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  “Yeah,” Bryce answered. “The scan came back negative.”

  “Is there anything the scan doesn’t check for?”

  “No, it’s calibrated to check for any known GPS tracking device. The system has the ability to pick up any digital signal.”

  “What about nondigital signals?” Sarah asked.

  “Nobody uses that technology anymore.”

  Sarah sprinted back over to the office in which their prisoner was held, snatching a medical kit along the way. She dumped all the contents out, with the exception of the portable x-ray scanner. She burst through the door and started the process of scanning the man’s body, looking for any foreign objects. She pushed and rotated his arms and legs in awkward positions, at times triggering painful pops, until the small digital screen rested over a pen-cap-sized tube over his left shoulder. “Son of a bitch.”

  Sarah ripped the cloth covering the man’s shoulder, which revealed fresh scar tissue. The man wailed and thrashed as she dug the blade into the meaty flesh and pried out the inch-long tube. It didn’t contain any microprocessor, only the remnants of an old radio tube used for shortwave frequencies. She crushed the tube in her fist and popped one across the man’s face. “Sneaky bastard.”

  Sarah rushed back over to Mack and Bryce, who were still attempting to wipe the files. “It’s not a hack. It’s a breach. We’re about to have company.”

  An explosion rocked the elevator, rumbling the ground and desks as chunks of rock, followed by a plume of smoke, flew from the elevator’s entrance and onto the floor. The dust clouded the red, flashing lights inside, and Sarah rushed over to her own computer. She banged on the keyboard and mouse, clicking random buttons. “Why isn’t this working?”

  “It’s not plugged in,” Bryce said.

  Sarah rolled her chair over to his desk, pushing Mack aside, “Sorry, boss.” She got right in Bryce’s ear while he attempted to finish the wiping of all their classified files. “You need to hack into the security feed.”

  “What?” Bryce asked, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Why?”

  “Because I’d like to know how many bullets I need.”

  “Sarah, they’re not going to be able to get in.”

  Another explosion rocked the base, triggering chunks of concrete to rain from the ceiling and crash into the desks, sending support agents running for their lives. Sarah swiveled her chair and looked at Bryce, whose fingers had yet to stop typing.

  “Don’t say it,” Bryce said.

  “What?” Sarah asked innocently as particles of concrete dust floated down from above them, covering the desk, keyboard, and monitors. She looked up at the cracked ceiling. “Oh, would you look at that.”

  “We’ve got movement in the utilities room,” Bryce said, pulling up a secondary screen that provided him a view of the other levels of the facility. “We also have a group working through the service elevator from the factory entrance.”

  Sarah hurried to the armory, stuffing as many bullets into as many magazines as she could. She threw on two belts, one across each of her shoulders, in a crisscross Rambo pattern. She holstered the two .45 Colts and snatched one of the AR-15 rifles off the gun rack. She was almost out the door when she spotted the box full of grenades. She stopped, turned her head, and reached over to pluck one out of the box. She headed out the door, stopped, rushed back inside, and grabbed three more, attaching them to her belt. “Better safe than sorry.”

  The red lights started to flicker on and off as Sarah passed Bryce and Mack in the hall, where the rest of the support agents were in a frenzy trying to stop the shutdown of the satellite link. Bryce popped his head up from the computer as she ran across. “The server room! They’re trying to break in!”

  “On it!” Sarah hightailed it to the staircase and sprinted down the steps, at times sliding down the railing. The server room was at the lowest level of the facility. Sarah’s footsteps pounded and echoed down the winding staircase, and her eyes strained from the dim emergency lighting around her, one of them illuminating the giant Level 19 plastered on the side of the wall. “We really need to get another elevator installed.”

  Three levels before she made it to the bottom of the stairwell, she could see and smell the sparks from welding tools attempting to access the satellite server’s room. One of the infiltrators spotted her, and she pushed herself up against the side of the wall as bullets ricocheted in the metal cylinder that was the staircase. “Bryce, you still there?”

