Edge

shouted, “Henry, he’s behind you! Ten feet.”
    Loving didn’t fall for it, in fact he instantly anticipated the strategy and called, “No! Everybody down.” But one of his colleagues had risen from cover and spun around, lifting his gun.
    A perfect target. I fired a group of three. Two in the chest, one in the head. He dropped hard.
    Pogue acknowledged this with a nod. Two down.
    I ducked to cover, as the other associate of Loving’s fired blindly in my direction. I bent down. “You ready, Amanda?”
    “I’m totally ready.”
    Pogue moved twenty feet away from us, to a spot where he’d draw their fire. He unscrewed the silencer and let go with five or six rounds throughout the room. The Beretta roared.
    Crouching, Amanda and I dodged sputtering, white-hot fires and pushed through the exit door on the second-floor hallway. I was afraid that the door was locked from this side too but it wasn’t and I kicked it open.
    A machine pistol started firing, along with another flash-bang, then another. Loving understood that Amanda and I had escaped and the two remaining hostiles were doing all they could to take Pogue out and get past him.
    Then the girl and I were in the stairwell and speeding down the steps. We made it to the corridor on the main floor and started down the endlesshallway toward the exit ahead of us. I was dizzy from scanning the doorways, scanning the corridor behind, scanning the corridor ahead. Mostly looking behind, though, which was the direction Loving or his surviving partner would come from.
    More explosions and automatic weapon fire but growing more muted as we hurried for the exit.
    Then I heard a hollow cry of pain.
    It was Pogue’s voice. There was no doubt. It continued for a moment or two as, I supposed, the phosphorus burned through his jacket and slacks to the skin. Finally there was a single shot and the screams and gunfire stopped.
    I wondered if he’d ended his own life.
    A horrific thought but I couldn’t dwell on it. This meant Loving and the other man would be after us at any moment. We pressed forward. The doorways were bothering me. They were recessed slightly and as we came to each one, I had no way of knowing if a door was ajar. I believed the guard outside that there were four people with the girl but it would have been possible that the primary along with other minders had arrived and, hearing the shots, were hiding here, behind one of the doors.
    I decided, though, that it really didn’t matter. We had to move forward fast.
    But now Amanda was starting to lose it. With her adrenaline fading, hysteria was flowing in like a riptide. She was crying, breathing hard and stumbling.
    “Come on, Amanda. Are you with me?” I gripped her arm.
    She took a deep breath. The tears ceased. “Yeah. I’m with you.”
    Looking behind . . .
    Nothing.
    I could detect the horrific smell of burning flesh and I tried not to think about Pogue.
    Ten feet from the front door. Five feet.
    A glance behind. The corridor was still empty. Maybe Pogue had taken out Loving and the remaining hostile.
    I pushed through the door fast, inhaling the sweet damp air. My strategy was to shoot the tires out of the other cars and SUVs here, then get to mine. And drive fast. I’d call Freddy from the road. Coordinate the assault here. Amanda clung to my arm with one hand and clutched her pepper spray in the other. I saw a Metropolitan Police Department label on the side.
    My phone buzzed with a text. It was Freddy, reporting that the troops would be here in twenty minutes or so.
    I paused in front of the building and glanced back down the corridor again. It was still empty. Then I turned toward the vehicles. I lifted my Glock toward the tires, whispering, “Cover your ears.”
    Before I could shoot, though, I heard a noise behind me. I turned fast but saw nothing. The corridor was still empty.
    I realized then that the noise was coming from above us.
    I looked up to see Henry Loving launch himself from the roof. He crashed down onto Amanda and me, sending us sprawling on the concrete apron. I landed hard with a stunning, painful jolt in my spine. Air spurted from my lungs, and the Glock tumbled out of reach through the dirt and weeds.

Chapter 65
    HIS CLOTHING SCORCHED — some skin too—Loving rolled off me onto the sidewalk that led to the facility’s parking lot. He’d lost his weapon inside and his face was bleeding, though the wound didn’t seem bad. He winced as he gripped his side,