Wormhole (The Rho Agenda #3)(83)

Pausing momentarily to grab a white lab coat from a hanger by the lab entrance, she slipped out of the wet hospital gown, fastened the coat around her with the gun belt, and stepped back into the corridor. She’d been in the lab for just over three minutes, and she felt certain that she could have held her breath another seven. Still, it felt good to replace the old lungful with a fresh breath.

Partially revived by the cold downpour, Jennifer was moving on Mark’s back, in weak protest against the trusses that bound her to her brother. The sound of distant gunfire echoed from above.

“Got ’em?” Mark asked.

“What we need.”

“So now it’s up and out.”

“The shaft comes out in an elevator alcove about fifty feet from the main entrance. Right now there’s a serious fight going on up there; we should be able to get to the parking garage exit with minimal resistance.”

“Minimal?”

“Three to five guards. Eighty-seven percent probability based on my last look at the video.”

“Let’s do it.”

Heather led the way back to the shaft at a jog. Her last step propelled her out onto the cable. The gunfire was louder now, interspersed with yells and screams of pain. She slowed her ascent as she approached the open door to the main elevator alcove. A black-clad guard crouched facing away, firing down the hall toward the entrance. Heather shot him in the back of the head.

Leaping into the alcove, she grabbed him by his heels and pulled him farther back into the alcove as Mark landed behind her.

Heather yelled to make herself heard over the sound of the raging gun battle in the main foyer. “Take his uniform. I’ll cover you.”

Mark unstrapped Jennifer as Heather grabbed the dead guard’s short-barreled Mark 17 SCAR-H and magazines and took up a defensive crouch by the exit into the main corridor. When she glanced back again, Mark, dressed in black, was finishing lacing up his boots.

Heather tossed him the SCAR-H. “I’ll carry Jen. You get us the hell out of here.”

As she lifted Jennifer’s body onto her shoulder, Heather saw Mark lean around the corner and squeeze off two quick shots. Seeing him motion her forward, Heather hit the hall in a dead run, heard Mark firing behind her as she ducked around the corner. A crouching guard saw her coming, paused to take in the girl in the white lab coat with an orange-clad woman slung over her shoulder, and hesitated. Heather’s bullet took him between the eyes, the nine-millimeter Parabellum slamming his lifeless body to the floor with an audible thump.

As she reached the door out to the parking garage, Heather heard Mark’s boots pounding down the hall behind her. Turning the handle in her hand, she stepped aside as Mark’s shoulder hit the door, launching it into one of the two guards crouching outside. The other tried to level his weapon, but Mark was too fast, his booted foot catching the man in the chest with the force of a battering ram. Two trigger pulls ensured neither man would pose a continuing threat.

Glancing back down the hallway, Heather saw an Arab prisoner peek around the corner. She squeezed off a round that caught him in the throat, sending him sprawling.

“Got their keys,” Mark said. “Let’s go.”

Ducking as low as she could and still run with Jennifer slung over her shoulder, Heather followed Mark through the rows of cars while he clicked the alarm buttons on both key fobs. They were rewarded with the sound of a honking horn and the flash of headlights on a white Ford Edge halfway down the second row.

Heather piled Jennifer into the backseat and climbed into the passenger seat as Mark threw the car into drive and squealed around the exit ramp. As Mark cornered out of the building, the mini-SUV slid sideways, tires spewing black smoke as the rear window exploded in a hail of bullets. Heather emptied the Beretta along the calculated back trajectory and then they were around the corner, headlights off, sliding right onto Canine Road, then left onto Rockenbach with all the speed Mark could extract from the new Ford.

“You’re bleeding.” The concern in Mark’s voice made Heather aware of a dull throbbing in her left temple.

A quick touch and her hand came away bloody. “Just a glass scalp cut. Bleeds a lot, but I’m fine.”

At Cooper Avenue, Mark hung another left, letting the speed fall off naturally as they entered the wooded housing area. A left on Ninety-First Division Boulevard led to Colyer Loop and then Anderson Loop. Mark parked the Ford on the curb in the widest expanse between houses, turned off the interior lighting, opened the driver’s door, and stepped out into darkness, a move that Heather duplicated on the passenger’s side.

As Heather opened the rear passenger door, Mark stepped up beside her. “I’ll get Jen. You take this.”

He handed her the Mark 17 and lifted Jennifer from the backseat.

Heather paused to listen to the cadence of distant gunfire and sirens, letting her mind play out the most likely scenarios. Someone would find the bullet-riddled vehicle first thing in the morning. That was just fine.

She stepped away from the SUV, walking swiftly across the grassy expanse between houses and into the woods beyond, Mark striding silently by her side.





Balls Wilson strode into the Ice House foyer flanked by a Delta security detail. The Delta Force team had been on-site less than an hour and had declared the area secure less than ten minutes earlier. Whatever shape the building had been in during the initial firefight, Delta’s arrival hadn’t improved its structural integrity.