  “For now.”

  “The server doors are blast proof, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “No reason.”

  Sarah unclipped one of the explosives and triggered the magnetic strip, throwing it down the center of the staircase to the bottom, where it glued itself to the floor. She covered her head as the scurry of boots sounded before the explosive device detonated, spewing a twisting tornado of fire up the steps.

  The heat from the blast singed a few of her hairs, and she could feel the heat rush across her back and arm. Smoke quickly followed, and Sarah coughed and hacked as she tried peering through the gray plumes, her eyes stinging from the smog. She eased her way down the steps, forcing the rifle in her hands to steady the closer she made it to the server floor.

  Four charred, smoldering bodies lay motionless outside the server room. While the door had done its job to protect the servers, the mangled, twisted piece of metal hung bent from the door frame. “I hope Mack kept the receipt for that.”

  “Sarah!” Bryce screamed over the radio. “Get up here now!”

  Sarah double-timed it up the steps, the heat from the fires triggering the sprinkler system and extinguishing what flames still remained below. The water droplets pelted her face, her lungs still aching from the smoke and exertion from the sprint. The red lights continued to flash their warnings, and the closer Sarah moved to the main floor, the louder the sound of gunshots grew. “Sounds like you guys are starting the party without me.”

  Gunshots echoed back through her earpiece along with Bryce’s panicked voice. “We all know how you like to make an entrance.”

  “That I do.”

  The booming thunder at the top of the stairs grew as she picked up her speed. Gripping the rifle in one hand, she reached for two grenades on her belt. She held both of them in her free hand, and she lowered her shoulder before it made contact with the door. “Heeeeeeeere’s Johnny!”

  The door burst open, swung wildly on its hinges, and smacked against the wall. The operations floor had been split into two sides, one that was winning and one that was losing. Unfortunately, Bryce and Mack were on the losing side. Desks were flipped over as both sides fired back and forth, with Sarah tearing through the crossfire. She aimed the rifle across her body, firing into the enemy while she thumbed the pins off the grenades still in her palm. The moment the pins fell to the floor, she chucked grenades into two separate clusters of men advancing on the line in the sand that Bryce and the other support agents had managed to create.

  The smoke from the stairwell made its way into the room and triggered the sprinkler system there, casting water over the desks, computers, carpet, and whatever other furniture was on the floor. With the carpet dampening, Sarah jumped over the makeshift wall of desks and skidded to a stop between Bryce and Mack. She placed her hand on Mack’s shoulder. “Now, before you get mad about all the water damage, I want you to take a deep breath and think about all the new furniture we could get once the insurance money clears.”

  Hot shells hit the mushy carpet beneath them as Mack fired over the desk, killing two more men trying to advance on them. With the amount of adrenaline that was no doubt coursing through Mack’s body, Sarah found it hard to determine whether the red-faced rage was because of her or the fact that people were trying to kill them.

  Each bullet sent into the metal and composite desks they used for cover created a lump, turning the top of the desk into an oddly shaped piece of braille. Sarah rolled over Bryce, who moaned from
the weight. “What? I’m not that heavy.”

  There were more than thirty support agents positioned behind desks, and more and more henchmen piled out from the elevator shaft. “Jesus, you think there’s like a factory for these guys? Like a cloning machine where they just pop out, one after another?”

  “The hangar!” Mack said. “Now!”

  “Geez, all right. No need to get loud enough to where they can hear. Where’s our guy?”

  Bryce picked up a magazine, but his fingers were so shaky, he fumbled it to the ground. “What guy?”

  Sarah’s face went taut, any line of expression completely faded from it. “The guy I brought in. The one who had the radio tube transmitter that told his cronies exactly where he was. The one who knows where my brother and Global Power are hiding.”

  The gunfire between both parties thickened, with the invading entity starting to gain momentum. Even with the bullets thumping right next to his head, the sight of Sarah’s eyes boring into Bryce’s skull was more frightening than the flying pieces of deadly lead. “Um, I don’t know.”

