And then I begin wading forward. I’m down a gun, I’m alone, I’m outnumbered, and I know the cops are closing in. Nothing about this is optimal, but time is not on my side, so I’ll have to make it work.

* * *

• • •

Sean Hall left his two men behind him covering Maja and the Director while he cleared the upstairs. He had them stop and wait on the landing between the floors, while he moved up, checking the two bedrooms, his small office, and two bathrooms, along with the larger of the closets.

Only once he was certain no one was lying in wait up there did he call down to his men for his boss and the hostage to be brought up.

Cage was hyperventilating, the terror evident from his breathing, his wild eyes, and the sweat that covered his pink bald head. Hall rushed him into the back corner of the rear bedroom.

“You stay in here with Maja,” Hall said. He normally was deferential to his boss, but now that Cage’s life as well as his own was on the line, Hall was the alpha.

The former Navy SEAL felt all the terror right now that his protectee’s face displayed; this Gray Man seemed to be some sort of unstoppable force, and unlike Verdoorn, Hall had no wish to get a closer look at him. But his military training had taught him how to compartmentalize his fear and to remain on task, so he was all business now.

“Where are you going?” Cage asked nervously as Hall started for the door.

“Not far. I’ll be at the top of the stairs with my men. We just have to hold Gentry and the others back.”

“How long will it take for the cops to get here?”

Sean knew beat cops would already be swarming over the lower part of the Hollywood Hills, converging on the gunfire, and he could hear air cover overhead. But as for when SWAT would actually hit the property, he couldn’t be sure.

“It might be a half hour; they’ll want to know what they’re getting into. But Gentry won’t want to get caught in the cordon already sealing off the streets. If he doesn’t find you in the big house, he’ll probably bug out. We delay him until that happens.”

Hall hoped this all to be true, but he wasn’t certain. He pushed Maja to Cage, and the shorter man took her in his grasp, wrapping an arm around her neck.

“Give me a gun!” the Director demanded now.

Hall had one firearm on him, just like his two other security men. He wasn’t giving Cage his gun. Instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife with a four-inch blade. He opened it and handed it to his boss.

Then he turned and left the room, heading back for the hallway near the stairs. His two men, Scott and Randy, were there and covering down the stairs. Randy had been shot, apparently back at the front entrance to the house, but his arm wound looked manageable.

Hall pulled his walkie-talkie, unsure how many of his men or Verdoorn’s men were left.

“Principal is secure at secondary citadel.”

He then clipped the radio back on his belt and grabbed his phone from his pocket. At the top of the stairs he typed a short text to Charlotte.

Wherever you are—find cover. It will be over soon.

* * *

• • •

Charlotte Cage was on the ground floor of the pool house, hiding in the utility room, right below her father. She lay flat on her stomach behind three surfboards propped against the wall, and she tried not to scream in terror as gunfire echoed around the entire property.

She had no idea what was going on here, but she was too scared to run for the back door, and she didn’t know where she would go if she did.

She held her phone in her hands and saw the text from Sean when it lit up the screen. She struggled to type out a reply, but she finally managed to do so.

I’m in the utility room hiding. Please help!

Charlotte put the phone on the floor by her face, then closed her eyes tight, willing this to end.

* * *

• • •

Dr. Claudia Riesling ran through Juliet’s bedroom on the second floor, because she’d seen a window there that overlooked thick hillside foliage. Her plan was to climb down into the bushes and escape the property before it was too late. If she could just get to the street, she told herself she could call an Uber and, with luck, she could get the hell out of here before the police stopped her to see how she was involved in all this.

She knew the threat anyone around would face when the police rained down on this property. The Consortium would be uncovered and, if she was here at the time, she’d be tied to it.

This event would be too high profile for Cage’s people to cover up, of this she felt certain. Anyone involved here who survived the attack of the Gray Man would be heading to prison.

She had a plan, of sorts; she would leave the country. Riesling held bank accounts in Panama and Antigua and Malta, and she knew which countries would and would not extradite her back to the United States.

Fleeing America would not be ideal for her, but she knew the Consortium itself would live on after this, even without Cage and his minions here.

It was just too large, there was too much money to be made.

And they would always need someone with her skills.

The American woman dropped to the ground from the second-story window, turning her ankle slightly when she landed. She limped along the western side of the property, holding on to branches to keep from tumbling down the steep decline. She made her way to the six-foot-high stone fence surrounding the two acres, and then she began climbing.

* * *

• • •

Jaco Verdoorn moved backwards through the kitchen, firing round after round from his HK back into the entry hall as he retreated. Loots was with him, firing his rifle, and Duiker staggered along, as well, though the vicious and bloody wound to his arm was occupying most of his attention.

Another of Hall’s men had been killed, but one made it upstairs, and from the sound of gunfire it seemed to Jaco like one of the raiders had gone up there to root him out. That left at least two enemy down here, and Verdoorn found himself still hoping to get Gentry in his sights.

A man with a rifle spun into the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen and Jaco fired over and over, hitting his target in the upper chest and head. The man dropped flat onto the tile floor, but a second attacker appeared behind him, and he shot Duiker in the stomach at a range of twenty feet. Duiker dropped dead in the kitchen, and Loots returned fire, sending the enemy to cover.

Jaco dumped rounds from his VP9 until he ran dry, then reloaded his empty pistol. As he did this he screamed to Loots, “Lead them through the house. You need to keep them occupied until LAPD breaches. I’m heading to the citadel.”