Page 91 of Nightfire

The drill was small but powerful. It bit through the apartment wall, through the insulation and sheetrock and, finally, through the wall on the other side. He immediately switched off the drill.

Nikitin kept his eye on the monitor. The woman was still sitting in her chair. Her thermal signature was the same, but the cup’s temperature had dropped.

Nikitin fit one end of a small rubber tube over the spout of the canister and threaded the other end carefully through the hole on this side of the wall and the other side. He stopped when he gauged that the tube exited one centimeter from the hole.

It was a calculated risk. Nothing indicated that this Mason woman was an operator. She was a civilian, an American civilian and was as dumb to the surrounding perils as a rock. It was highly unlikely she would notice a tiny piece of flesh-colored rubber and very soon she would be knocked unconscious.

Nikitin fit a gas mask over his face, tossing Dmitri his. Once they’d checked that they worked, Nikitin flipped a lever, picked the scanner up and stood.

At first nothing happened. Then, the flame-colored woman on the other side of the wall sat up straighter, lifting her head. Weaponized fentanyl was odorless, but it was possible there was a slight hiss as it filled the small room.

The woman stood up and for a horrible moment, Nikitin thought the fentanyl wasn’t working. She lurched suddenly, hands braced on the table, then slid bonelessly to the floor.

Phase two, complete.

Nikitin packed everything away, while Dmitri placed small charges along an imaginary rectangle a meter and a half high and two meters wide. When he finished, Dmitri then turned the music to its highest setting and they exited the room, waiting to the side of the living room door while Dmitri pushed the detonator.

The explosion was audible, but less loud than the music. Nikitin and Dmitri rushed to the wall dividing the two apartments, the gas masks protecting them from the drywall dust.

They put their shoulders to the wall and ripped and punched their way into the other apartment. Nikitin bent, handed Dmitri his backpack and pulled the unconscious woman up and over his shoulder.

A quick glance at the front door showed that there was another keypad, which doubtless was linked to some kind of signal to the owner that the front door had been breached.

No problem. They exited through the hole blown in the wall and out through the front door of the apartment owned by less paranoid people.

Their luck held. The elevator took them down to the garage level. Nikitin stood in the shadows while Dmitri went to get the SUV. While waiting, Nikitin checked the security cameras. Out, every single one.

Dmitri rolled down the ramp, turned around and backed up to Nikitin. He placed the Mason woman down in the back, checking her eyes and pulse. She was completely unconscious. Fentanyl was a dangerous substance. Nikitin hadn’t dosed it and didn’t even know what the lethal dose was. At the Moscow siege, 170 people had died from the gas.

Chloe Mason was definitely going to die, but not before he got his thumb drive back. And no one was going to trade something valuable in for a cadaver.

He put plastic restraints around her wrists and ankles. Then he pulled out a syringe and plunged it into her thigh. M 5050, an antidote. She had to be able to walk in about half an hour.

He climbed into the passenger seat, dialed in the GPS coordinates into the navigator system and signed Dmitri to drive off.

Phase Three complete, ready for Phase Four.

EIGHTEEN

Mike walked into Harry’s office taking in the situation at a glance. Harry, looking like he wanted to chew someone’s head off, Nicole sitting back in an armchair, feet up on the coffee table, fingers linked over huge belly, eyes closed. Sam, standing behind her like some huge guard dog, hands on her shoulders.

“Sitrep,” Mike said, as soon as the door closed behind him. Nicole’s eyes opened for a second, then closed again.

“Okay, we have the name of the man who ordered the attack on Chloe,” Harry said, and Mike froze. Every cell, every muscle on lockdown.

“Who. And where?” He managed to unlock his throat enough to get the words out.

The man who’d ordered the attack on Chloe. The man who only had a few hours to live.

“Whoa,” Sam said when Mike headed without a word for the gun locker.

“Yeah, hold it,” Harry said, holding up his hands when Mike snarled at him. “Listen, she’s my sister. You think I don’t want to get back at this fucker? At least as much as you do? But we need more intel.”

Back home, Mike had been so relaxed he felt boneless. Now he felt as if the top of his head was about ready to blow. He didn’t want more intel, he didn’t need it. If they had a name, they had an address and he wanted to be there now.

He could barely reason through the buzzing in his head. Barely think of steps to take, how to plan it through, because his head was so full of images of a broken and hurt Chloe. “Where’s the intel coming from?”

“Same place the name came from. A woman Chloe helped. She works at the Meteor Club. Chloe did some talk sessions with her and some of the other women, they all started rebelling and this guy sent his goons to teach Chloe a lesson.”