The Shadow Agent

by Daniel Judson

  He was bent forward slightly, standing on uncertain legs and covering his eye with one hand.

  More than simply jabbing it, Esa had sliced open the thin tissue of his eyelid with her thumbnail.

  Lyman’s other eye was focused on the windowsill behind Esa, and it was in this moment that the two of them realized his mistake.

  In his rage, he had thrown her across the room—and placed her closer by several precious feet to the firearms that he and Durand had laid there.

  Lyman took a step, or tried to—he bent forward slightly, then stopped, a look of confusion on his face.

  Only now was he beginning to recognize the damage Esa had done to him with the cutters.

  Esa saw her chance and scrambled to her feet. Turning, she started toward the window, but she felt a shooting pain in her hip, which she must have injured when she landed.

  The pain wasn’t enough to stop her, though, and she continued on, only four strides from reaching the weapons.

  What did stop her was Durand, who tackled Esa from the side, driving her off course and slamming her into the plaster wall.

  Her previous estimation that Durand was likely the weaker member of the team had been unfounded, because the instant Durand had Esa pinned against the wall, she unleashed several skillful elbow strikes to Esa’s face and head, each one landing exactly where she intended.

  But Esa had managed to hang on to the wire cutters, and she didn’t try to fight it when her knees buckled, knowing that by letting them give out she would slip beneath her attacker’s fury.

  Sliding down the wall and out of range, Esa drove the cutters into Durand’s inner thigh, then repositioned herself so she could deliver a follow-up blow to Durand’s lower abdomen.

  Even an open-palm strike to the vulnerable area between the pelvic bones was enough to make the strongest person fold and drop.

  Striking there with the sharp steel nose of the cutters would not only send Durand down again but also likely guarantee she wouldn’t get back up, at least not quickly.

  But Durand was full of surprises.

  Though she went down as fast as Esa expected she would, she wasn’t out of the fight.

  As Esa rose from her crouch, sliding up the wall, Durand grabbed her ankle with one hand, preventing Esa from bolting immediately toward the windowsill. More than that, Durand delayed Esa’s attempted escape long enough to fully embrace the same ankle with her other arm, effectively rooting Esa in place.

  It was a temporary delay at best, but that was all Durand needed now that Lyman had recovered from his injuries enough to resume moving toward them.

  He was lumbering, not covering ground with any kind of speed, but the man was a SEAL, had been trained to push through pain, and on top of that he was pissed, more so than when he had launched Esa across the room.

  And she knew he wouldn’t repeat that mistake.

  His intention was to get ahold of her again and, once he did, rain down upon her everything he had.

  A man like him—a man his size, with his power and hard-earned skills—could easily snap her neck, though she doubted he’d be that merciful.

  So Esa did the only thing she could.

  She balanced herself against the wall, lifted her free leg till her knee was almost level with her own chin, then drove downward with all her weight, stomping the back of Durand’s head with her bare heel once.

  And she did that a second time.

  But Durand hung on, so Esa dropped down to one knee and grabbed Durand’s arm, peeling back her embrace enough to slip her trapped foot free.

  Lyman had closed the distance, was just an arm’s length away, and Esa knew there was no way that she could turn and lunge for the windowsill before being grabbed.

  And even if she did manage to reach the window first, Lyman would likely come crashing into her from behind, at which point a struggle for acquisition and control of the weapon would ensue.

  It would be a struggle that played to all of Lyman’s strengths.

  Yet again, Esa saw only one option.

  Twenty-Seven

  Tom grasped the Colt, turning his torso as he drew the weapon so that his left shoulder was forward.

  His position allowed him to keep his eye on the male as he shoulder-rammed the female in the middle of her back, driving her forward into the elevator door and pinning her there.

  The male was carrying his pistol in an appendix holster, so he’d already had it drawn and was in the process of leveling it at Tom’s center mass while Tom had yet to even disengage the Colt’s thumb safety.

  But Tom knew not to bet everything on being the faster draw, so his left hand had been put into action the very same moment he’d begun to reach for the Colt.

  As a result, he was swinging the carrying case in an uppercut motion with all the speed he could muster just as the male was inserting his finger inside the trigger guard.

  The case struck under the pistol’s barrel, driving the weapon upward, but not so high that it had been driven completely off target.

  In fact, instead of the muzzle being directed at Tom’s chest, it was now aimed at his face.

  Turning even farther so his back was now flat against the female’s, Tom slipped out of the line of fire just as the male’s trigger finger clenched, setting off a round.

  The sound of the shot in the confined space was like an open-hand slap to both ears, and the concussive wave created by the nine-mil bullet breaking the sound barrier triggered a wave of nausea so powerful that all three occupants of the elevator grunted.

  The ringing in their ears—like something metal had been shoved deep into the canal, then struck and left to reverberate—only served to sustain the sudden sick feeling.

  Still, Tom and his opponents had no choice but to push through the overwhelming discomfort.

  Not wanting to lose the initiative, Tom wasted no time and disengaged the Colt’s safety as he brought the weapon to his right side, bracing his forearm just above his rib cage as he readied for his shot at the male.

