“JTF-Black.” Shit. It was the domestic-based Joint Task Force unit comprised of former Delta, SEAL Team Six, Army Special Operations, Marine Raiders, and federal law enforcement officers from groups like FBI HRT. The elite of the elite.
“High-value target extraction?” I asked.
“I think it’s safe to assume they want you alive. Both of you. And whatever Kara has built. I need you to know, Logan, I didn’t sell you out. I had no idea—”
“How many?”
“They usually roll in teams of eight.”
“What about the SWAT? They seemed fine when—”
“They aren’t working for you anymore. I’m sorry. JTF-Black is six minutes out, so whatever you’re planning, do it fast and get out of there.”
The line went dead.
Five seconds later, another voice came through my earpiece.
“Logan, this is Noyes. You make it inside? What’s your position? Over.”
I could hear the deception in his voice. It sounded like honey. I ripped out my earpiece and chucked it with the wireless unit over my shoulder.
I opened the door to the stairwell, set the stapler against the jamb. As I shined the flashlight up the next flight of stairs, I heard footfalls and then Noyes’s voice drifting up from six floors below.
“I think he made us. Also, we just ran into…”—I missed a few words—”…third and fourth floors. We’re going down to try another way.”
When they began moving again, I turned on the flashlight and started up the stairwell, trying to keep my footfalls from echoing inside the column of concrete.
As I crossed the landing for the fifteenth floor, the building shook. I heard a sound like distant thunder, and dust motes floated in the beam of light. I glanced down, didn’t see fire or hear any screams. Whatever had exploded had been in another stairwell, and if Kara hadn’t known we were here two seconds ago, she did now.
I flew up the stairs.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Four minutes until JTF-Black set down on the roof. Wouldn’t matter how loaded up they were. They didn’t stand a chance against Kara’s upgraded special forces pals. Worse, all of this incoming mayhem would only serve to slow me down and provide cover for Kara’s escape.
24.
25.
26.
I caught an odd scent in the air—was that tar?
27.
Something glinted in the light above me. I slowed to a jog, finally coming to a stop at the landing between 28 and 29.
The smell was stronger here.
Coils of concertina wire had been strung from railing to railing and floor to ceiling, like Christmas decorations in hell. Razors gleamed in the light. From what I could see, they extended up an entire flight of stairs.
I knew what I was smelling—the C-4 that was packed inside the olive-green shell of the claymore, just six feet away from where I stood, on the landing, perched on a stand with wires running under the door to floor 29. The business end of the remote-controlled mine was facing me. It contained roughly 1.5 pounds of C-4 and 700 steel ball bearings. Across the fa?ade, I could read the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.
I turned and ran, leaping down to the next landing and continuing my sprinting descent until I reached the door for 26.
Locked.
I dug another door breach out of my bag, slapped the charge on near the handle, set the timer for twenty seconds, and ran down to 24.
After the chest-squeezing explosion, I returned to 26. The door had been blown fifteen feet into the next floor. I stepped through the wreckage, my eyes watering against the heavy C-4 stench of tar and motor oil.
I could see without the flashlight here. The floor was mostly cubicle space, with a few offices and conference rooms along the exterior walls. I hustled to the northeast stairwell, opened the door. The flashlight shone through a thick layer of smoke, and there was another scent in the air: the sickly-sweet odor of charred flesh.
Four floors above me, I saw the glimmer of more concertina wire.
I sprinted down a row of cubicles.
There was no smoke in the southeast stairwell, but I heard voices far below and saw more wire blocking the stairwell several floors above.
As I ran for the last stairwell, I marveled at Kara’s planning. She’d built a lethal barricade between any threat and herself. But to get out of the building, she’d have to make her way down these stairwells, fighting through attackers along the way. And no doubt the DoD—or whoever they had hunting us—would have reinforcements guarding the exits too. SWAT snipers on overwatch, at the very least.
Even if all went well for me, I’d be facing the same problem.
I was betting Kara had an escape route up her sleeve. An elevator shaft? Some secret stairwell that wasn’t in the blueprints? If she didn’t—or if I couldn’t figure it out in time—this would be a suicide mission.
Two minutes—if Edwin had told me the truth—before JTF-Black’s arrival.
I stepped into the southwest stairwell.
No smoke. No noise. No wire immediately above.
I surged up the stairs, powering my way through 28.
29.
30.
Gunshots erupted somewhere in the building—the racket of automatic fire, and then another blast, not above or below, but lateral to my position.
I kept climbing.
Through 31.
32.
Just two floors away, and I was searching meticulously, but I didn’t see a threat—no sign of wire or explosives.
Light bled through around the seams of the door to 34. Was it rigged to blow? I pressed my face to the edges of the door and inhaled—no trace of that motor oil smell.
JTF-Black would be landing in one minute.
I grabbed the door handle, tried to turn it.
Locked. And a breach charge would reveal my presence.
But these were fire stairs. Doors could be locked from the outside, but from the inside, they had to be easily opened in case of an emergency. Usually, this was accomplished by means of an REX （request-to-exit） sensor on the door’s interior side, which uses passive infrared to detect temperature changes in proximity to the door. If the sensor detects a change in temperature—caused by a person approaching—it transmits a message to unlock the door.
The keyword there being change in temperature. Not necessarily an increase.
I rummaged through my pack, found the can of compressed air. I ripped off the packaging, inserted the straw into the nozzle, and got down on the floor, hoping there would be enough space between the bottom of the door and the threshold plate to slide the straw underneath.
I found a chip in the threshold, worked the straw through, and held the can upside down. If I sprayed it upright, only the fluorocarbon vapor at the top would be released. But when inverted, a liquid is forced out instead. This liquid, under great pressure, quickly evaporates and expands to become a gas at room temperature.
The thermodynamic process of adiabatic cooling would hopefully chill the immediate area on the other side of the door and—if I was right about all this—trick the sensor into thinking someone was approaching from the other side.
I squeezed the trigger, listening as the liquid hissed out on the other side, the can growing cold in my hand.
I took off my NightShades, reached up, grabbed the door handle.
This time it turned.
It occurred to me that there might also be a secondary sensor on the door itself, which, if opened, would break the alignment with its partner sensor on a facing wall and trigger an alarm—something as simple as a phone message to Kara and her security team.