Mission Critical

Hines laughed now, a wild look on his bloody face.

Court used the wall to pull himself yet again to his feet, understanding that Hines was toying with him now. He moved forward and threw blows at the Englishman, but this was an act of futility. Hines had ten inches of reach on Court, and the skill to keep his opponent from closing the distance.

Finally Court got under an incoming punch, shoved forward, and slammed Hines into the wall. He could hear the man groan in real pain now, and he followed with a kick to his knee. He connected, but Hines barely reacted, instead sending a chop onto the side of Court’s already bruised and battered neck, causing him to fall back to the ground in agony.

Court rolled onto his side, then slowly started climbing back to his knees. He moved much slower now than the last time he got up.

Hines shouted above him, “How ’bout now? Is that all you got?”

“Not quite,” Court mumbled, then spit more blood and added softly, “but we’re gettin’ there.”

Hines grabbed Court by his shoulders when he stood, yanked him back around, and put him in a headlock from behind. As he did so he spoke into Court’s ear. “You’re a goer, aren’t ya? I like your heart, mate. But a job’s a job, and it’s time to snap your fuckin’ neck!”

Court’s right leg kicked up, back, and then down, trying to strike the inside of the boxer’s knee to buckle and break the joint, but he wasn’t able to find either of the man’s legs. Hines was so tall that he was able to keep Court in a headlock without exposing his body to Court’s counterstrikes.

Court wrestled halfway out of the headlock when Hines tried to shake him like a rag doll to snap his neck, and then Court kicked his feet out in front of him, walked them up the wall, shoved off with all his might, and drove the boxer back, knocking him to the floor at the edge of the stairs.

They both lay flat and still for a moment. Hines was wounded. Court was worse. Slowly, Court rolled to his side. He saw that Hines was moving slower now, too, but the Englishman used the railing to pull himself to his feet and was the first to stand. Amid true pain and fatigue that Court didn’t see in his first encounter with the man, Hines stood fully erect and balled his fists. Blood drained from a cut on his left eyebrow as well as the continuing trickle out of his nose.

Still, Hines grinned through the blood. “That! Is that all you got?”

Court climbed to his knees, then up to his feet. He crouched, looking like he was going to charge yet again, but through gasps for air he said, “Yep. That’s it,” and then he turned to his left and began running out of the stairwell and into the lab with a plate glass window just twenty feet away.

Diving out the window would subject him to a fall of fifteen feet or so, but at the moment he thought it his most prudent course of action. His energy was quickly depleting, and that meant Hines was seconds away from making good on his promise to break Court’s neck.

Court dove headfirst through the glass; it exploded around him easily, causing him less immediate pain than any of the blows he’d received from Hines the past few days. But he was now sailing through the air, windmilling his arms and legs, trying to keep from falling headfirst.

He kept his eyes closed for a moment because of all the shattered glass in the air around him, but after he’d fallen a few feet he opened them just in time to see the hood of a small burgundy hatchback directly under him. He tightened into a ball, shifted to his left side, and slammed into the hood, crumpling it down to the engine. The wind was knocked out of him yet again, and he felt something crack in his left hand when it banged hard against the windshield.

He screamed in fresh pain, then slid off the car and onto the concrete surface of a parking lot at the back of the building.

Worried about Hines or someone else grabbing a gun and shooting him from a window, he pulled himself up the car and back to his feet, held his injured hand across his chest, and ran away, running poorly, but running for his life, nonetheless.

CHAPTER 53



   Court made it around the side of the building towards the street out front, where he saw an armed man running in his direction. The man wore a beard, sideburns, and a short haircut, and it wasn’t until he smiled that Court realized it was Zack. He was pleased to see that his former team leader was uninjured and carried a submachine gun slung around his neck.

Zack said, “I’ve got a car across the street and down the stairs!”

The two of them ran through the traffic and made it to the other side, and here Court chanced a look back and saw three men rushing out of the building. One of the three was Hines. They were all armed, and they clearly saw where their prey had gone because they dashed out into the congested street to cross it.

Court and Zack entered the narrow close and began descending a series of over 150 stairs. Above them gunfire kicked off the stonework of the building on their right, and then it pounded to their left.

Court shouted at Zack as he moved. “Get your driver out of his fucking vehicle and tell him to point a gun up this staircase. We need suppressive fire over our heads!”

Zack did this, and in seconds Court could see a figure coming into view at the bottom of the stairs, still some fifty yards away. The man drew a handgun, and then he raised it.

As Court descended as fast as his legs would take him, it looked to him as if the pistol in the distance was pointed right between his eyes.

“Can this fucker shoot?” Court yelled to Zack, who was just a few feet behind on his left, trying himself to get his SIG pointed behind him to squeeze off a few rounds without slowing.

“Wouldn’t count on it,” he said as he gave up, realizing he had to concentrate fully on the steps at this speed.

“Great,” muttered Court.

Just then the man below opened fire.

The first round struck the stairs eight feet below where Court and Zack raced; they both slowed and crouched but continued their descent, now as worried about the supposed confederate trying to help them.

“Zack!” Court yelled, admonishing his former team leader, as if there were something he could do to improve the red-bearded man’s aim.

The man fired again, and this time he hit the wall eight feet above and to the right of Court’s head. Bits of stone rained down on him as he ran on.

He looked back up to the man and realized it was Jason, the young case officer he’d met in London.

Now the man just forty yards down the staircase fired a controlled but constant string of fire. Court heard rounds zipping over his head, and he was satisfied Jason was starting to get the hang of it.

All the fire from behind stopped immediately as the pursuers scrambled for any sort of cover in the narrow close.

At twenty yards Zack shouted out to Jason. “Get in the car!”