Edge

Chapter 63

NOW IT DIDN’T matter if there was a mole in Freddy’s office or not, since Loving knew about our presence. So I hit SEND, transmitting the text I’d prepared earlier. It gave Freddy a brief explanation and an urgent request for backup. I told him too that the primary was en route, so to set up roadblocks around the facility.

Amanda’s heroics had guaranteed that we now needed all the help we could get.

Eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, we made our way down the stairway to the floor of the control room. I saw a dim form but whether it was a shadow or a silhouette, I didn’t know. I aimed but was well aware it might be Amanda and waited for a clear image.

I never got one. He, or she, disappeared.

I heard hard breathing and faint groans from the man Amanda had sprayed. “Fuck, that hurts… Okay, okay. I can see. I’ve got my weapon. Who the fuck’s here?”

From somewhere, not that far away, Loving hissed for their silence.

Where was Amanda?

A moment later I heard more whispering.

Loving was playing a Bayesian game now, one modeled on imperfect information. He wouldn’t know whom he was up against. How many we were, who we were, what our agenda was. But he’d be making instantaneous adjustments in assessing the probability of what his enemy would do.

He’d think there might be just one adversary here-he wouldn’t have heard the second shot, from Pogue’s silenced weapon. He knew that the attacker had eliminated the guard out front. He knew that the opponent was willing to fire without surrender demands. Another bit of information was that to distract them we’d flung glass into the corner of the control room, meaning this was a very limited operation, with no SWAT backup. Had the Bureau’s hostage rescue team been on hand, this place would have been lit up like Times Square.

Loving would be thinking he and his men outnumbered the opponents and that they still had some time. Enough to find the girl and escape.

A piercing scream filled the black space. Amanda. She was near me. I could hear the sounds of a struggle. Then a loud clank and a man shouted in pain, “Need some help. She got me with that fucking spray shit. I’m in the northwest corner-”

“Quiet,” Loving shouted, as Pogue and I separated instinctively and moved fast in that direction. I fired covering shots high.

The shadowy figure by the door lifted his gun and fired a round in my general direction. Pogue returned fire, a burst of three, and sent the man to the floor, though he wasn’t hit-not badly at least-since he continued to fire.

I tallied one dead, one or two hit by pepper spray.

“Fuck, she got away,” another voice called.

“We’re federal agents,” I called, “we’ve got teams outside too.”

Pogue shouted, “We know there are three of you. I want all three with hands up standing in the light of the exit door. Do it now. Or we will engage you.”

Then Henry Loving spoke again: “Corte, you’re running a rogue operation. We won’t kill the girl. We just need some information. Back out.”

“Fuck you,” Amanda cried.

“Amanda!” I called. “Get on the floor. Lie down, wherever you are. Stay down, be quiet.”

This was greeted with several more shots in my direction.

“Stop the firing,” Loving said adamantly.

“Where are you?” Amanda cried.

“Just get on the floor. There are-”

A huge crack of explosion and I was rolling backward, blinded.

A flash-bang grenade.

Underestimated them, I thought. Even the earplugs didn’t save my hearing this time. Pogue too hadn’t expected the grenade and had been slammed into the desk hard. Still, he struggled to his knees again and looked for a target, though the flash had been so bright our vision was fuzzy.

We both scrabbled away from the place where one of the kidnappers had lobbed the nonlethal stun grenade. I was desperate to find Amanda but didn’t dare call again for fear of giving away my position; I could tell from their shadows they were moving in, flanking us.

It was then that I heard a noise behind me and spun around, as the attacker, only a few feet away, lunged forward, slamming me to the floor.