Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  Phinneus dove for cover as the Geo's door nearly cut him in half. Only his meta reflexes saved him, but he went sprawling on the pavement.

  I didn't wait to see how that turned out; I grabbed the president and hauled ass out of the car, dragging him, unresisting, toward the building in front of us.

  We'd crashed into a light post on a corner, and the lack of street signs left me without a clue where we were. I had no time to think, and so I plunged, leading with my gun, through the floor-to-ceiling window of the building in front of us, glass shattering and cutting my hand and arm as I followed with my body, trying to save the president from the worst of the shredding that followed. Pain surged through my wrist, arms, and places on my sides and back where shards of glass cut through my clothing and raked into my skin. Warm blood trickled down, and I bit my lip.

  I staggered as I came into the room beyond, some sort of conference room with bean bag chairs filled with twenty-something hipsters on Macbooks. They reacted with clear surprise as I came stumbling in, bloody as hell, dragging the president of the United States behind me. One of them, a beanie-wearing dude with a faint trace of black hair forming a goatee/mustache combo I could have made darker with two seconds and a charcoal pencil, leapt to his feet, sending his Mac crashing to the ground.

  “Exit?” I asked, looking around, gun in hand.

  Beanie Guy pointed at a door in the far wall, and I sprinted for it, dragging Gondry's insensate form with me. I burst through the doors and into an open office area where people were working at open tables, their computers in front of them, big, over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones on. Barely a handful looked up as I plowed into their workspace.

  Not that it mattered. I was just passing through, after all.

  “This is so crazy,” one of the hipsters said, head down, not looking at me as I ran up behind him. “They don't have any idea if the president is alive or dead. Wow.” He looked up as I approached, the thudding of my footsteps apparently reaching him through the headphones. His pupils seemed to dilate as he took in the sight of me, with Gondry in tow.

  “Alive!” I shouted, sprinting past. “And I'm trying to keep it that w–”

  The feeling of sudden heat behind me made me drag the president down into a skidding dive. We slid, raw, against my right arm, dragging blood across the office's white tile.

  A blast of plasma the size of a car shot over my head and hit the far wall, dissolving it almost instantly. As it dispersed, it revealed a hallway beyond, seemingly none the worse for the wear considering one wall of it had just been annihilated by a five-thousand-degree heat bloom.

  I'd always noted that Veronika's powers were tightly controlled. Her plasma bursts ran hotter than hell, but were localized, with minimal heat bleedthrough given she was tossing around five-thousand-degree blazes of pure energy. It was the equivalent of sitting a foot from the sun and not being burned to a crisp.

  Seizing the opportunity my last-minute dodge had presented, I dragged the president through the hole in the wall she'd made, sparing me a ten-second detour to find a door. I sprinted along the hallway beyond, the president a dead weight, dragging behind me like a flag.

  “Sorry, sir,” I said, hitting an intersection and dodging behind the corner to wait. I had my gun in hand, and the checkered grips were hanging on to my palms even through the heavy slick of blood accumulated there. I lined up a shot with the pistol barrel leaned against the corner of the hallway, pointed back the way we'd come. I prepped myself, trying to steady my aim in spite of blood loss and fatigue. Veronika and Phinneus were behind me, and I needed to improve the 2:1 odds further. I mean, I'd already taken it from 5:1 down to this; I just really needed to finish the job.

  Distant sirens reached my ears. Cops were getting calls all over our route, I was sure, probably trying to narrow down the location of the pandemonium I was unleashing on the District. I ignored them, trying to focus on the sound of footsteps.

  There – coming up from behind the dissolved wall.

  I opened up just after I saw the rifle barrel slide out from behind the wall. I planted a bullet squarely above the weapon's release, and recognized it as a Barrett MRAD. The weapon sparked as my round hit home, smashing into the machinery. I fired again as Phinneus jerked the weapon back, but saw another spark as my shot hit home somewhere along the barrel.

