Ghost Country

by Patrick Lee

Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Travis saw within seconds that it wasn’t going to shake out in their favor. Finn and his men had fallen back to defensive positions in adjoining rooms, leaving Garner alone where he stood. The Secret Service agents were already converging on him, unloading suppressing fire at the doorways through which the others had retreated.

  But not engaging them.

  Not attacking.

  That wasn’t their job.

  Their job was to get Garner out of harm’s way, and they would do it in probably fifteen seconds. Twenty at the most. They would surround him and hustle him out, down the entry hall and out into the larger corridor. Probably right out of the building after that. They would maintain fire to cover the retreat from the residence, but that would be it. Not even Garner could order them to do otherwise. In the heat of it all, they wouldn’t even be listening to him.

  Well under half a minute from right now, Travis knew, the three of them would be left alone with Finn’s remaining people—nearly all of them still alive.

  Travis was lying facedown on the floor now, hands outstretched and empty. Paige and Bethany, right beside him, were in the same position.

  Travis turned his head and saw two agents pass by on the inside wall of the living room. They were firing three-shot bursts.

  The rest of the action was going on where Travis couldn’t see it. He couldn’t tell if Finn’s people were shooting. Their silenced fire would’ve been impossible to make out against the other shots.

  Paige turned to him, her eyes intense. She understood the trouble they were in as well as he did. Then she looked past him. He turned to follow her gaze, and saw one of the cylinders.

  It was ten feet away, under the coffee table.

  He looked for the other one. Couldn’t see it anywhere. Given the direction it’d rolled, it had to be closer to Finn’s position now. It wasn’t even worth thinking about.

  Travis looked at the nearer one. If he could get to it and get the iris open, no special care would be needed to position it. The ruin of this building had thick steel gridwork for subflooring instead of concrete and rebar. The grids were completely rusted, but because they were such a heavy gauge—inch-thick steel rods crisscrossing at three-inch intervals—they were still very strong. No matter where he opened the iris, there would be a solid surface to crawl onto on the other side.

  It would take him two seconds to reach the cylinder, starting from his prone position.

  Paige saw what he was thinking. “You can’t!” Her voice was just audible under the shooting. “The agents will think you’re going for a weapon!”

  He craned his neck around to look at them. They’d reached Garner. They’d boxed him in. Two or three of them, with their free hands, had grabbed hold of the man’s arms. They were dragging him toward the hall. Garner was shouting something at them, as Travis had imagined. It was about as effective as he’d imagined, too. Ten more seconds and they’d be gone. They were still shooting at the doorways through which Finn and his people had ducked. Sporadic fire, meant only for deterrence.

  One of the agents had his eyes fixed on Travis and Paige and Bethany, even as his MP5 stayed trained on the doorways. He could swing the weapon toward the three of them, where they lay, about as quickly as he could decide they were a threat.

  Travis wouldn’t get halfway to the cylinder if he went for it.

  He judged the agents’ progress toward the mouth of the entry hall, beyond which they wouldn’t be able to see him anymore. Five seconds now, at most.

  He looked at the doorways. Finn and the others were somewhere beyond them. Travis had no doubt that Finn, at least, was running the same calculation he was: gauging the straight-razor margin of time between the agents’ departure from the suite and the earliest moment that Travis could reach the cylinder and trigger the iris.

  It would take some number of seconds, and some number of seconds would be available. One of those numbers would turn out to be larger than the other. In the end it would be that simple.

  In the last few feet before the mouth of the hallway, the Secret Service agents began to run. They hauled Garner along, barely on his feet.

  And then they were gone, out of Travis’s view, into the hall.

  Travis moved. Drew his legs up under him, dug his feet into the carpet and lunged. Even as he did, he heard—even felt—the suite go silent as the shooting stopped. The agents were simply hauling ass now, transiting the length of the entry hall as fast as they could physically go. Their footsteps were the only sound—for a second. And then there were other footsteps, nearer by.

  Travis hit the coffee table with both hands. Slammed it aside like it weighed nothing, though it was made of solid walnut.

  Finn and the others were coming fast. Maybe not through the doorways yet, but close.

  Travis got his hands on the cylinder. He landed on his shoulder, twisted and aimed the thing toward Paige and Bethany. He hit the on button and the off (detach/delay—93 sec.) button a fraction of a second apart.

  The iris opened a few inches above the floor. The night beyond it was dark and depthless except for streaks of rain at the opening, silvery in the light-bleed from the suite. The projection beam was already intensifying, charging the iris to stay open on its own. Travis had never measured exactly how long that part took. It’d always seemed like just a few seconds. It seemed longer now.

  The footsteps were closer. Definitely in the living room. Travis didn’t bother turning to look. Whatever he might see, there was nothing he could do any faster.

  Paige was up on all fours and moving. Throwing herself into the beam of light, but not toward the iris. Instead she passed through the light, hit the floor and rolled, and came to a stop with her hand clutching Bethany’s backpack. She twisted back toward the iris and threw the pack with all her force. It went through into the darkness. Travis heard the clatter of the SIG and the shotgun shells as the pack landed on the gridwork.

