‘What’s going on?’ he said.
‘Bomb scare—’
‘Terrorist attack—’
Both soldiers spoke at once.
Damien and Jay shared a glance.
‘We heard the explosion,’ Damien said.
In the mirrored wall Damien caught sight of a few dots of blood on his own collar. At the same time, he saw the soldier behind him shift his carbine. Damien stepped back into the soldier. He brought his elbow down on the carbine to keep it low.
Jay moved for his soldier, batting the carbine away.
Damien slammed his foot into the soldier’s kneecap. The soldier buckled. Damien brought his elbow up from the carbine and into the soldier’s mask. It struck with a hollow thunk and the soldier’s head snapped back into the mirror — the helmet cracked the glass.
He reached for the carbine, under the soldier’s arm and over. A quick twist and the carbine was his. Both soldiers were unconscious but likely to wake in a minute, maybe less.
‘We’re not shooting them,’ Damien said before Jay could suggest it.
Jay didn’t respond, just held the stop button in the elevator.
They pulled plasticuffs from their pockets — about the only thing they could stash in a tuxedo other than lockpicks — and bound the soldiers in the corner. Then they started stripping them of their uniforms, though they had to take turns because someone needed to permanently keep a finger on the elevator’s stop button or else it might be called to another level.
Damien had his shoes off first, his tuxedo pants undone, jacket, bow-tie and shirt. Something sharp pierced the skin on his neck.
‘Ow,’ Damien said.
Jay, holding the stop button, looked over. ‘What?’
Damien started to feel his chest tighten. His legs gave way.
‘What happened?’ Jay shouted.
Jay rushed over, his pants half-down. Damien saw flecks of saliva fly onto his face as his partner spoke, but he couldn’t feel it. He tried to grasp at his neck.
Jay was looking at Damien’s chest. A bee crawled across it. ‘Oh great,’ he said.
Chapter 20
Sophia stepped onto the green marble, mask fastened over her face. She aimed her M4 carefully at the soldier standing over the captured operative in the red jacket. The operative was bound and blindfolded. She was cuffed above her head, wrists pinned to a nickel silver railing.
The soldier was standing on the elevated end of the banquet room. He carried a sword on his back, which caught her interest. She noticed the operative’s ruck. It was near the soldier, atop a grand piano.
Sophia aimed at the soldier through the holographic sight.
‘Raise your arms,’ she said.
She knew who it was before he turned around. And he knew who she was before she ordered him to turn around. His mask moved into her sight’s red reticle.
‘I want to say it’s good to see you again,’ DC said. He unstrapped the top of his mask and let it drop to his chest, revealing his face. ‘But you always seem to have the worst timing.’
Sophia was dressed identically to DC, but she wore her mask to blend in. With her, Nasira and Aviary, similarly masked, pinned their carbines on DC.
‘Who are you working for?’ Sophia said. ‘Who are these masked soldiers? Are they Blue Berets?’
DC’s attention flickered across the banquet room. ‘That’s complicated.’
She could almost feel his anxiety. No, she could actually feel it. Perhaps it was her own.
‘I have all day,’ she said.
‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘And neither do I.’
Gunfire cracked in the lobby. Sophia moved from the closed doors. Whoever was shooting back there, it didn’t sound promising. She kept her carbine on him. He lowered his hands and moved for the ruck on top of the piano. He slung it over his shoulders, over his sheathed sword.
‘Stop!’ Sophia said. ‘I have no problem shooting you.’
‘Not the first time.’ DC raised an eyebrow. ‘But you won’t shoot me.’ He reached for his own carbine, but didn’t raise it.
‘What makes you so sure?’ Sophia said.
‘Too noisy.’
‘Noisy all round, right now,’ Nasira said.
‘And, they’re fingerprint coded,’ he said. ‘You can’t fire them even if you want to.’
Sophia cursed herself. She hadn’t checked for fingerprint scanners. They would be hidden inside the pistol grip. Moving quickly, she snapped her carbine down, pointing it to the floor. She whipped her supporting hand up and at the same time she took her firing hand away and drew her Glock. It was a fluid, fast transition.
‘OK, so I guess you can work around that,’ DC said.
Behind her, she heard Nasira do the same.
‘Um, guys,’ Aviary said. ‘I don’t have a pistol, so I can’t do that cool weapon swap thing you did.’
DC moved past the railings, down onto the main floor, confident Sophia and Nasira would not shoot. Sophia watched his attention shift — listening to something, perhaps a concealed earpiece — and something tightened around his eyes. She could almost feel his cortisol level spike.
‘Right now there’s only one way out of this hotel,’ DC said, speaking with renewed urgency. ‘You can either come with me or find your own way out. I don’t care which.’
‘Or there’s the option where we shoot you,’ Nasira said from under her mask.
‘That’s quite the gamble,’ DC said, ‘given I may be a little better informed about current affairs than you.’
Sophia felt Nasira’s gaze on her, waiting for her decision.
Sophia didn’t say anything. She gestured with her carbine for him to start moving. DC strapped his mask back over his face and headed toward a smaller exit in the corner.
Sophia fell in behind him, keeping distance and a hand on each weapon so she could look the part and still put down rounds on the move. As they left she cast a look over at the operative bound to the railing. If she had fifteen more minutes she could’ve run a quick deprogram, enough to get the woman out for a more thorough procedure later.
DC guided Sophia and her companions away from the lobby firefight and to the rearmost bank of elevators. Keeping an eye on DC’s muzzle direction, she aimed her Glock at the elevator doors as they parted. Nasira did the same. DC aimed his carbine outward, covering them.
The elevator was occupied, but not in any way Sophia was prepared for.
‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ Jay said.
He was straddled over Damien, pants falling to his knees. Damien was lying on the floor in just his underwear, pants gathered at his ankles. His eyes were closed. Behind Damien and Jay, two soldiers were bound and propped in the corners. They looked dazed.
Jay stared at Sophia, Nasira and Aviary — all wearing masks.
‘Jay?’ Sophia said through her mask.
Jay looked thoroughly confused. His cheeks flushed. ‘Soph?’
‘What are you doing here?’ they both said at once.
Aviary noticed Damien lying in his underwear. ‘Oh, hello.’
Jay looked like he was checking Damien’s pulse. ‘By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any adrenalin, would you? Damien’s about to go into anaphylactic shock.’
Sophia pushed her way into the elevator, dropping to a crouch. She placed her carbine beside Damien, selector lever set to safe out of habit, and slipped the ruck off her shoulders. She located her EpiPen and handed it to Jay. ‘What happened?’
Footsteps — a whole lot of them — rampaged the marble floor. The lobby firefight soldiers were moving through the bank of elevators.