  Two hits to a gun from twenty yards while bleeding out and having just survived a car crash and a chase. “Not bad, Nealon,” I muttered to myself. The president groaned in his unconsciousness, and I broke into a run down the hall, reassured that my pursuers would have to slow, at least for a moment, to deal with the troubles my marksmanship had just caused them.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Phinneus

  The little minx's shots had been perfect. Smart, too. She'd delivered a 9mm bullet just north of the magazine and another had dinged the barrel of the big Barrett rifle, rendering it completely unworkable for his purposes. He stared at it as Veronika paused, cocking her head to look at it. She looked funny under a ski mask.

  “It's kaput,” Phinneus said, slinging it over his shoulder. No reason to leave it behind as evidence. He'd used gloves, but why make things easy on the cops?

  “I kinda figured by the giant bullet hole in the side,” Veronika said. “You want to break off pursuit?”

  Phinneus reached down into his coat, pulling out the Colt Single Action Army he'd carried for a hundred years now. “No. But you know what I do want? You to not burn any more escape routes for her.”

  Veronika just rolled her eyes. “She dodged at the last second, okay? Plasma burst that large should have turned her to ashes. Not my fault she spider-sensed it.”

  “Hard to miss a heat wash like you make.”

  “You sayin' I'm hot?” Veronika's smile was leering, her eyes dancing through the holes in her mask.

  “Knock it off, you old carp,” Phinneus said, holding the Colt tight in his hand as he hurried down the hall after Nealon. “Let's get this over with.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Sienna

  I stumbled out onto a narrow two-lane avenue, the president gripped tight to me, trying to figure out what to do next. I'd hauled Gondry halfway across Washington, and the adrenaline, stress and general wear of being in a helicopter crash, a car crash and under regular gunfire was definitely taking its toll on me.

  Also, blood loss. Blood loss was taking its toll on me, too. It dripped down both my legs, leaving crimson footprints behind me on the cracked pavement.

  “Am I...late for my speech?” the president mumbled wearily as I dragged him through the street at as high a speed as I could manage, receiving a cavalcade of honks for my trouble. “Turn the alarm off...lemme sleep just five more minutes...”

  The president probably had a concussion, though I wasn't in a great position to judge. I didn't know what street I was on, didn't even have a great idea of direction at this point. I nearly stumbled on the curb and paused, looking up.

  It was like a lightbulb had gone off, a hammer had struck a plate at the base of my spine and sent the little shuttle to ring the bell at the top, in my brain, like a little voice in my head offered advice:

  You're running and fighting in two dimensions. Go three dimensional and really throw things off.

  I didn't have to think about it for more than a second before I performed a vertical leap up the building in front of me, dragging the president along and shoving him ahead.

  Bullets cracked through the air behind me, striking through the space I'd just occupied, one catching me in the calf. I yelped as I crashed through the window above, rolling with the president and knocking over a desk with a person sitting at it, all of us coming to rest in an unfortunate tangle of limbs and torsos and blood and glass on the office carpeting.

  “What the hairy hell!?” the guy screamed, as one might when a superhero and the president have just come crashing through your second-floor window to land on you.

  “Sorry sorry
sorry,” I said, shoving both the president and our new host aside as I rolled left. I had my pistol out, sights aimed at the window, which was not – thankfully – a floor-to-ceiling model but rather a traditional window that started about two, three feet off the ground. It minimized the view but also narrowed the perspective.

  “Who are you?” he asked, spluttering. Reasonable question under the circumstances.

  “Your fairy goddessmother,” I said, keeping my gun aimed at the window. I had a specific plan now, formed and in my mind, the permutations running through it quickly.

  They leapt without looking. Immediate pursuit.

  They took the stairs. Smarter, but with a chance for us to escape their relentless chase.

  Veronika burned the facade of the building off and incinerated the office, possibly killing us, possibly just making a bigger mess, but definitely obscuring things with a cloud for a few minutes. They'd be blind.

