While he waited he looked out again in the hall, and saw the man with the leg wound lying still.

After a few seconds a reply came through Zack’s earpiece in Court’s voice. “Whose side are you on in this one, Zack?”

Hightower kept the holographic weapon sight of his MPX centered on the doorway to the right, but he shook his head with a little laugh. “That hurts my feelings, bro! Mommy sent me in here to help you achieve your objective. How many dudes you up against?”

“Three on your right, first door. One is wounded. I think the guy on the floor in the hall is down, but dead-check him to be sure. I don’t have an angle, and I don’t have the ammo.”

Without responding, Hightower shifted his subgun to the left, and shot the man with the leg wound once in the top of the head.

“Dead check complete,” Hightower said. “He’s even deader now.”

Court said, “We’re still missing Primakov and Hines. They might be in the building, so watch your six.”

Zack didn’t know who the hell Hines was, but Primakov was the second name on the target list Brewer had given him.

“What about Zakharov?”

“No joy. He’s not here. I’ve recovered one hostage and one enemy; they’re outside the building, getting off the X now.”

Again one of the Russians reached out with his pistol and fired, sight unseen, towards Zack’s position in the stairwell. Zack ducked tight against the wall and then fired a burst of rounds of his own in response.

“Roger,” Zack said. He had a feeling Court was saying he’d saved Zakharov’s daughter. He was certain Brewer would be displeased when she learned of this, especially because Court had failed to achieve the primary objective.

Zack said, “What do you need to do to get out of here?”

“You have any frags?”

“Negative.”

“Smoke?”

“Negative.”

“Bangers?” Bangers were flash bang grenades.

“That’s a negative.”

“The fuck kind of rescue is this?”

Zack shouted now. “The one you don’t bitch about, because I can keep their heads down while you bounce! Now, what are you going to do?”

Court said, “Best bet is the window here in the room with me. It’s already broken out. I can shimmy down to ground level, but it’s gonna take some time. There’s a doorway on the far side of this room that I think will get me to the front stairwell by the elevator. But with the angle these assholes have on me there’s no way I can make it across the room without getting hit.”

“No sweat. I’ll keep them right where they are. You bug out, then I’ll exfil down these stairs.”

After changing magazines, Hightower said, “Move!”

“Moving!” Court shouted.

Zack dumped round after round at the doorway with the Russians behind it. He didn’t expect to get an angle on anyone in there unless they popped out from cover like idiots, but he knew he could keep their heads down for the next thirty seconds or so, and keep them right where they were hiding for even longer, giving Court a good chance to get away.

* * *

• • •

Court ran for the laboratory window Zoya had exited from two minutes earlier, but as he neared the doorway on his right he looked through it. This led to an open office, and on the far side of that was another doorway. From the layout of the building he’d noted so far, he thought it likely the front staircase and the elevator would be through that door. The stairs would lead him straight down to the underground parking garage, where he hoped to catch Fox before he made his escape.

He ran with his Glock out in front of him, then neared the shut door, but just as he got there, it flew open and Fox came bursting out at a sprint. Ten feet behind him Hines ran down the circular stairs.

Fox was as surprised to see Court as Court was to see him, but Hines just charged forward like a bull from a dozen feet away.

Court saw Fox’s silver semiautomatic pistol rising towards him, so he raised his weapon to shoot him but the big man went airborne, diving on him lightning fast. Court tried to shift aim to the threat more dangerous than a pistol, but Hines collided with him, slamming Court against the wall as if he’d been hit by a truck.

Court’s weapon flipped out of his hand and clanged down the circular stairs. With the wind knocked out of him, he fell to the ground, and Hines fell on top of him.

Court now knew better than to fight the big man head-on, so he wrapped his arms and legs tight around him, attempting to use his knowledge of judo and Krav Maga against the pure boxer.

Fox tried to aim at Court, but Court shifted his body to position it behind the brick wall that was Hines’s torso.

The Englishman shouted to his protectee as he wrestled on the ground. “I got this wanker sorted. Get to the car!”

Fox ran down the stairs with the gun still in his hand.

Hines struggled to get an arm free now; Court head-butted him in the forehead, but the man made no reaction to it at all apart from head-butting him back.

Court tried to shout out for Zack, but his earpiece had fallen out with the collision. Hightower was one hundred feet away and separated by multiple walls now, so there would be no way for him to know what was going on.

Court squeezed the big man tight while preparing to deliver another head butt, but by brute strength Hines was able to get an arm out of Court’s clutches, then use it to push off on the floor and roll over. He made a complete revolution and slammed his six-foot-nine-inch frame up against Court, pinning him to the wall of the stairwell.

Court’s battered ribs hurt anew.

He reached for the folding knife in his pocket, but just as he drew it Hines punched Court’s hand, and the unopened knife went flying, through the doorway and twenty-five feet across the lab, banging against a plate glass window there and dropping to the floor.

A punch to Court’s jaw stunned him, but when Hines made it up to his knees Court finally managed to land a blow of his own, a hard left jab into Hines’s nose that knocked him onto his back on the landing between the two floors.

But the huge man quickly got up, and Court used pure adrenaline to mask the pain in his body enough to push himself back on the tile to make some room to do the same.

Hines touched his hand to his nose and looked down at the blood there. He shouted, “Is that all you got?”

Court spit a mouthful of blood. “No!” He leapt up to a crouch, lunged forward, slipped under a right hook, and came back up to deliver a spear hand to Hines’s throat, but before it landed he was caught by a left jab that knocked him back down. He hit hard on his back; the wind that was only just returning to his lungs seemed to disappear again.