie.”
“Think we might have a situation here,” she said.
“Explain.”
She told him what she’d heard.
“No visual sign of activity?” he asked.
“None yet. But I’m wondering if this is something that we should take advantage of.”
“Hang on for a sec.”
While she waited, she looked back at the building. She and her team had been given the task of creating a disruption at the survival station once they were given the go signal. It would be part of a coordinated effort with teams all over the world, so she was pretty sure what the decision was going to be.
When Leon came back on, he said, “We’d like you to hold for now. But keep monitoring the situation. If things change and you have enough time to report back, do so. Otherwise you are free to make the call. Just be sure to let us know as soon as you can after.”
The hold was what she’d expected, but the flexibility was not. “Got it,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
After she hung up, Alonzo said, “So?”
“For the moment, we wait.”
Terrell stayed at the back end of the group, constantly looking over his shoulder for the counterattack he knew would be coming.
“Where are we supposed to be going?” the girl shouted from up front.
“Loading dock. Straight ahead,” he said just loudly enough for those around him to hear.
They passed the message forward.
He was starting to think they might make it to the dock unmolested when a burst of bullets raked the wall only ten feet behind him. The shots came from a hallway they’d passed seconds before. He couldn’t see the shooters but returned fire anyway, hoping to keep them tucked back around the corner.
He chanced a look ahead, and saw that the girl was nearing the warehouse door. There shouldn’t be anyone on the other side but that wasn’t a guarantee.
“To the side,” he said as he ran through the group, arriving at the door a moment after the girl did. “I’ll check.”
He eased the door open and let his gun lead him through. The truck they used to transport the dead was backed up to the dock where they’d left it, waiting for its next trip. Otherwise, the area was empty.
“All right,” he said. “Quick. Into the truck.”
He held the door open as wide as it would go so they could pile past him.
“Get in the cab,” he told the girl. “The keys are in the ignition. Start it up. I’ll be right there.”
She nodded and took off around the side of the truck while the others climbed into the back. He couldn’t help but think about the fact the truck had been waiting for those people, only they weren’t supposed to be still breathing when they boarded it again.
After the last person raced by, he slammed the door closed and jammed a shipping dolly under the handle to slow down their pursuers.
As he was turning to run for the truck, bullets punched through the metal door. At first he thought a piece of the door had torn free and hit him in the back. He stumbled a few steps but righted himself. That’s when he realized he was bleeding, not only in back but in front, too. A bullet had passed through his right shoulder just below his clavicle.
He gritted his teeth against the pain as he hopped off the dock and moved quickly to the cab of the truck. He jumped on the running board outside the driver’s door and saw the girl in the passenger seat.
“You’re going to have to drive,” he said through the open window.
“What? Why?” Then she saw his shirt. “You’ve been hit.”
“You can do it. It’s an automatic. Pretty much like any car.” He motioned at the other end of the loading area, where the overhead cover ended. “Hang a left and that’ll get you to the main road. From there go south as fast as you can. There are several car dealers that way. You can’t miss them. There are trackers in this truck so you need to switch vehicles.”
“You’re not coming with us?”
“Don’t worry about me! You need to get out of here! Whatever you do, avoid big cities and any survival stations. Hurry!”
As she crawled into the driver’s seat, another salvo of bullets ripped into the metal door and flew through the dock, barely missing the truck.