  But before Tom could even get his finger inside the trigger guard, the female pushed against the elevator doors with both hands, driving herself backward and sending Tom stumbling forward, taking away his clean shot.

  She tried to continue to move Tom, clearly wanting to slam him into the back wall of the car, but he planted his feet firmly, setting his weight of 220 against her 130, creating a brief stalemate.

  The male was bringing his pistol down, but Tom was ready with a backhand swing, this time striking the back of the male’s hand with the corner of the hard plastic case, forcing him to drop his weapon.

  The female turned then, bringing her own firearm to bear, but Tom stepped in close, positioning himself on the inside of her right arm and winding his left arm around her elbow, locking it down and temporarily immobilizing her.

  He was free now to realign the Colt on the male, who was reaching for his secondary weapon—a fixed-blade knife holstered at the small of his back.

  But that was a long way to reach, and Tom had the Colt lined up with the male’s solar plexus and his finger inside the trigger guard. He was ready to fire despite the fact that the concussive wave generated by his lightweight, high-pressure round was going to be significantly greater than the wave they had just experienced.

  He was bracing himself when the female reached out with her left hand and grabbed hold of his Colt by the barrel, then swept it off target.

  The time she bought allowed her partner to remove his knife and swing at Tom, whose only recourse was to take a step away from his attacker while simultaneously leaning backward at the waist.

  The razor-sharp tip of the five-inch serrated blade just missed Tom’s face.

  The female pressed down on Tom’s pistol, driving it downward till it was pointed at the floor, as her partner stepped forward like a fencer pursuing an opponent in retreat.

  As he moved, he began the return swing of his knife.

  There was no way Tom could wres
tle his pistol up in time, nor did he want to surrender his hold on the female’s arm.

  He had no other option except for a sacrifice play.

  He pressed the trigger of the Colt, firing a round into the floor.

  The blow that struck him as the shock wave tore through the elevator was like a sledgehammer to the chest.

  And while the sound of the 9 mil going off had felt like an open-hand blow to his ears, the blast of the plus-P, 78-grain .45 round leaving the muzzle at nearly two thousand feet per second was like standing beside a cannon.

  The shock was enough to cause everyone to drop to their knees.

  Tom was immediately rendered deaf—even the ringing he’d been enduring since the shootout the night before was gone.

  On his knees, he managed to hang on to the Colt, which the female had released. Because of the way they had fallen to the elevator floor, her right arm was still trapped by his left, though Tom had dropped the case.

  Tom lost track of time, didn’t know if one second had passed or more, but he could see that the male was on his hands and knees, vomiting. He figured it would have taken the man a few seconds to get into that position.

  The woman was struggling to keep from throwing up, as was Tom, who at least had been expecting the violent assault on his senses. Still, he’d been rocked into utter stillness, as if paralyzed. But eventually that deep, sickening ringing returned to his ears, and the nausea’s grip loosened just enough for him to gather himself and move.

  He reached around with his left hand and pried the female’s pistol from her, then took the knife from the male, tossing both weapons into the farthest corner so they’d be out of reach.

  Rising from there to his feet, though still bent over and wavering, he swept the male’s pistol with the heel of his boot into that same corner.

  He’d stand between them and their weapons till the elevator door opened.

  Finally, he grabbed the case off the floor with his left hand and forced himself upright, or close enough to it.

  The wall helped him to remain that way. Glancing at the panel to the right of the door, he saw that they were passing the second floor.

  It wasn’t till they had reached the main floor and he was waiting for the doors to open that he realized he hadn’t checked the condition of his Colt.

  The female had been holding the barrel when Tom fired, which meant she more than likely hadn’t allowed the slide to cycle properly, preventing the spent casing from being ejected as the slide kicked back and a fresh round from being chambered as it returned to battery position.

  Tom confirmed this by glancing at the hammer and seeing that it hadn’t been cocked back.

  In effect, he was holding a dead pistol.

  The elevator ceased moving and its doors began to part, so Tom positioned the hooked rear sight against the top of his rigger’s belt and pressed downward on the grip, manually racking the slide and putting the Colt into condition 1—round chambered and hammer back.

  Just as he completed the process, the doors opened and Tom saw the first man, standing twenty-five feet from the elevator door.

  Armed with a carbine to which a suppressor was affixed, the man quickly raised the weapon to his shoulder.

  In that same instant, Tom saw a second man, this one armed with a pistol, also equipped with a suppressor.

  Lying facedown on the lobby floor, halfway between the elevator and the two men, was Manning, a pool of blood spreading from beneath his torso.

  Tom ducked to the right as the man with the carbine fired. Finding cover by the panel, he dropped the case and shifted the Colt to his left hand, then pressed the button marked “Door Close” with his right as he extended the Colt around the corner.

  He got off two rounds before drawing his arm back to allow the doors to close. But the doors moved slowly, giving the man with the carbine ample time to fire a half dozen rounds of 5.56 into the elevator’s back wall.