  Necessity is the mother of invention, but haste is the impetus of bad choices, and a second later, I got my answer on what they'd choose.

  The black mask of Phinneus popped into the window as he leapt into my view a second later, trying to lead with his old Colt but not getting it over the ledge of the window before his face and shoulders slipped into my sight picture.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

  I ran through four rounds as Phinneus cried out and flipped out of view, his legs twisting up above him, either because of the jerk of his body when he got shot or else – hell, I don't know how else he would have done that. It looked like a cat trying to land on its feet after being dropped, the contortions were epic, even in my little picture-frame view.

  He dropped out of sight and I grabbed Gondry with one hand and our new guest with the other and dragged them both out of the office sluggishly, anticipating that Veronika was going to go with plan C any second.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Phinneus

  “Ahhhh! Augh! Auuuuuu–”

  “Stop being such a baby, Ph – uh, whatever your name is,” Veronika said, stooping over him. She was wincing as she looked at him, which told him everything about what he looked like. “You're acting like you've never been shot before.”

  “I don't care – how many times it happens,” he strained out through gritted teeth, “it – still – hurts like the dickens!”

  “Yeah, I found Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol to be a bit of a slog, too,” Veronika said, casting a wary eye toward the shattered window he'd just tried to invade with unfortunate results.

  “Burn them out of that gopher hole, will you?” Phinneus spat.

  Veronika swept around on him again. “I don't think that's a good idea.” She knelt next to him instead, gathering him up in her arms like he was a damned baby.

  “What are you doin – oh,” Phinneus said.

  The sirens were getting louder, and he'd just realized – they had no vehicle close by. Probably lost theirs at the crash site. Definitely didn't want to go back for it now.

  “Time for a strategic retreat, Phinneus,” Veronika said, darting down a nearby alleyway. “Live to fight another day and all that jazz, you know?”

  Phinneus wasn't listening. His head was filled with cotton balls, and when he touched the area around his left trapezius, his finger came back with dark blood on the tips. “Can't believe...that little minx...shot me...”

  “Try not to die of irony,” Veronika said, bumping him roughly as she jumped over an entire street. “Or bullets. I'm going to get you out of h...”

  Phinneus drifted out just then, though, so he didn't hear the rest.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Sienna

  I made it almost to the office break room before my calf decided it didn't want to carry weight anymore, and I collapsed. People were screaming in the halls, diving out of the way as I passed, dragging the president with me. I'd ditched the other guy after I'd gotten him clear of his office, and he'd lain there, refusing to move, shaking like I'd hooked a car battery up to his balls.

  “Just gonna...crawl for a bit, Mr. President,” I said, still dragging Gondry, my left arm snaked under both his, gripping him firmly under the armpits as I pulled him across rough carpet, Glock in hand, fresh mag changed out last time I stopped. I was mashing a trail of blood into the carpet as I went, and it was hard for me to tell which of my various wounds was causing it. The calf shot? The glass cuts? Something else? Combo platter of all? Hell if I knew.

  “Can't...I can't go for my morning run right now...” Gondry mumbled. He turned his head toward me and I saw a sliver of eyeball. “Too tired.”

  “Hang on, Mr. President,” I breathed. I wiped something slick off my hand onto my forehead. My hair was tangled, matted. Little pieces of glass dropped out of my sleeve, which was red as a scarlet A. Except mine would stand for ASSHOLE.

  But one that wouldn't quit.

  Even now I was sweeping in every direction with my eyes, trying to differentiate the bang of office doors slamming their occupants shut inside, out of fear, from the bang of one being shoved open, roughly, to herald the approach of our last, Terminator-like pursuer, come to finish the job and leave us both a pile of smoking ash.

  Could I kill Veronika with a well-placed shot before that happened? Hard to say. Depended on whether she was suited up in full plasma. If so, I was going to have to come up with something else.

