Return fire came instantly; he heard the windshield of the GMC van shatter next to him, but he kept regressing and firing. Three rounds, then five, then ten before he dropped to a knee at the back of the vehicle.
He knew he’d hit the man in the center, maybe the guy on the left, but he didn’t know if either of them was down. This meant he was facing off against somewhere between one and three enemy, and he had no situational awareness as to where they were.
He was deep in the shit here, and behind him, the gunfire from Travers’s position suddenly stopped.
Thirty-One
Ten seconds earlier, Court found himself on his knees on the bed in the middle of Irene Ortega’s bedroom, smoke swirling around him, and here he took just an instant to get his bearings. Looking through the glass lenses of the holographic weapon’s sight on his small pistol high in front of him, he actuated his weapon light and saw through the darkness, through the smoke, a figure standing in the doorway to the bathroom, facing away, waiting for the smoke to clear so that he could shoot the woman who must have been somewhere inside. But the noise of the shattering glass behind him had caused the killer known as Deep Space to look back over his shoulder in Court’s direction. Court saw a latex mask covering his face; he barely made out the man’s wide eyes reflecting in the light through the eyeholes. The surprised killer began spinning his body, shifting his aim towards the man who’d just appeared behind him from nowhere.
Court fired a double tap, two rounds into the spinning man’s torso, and then, not knowing if his enemy was wearing body armor, he targeted the man’s head, but Deep Space’s body collapsed so fast, Court missed high with his third round.
Court stood up on the bed now, window glass crunching under his boots as he did so, then aimed at the man who had fallen back onto the threshold into the bathroom.
Court fired twice more, both times into the man’s head. Blood and tissue splattered into the bathroom, painting the side of the tub.
Court started to broadcast to his team, but then a fresh volley of gunfire echoed up to him from the street directly below, and more gunfire came from the east, from the direction of Hightower and the Ford Expedition.
Both of his teammates sounded like they were engaging multiple adversaries, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it up here.
The American leapt off the bed, quickly cleared the rest of the smoky condo with the light on his weapon, then came back and found the woman still lying fetal inside the bathtub, her hands covering her ears.
Court’s own ears rang as he grabbed her right arm and helped her up to her feet.
She stood on shaky legs, then stepped out of the tub as he assisted her.
Irene Ortega was in stocking feet; the thick smoke had cleared enough for him to see that much, so he told her to put on her shoes.
But the other complication in a night full of them was that he had no idea what Ortega’s involvement in all of this was. Could she have been a bad actor, as well? He realized he’d lost sight of her when she went into her closet, so he pointed his weapon there and shined his light.
The woman’s face was drained of color; she was in shock as she stepped into a pair of slip-on tennis shoes, then squinted into the light shining at her.
“What now?” she asked.
He had to get the woman out of here, down to street level, then out of D.C. He prayed the two other assets of his organization would be ready to go with him by the time he climbed into a vehicle, but for now he had to focus completely on his own predicament.
—
Matt Hanley stood in the darkness of the suite in the Hotel AKA Washington Circle, still wishing he had a weapon, but for now all he could do was try to watch the action in the street and monitor his earpiece for news.
He couldn’t see Travers; he was behind the side of a building, but itlooked like he had nowhere to go from there. Hightower had disappeared in the distance, somewhere on the other side of his vehicle.
Behind him Hanley heard Arnold quickly zipping bags, clicking closed cases, dragging things towards the door.
He called out to Arnold now. “Bricklayer, how soon till we’re clear?”
“Ready to go.”
“Okay.” He turned to Gumdrop, who stood in front of the last laptop still on the table. “We get to the vic and go pick up the assets.”
The three of them rushed out of the hotel room, each one carrying multiple backpacks and rolling more luggage behind them.
—
Chris Travers found himself back up on his knees, halfway down the ramp to the locked underground parking garage door and facing L Street to the south.
There was no gunfire here, though he heard it echoing against the buildings from the east, and this told him Zack was still fighting there.
At first, that was about all he knew. He found himself a little dazed; he’d pushed himself up to his knees seconds earlier, after being shot and knocked down, disoriented by the spin and the pain and the fall, and it was only now he realized he did not have a gun in his hand.
