Silver Fire (Guardians)

by Victoria Paige

  An emergency request for a visitor-pass had just filtered through. Normally, it would be denied because of the short notice, but since the MDI men were regular visitors to Silver Fire Research, it was approved with no problem.

  A beat up panel van turned in from the main road and stopped just fifty feet from the guardhouse. Raising his binoculars, Stokes checked the licensed plate and told his partner to run it through their expected visitor log. It did not register.

  “Maybe they took a wrong turn and are trying to figure out where they are?” His partner said. He could be right, they occasionally get cars that erroneously took the research center’s exit. Since the building was just off the I-95 exit, it was easy to give them directions to turn back.

  A large commercial truck pulled up behind the van.

  “This is strange, we have no deliveries this afternoon,” Stokes murmured.

  “Yes, we only have—”

  The van suddenly revved its engine and screeched forward, barreling toward the guardhouse. Stokes immediately stepped out and opened fire. But the van was suddenly upon him and all he saw was a bright flash, followed by a thunderous roar and intense heat...and then nothing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sophie was showing Polly how the laser isotope separator worked when the rumblings of a massive explosion reached them. Their building vibrated. She saw Thalia racing to the lab, quickly rapping on the window. Sophie nodded that it was fine to enter and with obvious urgency, the female Guardian burst through the automatic sliding doors.

  “We need to get you to a safe location!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t know yet, Connelly is checking with Divergent Security.”

  Stephen ran into the lab and asked Thalia the same question, but the Guardian did not say anything and ushered Sophie to her office.

  “Guerrero, have you secured Dr. Leroux?” Braden asked through comms.

  “Yes! Have you found out—”

  “Truck bomb. We have unknown number of hostiles trucking it in right now. They are blasting their way through the Divergent security guards and appear to be heading straight for us.”

  Thalia cursed under her breath. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Take everyone to the rear exit, get into the Explorer and get out of here.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’ll try to head them off.”

  “Agent Connelly—”

  “Now, Guerrero!”

  “Copy that.”

  Guerrero grabbed Sophie’s arm and looked over to Polly, Jan and Stephen. “Is there anyone else?

  “No,” Sophie said.

  “Come on.”

  “We have a bunker,” Sophie blurted out.

  A hesitant look passed over Thalia’s face before she shook head. “No. We stick to the plan and get out of here.”

  “But the lab—”

  Stephen took hold of Sophie and said, “Baby. Sweetie, the lab can be rebuilt. But if they get you, it’s over.”

  Sophie pressed her lips into a grim line. She nodded and followed Thalia out of the office.

  ***

  Derek’s phone buzzed.

  “Lockwood.”

  “Derek.” It was Sophie. Something in her voice turned his blood to ice. She sounded out of breath and high strung. There was panic chatter going on around her.

  “Angel, what’s wrong?” He sat up. His foot hit the gas, and his eyes started scanning for a path to weave quickly through the traffic. He saw the exit about two miles up and some smoke in the distance. His gut clenched. Jack’s phone buzzed. Deja vu.

  “There was a truck bomb.”

  “A what!” Derek shouted into the phone as he vaguely heard Jack curse beside him. His friend must be getting the same news from whomever was on the other line.

  “We’re trying to get out from the rear. Oh my god!”

  The sound of rapid gun fire, shouting and screaming cracked over the phone. The last thing Derek heard was what sounded like Guerrero yelling for everyone to fall back and everything went muffled, like the phone had fallen to the floor.

  “Sophie! Fuck!” Derek shouted as he honked his horn to get cars to move out of the way.

  His eyes shot to Jack, who was arguing with someone on the phone. “The hell we’re turning back, Maia. You think Derek would abandon Sophie to those assholes?”

  “Hell, no!” Derek growled.

  “We’re going in,” Jack said firmly and hung up on his wife.

  “The police have been alerted, the SWAT team is on its way. Maia is taking some Guardians with her and heading to Silver Fire.”

  Derek contemplated what Jack said. “Neither the SWAT nor the Guardians will make it in time.”

