Jonah reared back and kicked open the stairwell door, after which Coral and the others all tossed live grenades in varying directions through the open doorway. After the blasts, the team rushed forward as one, guns raised to just below eye level.
One of the grenades had caught fire to a rug not far from the stairwell and kicked up a lot of particulates in the air, making visibility nearly impossible, even with night vision. An agent near the back of the line shot off a round, and a silhouetted figure in a suit went down, a high-powered assault rifle falling from his grasp. The floor was eerily silent for a good twenty seconds, and Coral began wondering if she’d been wrong about Vasko’s distribution of men throughout the building. Maybe there wouldn’t be that much to stand between them and their target after all.
Two more figures appeared, and she and Jonah each shot one between the eyes. Pushing ever forward, Coral noted that this guard she’d just shot was a woman, a small pistol still in her lifeless hand as she bled all over the floor.
Whatever. Good for Vasko for hiring from both sides of the gender pool. But too bad for the woman for picking such a poor boss.
As they spread out to clear the remaining guards and make for Vasko’s office, which they knew to be heavily fortified from the inside, the smell of smoke grew stronger.
The fire was spreading. No time. The whole place would be burning in minutes.
She followed Jonah through a spacious open foyer with an expensive seating arrangement of sofas and leather chairs. A woven rug that looked to be the genuine Persian article took up most of the floor, covering weathered hardwood.
As they were about to pass out of the room on the far side, Coral glanced down at an end table near the doorway and saw a large photo frame on it holding pictures arranged in a collage. Most of them were pictures of Vasko and what must have been his reclusive wife and daughter, whom Vasko was notorious for keeping far away from his business.
Coral turned to follow Jonah but something stopped her. The woman in the photos, smiling alongside her husband. She . . . she looked like the woman Coral had just shot, only seconds ago.
A mistress? Vasko was having an affair with one of his guards? That didn’t make sense; his daughter was right there in the pictures too.
No . . .
Despite the rising heat and growing flames, fingers of ice reached down through her insides and nearly caused her to lose her footing.
No, no, no!
She looked around this grand room with new eyes—this vast open area with a big skylight up above that wasn’t a foyer at all.
“Where’s Vasko hiding?” Jonah hissed from up ahead. “He’s here somewhere!”
“He’s in his office,” Coral replied, her voice dead and devoid of urgency.
Jonah noted the change in her demeanor and ducked back into the great room to see what was wrong.
Coral had dropped her gun on the ground and was walking slowly, sickeningly back out to the first hallway, where the two figures she and Jonah had killed were sprawled across the hardwood floor.
Only they weren’t guards. They were the woman and the young girl from the picture frame. Both dead, with single leaking bullet wounds piercing their foreheads.
As the roar of the flames grew louder, she felt the entirety of the earth crash around her, dragging her down to the floor with it.
Jonah ran up next to her.
“We’re in the wrong building,” she said.
27
The blaze of the building far below flickered brilliantly in Nolan’s goggles.
Why would they set the building on fire? He could discern no tactical advantage to such an action. The building’s occupants hadn’t put up so much of a fight that smoking them out would be necessary.
He was perched high above this mystery building the OCI had chosen to raid and watched what he could see of their field operation through the big skylight in the building’s roof. He was crouching more than ten stories above the other building’s roof, and across the street, on the edge of a skyscraper’s roof, his glasses allowing him exceptional vision even through the smoke.
Branford had picked up radio chatter earlier in the evening about something big going on in this part of town tonight—most of it orders going out to local PD to stay clear of the area. It was mere curiosity that landed him there, where he could observe what he quickly pieced together had to be the anticipated first field operation of the Organized Crime Intelligence in action. He’d just seen headlines a day or two ago promising that a “swift, decisive first action” would be undertaken by the new agency in “a matter of days.”
But Branford was unable to turn up any information about this building. Whatever it was, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to keep it anonymous, because it wasn’t listed with any government or real estate agency. He couldn’t even find records on who paid the building’s power bill. The data was either nonexistent or very well hidden.
From what Nolan could tell, the OCI’s operation wasn’t going well. Their entrance looked solid, and the X-ray option in his glasses allowed him to follow their movements through the old brick building. He had no idea why they’d chosen this location, or who their intended target was. But he could tell from the start that this wasn’t the home of a big Mafia don or a drug cartel. Nor was it some drug flophouse. It looked like a well-appointed apartment, one of thousands in the city.
Then the grenades exploded and the shooting began. The blast was loud enough that he could hear it from his position, and the tinny pops of the guns were just within his range as well.
The group of OCI agents appeared efficient, he had to give them that. Within seconds, the eight of them were the only people still standing in the building.
“Huh,” said Branford in his ear. “They’re calling for ambulance and rescue assistance. Guess they couldn’t handle the job after all.”
Nolan creased his brow. He could see what he believed to be all eight OCI agents still moving, so it didn’t look like they had suffered any casualties. Then he noticed that the fire was spreading through the wooden floors and support beams, threatening to consume the whole building.