  Tom pressed the buttons for multiple floors, and once the doors finally closed, the elevator began to move in its slow-chugging way again.

  Transferring the Colt back to his right hand, he bent down to pick up the case, but as he did, the female, still on her knees, suddenly scrambled for her partner’s pistol in the far corner.

  She reached it, dropping onto her side and leveling the weapon at Tom’s chest.

  He was swinging around to face her, just milliseconds from having the Colt pointed at her head, when she fired.

  Twenty-Eight

  Esa lunged toward Lyman, crossing the remaining two feet faster than he could have in his condition, making her the attacker and thereby taking the initiative away from him.

  The man had two vulnerabilities—an eye that was tearing profusely and an injured groin.

  These two areas were targets he’d be determined to protect from further attacks.

  But Esa was just as determined to make her way to them again.

  She passed through striking distance to trapping distance—the range in which fighters cannot throw effective punches and instinctively go for a clinch.

  As Lyman did just that, closing his powerful arms around her, Esa jabbed him in the rib cage with the cutters, landing the steel points into a nerve cluster below his armpit.

  He grunted, recoiling, but Esa wasn’t done.

  She drew her hand back and thrust outward again, this time straight into the unprotected bone of his sternum.

  His arms, still closing around her, drooped slightly, and this allowed Esa to draw her hand back once more, then swing her arm out like a boxer throwing a high hook punch, finally delivering the blow she’d been working toward—his remaining good eye.

  The cutters, coming in from the side, grazed his eye.

  Lyman screamed, but he was still in the fight.

  Despite the excruciating pain, he managed to clutch at Esa’s throat with both hands.

  He drove his thumbs into her windpipe, compressing it, and Esa instantly coughed.

  His grip was well placed, with his index fingers pressing firmly along both sides of her neck, collapsing her carotid artery—the supplier of oxygenated blood to the brain.

  Shutting that artery down for seven seconds was all it took to cause a blackout.

  Esa could feel her eyes watering, and she could see the edges of her vision softening—the first sign of oxygen deprivation.

  She could feel, too, the rage and relentless power in the hands grasping her neck.

  Once she was unconscious, it was likely he would continue to squeeze and crush till her head hung limp from her dead body.

  She was losing depth perception, everything blurring, when she reached for the back of his head, pulling it forward.

  He resisted, but it was that very act—pushing back against her pull—that caused his chin to rise slightly, exposing the soft area between his jaw and Adam’s apple.

  She lost track of how many times she drove the tips of the cutters into him before his hands finally loosened, his thumbs slipping from her larynx.

  Releasing her, Lyman dropped to the floor, blood gushing from his throat.

  Esa, on the cusp of unconsciousness, dropped also.

  For a moment she sat there and watched him, and then she found what it took to stand. Stepping over Durand, who was motionless, Esa reached the nearest window.

  She was trembling from the cold and the adrenaline, her legs were like rubber, and if she wasn’t gasping, she was coughing hard, but she managed to grab Lyman’s sidearm, a SIG Sauer P226, and complete a brass check as she turned to face him.

  Lyman was still seated, his chest rising and falling, his arms hanging at his sides.

  Esa looked down at the carrier vest leaning against the wall and saw in one of its holders a suppressor.

  She bent down and removed it; she almost couldn’t stand up straight again but did, then attached the device to the threaded barrel of the SIG.

  Through his left eye—the eye that was blinking and watering uncontrollably—he w
atched her.

  Even if he were unable to see her, he’d still be able to hear the scraping of the two pieces of metal coming together.

  Once the suppressor was firmly in place, Esa raised the pistol and aimed it at Lyman’s forehead.

  There was no point in dragging it out.

  She pressed the trigger, killing him instantly.

  Moving back to where Durand was lying, Esa stood over the woman, aiming down at her head.

  Motionless and seemingly unconscious a moment ago, Durand was coming around.

  Esa pressed the tip of the suppressor against Durand’s skull and waited for her to open her eyes.

  It took a moment for the woman’s eyes to find Esa and focus.

  Breaking her long morning of silence, Esa said, “Get up. You’re getting me out of here.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Tom felt the impact of the nine-mil round striking his chest, and though the hollow-point bullet mushroomed against his Kevlar vest without penetrating the densely woven material, the 400 ft-lbs of force generated by the fast-moving projectile instantly voided his lungs of air.

  His legs buckling, Tom dropped down to one knee, but he managed somehow to keep himself from falling any farther.

  More than that, he continued to bring the Colt to bear on the female, putting the white dot of the front sight on her as she was seeking to reacquire her aim and get off a follow-up shot.

  There wasn’t enough time for her to recognize that her first shot hadn’t resulted in a mortal wound.

  Her trigger had yet to even reset when Tom fired a single shot, the round striking her squarely in the forehead and, as it exited the back of her skull, spraying the corner of the elevator with blood and bits of bone and brain matter.

  But the concussive blast, trapped within the confines of the elevator car, triggered in Tom the same violent reaction as before.

  Temporarily deafened, with his wits scattered as though he had been hit in the head with a solid object, he struggled to remain focused on his surroundings.