  “I know.”

  “What do we have in the back?”

  “This SUV isn’t fully equipped, but we have flak jackets and pistols.”

  “Shit. We’re going up against assault rifles.”

  “The odds never stopped us before,” Jack stated grimly.

  “Damn straight.”

  ***

  “Fall back!” Thalia ordered as a line of armed men rounded the corner before them. She could hear Braden’s voice shouting through comms as well. Stephen and Sophie were gripping each other’s hand tightly and started running back to the lab. Polly and Jan were a few steps ahead of them.

  The assailants fired as Thalia crouched behind a wall and shot back at them to hold them off. All that was between them was a short expanse of hallway and they were outnumbered in terms of weapons and manpower. Gunfire erupted on the opposite side of the hallway. Polly was crying and screaming while Jan was trying to calm her down. Sophie’s two assistants stumbled back into the lab while she glanced back at Thalia, not wanting to leave the Guardian by herself.

  “Sophie.” Stephen pulled at her arm.

  “Thalia,” Sophie whispered and then gasped in horror when Thalia jerked spasmodically and sprawled to the ground on her back.

  “No!” Sophie screamed as she tried to help the Guardian.

  “Damn it, Sophie, you can’t help her,” Stephen choked. Blood was pooling from the back of Thalia’s head.

  Before she could reply, she felt a steel-like band clamp around her waist as she was hauled into the lab.

  “Stay here,” Braden ordered as he deposited her behind a row of aluminum tables. The attackers had rounded the second corner but retreated when they saw the other Guardian. Braden crouched just inside the sliding door to watch both ends of the hallway. One man stuck out his AK-47 and without aiming, just sprayed the hallway with bullets. Some scuffed the lab windows, which were bulletproof to a certain extent, and some riddled the floor with holes.

  Sophie refused to give in to their desperate situation, her gaze taking in Polly and Jan huddled in a corner while Stephen paced nervously around the lab. They were her responsibility, and she was not going down without a fight. Her mind made up, she ran toward the heavy storage unit in the corner. Digging into her white coat for her keys, she pulled out the middle drawer and lifted out two spheres the size of an orange. Depositing the spheres on a work table, she pulled out the bottom drawer and lifted a block that was labeled ‘C-4’.

  “Sophie, what are you doing?” Stephen asked in alarm.

  “IED, Stephen,” Sophie replied tersely, not looking up from the gathering of materials before her.

  “Oh my god, baby—” Stephen whispered, not saying anything else because he knew this was it. Help was not coming in time, and the bad guys were winning.

  Sophie opened the sphere by twisting its halves in opposite directions and molded the clay-like material inside. The spherical blasting cap was one of her recent inventions and was activated by an electronic trigger. Melted zefinium was built into a layer of the sphere to deliver the shockwave and extreme heat necessary to activate the plastic explosive. Snapping the device close, she pressed a button on the front to synchronize the frequency with her handheld detonator.

  “Her
e goes nothing,” Sophie murmured as she pocketed one explosive sphere and made her way to the front of the lab carrying another. Just then, Braden fell against the sliding door, his face contorting in agony. He had been shot through the leg.

  “Fuck!” he cursed, then his pain turned to fury when he saw Sophie approaching him. “Stay the hell back!”

  They heard a rush of footsteps when another bullet struck Braden in the shoulder causing him to finally collapse on his ass. “Sophie, stay back,” he groaned.

  Frames of movement degenerated into slow motion. The scene felt surreal. Sophie stepped over Braden’s fallen form while ignoring Stephen’s scream of horror, which was muffled by the roaring in her ears. She threw the explosive sphere, her action stunning the approaching gunmen whose eyes shifted from her to the volley that was sailing toward them.

  Sophie hit the detonator.

  ***

  The truck bomb had decimated the guardhouse and barrier gate as cars and pedestrians started streaming out from Divergent Research Zone in all directions. Derek managed to squeeze their SUV through the entrance before the exodus overwhelmed it.