  “Dammit, Bryce!” Sarah jumped to her feet, bringing the crosshairs of the rifle over one, two, three individuals, her finger moving as a blur over the trigger as each of the men dropped to the ground. She dashed behind the desks, jumping over the bodies of the support agents on the ground, kicking up splashes of water from the soaked carpet.

  The door to the conference room was cracked open, but with the blinds still drawn, Sarah couldn’t tell if he was still inside. Without breaking stride, she slammed into the room, and the rifle aimed at the empty chair where the captive had been tied up. Nothing but the untied pieces of rope was left. With him gone, Sarah felt a piece of her slip away. The small raft that she’d let herself hold onto had disappeared with that man. He was the link to her brother, and with HQ being overrun, the chances of her finding him grew smaller and smaller.

  Sarah dropped the rifle and pulled her pistols from their holsters. Water droplets flung off the Colt’s barrels as she spun back out into the firefight. Flashes from rifle barrels and the smell of damp metal filled her senses. Her fingertips slipped slightly on the pistols’ triggers, but it didn’t matter—any piece of body that came into view was met with a .45 caliber chunk of metal that sent its target flying backward on its ass. Despite Bryce, Johnny, and the remaining support agents screaming at her to run, she took her time. Each arm moved independently, sometimes her eyes not even following the line of fire that her hands positioned themselves in. But regardless of where the end of the barrel went, the bullet always found its mark.

  With her knees and thighs now covered behind the metal plates of the desk, Sarah remained standing until a jerk against her left ankle brought her down behind the safety of the office supply barrier. She shoved the hands groping her shoulder off her and tried standing up again but was shoved back down. She found the wrist of the arm trying to hold her back, and she twisted it hard, forcing the hand to release its grip on her.

  “Agh! Sarah, stop!”

  Sarah turned around and saw the twisted pain on Bryce’s face. She let go of his wrist, and he rubbed it profusely. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” she asked. “You know better than to get in my way when I get in ‘go time’ mode.”

  “Sarah, we need to get out of here, now.”

  Sarah brought her pistol over the side of the desk and fired, ejecting and reloading the pistol in her other hand. “He’s still here, Bryce.” She felt his hand wrap around her wrist again, and she froze. The grip was firm but soft. The rain falling down on the two of them accentuated the lines of grief on his face.

  “We’ll get your brother back,” Bryce said. “I promise.”

  The first tear in the metal composite splintered through, almost hitting Johnny in the shoulder. Sarah nodded and jumped up from behind the desk, firing into the small army now gathered on their main floor. “Let’s move, desk jockeys!”

  Boots and shoes splashed against the soggy carpet, squishing footprints that retained their shape, leaving a trail of imprinted feet to the hangar where their evacuation vehicles were located. The soggy bodies squeezed through the narrow hallway that bottlenecked the group, with Sarah and Mack providing cover. Sarah pulled another grenade from her belt and pulled the pin with her mouth, spitting the small piece of silver to the floor. “It’s great to be spending some quality time together. Huh, Mack?” She released her grip on the handle, igniting the grenade’s fuse, held it in her hand for two seconds, then chucked it into a scattering group of whatever terrorists Demps had paid to attack them.

  The explosion rocked the hallway, sending a few chunks of the ceiling to the floor. Sarah checked the doorway behind her, where the rest of the crew had disappeared. “Clear!” Sarah said, and she jumped out from behind the cover of the wall’s edge, wielding her pistols as she covered Mack’s run, following close behind.

  The moment Sarah was through the door, Mack slammed it shut, and it was immediately redecorated with .223 caliber bullets that thumped on the other side. The hangar was completely dark, and it took a minute for Sarah’s eyes to adjust while Mack secured the locks on the door.

  “Where the hell is everyone?” Sarah asked. An engine revved to life, and a pair of headlights illuminated the darkness and blinded her. She blinked rapidly, attempting to rid herself of the black spots blocking her vision.

