A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(87)

Levi was interrupted by a shout from above. Leila was whaling on a guard-the last one standing, Levi saw-and driving him aggressively down the stairs toward Dominic’s landing. The guy was trying to evade her and get a shot off with his gun, but he couldn’t hold his ground against the fluid barrage of attacks. The brutal grace with which she wielded her batons was mesmerizing.

Near the bottom of the stairs, she spun on the step and delivered a blow that knocked the guard clear across the landing. He banged hard into the metal rail, taking the edge right to the solar plexus, and hunched over it as he wheezed.

Natasha grabbed his legs and flipped him over the railing.

The terrified, primal scream the man unleashed as he plummeted eighteen stories raised all the hair on Levi’s neck and arms. It echoed through the stairwell, then was cut off by a sickening crash.

Silence ensued as they all stared at Natasha, who was gazing at the central well with a faint, almost dreamy smile.

Leila hopped down the last couple of steps, peered over the railing, and grimaced. “That’s gonna be a bitch to clean up.”

The man beneath Levi began thrashing, yelling obscenities, and it took all of Levi’s strength to keep him restrained. That spurred everyone else to action as well, breaking the surreal moment.

As they bound and gagged the guards-the living ones, anyway-several of the walkies chirped. “Baker? Roth? Come in! What the fuck is going on down there? Baker!”

“I took the radio channel off your earpieces so it wouldn’t distract you guys,” Carmen said, answering Levi’s question before he could ask it. “The guards on twenty-one are staying in position, but they’re going nuts. They’ve been arguing non-stop with the guards inside the condo. Extrapolating from those conversations, I’d estimate about a dozen guys in there besides Hatfield. Oh, and they called for reinforcements, although the state of the city is proving to be an obstacle.”

Dominic ejected the mag from his Glock, popped in a fresh one, and racked the slide. “That’ll complicate exfiltration.”

Licking blood off her lip, Leila said, “Any other good news you want to share with us?”

“The LVMPD dispatched a pair of officers to the Whitby. They’ve got their hands more than full with the riots, but they can’t ignore multiple 911 calls about shots fired in a building with so many wealthy residents.”

“One problem at a time.” Levi turned to Martine, studying her as she gagged the last of the guards.

Of everyone on their team, she was the one he was most concerned about. Not physically-she could hold her own-but emotionally.

Leila, like Levi himself, thrilled to the endorphin rush of violence and victory. Even now, she was bright-eyed, all but humming as she skipped down the steps to retrieve the booby trap. Dominic had fought in literal wars. Natasha killed people for fun.

Martine was . . . a normal person, if such a thing existed. This had to be hitting her hard, without the balancing effect of Dominic’s experience, Natasha’s sadism, or whatever the hell it was that made Levi and Leila love to fight.

She caught him looking when she straightened up. Her face was grim, the strain showing around her eyes and mouth, but she seemed as calm and self-possessed as ever.

“Any injuries?” he asked.

“Took a couple of hits. Nothing too serious.” She cocked her head. “How’s your back?”

“I’m pretty much running on pure adrenaline right now. I don’t even want to think about how I’m going to feel once it wears off.”

She chuckled, and he cracked a smile, reassured by the genuine amusement in the sound.

With all of the patrolling guards disabled, secured, and no longer a threat, their team re-entered the eighteenth floor and crossed to the west stairwell. Carmen, who’d continued keeping Utopia’s radio channel off their earpieces in the interests of focus, updated them as they ran up to twenty-one.

“These guys are scared shitless. They’re holding their ground, but it’s freaking them out that they haven’t heard from the others and don’t know where you are. One wrong move, and they’d probably all shoot each other.”

Dominic was in the lead as they arrived on the landing outside the door to the twenty-first floor, close to Hatfield’s condo in the west corner. The floors in this building were in a rough U-shape, with a stairwell on each of the short sides and the elevator bank in the middle of the long north hallway. So although there were three teams of Utopia guards on this floor, monitoring each point of ingress, none of them were in sight of each other.

“Like we discussed,” Dominic whispered as he set down the duffel bag. “Leila, Natasha, and Rebel will keep the other two teams at bay while the rest of us deal with the ones on the door. The important thing is to prevent them from being able to gang up on us all at once. Carmen will keep the condo locked so the ones inside can’t come out to help.”

He took a flashbang grenade off his belt. The rest of them stayed back.

“Whenever you’re ready,” said Carmen.

Dominic pulled the pin, yanked the door open, and spun into the hallway just long enough to lob the grenade toward the condo before he darted back into the stairwell and slammed the door shut.

BANG.

The ensuing screams were their signal to move. They burst into the hallway en masse.

To the left, the three guards on the door were staggering around, disoriented by the combination of blinding light, deafening volume, and concussive force. To the right came the sound of answering shouts and running feet.