The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

footsteps approach in the corridor, only to pass by and fade away. She waited for the footsteps that would approach but not fade, and the click of the latch that would tell her it was all over with.
    She rolled onto her side and faced the windows. She could see up Vermont Avenue. Lots of people out. She saw a red convertible pull into the Ritz-Carlton. Saw a young couple get out. Impossible to see their expressions at this distance, but they had to be smiling. They left the car to a valet and disappeared into the building.
    Beautiful day.
    Beautiful world to be alive in.
    She wished she could know that it would stay this way a lot longer than four months—even if she wouldn’t be around to see it.
    The street blurred a little. She blinked away the film of tears. She took a sharp breath and rolled onto her back again.
    Another set of footsteps came and went. She closed her eyes and waited.
    Travis sprinted full-out down the broken surface of the avenue, south toward the traffic circle. Bethany kept up with him. They weren’t listening for heavy movement in the forest now. Travis had the shotgun cradled as he ran. If a lion stepped into his path it was going to get a long overdue reminder that meaner predators had once walked these streets.
    He mapped out the plan as he sprinted. Visualized the ninth floor of the ruin, and the northeast corner there. They’d looked at it earlier. The concrete pad had been pretty solid, with just a few hairline fractures.
    No way to know the room’s layout in the present day. Not even its size. It didn’t have to match the concrete. The safest place to open the iris would be near the room’s outside corner. That would at least get them inside the space, whatever its size.
    He pictured how the action would play out. In present time he would come through the iris facing the corner, with his back to the room. He’d lose maybe half a second turning and getting a sense of his surroundings. There was no reason to expect an armed presence in the room itself. Paige would be restrained, and the building was secured at ground level. Nobody would expect intruders to step through a hole in the air on the ninth floor.
    But armed or not, anyone in the room other than Paige would have to be dealt with.
    He considered the Remington. Imagined going through the iris with it. It would be bulky and slow to maneuver in the confined space of the corner. It would need to be cycled between shots, and he’d get only five of them. Anyone he hit would be dead all over the place, but if there were multiple targets, and if they did happen to be armed, the limited shot capacity could get him in trouble.
    They reached the traffic circle. Crossed it in about twenty seconds. In another twenty they were at the base of the maple that offered access to the second floor. They climbed to the girders and headed across them toward the stairwell.
    “Trade with me,” Travis said. He held the shotgun out to Bethany. She took it and handed him the SIG-Sauer. It held nine .45 caliber rounds, including the one in the chamber. They wouldn’t hit like twelve-gauge slugs, but they would do the job. And he could aim and fire the pistol a hell of a lot faster than a three-foot-long shotgun. Bethany handed him the three spare magazines from her pocket. He put two in his own pocket and kept the other one in his free hand. If need be, he could drop the current magazine out of the pistol and reload it in about a second.
    They were on the ninth floor a minute later, moving as fast as caution allowed across the open beams. They came to the concrete pad at the corner. Travis gave it only a second’s assessment and then walked onto it. Strong as hell. An intact pad directly above it had blocked at least some of the snow and ice that would’ve stressed it over the years.
    Bethany followed him onto the pad. She shrugged off her backpack, opened it and took out the cylinder. The rest of the shotgun shells—one hundred minus those in the gun and in Travis’s pockets—settled into the bottom of the pack.
    She set the cylinder on the concrete and used the backpack to prop up the front end. The iris would open just above waist level, two feet in from the corner of the room.
    She knelt over the cylinder, ready to switch it on.
    Travis stood next to where the beam would project the iris. He gripped the SIG. Took a breath. Looked at Bethany.
    “Do it,” he said.
    She pressed the button.
    The iris appeared, and through it Travis saw