Дэвид Балдаччи - No Man's Land

If whoever was tracking them had NV goggles and/or laser sights, this would not be a long fight.

Which was why Puller did not intend to stay on the field of battle.

He looked over at the building adjacent to where they were and calculated something in his head. Then he and Knox ran another ten yards down the alley.

When Puller saw the door he suddenly hurtled sideways and slammed his thick shoulder into the wood. It gave under his two hundred and thirty pounds, the lock broke off, and the door swung inward. He and Knox dove inside a split second before a dozen rounds slammed into the exterior walls and through the open doorway.

Puller kicked the door closed behind them and looked around. They were in what looked to be an abandoned commercial building. The space was empty except for some boxes, a few odd pieces of furniture, and a lot of dirt and grime. The walls were brick and the windows were set high, their exterior sides covered with rusted metal grillwork.

There was a light switch set next to the door. Puller tried it. The building had no juice.

He took out a small but powerful flashlight and shone it around. There was a door on the other side of the large space.

Puller looked quickly around, found a long piece of wood, and used it to jam closed the door they had come through.

“That won’t hold them long,” pointed out Knox.

“But it will tell us when they enter the building,” rebutted Puller.

They raced across the space and reached the other door. But Puller grabbed Knox by the arm to stop her before she went through.

He pointed both his M11s at the door they’d entered and emptied a half mag each through the door.

She looked at him questioningly.

“That just bought us another thirty seconds. The counterfire will start up in about five clicks.”

They hustled up the steps and a few more moments later heard the bullets ripping into the door Puller had fired through.

“Good combat instincts,” said Knox as they high-kneed it up the stairs.

“You either gain them or you don’t make it,” said Puller.

“Someone has to hear the gunfire,” said Knox.

“They’re using suppressed rounds,” said Puller. “The technology has gotten a lot better. This area of the town is deserted at night. And by the time someone does hear, we’ll probably be dead.”

“So what do we do?”

“We keep moving. Stationary targets are easy targets. That’s why they use them on shooting ranges, so wannabes can feel good about themselves.”

He kicked open the door and they were confronted by a set of steps. They took them two at a time and came to a hall that went off in both directions.

“That’ll take us to the front of the building and that way to the rear,” calculated Puller.

“So which one do we take?”

“Neither. They’ll have them covered.”

“This is nuts. I’m calling the cops.”

She pulled out her phone and looked at it in disbelief: She had no bars.

Puller glanced at her. “I already checked mine. They’re jamming the signal.”

“Great. So you say we don’t go fore or aft? Then where do we go?”

“We go up.”

“What, so they can trap us on the roof?”

“Come on.”

Puller led her down the hall until they reached a door marked Stairs . He pulled it open and they headed up.

They had heard the door they had initially come through open as the wood Puller had jammed there was broken. The sounds of footsteps had carried across the open lower floor.

Now the footsteps were echoing through the building. The men after them apparently didn’t care if Puller and Knox knew they were coming. That was the confidence gained by superior numbers and firepower.

Puller led Knox up one flight of stairs after another until they reached the roof eight stories up. Puller forced the door and then used his Ka-Bar knife as a wedge on the hinge side of the door to jam it.

“Now what?” asked a perplexed Knox.

“You told me you ran track in college.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Ever practice the long jump?”

“Yes. I was pretty good at it.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“Puller, what the–”

They heard footsteps racing up the steps to the roof.

He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”

“What?”

They sprinted flat-out toward the edge of the roof.

Knox’s eyes bulged as she finally saw what his plan was. She started to scream but it died in her throat.

Puller’s hand still clamped around hers, they reached the small ledge, pushed off, and soared over the alley below.

For a long moment it seemed like they were suspended in the air, moving neither forward nor back.

Their momentum carried them over the multistory drop.

They hit the roof of the adjacent building, tucked, and rolled.

Before Knox could even catch her breath, Puller jerked her up and pulled her toward the access door on the building’s rooftop. He busted through it and pulled her inside and closed the door just as the men broke through the door on the roof of the building they had just been in. The armed men raced over the expanse of the roof looking for them.

Meanwhile, in the other building Puller and Knox clattered down the steps. They reached the ground floor and Puller found an exterior door leading to the side opposite the building they’d just leapt from. They pounded down the street.

Puller’s unerring sense of direction led them back to their car about twenty minutes later. They climbed inside and Knox finally let out a deep breath.

He looked at her. She was pale and shaken, her eyes staring straight ahead, as though she were in a trance or on the edge of hysteria and trying desperately to hold it together. Her face was bruised, her arm badly scraped, and her jeans and shirt torn.

“You okay?” he asked anxiously.

She slowly nodded. “Thanks for saving my life.” She paused. “And if you ever do something like that to me again, I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you.”

PULLER BLINKED AWAKE the next morning. He had slept in his clothes. As he sat up he looked out the window of the motel room on the outskirts of Williamsburg, Virginia.

The sun was starting to rise. The angle of light hit him in the eyes and he turned away.

He heard water running. He sat up and looked around.

Knox was in the bathroom. They had decided to only take one room. There was safety in numbers.

Knox padded out of the bathroom. She had taken her jeans off and the T-shirt was too short to conceal her pale thighs.

“How’s your arm?” asked Puller.

“Fine,” she said curtly.

“You feeling sore? We hit pretty hard.”

She didn’t respond.

They had not talked last night. Knox clearly was too angry to do so and Puller couldn’t come up with the words to initiate a productive discussion. He decided to try again, with a universally appealing opening.

“I’m sorry,” said Puller. He paused and added, “I thought if I told you what I was planning you might freak out and not do it. Then we’d be dead.”

She sat down on the corner of the bed and glared at him. “Have more faith in me next time,” she said, though her tone was more conciliatory.

“I will.”

She scooted up next to him and laid her head against the pillow. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her brow as she rubbed her injured arm.

“So they tried to kill Shepard and then tried to kill us. Led us right into a trap.”

“Which tells me they’re worried we’re getting close to the truth.”

“Who do you think those guys were?”

“My guess is mercenaries. They’re a dime a dozen now. Probably brought in from another country. Even if we managed to track them down they could tell us nothing. Money wired to an offshore account from an untraceable source. I’ve seen that enough times.”