Patrick Lee - Ghost Country

He took one more step before his balance outran him, and then he was falling, completing his spin as he dropped. Still holding the Beretta in his left hand by its silencer. He brought his right hand up and took the weapon by the grip. Raised it to sight in on one of the still-armed gunmen. His angle of fire, as he fell, was tilted radically upward. If he missed, the bullet would hit only the ceiling-there was no more of the building above this floor.

He fired. He didn't miss. The shot hit the man at the base of his skull and blew it open.

Then Travis's ass hit the floor painfully and his gun arm dropped beyond his control.

By then, everyone was moving. Things were happening too quickly for him to keep track of. He saw Paige and Bethany ducking and running toward him, getting out of the kill zone that was about to open up between the gunmen and the oncoming agents in the hall. He could hear the agents' footsteps, as well as those of the other teams, still out of sight somewhere behind him. He could see the gunmen scattering, ducking-no doubt they could see the agents now. One man slammed into the leather chair that held the two cylinders. The chair pitched forward, spilling the cylinders onto the carpet. They rolled in different directions-neither one toward Travis.

Travis raised the Beretta again, looking for a target, when it occurred to him what he was doing. He was holding a pistol, in a room containing a former president, into which Secret Service agents were about to flood.

Not a good way to stay alive.

He cocked his wrist and threw the gun sideways, saw it hit the carpet and spin into the gap beneath the couch. At the same time he saw Paige and Bethany diving toward him, and even as they hit the ground the shooting started.

Travis saw within seconds that it wasn't going to shake out in their favor. Finn and his men had fallen back to defensive positions in adjoining rooms, leaving Garner alone where he stood. The Secret Service agents were already converging on him, unloading suppressing fire at the doorways through which the others had retreated.

But not engaging them.

Not attacking.

That wasn't their job.

Their job was to get Garner out of harm's way, and they would do it in probably fifteen seconds. Twenty at the most. They would surround him and hustle him out, down the entry hall and out into the larger corridor. Probably right out of the building after that. They would maintain fire to cover the retreat from the residence, but that would be it. Not even Garner could order them to do otherwise. In the heat of it all, they wouldn't even be listening to him.

Well under half a minute from right now, Travis knew, the three of them would be left alone with Finn's remaining people-nearly all of them still alive.

Travis was lying facedown on the floor now, hands outstretched and empty. Paige and Bethany, right beside him, were in the same position.

Travis turned his head and saw two agents pass by on the inside wall of the living room. They were firing three-shot bursts.

The rest of the action was going on where Travis couldn't see it. He couldn't tell if Finn's people were shooting. Their silenced fire would've been impossible to make out against the other shots.

Paige turned to him, her eyes intense. She understood the trouble they were in as well as he did. Then she looked past him. He turned to follow her gaze, and saw one of the cylinders.

It was ten feet away, under the coffee table.

He looked for the other one. Couldn't see it anywhere. Given the direction it'd rolled, it had to be closer to Finn's position now. It wasn't even worth thinking about.

Travis looked at the nearer one. If he could get to it and get the iris open, no special care would be needed to position it. The ruin of this building had thick steel gridwork for subflooring instead of concrete and rebar. The grids were completely rusted, but because they were such a heavy gauge-inch-thick steel rods crisscrossing at three-inch intervals-they were still very strong. No matter where he opened the iris, there would be a solid surface to crawl onto on the other side.

It would take him two seconds to reach the cylinder, starting from his prone position.

Paige saw what he was thinking. "You can't!" Her voice was just audible under the shooting. "The agents will think you're going for a weapon!"

He craned his neck around to look at them. They'd reached Garner. They'd boxed him in. Two or three of them, with their free hands, had grabbed hold of the man's arms. They were dragging him toward the hall. Garner was shouting something at them, as Travis had imagined. It was about as effective as he'd imagined, too. Ten more seconds and they'd be gone. They were still shooting at the doorways through which Finn and his people had ducked. Sporadic fire, meant only for deterrence.

One of the agents had his eyes fixed on Travis and Paige and Bethany, even as his MP5 stayed trained on the doorways. He could swing the weapon toward the three of them, where they lay, about as quickly as he could decide they were a threat.

Travis wouldn't get halfway to the cylinder if he went for it.

He judged the agents' progress toward the mouth of the entry hall, beyond which they wouldn't be able to see him anymore. Five seconds now, at most.

He looked at the doorways. Finn and the others were somewhere beyond them. Travis had no doubt that Finn, at least, was running the same calculation he was: gauging the straight-razor margin of time between the agents' departure from the suite and the earliest moment that Travis could reach the cylinder and trigger the iris.

It would take some number of seconds, and some number of seconds would be available. One of those numbers would turn out to be larger than the other. In the end it would be that simple.

In the last few feet before the mouth of the hallway, the Secret Service agents began to run. They hauled Garner along, barely on his feet.

And then they were gone, out of Travis's view, into the hall.

Travis moved. Drew his legs up under him, dug his feet into the carpet and lunged. Even as he did, he heard-even felt-the suite go silent as the shooting stopped. The agents were simply hauling ass now, transiting the length of the entry hall as fast as they could physically go. Their footsteps were the only sound-for a second. And then there were other footsteps, nearer by.

Travis hit the coffee table with both hands. Slammed it aside like it weighed nothing, though it was made of solid walnut.

Finn and the others were coming fast. Maybe not through the doorways yet, but close.

Travis got his hands on the cylinder. He landed on his shoulder, twisted and aimed the thing toward Paige and Bethany. He hit the on button and the off (detach/delay-93 sec.) button a fraction of a second apart.

The iris opened a few inches above the floor. The night beyond it was dark and depthless except for streaks of rain at the opening, silvery in the light-bleed from the suite. The projection beam was already intensifying, charging the iris to stay open on its own. Travis had never measured exactly how long that part took. It'd always seemed like just a few seconds. It seemed longer now.

The footsteps were closer. Definitely in the living room. Travis didn't bother turning to look. Whatever he might see, there was nothing he could do any faster.

Paige was up on all fours and moving. Throwing herself into the beam of light, but not toward the iris. Instead she passed through the light, hit the floor and rolled, and came to a stop with her hand clutching Bethany's backpack. She twisted back toward the iris and threw the pack with all her force. It went through into the darkness. Travis heard the clatter of the SIG and the shotgun shells as the pack landed on the gridwork.