Chris looked at Hannah.
“I’m the same as Chris on this one,” she said. “I’ll try to get rid of it, but I won’t do a suicide leap.”
“So if either of you get to the explosive first,” he summarized, “you’ll chuck it. If I get to it first, I’m going to jump on it. That’s our SOP.”
Chris was impressed with Sonny — there wasn’t even a hint of bitterness or sarcasm in his voice — and he was a little embarrassed, too, but at least he was honest. When Chris was in his early twenties, he made his first deployment to Iraq. He was part of an overwatch when a terrorist lobbed a grenade into their sniper hide. One of his Teammates jumped on the grenade just before it exploded, saving the guys but killing himself. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Sonny was that man.
Chris and Hannah nodded in agreement. He cleared his throat, the dryness of it uncomfortable. “Man, I could go for some cold water.”
Sonny turned to Chris. “Me, too. Get us some ice, bitch.”
Chris stayed seated. “I was going to, but since you put it that way, I’m thinking warm water would taste better.”
“So sensitive.” Sonny forced a smile. “Okay. Do you think you could get us some ice? Please?”
Chris chuckled. “Yeah. I think I could do that.” He stood, picked up the ice bucket, and headed out.
He walked down the hall looking for an ice machine but found none, so he headed downstairs to try the floor below. He spotted it, filled the bucket, and then exited the floor.
As he headed back upstairs, he saw the young woman with the easy-going smile and light-brown hair: Xander’s daughter, Evelina. He wanted to slip out of the hallway to remain covert, but he was between floors. There was no immediate exit, and she’d already spotted him.
Shit!
She smiled. “What a surprise!” Evelina seemed to jump up and down without leaving the stairs.
Although he wished he could disappear, he acted as if he was happy to see her. “Yes, quite!”
She stepped down the stairs, moving closer. “We were lucky to find a hotel. I told Animus there were nice ones farther out, but he insisted on this area. This was the only one that still had vacancies.”
Chris had already assumed she was with Animus, but now she’d confirmed it. He was happy to have found Animus, but she would soon tell him about this encounter, and he would alert Xander they were closing in on him.
“Are you here for the international symposium?” she asked. “They said that’s why most of the hotels were booked.”
“Work,” he said.
She took a step down, closer to him. “Are you alone?” she whispered, her voice smoldering.
He didn’t want to give away the presence of Hannah and Sonny. “Right now I am,” he said, leaving wiggle room to change his story later. But now he had to figure a way to keep her from alerting Animus.
“Can we go to your room?” she asked softly, almost nervously, as if she were at the top of a high dive preparing to take her first plunge.
He knew she was playing him. She probably played Michael Winthrop, too. Chris’s head spun faster and faster, spinning out of control. Feeling off-balance, he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Evelina hesitated. “I know we hardly know each other.” She dropped her bucket, and it bounced to Chris’s step before rolling behind him. Her hand caressed the front of her skirt, her fingers moving down below her waist. As her hand stroked her thigh, her wrist pulled up the lower hem of her skirt.
Right here? In the stairway?
This was getting out of control. He could knock her unconscious here, but then he’d have to drag her back to his room and someone might see them. It would be better to invite her to his room and wrap her up there. “On second thought, going to my room sounds like a great idea,” he said.
When he saw she had something in her hand, he couldn’t mentally process what was happening. He felt like he was outside of his body watching himself as she drew a Walther PPK .380 from a thigh holster.
Without thinking, his shooting hand had already clawed his shirt up his right hip, and the web of his hand closed high on the pistol grip. His adrenaline jacked through his arteries, accelerating his thoughts so fast the rest of the world seemed to decelerate.
As she brought her weapon up, she kept it close to her body so he couldn’t bat it away.
Although he knew this might be his last gunfight, he focused on popping his pistol out of the holster. When the muzzle broke free, he rotated it until his hand, wrist, and arm came into alignment. Close enough to feel her breath, there was no need to aim — no time. Just squeeze.
Her eyes widened and her mouth twisted, as if surprised at how quickly and brutally the first shot had struck her gut. And she had no time to react to the second shot. As she stood frozen on the step above him, Chris brought his muzzle up and squeezed again, sending a final round up through her lower jaw, through the roof of her mouth, and into her brain. She fell forward, almost as if she were still alive and expecting him to catch her, but he sidestepped, letting her drop. He turned and saw her body strike the steps with a thump before sliding to a stop, making a part of Chris cringe.
The surprise, speed, and violence of the moment astonished his thought processes, almost paralyzing him, and his hearing had become fuzzy. It might’ve been the effects of the adrenaline, but adrenaline usually had the opposite effect on him, making his hearing keen. The more likely source of his hearing loss was the mind-joggling noise of shooting in the narrow confines of the stairwell. At least the deafness was temporary.
The stairs below were covered with sparkling ice cubes, and two gray buckets lay at the landing. The adrenaline dump had helped him focus on survival, but the same adrenaline seemed to have shut out most everything else. Gradually, the pinhole of his senses expanded. There was a mess to clean up, and he’d made a lot of noise. His fingerprints were on the ice bucket, which was now missing from his room, and there was a dead body on the stairs. He had to get out of the immediate vicinity before someone identified him, or worse, the police arrived. But first he needed to search her for intel. Doing so, he discovered a cell phone in her jacket and pocketed it.
Then Chris climbed the steps, and just before he reached the exit to his floor, he heard hurried footsteps above him getting louder and louder.
Animus stood at the top of the next flight of stairs with his pistol drawn. “Evelina!”
Chris had already aimed at Animus, but the adrenaline made his hand jitter. Animus stepped to the side, and Chris followed him with his sights. He jerked the shot, causing the projectile to strike wide and miss. Damn!
Suddenly, the intimate puff of wind on the side of his face created a sensation he’d experienced in combat before. The velocity of the incoming round created shock waves behind it, which crashed into each other. Pop!
In the chaotic swirl of combat, Chris hadn’t heard the report of the handgun, but the pop of the mini sonic boom was unmistakable. Animus was still moving his pistol to bear on Chris, so the shot had to have come from someone else. Although he guessed the unknown shooter’s location was somewhere above Animus, Chris didn’t know exactly where. And if Chris stayed to fight Animus, the other shooter might succeed in making his next shot count.
The passageway leading to Chris’s floor was the closest, but he didn’t want to lead Animus to Hannah and Sonny, so he spun around and headed downstairs. In the same moment, a flurry of lead blasted the hallway. If he hadn’t turned around and headed the other way when he did, Animus and the other shooter would’ve nailed him.