Solo was the last to come inside. He reached into his messenger bag as soon as the double doors closed behind him and pressed a few buttons on his electrical device. As we walked through the lobby, he murmured, “And . . . the clock starts now. We’ll have approximately twelve minutes before they can restart the security cameras and we’re on their radar. Less than three to finish up and get the hell out of here.”
Pier walked opposite us. He went toward the kitchen as we quickly moved past the front desk to the elevators. Once we arrived and got in it, Solo pulled out another one of his little gadgets, tinkered around with it, and suddenly we had access to the fourteenth floor.
Each floor we passed beeped. Time seemed to stand still as we stood ready to handle our business. Everyone had their weapons out and ready. The elevator finally dinged on our floor, and the doors opened. Hahn spoke as we exited. “Here we go.”
Brody pulled me by the arm and placed me behind him. “Stay behind me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’ll knock you out myself, if you don’t do as you’re told, Gina.”
Who did he think he was? Pissed, I snapped. “I’m not the little woman who can be put in a box. I can take care of myself.”
Hahn checked his watch. “We’ve got about twenty seconds before everything gets hot. Are you and Brody good back there?”
We didn’t respond. That sobering fact quieted down the impending showdown between us. Until then, I gripped my weapon a little tighter and based on Hahn’s statement counted backward in my head. 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!
Chapter 22
The explosion knocked me into a wall, but Brody grabbed me by my waist to prevent me from falling. I righted myself as Hahn and Solo each rolled a can of smoke down opposite ends of the hallway. Quickly, it started to fill up with white smoke. Then, all hell broke loose.
An alarm went off as soon as the doors to individual rooms opened, no questions were asked. Guns started popping off. Flashes of light from the ends of barrels were everywhere. It was almost like the Fourth of July. Lights flashed and like fireworks, the pungent odor of not firecrackers, but guns filled the air.
Hahn shot at a door in front of us, then kicked it in. Brody did the same thing to the room directly across from Hahn. Only Hahn’s room was empty. Brody’s was not. Without a thought, he fired off two shots into someone lunging for him. The person fell onto the floor. He pulled me into the room behind him.
Standing inside the door well trying to dodge bullets, Hahn yelled. “I’ve got high!” Solo didn’t respond, he just took a low position and started firing.
We mimicked them as Brody fired off shots in the opposite direction going high, and I got in on the action crouching low.
“I’m out. Cover me.” Brody pulled back into the room to reload his weapon, while I continued to shoot mine. Minutes seemed like hours by the time Jamal and the rest of our team arrived on the scene. They joined the firefight for another several minutes before everything started to die down.
Once Brody reloaded his weapon, I pulled back inside the door and glanced at my watch. This was taking too long. We had less than six minutes for this entire operation to work. We were running out of time.
I needed to get to Cecily. I knew that Nina couldn’t run with her because we had men stationed in the stairwells and Solo jammed the elevator after we got off. Still, I had to get to Cecily before Nina did something stupid.
Kitty-corner from us was suite number 1420. That meant suite 1405 was at least seven doors down. I hollered above all the noise. “This is taking too long.” Then, dashed out into the hallway.
Brody yelled out my name. I ignored him and continued to stay low as I made my way down the hall in the midst of all the smoke and commotion.
I didn’t get too far. “Aaaaaaaah!” The sound of my high pitched squeal shocked even me. The impact of the bullet tearing through my flesh pushed my body flat onto the floor, and my gun fell out of my hand. My shoulder burned liked hell. Dammit! I’d been hit.
I couldn’t let that stop me. There was no choice but to suck it up. I crawled on my stomach with my good arm outstretched reaching for my gun. It was hard to see, but I felt around for my weapon until my fingertips touched the cold hard steel.
I must have made it further down the hallway than I thought because when I looked up, the number on the door read 1405.
*****
Five minutes. That was all that was left.
Shortly after I arrived at the door, Brody, Hahn, and Solo were on my heels. Brody helped me up off of the floor. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What I have to. We don’t have much time to be messing around.”
Solo kneeled placing some plastic explosives on the door. Jamal, Pier, and a couple of our other guys showed up too. Brody asked, “What’s our damage count?”
