Court swung his own body into the doorway now, ready to fire fully automatic, but first he shined his light on the room. Two buckshot-riddled bodies of armed bearded men lay just feet away. He looked to Zack. “You’ve been waiting your whole life to use that line, haven’t you?”

Zack slung his shotgun and again grabbed his rifle. “Haven’t been waiting. That’s the third time I’ve pulled it out. I need some new material.”

The men moved out.

* * *

• • •

With the fresh gunfire upstairs, Zoya’s head popped up with the rest of the room and turned towards the sets of double doors to the main corridor. But while the people around her wondered what was happening, Zoya felt like she knew. There had been at least some survivors in the library where the grenades were thrown, and they were now fighting back. She hoped like hell that Court had been one of the ones who’d made it, although he’d been close to the doorway as she left, and she worried he would have been right in the middle of the blast radius of the grenades.

The fact that some sort of combat had started back up indicated to her that Hanley had listened to her when she asserted they didn’t have time to wait, that each hour before getting antibiotics into the bloodstream of the attendees meant another hour closer to death for everyone.

That she’d been listened to and positive action had been taken to fight back filled her with new hope, and made her return her mind to coming up with a way she could be involved in ending all this. She was certain she could be helpful to those trying to retake the castle from the inside, but to do this, she needed to accomplish two difficult things.

First, she needed to gain some intelligence about the force in here they’d be facing. And second, she’d need to find a way to get the hell out of this room.

She looked around; the lights were up so she had no problem scanning the entire area. She counted the armed men around the room, difficult to do without being able to get up and move around. Ultimately, she determined there were either twelve or fourteen, plus Fox and the goon Hines who followed him everywhere.

And her father. She almost didn’t count him. Yes, he was a combatant, too, but this wasn’t relevant intel for the group outside.

Because, whatever happened, she still planned on killing him herself.

* * *

• • •

Feodor Zakharov sat with Fox on the stage at the front of the great hall, with Hines standing compliantly behind. He watched Zoya in the center of the room as she looked around. He cursed himself for thinking about his daughter right now. He had to keep his focus on his mission, his life’s work, playing out at this very moment. But he could not help but look across the room, gaze at his beautiful daughter, and consider whether to take her out of here and administer antibiotics to her right now.

He was a realist, so for the good of his mission, he knew he absolutely should not. For one, once he gave them to her he’d have to sequester her from the rest of the hostages so she didn’t alert everyone. And that meant he’d have to take one of his too-few mercenaries here to guard her in some other part of the castle. It also meant when he and his team slipped out of here, he’d have to bring her along, and the thought of making their getaway with a noncompliant, resourceful, and clever enemy—he had no question but that she was now, and would forever be, his enemy—left him feeling frustrated.

For ten minutes he thought about nothing else, but ultimately he told himself Zoya had put herself in this position by siding with the Americans, he didn’t have the manpower to spare in dealing with her, and she could not know that the bacteria had been released on the crowd, or she would undermine the entire operation.

Yes, for the good of this operation, Zoya would have to die. It brought a thick mist over his eyes when he made the decision, but once he did make it, he was resolute through his profound sadness.

* * *

• • •

Zoya had the head count of combatants in the room solidified now. There were fourteen, plus Fox and her father and Hines. She’d seen another six or so men leave in pairs, presumably to search the interior of the castle for anyone they’d missed by locking down the great hall.

Now she had to find a way out of here.

She looked to her father. He looked right back at her; he appeared sad, sadder than she ever remembered seeing him.

He was thinking about her; this she knew for certain.

Zoya realized that his remaining softness for her, what little left existed, was her way out of here. The gunmen working for her father in this room would be reluctant to shoot her if she made a run for it, and her father would be reluctant to give them the okay, at least for a moment.

She looked across the room towards the center double doors. These were not locked, but they were guarded by two men with submachine guns on their chests. Making her way around the tables would have taken too long; this she knew by tracking the route she’d have to run. But there was a faster way to the doors. She looked over each table between herself and her goal, and then she moved her hands slightly on the table, covering up a small, thin steak knife. This she slipped under the cuff of her track top, and the elastic there held it firmly in place against her forearm, with the handle across the palm of her hand.

She took a breath to prepare herself and looked back over to her father, and then her heart sank.

He was standing from his chair now, his eyes on her. There was no doubt in her mind he’d seen her take the knife and likely figured out exactly what she was going to do.

Which meant she had to do it now.

Zoya leapt up and onto the big round table, raced across it over dirty dishes and crashing wineglasses, vaulted over the people sitting on the far side, and landed on the floor. She was up onto the second table an instant later, her legs kicking between those seated there.

Screams and shouts erupted from the men and women at the banquet.

Back on the floor now, she vaulted over a seated lady from the Canadian intelligence services and took another two steps across this table, then landed on the floor a third time.

Behind her she heard her father shout into the microphone on the stage.

“Kill her!”

The last table she ran around instead of over, knowing her surprise had been lost and her pattern had been established, but she was lightning fast, and the two men at the door had just got their weapons pointed towards her as she executed a diving forward roll. Gunfire cracked, but the rounds had gone above her, and she snapped back up in front of the men, stabbing one through the throat as she used her momentum to crash into the other, knocking him out through the doors. She fell with him and slammed down hard onto the wooden floor, and, as men shouted behind her in the great hall, she got up and made a left and began running for her life up the main corridor.