“No, the building’s going to go,” Nolan said suddenly. “They have to get out of there!”
Without another word, he rose to his feet and dove from his perch, his hand already firing the grappler behind him. He didn’t spin to look and aim this time. He had learned that the grappler always managed to land true and find something to hold on to.
As he fell, he quickly switched to thermal imaging and counted the number of live bodies still inside the building. It looked to be over twenty total, scattered about the various floors. And with the way the inferno was spreading, he doubted the fire department would make it in time.
He released and retracted the grappler’s hook just above the penthouse skylight, allowing himself to burst through and shatter the glass on his way down.
A woman—one of the OCI agents—was kneeling over a pair of bodies in the hallway just outside the big room, and when she heard the glass shatter, she spun automatically in place, her hands reaching for a gun. But oddly, there was no gun where she expected it to be, so she merely stared at him for a moment. Her eyes were distant, empty, her cheeks wet.
Something about this woman was awfully hard to turn away from. He knew he needed to head off and try to help evacuate the survivors before the building collapsed, but the woman on the floor was just so sad. He was compelled to reach out to her, speak to her or offer her . . . something.
As he took a few steps closer, he spotted her black Sig on the floor nearby. He smoothly knelt down and picked it up as he kept moving toward her, and he was quite certain she hadn’t seen him do it. She was too involved in her grief.
Was that what it was? Grief? She must’ve been mourning a fellow agent, he decided. But when he drew near, he saw that one of the victims on the ground was no soldier or field agent; she was a girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. Lovely jet black shoulder-lengt
h hair. Stylish clothes. There were braces on her teeth.
She was an ordinary girl, and yet this female OCI agent was weeping over her as if she’d just lost her own sister or daughter.
The building let out a loud shudder as the weight-bearing beams and posts struggled to hold together. Dark gray smoke was growing thicker with every passing moment.
Nolan was just about to put his hand on the woman’s shoulder when a voice brought him up short.
“Get away from her!” shouted a man from behind.
Instinct kicking in, Nolan spun in place and stepped into a defensive position. Staring him down with another Sigma 9mm drawn was a tall, beefy man wearing the same black field ensemble as the grieving woman.
The big man raised his gun an inch higher and seemed to be seriously considering pulling the trigger. Nolan stuck out his hand and was about to trigger the electromagnet when a quieter voice spoke.
“Leave him alone,” said the woman who knelt over the body. Nolan was surprised when she looked up not at him but at the other man. He looked back at her incredulous, unable to process what she was saying.
Nolan remained poised, ready to defend himself, even though the other man finally gave in and holstered his weapon.
A wood beam over one corner of the room broke clean in half, red embers exploding from the fracture.
The man seemed to make a quick decision and marched forward to grab the female agent by one arm. She didn’t budge at first, but he was too strong for her to fend him off indefinitely, and finally she allowed him to pull her to her feet and then back toward the stairwell. She threw Nolan one last glance as she disappeared from sight.
When they were gone, even though he was keenly aware of the collapsing building around him and that he had only seconds to spare, he zeroed in his goggles onto a good clear view of the face of the dead girl at his feet.
“Run facial recognition,” he asked.
“Already on it,” Branford replied.
Nolan was examining the gunshot wound to the girl’s forehead when he sensed another presence around him. The roar of the flames had made it impossible to hear his approach, but he caught a glimpse of motion in his enhanced peripheral vision. Instinct took over, and Nolan snatched the Sig he’d picked up moments ago and spun. Something big and heavy connected first, crashing into his head and causing Nolan to lose hold of the gun.
“What did you do?! ” screamed the other man in a thick accent that Nolan’s brain registered as Eastern European.
Nolan came terribly close to losing consciousness, finding himself disoriented and sprawled out face first on the floor with stars in front of his eyes. A few feet away, he saw the wooden plank that had been used like a bat against his head. He also spotted the Sigma to his right, resting on the ground.
Get up, he commanded himself. Get up!
“Nolan!” thundered Branford in his earpiece. “Nolan, do you read me?!”
He had to get the gun back, there was no choice. Whoever this man was, he was trying to kill him, and getting his hand around the pistol’s grip was a matter of survival.
Far slower than he desired, he watched his own arm reach out feebly toward the gun, but his head swam sickeningly with the effort, making him wonder just how hard the plank had slammed into him. The Sig felt miles away from his grasp, just as it felt that time had slowed to a near standstill. As if watching everything play out from a distance, he saw the other man—a short, dark-haired balding man with a gimp hand, a tailored suit, and an expression of unrestrained wrath—reach down with his good hand and easily pick up the gun. The man was shaking with rage, tears streaming down his face.
“Nolan!” shouted Branford, the old man sounding more frantic than Nolan could ever remember hearing before.
Nolan was fading, his vision awash in blurry orange flames and his eyes and throat burning from the thickening smoke. Blackness seeped inward from the periphery of his sight and threatened to blind him completely.
The last thing he saw was the other man point the pistol at him and pull the trigger.
