* * *

• • •

Court and Zack had arrived first at the rectory on the ground floor, the rally point where they’d meet Jenner and his team. Court had just begun looking down the main corridor towards the great hall when he heard screams, shouting, and then shooting from that direction. He went prone in the corridor, expecting to see someone trying to escape, and then the middle doors flew open and two bodies came flying out and slammed onto the ground. The first person up was Zoya, he quickly saw, and she turned in his direction, away from the main exit, and began running up the corridor.

Behind her the man on the floor rolled onto his side and began to aim his subgun at her back.

Court shot him twice in the chest from thirty yards.

Quickly two more men came rushing into the corridor, and both Court and Zack fired at them, killing one outright and sending the other stumbling back into the great hall with wounds to his legs and feet.

Court went up to his knees and moved back into the rectory, keeping his head and his rifle out in the corridor ready to fight off other threats. Zoya saw him ahead; she dove to the ground and landed on her hip, slid on the flooring right past him, and crawled into the room behind him.

Court pulled his Glock 19 pistol and handed it to her. She spun back to her left and aimed up the corridor.

Zack stood behind her. As he also trained his rifle out the doorway and down the corridor he said, “Player three has entered the game.”

Jenner and his team arrived seconds later, and Zoya gave them her intelligence through breath labored by her activity of the last minute. “Like thirteen, maybe fifteen enemy left in there, I think, plus Fox, my father, and that big freak. First and third doors are wired with explosives; the middle one is clear but guarded.”

Jenner asked, “What about the hostages?”

“A few dead. Six, eight, maybe. The rest are seated or lying on the floor. My father and Fox are on the stage.” She looked at the other men. “I want a rifle.”

Zack said, “Armory. Second floor, left off the main staircase, third door on the right.” Lorenzi offered to escort her up there; she handed Court his Glock back, she took Lorenzi’s sidearm, and quickly she and the Ground Branch operator disappeared in the dark corridor, running in the opposite direction from the great hall.

Jenner said, “Anthem’s a tough chick, but is she a shooter?”

Court said, “She’s saved my ass a time or two.”

“Good enough. Seven of us now. We’re going to hit that room, boys.”

“How you want to do it?” Zack asked.

Jenner had a plan. “We do a ‘blow and go.’ We move up the corridor, go to the first set of doors, set a grenade to trigger the explosives there, and then breach as a team through the smoke.”

Zack said, “So . . . straight up the middle, just like at the church.”

Court kept his eyes on the doors down the corridor. Sarcastically he mumbled, “Plan A didn’t work, so let’s try plan A.”

“You two hot shits got a better plan?” Jenner barked.

Zack said, “There’s a dining room on the first floor, at the back over the ground-floor kitchen just behind the great hall. It had a dumbwaiter. Saw it earlier.”

“Big enough for us to get into?” Court asked.

“You, no problem. Me . . . it’ll be tight, but I can do it.”

Court said, “Zack and I can gain access to the kitchen. We breach the great hall on countdown, take out Zakharov, Fox, and Hines, mount the stage to get overwatch on the armed combatants. Simultaneously you guys hit through the center door, split left and right, wall flood across the room.”

Jenner thought a moment. “Plan is approved, but you don’t get Hightower. I’m going to have to split into two units; I want Zack as my other unit leader since Travers is walking wounded.”

Hightower said, “Hooyah.” Court realized it was sarcasm, but he doubted Jenner did.

“So, I go alone? Thanks, Jenner.”

“Negative. Take Anthem. You just said she’s a badass.”

Court didn’t want Zoya anywhere near her father, because he did not want her to be the one to kill him. But the four Ground Branch men had been training and operating together for years. He couldn’t pull one of their number away before they did an extremely dangerous blow-and-go on a room full of hostages and gunmen.

He saw no alternative to Jenner’s plan.

Jenner said, “We go as soon as Lorenzi and Anthem get back.”

CHAPTER 65

   Zakharov stood on the stage, fuming because of his daughter’s escape. Slowly he turned to Fox, standing at his side. “Pick an American. Senior executive. Walk him out into the corridor and shoot him in the head.”

Fox looked to Jon Hines and motioned towards a man at one of the American tables in the center of the room. Whispering to him, he said, “Dark hair, fifties. The one who looks like he’s about to try something. You see him?”

“I see ’im, sir.”

“Bring him up.”

“Right away.” Hines stepped off the stage and up to the table, slammed a hand down on the man’s shoulder, then led him back to the stage to stand in front of Zakharov.

“Name?”

“Seekins. Jay Seekins.”

“Your title?”

“Assistant to the deputy director of Operations.” He said it proudly, albeit with some nerves evident in his voice.

The Russian smiled. “So, you work for Matthew Hanley.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Very good.” With a nod to Fox, Hines turned the man for the double doors, and Fox followed, pulling his Beretta pistol discreetly from his jacket as he walked behind the condemned man.

Fox said, “You are free to go. Tell your friends the room is wired for explosives. If they try anything, everyone dies.”

Seekins was unsure, but after a shove from Hines he began walking out into the main corridor.

He made it five feet before Fox fired once into the back of his head, sending him pitching forward onto the wooden floor.

* * *

• • •

Court had seen the man step out, but he didn’t see the shooter because of the angle into the great hall.

The other men had seen it, too.

Travers said, “They’re killing hostages because we’re in here fighting back. That one’s on us.”