  “There’s been an attack!” someone shouted at them. “Get away!”

  The dissonance of gunfire was coming from the building that housed Silver Fire Research.

  “Hold on, Angel,” Derek muttered as he maneuvered the SUV along the corner, stopping short of the firefight taking place before them. One of the Divergent Guards, who was hunkered down behind a vehicle, recognized them.

  “Damn it, McCord, get out of here!”

  “We are not leaving,” Jack stated resolutely as he and Derek exited the car and met behind the vehicle. Derek pulled off his tie and rolled up his sleeves before slipping on the flak jacket. He proceeded to stuff his pockets with loaded magazines. Finally, he tucked one semi-automatic pistol behind his slacks, taking another to use. He stared at his leather Oxfords and sighed—not exactly tactical-friendly footwear.

  Crouch-walking toward the security guards behind the vehicles, they requested a status update.

  “We’ve got a couple of shooters at the entrance to Silver Fire Research holding us at bay, and we’ve already lost a couple of our guards,” Beckley, the head of Divergent Security, told them. “We are not prepared for an assault like this.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Derek asked abruptly.

  “The plan is to wait for the SWAT to arrive,” Beckley said.

  Derek stared at Jack. They understood each other. Jack would cover; Derek would go in.

  “That’ll be too late for Dr. Leroux,” Derek replied. “I’m going in. Try and help Jack lay cover, and I’d appreciate it if I don’t get hit by friendly fire.”

  “Are you insane? I’m not letting you go in there!” Beckley sputtered.

  “Try and stop me,” Derek shot back as he sprinted along the side of the building. He had already determined the position of the shooters. There were two of them. He knew Jack was also aware of their location.

  A few steps before he hit the wall, a bullet struck within an inch of his foot. Immediately, a shot was fired behind him; Jack had taken out that shooter. Derek slammed against the wall. He signaled Jack for updated shooter information, but his friend shook his head.

  He was going to have to draw the guy out. Taking a peek through the entrance, the burn of a bullet singed his temple. Without hesitation, Derek dropped to the floor on his side and squeezed off a shot, hitting his assailant in the abdomen. As the man hollered for help, Derek quickly scrambled to his feet and shot the man in the head.

  Another gunman skidded in front of him before scuttling back behind a corner. Derek heard the shuffling of footsteps from the entrance.

  “Big of you to join me,” Derek told Jack blandly without turning around.

  “As if I’m letting you have all the fun,” his friend replied mockingly.

  They grabbed the weapons from the fallen gunmen, shouldered the assault rifles and cautiously headed down the hallway. The entrance to Silver Fire Research split into two passages and converged at the end with the length of the lab between them. From the crackle of gunfire, the attackers seemed to be congregated by the left corridor.

  Shouting in a foreign language punctuated the exchange of firepower, then there was a lull, before Connelly yelled at someone to stand back. Then another barrage of shooting and another lull. Someone had shouted Connelly’s name. Connelly was down. But when Derek heard Stephen screaming, “Sophie, baby no!” He had heard enough. Derek’s chest constricted to actual physical pain as he tore around the right corner, Jack at his heels. Before he could reach the edge of the lab, a huge explosion rocked the hallway fronting the lab. A cloud of dust billowed past him.

  “Sophie!” Derek roared, running down the length of the lab and almost losing his mind when he saw her lying face down on the floor. “Angel, no, no, no.” As much as Derek wanted to flip her over quickly, he did it carefully, making sure to keep her neck stable. His throat caught when he saw blood streaming down from a head wound.

  “Holy shit!” Jack swore behind him. “Derek, we need to move her into the lab.”

  Derek barely heard his friend but looked briefly at the tangle of limbs, body parts and debris before them. There was also some medley of voices. Not all the assailants had died in the explosion.

  Not sure of the extent of her injuries, Derek carefully pulled Sophie the short distance into the lab.

  Once inside, Stephen belly-crawled toward them. His face was pale and dazed.

  “What the hell happened?” Derek asked brusquely.

