The breaching charge beeped three times, then detonated the explosive, blowing a hole right where the locked door latch had been.
Smoke filled the doorway and the hall. Spiral put his detonator back in his pocket and drew his silenced weapon, then adjusted the latex mask while he waited for the smoke to clear. In five seconds, he’d spin in front of the door and kick it in.
Thirty
Matt Hanley peered through handheld binos because Arnold had packed up the tripods, and he watched smoke fill the living room of the small condo.
He wished he had a sniper rifle right now; even with a pistol at this distance, he could probably drop Deep Space as soon as he appeared in the living room.
But Hanley hadn’t considered for an instant he’d need to be arming himself on an operation to collect intelligence to pass off to a CIA investigator inside Washington, D.C.
This entire surveillance operation had gone insane in the past few hours, and now he was just hoping like hell his three assets—two and a half when you considered the fact that Hightower wasn’t even operating at full strength—could control these three scenes and get out with their lives in the next few minutes.
The only lights in the condo on the eighth floor across the street were from the TV and filtering through the windows, so the dense smoke darkened Matt’s view momentarily.
Jill watched the same scene from a different viewpoint—the hallway camera—and then she shifted her attention to the cameras Teddy and Six had placed inside the unit earlier in the day, looking for the hit man, somewhere in the darkness, in the smoke.
She spoke into her phone now. “Irene, is the bathroom door locked?”
The woman was in a state of shock, but finally she answered. “Yes.”
“And the bedroom door?”
“Shit! No…I forgot to lock it.”
Hanley called out to her over the speakerphone. “It’s okay. Don’t leave the bathroom. Get in your bathtub. My man will be there, and he will help you.”
Irene whispered. “How close is he?”
“He’s almost to you.”
Jill looked to Hanley, who looked back to her. He shrugged a little—he had no clue how close Court was—and then he took a few steps away from the speakerphone, deeper into the kitchen of the suite. Cupping his hand between his mouth and his earpiece, he said, “Six, status?”
“I’m on the ninth floor.”
“Subject is on the eighth! You know that!”
“Yep. Okay…I’m inside the condo next door and one above her. It seems empty.”
Hanley didn’t give a shit if there was a convention of nuns meeting in that condo, he just wanted Court to get out to the balcony, find a way over and down to Irene’s bedroom window, and then save Ortega. As he was about to respond to his asset, however, Jill spoke.
“Deep Space is in the living room. He has got his gun up, he’s moving toward the bedroom. The TV is on, there’s half a glass of wine on the coffee table. He’s going to know someone is there.”
Hanley moved back toward the phone in Jill’s hand as Arnold ran by, moving cases to the door of the hotel suite.
Hanley said, “Irene, don’t make a sound.”
Six spoke up over the network again. “I need a minute to figure out how to get over to—”
“You don’t have a minute!” Hanley shouted back.
Jill kept watching the screen in front of her. She said, “He’s in the bedroom.” After a short pause, she said, “He’s trying the bathroom door. It’s locked. Irene, get as flat to the ground as you can.” She thought Deep Space was going to shoot open the lock, but then he pulled another breaching charge out of his pocket. Jill had a perfect view of Deep Space; a cameraTeddy and Six had placed in a corner vent earlier in the day was pointed right at the bathroom door from across the room.
Calmly, the assassin played out the wire, then stepped to the side of the door. Jill covered her phone and softly said, “He’s going to blow the door and shoot her.” From the tone of her voice, all was already lost.
Hanley had moved over to the window; watching the apartment with his naked eye, he could see the residual smoke hanging in the living room, but he couldn’t see the bedroom from here. Into his earpiece he said, “Six, if we lose Irene, we lose whatever information she has about—”
Court snapped back, “I know what’s at stake, dammit! I’m just trying to figure out how I’m gonna fly!”