  At the same instant the beam finally vanished, leaving the iris alone.

  Paige was waving for Bethany to go through, but Bethany was already moving, fast and lithe. She got her limbs beneath her without rising more than a foot from the floor, and went through the iris in a single movement. No part of her even touched the circle.

  Paige was right behind her, and when she was two thirds through the iris, Travis gripped the cylinder in his right hand and tossed it at her backside in an underhand spiral. He was betting it all that she would turn toward him once she’d crossed the threshold. Would turn and have time to catch the thing. He had no choice. His ears told him he was out of time.

  Paige spun on her knee the moment she was through the iris—and flinched, her hands coming up just in time to keep the cylinder from smashing into her face. She blocked it and then got hold of it, pulling it against herself, already forgetting it entirely.

  Because Finn and two of his men were right there. Ten feet from Travis. Just passing the visual barrier of the overturned leather chair and the upright one beside it. Their guns already coming up to level.

  But Travis was coming up, too. Not with a gun of his own. The Beretta was close by, somewhere under the couch, but the gap was too narrow to easily reach into.

  What Travis had instead was the coffee table. He had it right by the middle with both hands, raising it over his head, and he was heaving himself upright from a crouch.

  Finn and his men faltered. Whatever they’d expected, this wasn’t it.

  Travis extended his arms violently as he stood, and hurled the coffee table at them like a two-handed shot put.

  Finn ducked. The man to his left brought his forearms up. The man to his right did nothing at all, and Paige saw the leading edge of the table connect dead-on with his nose. There was an explosion of blood across the bottom half of his face.

  Paige missed whatever came next. She could see Travis diving toward the opening now, and pitched herself sideways to clear the way. He came through headfirst, landed on his forearms, twiste
d and pulled his legs the rest of the way across the margin.

  It occurred to Paige that they were nowhere near safe yet. Just the opposite. They were sprawled out in the darkness before the opening, in no position to move quickly or take cover—if there’d been any cover. Finn and his people had been slowed by no more than a few seconds. There was still all the time in the world before the iris slipped shut.

  She could see two sets of feet and shins coming already. Rounding the chairs. Pivoting. Crossing the open space. The men wouldn’t even need to look through the iris for their targets. They could simply shove their pistols through and start shooting. They couldn’t miss.

  The SIG.

  Where the hell was the backpack? When Paige had tossed it through, she’d been thinking only of getting out of the room fast. She spun, trying to guess where—and how far away—it could have ended up on this side.

  But she saw the SIG the moment she turned. A small hand was gripping it. And centering it on the iris.

  Bethany fired.

  Paige looked in time to see a kneecap, five feet beyond the opening, burst inside its pant leg. A man screamed and fell bodily into view. Not Finn. The guy still had his Beretta, but he wasn’t aiming yet. Bethany’s next shot went right through the bridge of his nose. He flopped forward onto the carpet. The second pair of legs dug in to a hard stop. The man vaulted sideways, just missing Bethany’s next round. It cratered one of the suite’s bulletproof windows instead.

  By then Paige could see Travis getting to his feet. Reaching to help her up. Bethany was rising too, but staying bent at the waist, keeping the SIG positioned to fire again.

  Ten seconds later they settled into a safer position, several yards from the iris at a random angle. The opening looked strange hovering there in the darkness, lighting up the intermittent rain a few feet around it.

  Bethany kept the SIG leveled. Nobody appeared at the opening.

  The next minute went by like ten, and then the iris slipped shut, and there was nothing but the rain and the chill and the darkness of the ruined city.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Almost at once the rain provided a form of guidance. They could hear it hissing where it passed through the rusted bars of the steel grid, but somewhere close by it was making another sound. A hard pinging against something solid, resonant.

  The stairs.

  Just as in the office building in D.C., the heavy treads of the stairs in this structure had survived the decades of neglect. The three of them had climbed the full thirty flights earlier in the day.

  Travis stood. “Let’s go.”

  They made their way across the gridwork, stopping a few times to reassess the direction of the pinging. They took careful steps, placing each one tentatively before shifting any weight forward. There were other things than the stairwell that they might encounter. The elevator shaft, for one.

  Travis swept an arm low in front of him. After a moment it hit something rigid. A structural upright. He felt down its length and found the top of the still-sturdy handrail.

  Thirty seconds later they were two floors down. Travis stepped off of the landing and navigated by memory to where he’d left the twelve-gauge, a few yards away. It was still dry, leaning under the intact metal panel. He carried it back to the stairs.

  “Hand me the backpack,” he said.

  He heard it shift in the darkness and then Bethany pushed it into his hands. It contained nothing but shotgun shells now. Bethany was still holding the SIG, and Paige had the cylinder.

  “What are you doing?” Paige said.

  “I’m going back up,” Travis said. “You’re going to keep heading down.”

  “The hell we are. You’re coming with us, or we’re coming with you.”

  “Finn and his people have the other cylinder,” Travis said, “and it’s their only way out of the building. The ground floor probably slammed shut like a bear trap half a second after you smacked Garner. Even the upper stairwells could have building security in them by now. Finn has to assume they do, either way. So his only exit is through the iris, on the top floor. Think of that, along with the fact that he still wants to capture or kill us. What’s his best strategy?”