  “Standard protocol,” Mack said, grabbing her hand and guiding her to the car’s door. “Every agent has a safe house to retreat to and wait for further instructions.”

  Sarah bounced onto the back seat of the vehicle and saw Bryce at the wheel. She squished her face and cocked her head to the side. “You drive?”

  Bryce, slightly offended, nodded as Mack climbed into the passenger seat. “Yes, I can drive. Why wouldn’t I be able to drive?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarah answered. “I took you as more of a bus man for some reason.”

  The headlights illuminated the explosion that rocked the door as the three of them ducked inside the car. The fire and smoke lit up the large hangar, and three seconds later, the first few bad guys poured inside and started blanketing the vehicle with a new paint job.

  “Drive, Bryce!” Mack said.

  Bryce threw the car into reverse, peeling the tires out as Sarah rolled down the passenger-side window of the back seat and emptied both magazines into the advancing enemy. With half her body still hanging outside the window, the car spun a hard one eighty, sending her gut into the doorframe and slightly knocking the wind out of her. She ducked back inside the car as the bullets plinked off the bulletproof glass of the rear windshield. “Okay, so you can drive.”

  Sarah watched a smile creep over Bryce’s face in the rearview mirror as he followed the winding ramp up to the surface level. The higher they went, the more sunlight illuminated the curving road, until they sped out of a ramp and into the back lot of the Chicago Packing Company.

  5

  The heads of the charred bodies thumped against the steps as what was left of their remains were drug up the staircase. At least a dozen men were inside the server room with computers, scanning for anything that might have been left behind.

  Heath left the techs to do what they could with the chunks of hard drives that remained. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and ascended the stairs, stepping around the trails of human fluids left behind from the corpses carried up the steps.

  When Heath arrived at the top of the stairs, a short, portly man ran up and handed him a stack of clothes. “Here you are, sir. Cleaned and pressed.”

  Heath wiped his hands and gently took the stack of fresh clothes. His shoes squished against the soggy carpet, pushing up water and air bubbles from the soaked foam underneath. He found his way to a locker room, where he showered.

  Once he’d rid himself of the filth that came with the field assignment, he carefully picked up his clothes, putting on his pants, socks, shoes, shirt, belt, and tie in that order. He reached for his jack
et, and when he put his arms through the sleeves, the cuffs of the jacket ended up being three inches short of making it to his wrists. He ripped it off in a fit of anger and threw it on the ground. His nostrils flared from the annoyance, and he closed his eyes, breathed in slowly through his nose and out slowly through his mouth.

  When Heath opened his eyes, he saw a name printed on a small strip of paper over the locker. He looked to his right, where another name was also printed on another locker door. He followed the trail of names, his eyes flitting back and forth quickly until they landed on the one name he was looking for: Sarah Hill.

  It took him less than thirty seconds to pick the lock. Inside were a few stained and sweaty T-shirts, a half-eaten box of Snickers candy bars, a fully loaded revolver, and crumpled-up chewing gum wrappers. Two pictures were taped on the inside of the door. He grabbed hold of one, the adhesive peeling off slowly from the metal in stringy lines until it finally gave way.

  The picture was faded, the original color no longer decipherable. A young man and woman were in the mountains on a trail somewhere. In the picture with them were two children—a small baby and a toddler. All of them were smiling, even the baby, no doubt giggling about some nonsense the mother had whispered to her earlier.

  Heath sat down on the bench behind him and neatly peeled off the remaining bits of tape, carefully, ensuring that the rest of the picture wasn’t damaged. Once all the tape had been removed, he was placing it gently in his pocket when his phone rang. He looked at the number and answered immediately.

  “We’re almost finished up here, Mr. Demps.”

  “Good. What have you found on their hard drives?”

  “Nothing yet, sir, but I’m having our technicians take them back to the lab. They’ll have a better opportunity to reconstruct the data there.”

  “We need them gone, Heath. They know a lot about us, and I want to make sure we know as much about them as we can. Understand?”