Damien moved back to the door, closed and locked it again.
‘You wouldn’t by any chance have a door stopper in your pocket?’ Damien said, running past him to a circular wooden and marble table.
‘Yeah, everywhere I go,’ Jay spat.
‘Didn’t think so.’
Damien dragged the heavy table across a soft rug, screeching along the marble floor, and shoved it firmly against the door. He was thankful it opened inward. What he wasn’t thankful for was the tuxedo not allowing them to carry a tourniquet.
Jay was on his feet again, wincing.
‘Can you move?’ Damien said, starting for the entrance to the day spa.
‘If I want to stay alive I probably should, so yeah,’ Jay said from behind him.
Good, Damien thought. There really was only one solution to this, and that was to get out of this building. Secondary to that was tending to Jay’s wound. Although Jay would argue that secondary was getting hold of their pistols and, more importantly, the rest of their kit. They’d left that, of course, in another hotel. By now Jensen had probably sold it all.
Chapter 18
Sophia pulled the black combat pants over her jeans, part of the uniform they’d stripped from the bound soldiers in the SUV. She slipped the kneepads over them.
‘I’m guessing you had no clue I was in the back of that SUV,’ Nasira said.
Sophia could see Nasira relacing the paracord on her sneakers in the adjacent toilet cubicle.
‘I don’t have X-ray vision so no,’ Sophia said. ‘How did you end up in there?’
‘Long story,’ Nasira said. ‘Short version is I got lifted in Peru by Blue Berets and brought back here. They stowed me in that SUV.’ She paused. ‘I’m guessing you were the crazy bitch who crashed into us around that roundabout.’
‘It was a traffic circle,’ Sophia said. ‘And maybe.’
‘Yeah, I lost my handcuff key when you did that, thanks,’ Nasira said. ‘Next thing I know the SUV pulls up in Times Square and the masked boys pile out.’
‘They were after me,’ Sophia said. ‘Or at least making sure I didn’t get in their way.’
Nasira tapped a Glock under the cubicle wall for Sophia to see. ‘Cops find me a minute later.’
‘Donated their weapons?’ Sophia said.
Nasira laughed. ‘That’s all they donated,’ she said. ‘Can’t shoot accurately with this, trigger pressure too heavy. Don’t know how those cops shoot straight.’
‘They don’t,’ Aviary said.
‘Great,’ Nasira said. ‘Tried to take their mags but all they had in their pouches were cigarettes. Better than nothing I guess.’
Sophia reached for the tac vest and zipped it over her T-shirt. Public bathrooms were difficult to find in New York so Aviary had taken them to the NYU Midtown Campus, two blocks from Times Square.
The campus was mostly abandoned by now so they didn’t have to worry about blending in. As for the soldiers, they’d left them bound in the SUV. She knew they’d eventually escape, but she’d rather that than have to kill them.
‘Half of New York City has already evacuated,’ Aviary said from her cubicle.
‘Evacuated what?’ Nasira said.
Sophia heard her light a cigarette.
‘Hurricane,’ Aviary said. ‘Big one. Coming right for us.’
‘Hurricane?’ Nasira said. ‘Are you shitting me?’
‘Just looking at the news feeds now,’ Aviary said.
‘Fifth Column behind the evac?’ Nasira said.
‘Hard not to be,’ Sophia said. ‘Operatives crawling the island.’
Aviary tapped her phone against the cubicle door. ‘We can track them now!’
‘Good for you, kid. So why did Blue Berets steal something from operatives?’ Nasira said. ‘That doesn’t even make sense — they’re all Fifth Column. Someone gone rogue? Insane, maybe?’
‘We don’t even know if they were Blue Berets,’ Sophia said. ‘But there were a lot of operatives on the map. Nine.’
She heard Nasira whistle as she holstered her own Glock on her belt and finished lacing her sneakers. They were black and she preferred them over the soldiers’ combat boots. She stepped from the cubicle with her stolen M4 carbine to find Nasira already waiting. In addition to Sophia’s and Nasira’s Glock 17 pistols, they each had an M4 now.
Nasira was checking over hers. ‘Not bad,’ she said, cigarette in hand.
The M4 was modified to some degree, resembling an M4A1 SOPMOD — Special Operations Peculiar Modification.
‘What are you thinking?’ Sophia said.
‘From the chatter in the SUV, I’m guessing Blue Berets,’ Nasira said. She expelled a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. ‘Special forces at least.’
‘Normally issued MP5s though,’ Sophia said.
‘Yeah, they’re accurate as fuck but they have the stopping power of a water pistol,’ Nasira said. ‘Pistol rounds though, what do you expect?’
Sophia knew that in an urban environment like this, it was likely they would be issued something with a bit more range. ‘They had the Magpul PDRs at the OpCenter in Denver,’ she reminded her.
The futuristic looking Magpul PDR was an ultra-compact bullpup-style carbine that Sophia thought had never made it into production. Perhaps the Fifth Column took over manufacture and produced it internally.
‘Then I have no fucking idea,’ Nasira said. ‘But I’m glad we have a few.’
Sophia inspected the modified Colt M4A1 in her hands. Many of the modifications operatives like her had made to the M4 had soon filtered down to the Special Forces inside the Fifth Column. It came as no surprise to her that these carbines they’d stolen from the Blue Berets were almost identically modified to her own back in Project GATE.
They weren’t the Lewis Machine & Tool M4A1 carbines specifically designed for Project GATE’s operatives; those were both expensive and staggering in their attention to detail. But the Colt M4A1 was versatile and reliable, and she was happy to have it.
This M4 had a flat top receiver, no carry handle. Replacing the plastic hand guard, an aluminum M1913 rail for attaching optics and low profile iron sights. It wasn’t her preferred rail but it would do the job. The fixed stock had been replaced with a collapsible stock. While the fixed stock was stronger and simpler, it was never the right length for close quarters or varying loadouts. Again, not her favorite, but it had a rubber buttpad that made it stable and comfortable to shoot.
The optics were x1, which did well up to four hundred meters. Sophia avoided magnified optics unless she needed to engage at long distance, and a carbine really wasn’t suited for that anyway. This carbine had an EOTech holographic diffraction sight. They were quite popular but the circle with the hash marks around the dot cluttered the sight and annoyed her.
Like all carbines bearing optics, this carbine had back-up iron sights installed. Military issue iron sights were flimsy, but these were spring-loaded and out of the way. Only the front sight remained visible through the sight.
The pistol grip was modified, but once again not what she would’ve chosen. This grip was ergonomic but it also had a thumb rest that would get in the way when shooting ambidextrously. It also lacked an ambidextrous magazine release and safety, which she needed to remember when she started transferring from her strong to her support hand.
She was pleased to spot a tac-latch though, which let her slap the charging handle to clear any malfunctions. It seemed to have become standard among Blue Berets.
A small tac light was attached to the bottom of the rail. There was also a visible light illuminator attached to the top of the rail, connected to the sight.