As soon as the message was sent, he stepped out to where he could be seen. “Hey, I hear you’re looking for me.”
Quinn counted off five seconds after the double click before he pulled the door open as quietly as he could.
“…looking for me.”
As expected, the three guards in the hallway had all turned in Nate’s direction and were not paying attention to the door. Quinn, Orlando, and Daeng moved inside and spread out.
The guards, all eyes still on their escaped prisoner, began unslinging their rifles.
Quinn’s target was the farthest guard, Orlando’s the middle, Daeng’s the nearest. Within a second and a half, they each pulled their triggers. Like dominos, all three guards fell to the ground, dead.
The open cell was the one nearest Quinn and the others. The guard who’d been inside stepped out to see what was going on. A bullet to the forehead from Quinn’s gun sent him crashing back inside.
Nate jogged down the hall, stopping fifteen feet on the other side of the open door. “Janus! Come out!”
A scuffling of feet, then nothing.
“Janus!” Nate yelled again. “Give it up. Come on out. This is done.”
“Nothing is done. I think you will let me go.”
“You think wrong.”
A laugh, then Janus appeared in the doorway. But he wasn’t alone. He had Peter in his arms, and was holding him high enough to protect his own head and chest.
Peter grimaced. “Just shoot him.”
Janus peeked around Peter at Nate. “Well, Quinn, you
“Put him down,” Nate said.
“Go over with your friends or I break his neck. You know I can.”
“I don’t care if you hit me,” Peter said. “Shoot him!”
No one pulled the trigger. Peter was-if not quite a friend-someone who’d been an important part of their lives for a long time. They weren’t about to shoot at him if they could help it.
Quinn motioned for his old apprentice to join them. As soon as Nate did, Janus eased out of the room, turning to keep Peter between them and him at all times.
Quinn searched for a shot, anything that might disable Janus and allow them to get Peter free, but Peter was unintentionally doing a pretty damn good job of shielding the other man. Quinn might be able to shoot Janus in the foot, but it was iffy at best.
Janus started backing down the hallway in the direction Nate had been hiding. Nate took a step forward to follow.
“Don’t,” Janus said. “I
“Kill him and we’ll kill you,” Nate said.
“Peter here will still be dead, and I might still get away.”
Janus took another step back. This time Nate didn’t move.
“Good boy,” Janus said, not stopping.
“Shoot him!” Peter yelled.
Janus momentarily freed up a hand and punched the former head of the Office in the face. There were no more outbursts.
“What’s going on?” Lanier called from his cell.
“Yeah,” Berkeley said. “What’s happening out there? Are you here to get us out?”
“Everyone shut up,” Quinn said.
“Come on, man,” Berkeley said. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that we’re going to leave you here if you say another word.”
Janus had reached the turn in the hall. “Don’t follow me,” he ordered, and then disappeared.
Quinn and Nate immediately ran after him. As they neared the corner, they heard a grunt and a thud. Then running feet, heavy and fast.
They sprinted the rest of the way to the end, and whipped around the corner, their guns ready.
Peter lay motionless on the ground about halfway between the corner and the far door, but Janus was gone. They raced over and knelt down. Quinn checked Peter’s pulse.
“He’s alive,” he said.
Nate glanced at the hallway beyond them. “Janus can get to the top of the wall that way. If he does, he’ll warn everyone. That could be a problem.” He stood up. “I’m going after him.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
With a nod, Nate took off.
Quinn put Peter over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, lugged him back to the others, and transferred him to Daeng’s shoulder.
“Get the others out,” he said. “Take everyone to the room downstairs and lock yourselves in. Nate and I are on cleanup.”
“You two can’t do it alone,” Orlando said.
“If we need help, I’ll let you know.” He took off down the hall.
Nate knew there was no way he would catch Janus in time. The son of a bitch had too much of a head start, but he had to try.
He grabbed the wall just before he reached the stairs so he could propel himself around the corner and up. The around-the-corner part worked. The up, not so much.
Janus was standing three steps above him, waiting. Nate smashed into the man’s chest and fell back onto the ground, his gun skittering off to the side.
The welts on his back screamed again, but he ignored them.
Janus jumped down, his feet heading straight for Nate’s ribs. As Nate rolled to the side, Janus kicked out in an attempt to change direction, but Nate slammed his elbow back, hitting the big man in the calf.
Janus toppled over, his arm slamming the stone floor with a giant
“Get up!” he yelled at his former tormentor, egging him on. “What are you, scared of me?”
Focus returned to Janus’s face. His gaze narrowed, and he pushed himself up. “You big problem.”
Nate moved to his right. “Yeah, I am.”
Countering him, Janus went left.
“I take care of problems,” Janus said. “That is my specialty.”
“Well, you haven’t taken care of this problem yet, have you?”
“No. But I am not done yet.”
The gun was only a few feet behind Nate now. If Janus had seen it, there had been no indication.
“I don’t know. You seem kind of done to me.”
Janus smiled. “You try to provoke. I provoke not so easy.”
Nate took a half step backward. “It was worth a try, wasn’t it?”
“Trying is for the weak. I never try. I do.”
“I don’t believe that’s how the quote goes,” Nate said as he slid back a little more.
“What?”
“Yoda.”
“Huh?”
Nate’s foot touched the end of the barrel. “Never mind.”
What he really needed was for Janus to take a swing at him, so he could duck down and grab the gun without being obvious. If Janus knew what he was doing, he could put a stop to it before Nate would be able to get the