  Fortunately, I had been in almost this exact situation before.

  “I need...to start a fire...” I said, my words slurring at the tail end. My vision was darkening at the edges, a sure sign of severe blood loss. Mostly severe for humans. I concentrated for a minute, took a breath, focused in...

  Then I blinked.

  That sound I'd been waiting for?

  I heard it.

  A door being kicked in, less than a hundred feet away.

  I dragged the president behind me, shoving his body behind the Coke machine in the corner of the break room. Hard for mere mortals to do while unable to stand, but I manhandled him with ease.

  He blinked at me a couple times. “...Nealon...?” he managed tiredly.

  “Stay down, sir,” I said, shoving him tightly into the corner and pushing myself in front of him, taking full advantage of the machine for cover. I held my Glock out, using the machine as a brace to keep from keeling over.

  The sirens were going in the background. Full. Fulsome.

  What would I sacrifice to do my job? My duty?

  Time.

  Blood.

  My damned life.

  How had it come to this?

  “Identify yourself!” a rough voice shouted.

  I took a long breath, almost gasping out my answer. “Nealon! FBI!”

  A pause. “Do you have the president?”

  This was the dicey part. The part where my trust issues and paranoia all combined to make me worry about – well, every possibility. Like that these guys were mercs, paid to back up Phinneus and Veronika in case they failed.

  “Yes!” I called back. “Now you identify yourself!”

  “Don Greer,” he called back. “DC SWAT. Good to hear from you, Nealon. We need to get the president checked out immediately.” I heard someone make a radio call, a quiet one, behind him, that included the words, “We've got the president. Dispatch Secret Service to our location immediately.”

  “Slowly,” I said, not quite willing to give up on duty just yet. “We've been chased from the damned Potomac, okay? Escort dead. Ambushed multiple times. I need to wait for Secret Service. And the president's concussed, but all right.”

  “I'm...I am?” Gondry asked, sounding clearer than he'd been in a while. Muffled, though, because he was speaking into my back.

  “You were in a car crash, sir,” I said, sotto voce.

  “I was in a damned car crash because you ran us into a pole,” Gondry rumbled, but quietly. His voice softened. “And saved my life from that shadow woman.”

  “I'm coming in, Nealon,” Greer called. “Putting my gun d
own.” Hands extended around the corner. “I'm a first responder. I'll check him out while we wait.” He put his head around, still buried in a tactical helmet. “Okay?”

  “No sudden moves,” I said, but the fatigue was getting to me. I covered him with my pistol, and he wasn't upset by it. “I've got one job here.”

  “You look like you've seen better days, Nealon,” he said, shuffle-stepping toward me. Another radio blared in the background. Dispatch, requesting update. More sirens in the background. If Greer was an assassin, he'd need to make his move soon or risk being surrounded by the real cops.

  “How'd you know we were here?” I asked, sight picture centered on his head. I would take no chances. If anyone opened up on me, he'd be the first to die.

  I could see his smile beneath the visor. “You don't leave a subtle trail.” He edged a little closer to me, to the president. “Can I...?”

  “Mr. President,” I said, “this gentleman wants to examine you for injuries. 60/40 odds he's from the DC SWAT Team. Give it another three minutes and we'll know for sure.”

  “I'd like to wait three minutes, please, Mr. Greer,” President Gondry said, loud and clear. “Because this woman has saved my life more times today than I can count. And not just because I'm absolutely terrible at math.”

  Greer's eyes flashed, and he nodded, stepping back. “If you say so, sir.” He crossed his hands in front of him where I could see them, and settled against the wall to wait.

  “I say so,” the president said quietly, and patted me on the shoulder. The sirens grew louder in the background, grew closer with every passing second the realization began to set in that we might just – finally – be safe.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Chapman

  “Get to safety,” Jaime said. “We need to regroup to discuss what's next as soon as possible.”