  “IED,” Sophie croaked beneath him. Her eyes were still closed, but it was a relief to hear her voice.

  Resisting the urge to crush her to him, Derek whispered, “Angel.” He shifted her hair away from her face.

  “My ears hurt, damn. My head hurts,” Sophie muttered. Her eyes were hooded as she tried to sit up.

  “Sophie, stay down,” Derek ordered as he gently but firmly pressed on her shoulders. He glanced up and saw Jack attending to the wounded Braden Connelly and briefly noted the irony of the situation. “Where’s Agent Guerrero?”

  Stephen shook his head. Derek clenched his jaw.

  “Stay with her,” Derek told Stephen as he approached Jack, who was presently wrapping a a piece of torn shirt around Connelly’s leg wound.

  “We lost Thalia,” Derek informed him grimly as he positioned himself by the doorway and leaned past the frame to assess their situation. He saw an assailant’s muzzle flash and quickly ducked back into the room.

  “Damn it!” He dragged his phone out and realized he had several missed calls from Maia. He punched her number; she answered on the first ring.

  “Are you and Jack all right?” Maia asked tersely.

  “Yes, where are you guys?”

  “SWAT is in position, we’re still seven minutes out.”

  “We made it to the lab. The attackers sustained heavy casualties, but there are a few stragglers. Tell the SWAT to go slow on the approach.”

  “Is everyone all right?”

  “We lost Agent Guerrero.”

  Silence.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Maia said and hung up.

  ***

  It was over in minutes. When the SWAT team moved in, the three remaining gunmen surrendered their weapons. Fifteen had stormed the compound, the explosion had taken out five, Jack and Derek took out one each, and Guerrero or Connelly shot down the rest.

  Braden Connelly was getting loaded up on a gurney when Maia arrived with several Guardians. Connelly saw her and immediately called her attention.

  “Maia.”

  “Braden.” Maia took his hand in hers while with the other, brushed his sandy blonde hair from his face. “You’ll be OK.”

  “Sorry about Thalia,” Connelly whispered.

  “Don’t even think it’s your fault,” Maia said roughly. “Look, you need to get to the hospital. We’ll talk later.”

  When Maia tried to pull aw
ay, Braden grasped her hand tighter. “Promise?”

  Derek couldn’t believe Connelly would pull the wounded-puppy card after what Jack had done to save his life. What a douchebag.

  “Ow.” Sophie’s yelp brought Derek’s attention back to the blonde beside him. An EMT was cleaning her head wound and other minor lacerations she had sustained in the explosion.

  “Be careful, will you?” Derek snapped.

  “Derek!” Sophie rebuked.

  The technician smiled apologetically. “I’ve patched you up a bit, but you will be needing stitches. Fortunately it’s on your hairline so it won’t be visible. I’ll also suggest a CAT scan just to rule out any complications from the concussion you’ve sustained. You did lose consciousness, you said?”

  “She did,” Derek answered abruptly.

  “Do you want to ride in our ambulance?”

  “I’ll take her,” Derek said.

  “I am capable of answering and making decisions for myself,” Sophie retorted, glaring at Derek. To the EMT, she said, “I’ll come with you. Give me a minute.”

  Sensing an oncoming quarrel, the EMT walked away.

  Derek regarded Sophie with amusement. He was so relieved she was alright and did not care that his bossiness was irritating the hell out of her.

  “You need to dial it down.”

  “What, Angel?”

  “Your high-handedness.”

  “Someone needs to take care of you.”

  “Take care? I can take care of myself,” Sophie snapped. “Did what I had to do to stop the assassins, didn’t I?”

  “That you did,” Derek said, controlling his lips from twitching. God, she was brave, gorgeous and —

  “Oh, by the way,” Sophie reached into her pocket and took out a spherical device that had blinking numbers on them.

  Reckless. What the fuck?

  Derek forced himself to ask calmly, “What is that, Sophie?”

  She walked away from him, saying over her shoulder, “I need to disarm it.”