She slowed her descent, a man pushed her from behind, and she stopped on the stairs, spun around, and grabbed his arm. As she yanked him forward and off balance, he stumbled into Hines, who was only able to keep from falling by grabbing the railing.

This was Zoya’s chance. She put her own hand on the railing, kicked her legs over the side, and then spun back around to face the staircase as she let go, falling straight down.

CHAPTER 52

   She dropped one entire flight before landing on the balls of her feet right on the outer edge of a step, collapsing her body to absorb as much of the shock as possible while also lowering the momentum of her fall. And then, before her body absorbed all the impact, she let her feet slide from the step. Her hands slammed on the railing and again on the step below to try to break her fall a little more, and then she dropped another story.

This time she used her hands to grab onto the railing at the third floor, repeating the maneuver with her feet that had her just catching the edge of the stairs to slow herself. Still, her arms were wrenched nearly out of her shoulder sockets when her feet slipped off and she dangled there.

Above her she heard men racing down the circular stairs. They had been instructed by her father not to kill her, but that didn’t mean one of them wouldn’t go off mission and try to put a bullet in her during the heat of the chase.

She slid her hands down the vertical bars of the railing and then quickly swung her legs in and dropped on the stairs. She found herself on the second-story landing, so she opened the door and started to run up a tiled hallway.

She made it all of thirty feet before the door opened behind her, a voice shouted for her to stop, and a pistol cracked.

Zoya ducked lower and kept running, but as she passed an open doorway she ran right into a hand that reached out, grabbed her by the left arm, and swung her inside.

Zoya spun back around to face her attacker, balled a fist and drew it back, then let it fly.

Court Gentry caught Zoya’s small but powerful fist in his hand, wincing with the pain of the impact. “Hey! It’s me! How many of them?”

The echoing footsteps of men running up the hall was cacophonous now.

“Five, I think.”

“Your dad has a fucking army.”

“You got another gun?”

“Negative,” he said, then spun out into the hall and fired four times with his suppressed Glock 19, sending two men to the tile with wounds to their legs, and three more diving into other laboratories and offices.

Hines and Fox were nowhere in sight.

Zoya turned back around and saw that she was in a lab of some sort. A large fermentation tank took up the center of the room. She stepped to the side to look for another exit, and when she did so she saw a small Asian woman in a lab coat sitting on the floor.

“Who are you?” Zoya asked.

The woman did not answer; she appeared to be in shock.

Court leaned out the doorway with his gun up, looking for fresh targets. While doing so he spoke back to Zoya. “She’s with them, I think. You haven’t seen her before?”

“Been locked in a room since I got here. Who is she?”

“Hell if I know.”

Court turned and hefted the small Asian woman up by her left arm, then slung her around towards Zoya, who then all but caught the lady before she fell to the ground. Court said, “We’re sure as hell going to keep her till we find out. I can hold these guys off if you can get her out a window and down to street level. There is a driver outside; get her to the car!”

“What kind of car?” Zoya asked as she began running for the window, pulling the woman along with her.

“Forgot to ask.”

“What?” Zoya shouted.

“Just get her away from here! I’ll find you on the street a few blocks east.”

Zoya moved close to him and put her hand on his back. “Are you okay?”

He just nodded, looking up the hallway again for threats. A hand reached around a door frame pointing a pistol; Court fired at it and missed, and the gun and the arm behind it retracted quickly.

Zoya squeezed Court’s shoulder, then turned to the woman in the white coat. “You’re with me, bitch.” She pushed her towards an old plate glass window. Picking up a rolling chair, she threw it at the glass, shattering it, then kicked at the loose shards to make a hole safe to exit through.

Behind her Court fired his pistol till it locked open, then changed mags and fired a fresh round.

* * *

• • •

Zack Hightower accessed the building through a ground-floor window and found himself moving through a hallway. He arrived at a stairwell and began ascending, heard firing coming from the second floor, but took his time clearing his way up the stairs, worried about anyone above him.

He encountered no hostiles, so when he arrived at the door he knelt down on the floor, lifted his submachine gun, and reached up for the latch.

As soon as he opened the door he saw a man lying a third of the way up the hall, and he was bleeding out, trying and failing to hold his life’s blood inside his leg. Another blood smear went across the tile and disappeared into an open doorway just thirty feet in front of Zack on the right. Gunfire boomed from this room; some of it fully automatic, and there were either two or three people shooting from this position. Quickly, however, Zack realized the fire wasn’t directed his way. Another room, twenty feet up the hall from the first and on the opposite side, had slow, controlled pistol fire emanating from it.

He understood the tactical situation quickly. A group of two or three men with automatic weapons and seemingly plenty of ammo were shooting at a single man with a pistol, who was clearly trying to conserve his.

In addition to the tactical situation, Zack correctly assessed the composition of the two forces. He pointed his gun at the door on the right and shouted to the man firing from the door farther on his left.

“Six? Six? Do you copy?”

The pistol fire stopped. “Who’s asking?”

“Who else calls you ‘Six,’ dumbass?” Court’s call sign on Hightower’s Ground Branch team had been Sierra Six. It was virtually the only way Hightower ever referred to Court Gentry.

An MP5K reached out from the door on the right and pointed in Zack’s direction. He fired a four-round burst at it, striking the brick wall inches from the door frame and forcing the weapon back into cover.

“Turn on your fucking comms!” Zack had been trying to communicate with Gentry since he’d arrived on scene, but he’d received no response. He figured it a safe bet he’d simply turned off his earpiece to get Brewer out of his head.