28
A rjay, man the Cube!” shouted Branford, bursting from his caged work space and taking charge with a tone that left no room for argument. “Nolan’s glasses are still transmitting imagery of that building burning down around him, but he’s not moving and he won’t answer me. I’ve got to get down there.”
Arjay’s face drew taut. “What happened? Is he alive?”
“I don’t know!” Branford roared. “Just get in there!”
Arjay gave a nod and ducked inside the Cube.
Branford was at the subway station’s primary exit in seconds, his car keys in hand. He was tucking an earpiece into his ear when he realized someone was keeping pace with him from just behind as he entered the stairwell.
“You’re driving,” said Alice, her face hardened and grim as she climbed the stairs. She carried a plastic case holding first aid supplies.
At the top of the stairs he stopped. “You’re not going, and I don’t have time to argue!”
“He’s hurt,” she said, holding her ground. “No offense, Aaron, but I’ve seen your skills as a medic. You need me.”
Branford swore to himself. She was right, and he really didn’t have time to argue. The burning building wasn’t far, but he’d still be lucky to make it there before the fire department, which was almost certainly on its way already.
And Alice had called him by his first name. It made him blink. No one had called him Aaron in a very long time. When she’d said it, it felt like being slapped across the back of the head.
“There’ll be cops,” he pointed out, walking again, heading outside. “Aren’t they still looking for you?”
“You going to take him to the hospital?” she retorted.
“Fine,” he growled at her angrily. “But if you can’t keep up, I can’t wait for you.”
He led the way to his car, where it sat parallel parked on the street.
———
Branford’s car was a ’57 Hudson Hornet that drove with the finesse of a World War II tank—sluggish to gain speed, even harder to bring to a halt. Alice feared for her life every time Branford rounded a corner.
But much more than herself, she feared for Nolan.
“Don’t let him die, don’t let him die. . . .” was her whispered prayer as she white-knuckled her seat.
This couldn’t be happening.
God had a plan for Nolan. Of this she was utterly certain. After all that he’d suffered during the war—and survived—God wouldn’t let his life end now. Not like this. He couldn’t have made it through all of that for nothing. He was the hero that the people of New York had prayed and hoped for, and he still had so much good to do.
He couldn’t die. Not now.
Branford barreled through a left-hand turn onto a one-way street, and for a second she thought one side of the car had lifted up off the ground. She looked at Branford in alarm, but he ignored her, his attention focused on the road.
“Please, God, don’t let him die. . . .” she whispered.
Branford threw her an annoyed glance, but she never stopped praying.
———
Minutes later, they arrived at the scene of mass chaos. A pair of fire trucks and one police car were already there, but there would be more on the way. Pedestrians lined the sidewalks, watching the action unfold, and there were a half dozen people coming and going from inside the building.
The entire building belched black smoke that streamed into the sky—a sight that brought back unwelcome memories for many New Yorkers of one fateful historic day.
The fire trucks were spraying water into the first floor of the building, trying to get the fire under control before the building came down. Too many people now crowded the area, but the lone policeman on the scene couldn’t do much about it.
Making matters worse, the burning edifice was situated on a street corner and surrounded by much larger and taller buildings, giving it a claustrophobi
c, walled-in feeling. Most of the smoke was going straight up because there wasn’t much of anywhere else it could go.
It was a circus, and Branford couldn’t believe he was about to walk into it.
Hadn’t he left this sort of thing behind long ago?
Alice started directly toward the building, but he grabbed her by the arm and steered her around the back of the nearest building so they could come at it from the rear.
As promised, Branford didn’t wait for Alice to keep up, but she did fine on her own. They’d parked two blocks from the site and within just a few minutes they’d ducked around the burning building to an old alleyway that was too narrow to fit any vehicles. He was relieved to spot a window that looked big enough to squeeze through. He pushed past Alice and snatched a large steel trash can from the other side of the alley, pushing it under the window so he could climb atop it.
Looking away from the window, he reared back and threw his elbow into the glass. It shattered, but black smoke immediately began to pour out of the opening.
He was wondering if they would be able to breathe through the thick smoke long enough to get to Nolan up on the top floor, when Alice produced a pair of surgical masks from the first aid kit and handed one to him.
“It won’t last long against this,” she said, nodding at the smoke.
Branford nodded his thanks and began to climb inside. When he was halfway through, he reached out and helped Alice up onto the trash can so she could follow.
They slid down to the wet concrete floor inside the building, and Branford decided that maybe having Alice along was an okay idea after all.
———
Any concerns they had about reaching Nolan undetected were swiftly erased by the smoke making it all but impossible to see anything. The entire bottom floor lay drenched by the water the fire fighters had sprayed inside; the good news was that the ground floor was no longer burning. But the smoke waited everywhere, and it took a painfully long time for them to feel their way around the outer wall until they reached the stairs. Once they began to ascend, visibility worsened with every step. A fireman nearly ran Alice over coming down as they rounded one set of stairs, but his vision was no better.
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