Nate extended his arm behind him and raised his palm into the air. As soon as he felt the stun grenade touch his skin, he wrapped his fingers around it, and carefully brought it forward over the gap. On the comm he could hear Orlando click her mic, but he barely registered it. All his attention was on the task ahead.
Though he knew the toss was a relatively easy one, he had to account for his inverted perspective or he’d likely throw the grenade into the ceiling. That would alter its trajectory, and could keep it from getting close enough to the guard to be effective.
A nice, simple lob was all that was needed.
He tried a practice swing, adjusted his arm motion, and tried again. Happy with the result, he brought the grenade up so he could see it, and turned the timer to five seconds. He drew his arm back and tossed the grenade into the room, then pulled himself out of the stairwell as quickly as he could.
At the two-and-a-half-second mark, they could hear the sound of metal skidding across the floor. A second later, the wooden chair below creaked as the guard must have started to wake. Then Boooom!
Quinn continued to monitor the guards. Though he expected to be the only one outside the detention building to know that anything had happened, he wanted to make sure there was no reaction from the other two.
Unconsciously, he counted off the seconds after the click.
Four seconds. Five. Six. Seven. Ei Booom!
The sound had most definitely not been contained within the building.
The guards were instantly alert, both turning toward the other building. They exchanged a few words, and one started running in the direction of the sound.
“I don’t know what happened,” Quinn said, “but you’ve got company on the way.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he pulled back. Given his current position-the perfect place for a spotter- he was vulnerable, too.
As he was turning away, he heard the front door of the main house open. He took a quick look over his shoulder just in time to see at least half a dozen men rush outside.
Quinn’s voice. Distant.
Something about company.
That’s when Nate realized he was lying on the floor. Which floor and where took him another second to remember. When he did, he scrambled to his feet.
Daeng was sitting against the wall, Nate’s backpack somehow sitting in his lap.
Nate grabbed it from him and said, “Are you all right?”
“Uh…yeah. Fine.”
A hand clamped down on Nate’s back and whirled him around.
“What the hell was that?” Orlando said. “I thought you said it was low power. That was not low power.”
Screwed by Giacona again, Nate realized, though he doubted the weapon supplier had any idea his grenades were mislabeled. But now was not the time to worry about it.
He jumped into the stairwell, and raced down to the basement. The guard, his chair, and his book were now all on the floor, and two of the cell doors were hanging open on broken hinges.
Nate ran over to the guard, and checked the man’s pulse. Not exactly strong, but it wasn’t threatening to stop, either. There was blood on the floor, but it appeared to be a result of the man’s nose coming into abrupt contact with the ground.
Keep going! Nate told himself.
He checked the two cells with the broken doors, but they were empty, so he headed for the last cell. It had been the one closest to the guard, therefore the most likely place a prisoner was being kept. He turned the knob and tried to pull it open, but it didn’t budge. At first he thought it was locked on the outside. Then he saw that the blast had warped it enough to jam it in place.
He stepped back and kicked at the door. It groaned as it moved inward. From the other side he thought he heard a voice. He kicked it again.
The middle portion of the door cleared the jamb, creating a small opening.
“Mila?” Nate called. “Are you in there?”
“Yes!” she yelled.
“Stand back.”
Once more he attacked the door, this time leading with his back and ramming his whole body against it. The door broke free.
“Come on!” he yelled.
“You came to get me,” she said as she rushed out.
“Come on.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her to the stairway, and up to the next floor. When they reached Orlando and Daeng near the front door, Mila put on the brakes, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“They’re with us,” Nate said. “Intros later, if you don’t mind.”
That tempered her a bit, but not completely.
“Have we heard from Quinn?” he asked.
“Been trying to reach him,” Orlando said.
“Has anyone checked the door?”
Orlando looked at him as if he were crazy. Daeng said, “You’re more than welcome to, but I’m pretty sure we aren’t the only ones who heard our little explosion.”
“Understatement of the year,” Orlando said.
“I’m sorry,” Nate said.
Orlando shook her head. “Never mind. If we had left right away, maybe we would have made it, but by now there’s got to be at least three or four of them out there.”
The single exit was a choke point. The only thing the men outside would need to do was train their weapons on the doorway, and shoot anything that moved through it.
“I’ll go,” Nate said. “You all hide. I’ll convince them I came in alone. Hopefully, one of them will recognize me as the one who was with Quinn earlier. They probably think he’s dead, or at least laid up. I’ll just say I was trying to finish the job of getting Mila away.”
“They’ll come in and look anyway,” Orlando said. “They’ll want to know what happened to her.”
“Yeah, but they’ll be splitting their forces, not coming at you all at once.”
“…o it…” Quinn’s voice crackled through the comm.
“Quinn?” Orlando said. “Are you all right?”
“… got…ont cov…There…an…way…”
“You’re not coming through clearly. Can you repeat?”
“…ther exit…”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “Exit?
“…es…”
“Quinn?” Nate said.
Silence.
“Quinn?”
He was gone.
“If you want my opinion,” Daeng said, “I think he was suggesting there might be another exit.”
“Did anybody see one?” Nate asked.
They all shook their heads.
“There must be something,” Orlando said. “Places like this always have an emergency exit. So I think before you go off sacrificing yourself, we should at least take a look.”
Nate frowned. “Even if there is, don’t you think they’ll have someone waiting on the other side? Hell, maybe they’re using it right now to get in.”
“We have to try,” Orlando said.
She was right, of course.
He looked at the door. The thing about choke points was that they worked both ways. While they searched, only one of them would have to stay behind to dissuade anyone outside from using the door.
