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“Address of building?”

She provided it.

“Are you planning on rescuing Elijah?”

“Our plan is fluid. Our two bodyguards have been killed. I’ve got six civilians with me.” She looked up at Felix. He held up his hand and held out five fingers. “Scratch, that Captain, I have five civilians and one other operative.”

“Do what you have to do. Just keep me informed. I might have a plan I can put in place. I’ll call.”

“Much appreciated.”

The line went dead.

She turned her attention to the group. “Who are you?” Landry demanded to know. “FBI? CIA? Military?”

“I used to work for the CIA. Now I’m going to school in Turkey to get another master’s degree and support myself as a translator.”

“And you?” Landry asked Felix.

“I freelance. Spent some time in the Army. Now I work for myself. I really like my boss.”

“So, you’re an asshole,” Landry said with derision.

“You’re really a piece of work, aren’t you?” Felix rolled his eyes.

Leila and pretty much everybody else did what they could not to laugh. After that, Leila felt herself relaxing for the first time since the room exploded and Elijah had been taken.

“We have two pistols and a rifle. Sam, you were in the Marines. Are you still good with a pistol?” Leila asked.

“Give it to Landry. He won’t be able to do anything with a knife. I will.” Sam stepped up to Felix and held out his hand for the bloody knife.

“How good are you?” Leila asked.

“Good,” Sam answered succinctly.

She handed over the sheath and knife she’d pulled off Nottingham and handed that over, too. Then she gave the PS-365 to Landry. “Make every shot count. There’s only one extra magazine.”

“So, how should we do this? Two at the stairs and two at the elevators?” she asked.

“I thought you were in charge,” Landry said sarcastically.

“The elevators could hold more men at once. The rifle should be positioned there. The stairs have a narrower point of entry. A knife and a gun there,” Felix said. “Leila, any preference?”

“I’ll leave that to Sam.”

“Leila, you’re with me at the stairs,” Sam said.

“Landry, you’re with me at the elevators,” Felix said. “Since there are two, we’ll see which ones are coming up if we watch five feet in front of them. We can be prepared. I doubt that they’ll be bringing Elijah back up. Leila, are we sure that there aren’t going to be any civilians in this building?”

“This building has been unoccupied for a year, but there is always a chance our intel is wrong. The electricity is on, and the conference room table didn’t have dust on it, so it’s being cleaned. I think they have a cleaning crew, so you need to be on the lookout for that. They would come up in the elevators.”

“Good call.” Felix nodded. “Landry, got that?”

Landry nodded.

Leila looked over at Sam. “Sam, we can pretty much assume people coming up the stairs will be bad guys. Any shots fired would be at our targets. Remember, we need to take at least one alive.”

“You’re with me, Leila,” Sam said again.