  Paige was quiet a few seconds. Then she said, “He’ll give us a few minutes to flee, and then come through the iris. That way we’re not right there, shooting at his guys on their way through the bottleneck.”

  “Exactly,” Travis said. “Once they’re past that point, the advantage is all theirs. You saw the goggles around their necks. They can see in the dark and we can’t. If they come through the iris in the next couple minutes, while we’re groping our way down the stairs, they’ll overtake us long before we reach the ground. And they know we can’t use our own cylinder to go back through the iris on some lower floor—not with the building locked down. We’d be taken into custody, and we’d be under President Currey’s discretion within hours. We’re dead either way. The only real chance we’ve got is to stay here in the ruins until we’re well away from this building. But that only works if someone stays up here and covers the retreat. And I’m sorry to be a dick, but it’s gonna be me, and that’s it.”

  He slung the pack on his shoulder. The weight of the shells inside felt reassuring.

  “On the bright side,” he said, “this is a chance to end this right here.”

  “Then we should all stay,” Bethany said.

  “No,” Travis said. “We can’t risk the cylinder. What Currey said on the phone is right. No one’s going to believe any of this if they don’t look through the iris for themselves. Garner needs it. It’s more important than any of our lives.”

  Neither of them replied right away. In the whisper of the rain, Travis could sense them accepting the idea. Hating it, but accepting it.

  “Where do we meet you?” Paige said.

  “Just get down onto Central Park West and head south. Get as much distance as you can. It’ll be hard in the dark, but do your best. You’ll hear the shooting. Hopefully sometime later you’ll hear me calling out behind you.”

  The seconds drew out again. Then he felt one of Paige’s hands on his face. Her fingers tracing its contours. The closest she could get to a last look at him.

  “Be there,” she said, and then her hand fell away, and Travis heard both sets of footsteps moving off down the next flight. He listened for a few seconds, then started back up.

  He reached the head of the top flight and dropped to a knee. It was as good a spot as any, and it had at least some strategic value: he could descend a few treads if he needed to dodge return-fire.

  The more he thought about his odds, the more he liked them. At any distance over a dozen yards, the shotgun’s spread would be at least as wide as the iris. Anyone coming through it was going to get cut to pieces.

  Finn and his men had numbered seven originally. Two were dead now. Maybe more.

  Travis dropped the backpack off his shoulder. He set it right in front of himself and unzipped it. Pulled it wide open so there’d be no fumbling later.

  The Remington was already good for five shots—four in the magazine and one in the chamber. He felt for the loading port and mentally rehearsed sliding shells into it by feel alone. It wouldn’t be difficult. He probably did it mostly by feel even in daylight.

  He surveyed the darkness all around him in long, rapid sweeps. He would see the iris the moment it opened, even at the extent of his peripheral vision. He could no more miss it than he could miss a searchlight being switched on.

  He pulled the shotgun’s stock hard against his shoulder.

  He was ready.

  Finn stood at the open entry to the suite, listening to the larger corridor beyond. The stairwell was twenty feet away. No doubt Garner’s security detail had opted for that route when they’d left, rather than wait for an elevator.

  Finn listened now for other footsteps echoing on the stairs—approaching, not retreating.

  He heard nothing.

  But he couldn’t expe
ct to, he realized. The Secret Service might’ve made all the racket in the world on the way down, but other security personnel coming up to hold the stairwells would probably be quiet as cats.

  He returned to the suite’s living room. He had five men left. One with a broken nose and probably a facial fracture. The man was still on his feet, but he looked like he could barely see through the swelling under his eyes.

  Outside, police had begun converging on the building. Their sirens sounded faint from thirty stories up. Finn noticed the winking lights of an incoming helicopter, far away across the city.

  He stooped and picked up the cylinder from where it’d rolled to a stop, at the corner where the windows met the wall.

  He considered the logistics of the situation.

  On the other side, Miss Campbell and her friends would be making their way down the stairs by now, at whatever speed they could manage.

  Unless they’d decided to stay and fight it out.

  Finn turned in a slow circle. He let his eyes roam. He imagined the suite in its ruined state, pitch-black and skeletal and cold and wet. And devoid of cover. If the others really were waiting for them over there, where would they position themselves?

  He continued his slow turn. And then he stopped. He was looking down the entry hall toward the outer corridor—and the unseen stairwell beyond.

  He thought about it. It made sense. It was all that made sense, really.

  He turned again and studied the suite, no longer envisioning its alternate form. He looked across the living room, through the doorways on the far wall, toward the distant end of the residence.

  The point furthest from the stairwell.

  He headed for it, waving his men to him as he went. They fell in behind him, weapons ready. Fifteen seconds later they reached the place—a sitting room with wicker furniture and bright yellow paint. It had thick canvas drapes—pulled back at the moment.

  Finn pulled his FLIR headset up and secured it over his eyes. His men did the same. He raised the cylinder. He put his finger to the on button.