Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

  He closed the door behind him and hoped nobody would disturb the sleeping naked guy zip-tied to the desk. He pulled the pants down a little in case he ever wanted kids and unfastened the cuffs. Bob was not as big as him, so he was Delta for sure. It was where the little guys go who don’t measure up to the Marine Corps.

  He glanced down the corridor at the elevator and thought about it for a moment. It would beat the hell out of the stairs, but would stop on every floor so he could join the guys at the campfire and roast marshmallows. Stairs it was. Nineteen floors and thirty-six flights of stairs. Unless he time-travelled back to his youth, this was going to be a painful slog.

  “I see the bastard!” A voice from above, and not God.

  So much for the disguise. He’d liked the FedEx polo and wished he’d kept it. Maybe pick it up later on the way down.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning over the blue plastic banister so they could see his ninja uniform. “I’m Bob…err…”

  Oops.

  He flipped up his name tag. “Harris.”

  Worth a try.

  The Boy Scout fired three rounds in quick succession. If Ethan had stayed on the rail waiting to be shot, he’d be dead. The guy could shoot. That was worrying. The other thing that was worrying was it looked like there was going to be a firefight in an office building full of innocent civilians. Not great.

  He moved back to the stairwell door and pushed the fire alarm. Thing about fire evacuation, no elevators. Two minutes later the stairs were full of evacuees streaming out from every floor in an orderly manner. Ethan smiled. That was an unexpected bonus. The downside of which was they blocked his way up as effectively as they stopped the shooter blowing his head off.

  He timed his move and stepped back through the stairwell doorway in the break created by an older guy holding open the door for a female colleague and getting a shitty look for his trouble.

  Ethan looked around as the last member of staff disappeared onto the stairs. He needed to get up to the top floor. He could find one of those window-cleaning cradles and haul himself up like they do in the movies where the writer can’t be bothered to think it through. That would work. Hanging outside the building with zero cover and twenty guys shooting at him.

  Strike the hanging-cradle plan. There was a plan, there was always a plan. Okay, couple of times there hadn’t been. Three times tops. And he wasn’t dead from those, so no reason to think this was going to be any different. Now that was intelligent, military analysis. Conclusion being, hey, don’t worry about it. He was losing it. Too many late nights and pocket flasks.

  He went back into the HR office and touched the neck of the unconscious ninja. Still got a pulse. Truth be told, he didn’t really care. When he was taking on the Secret Service agents, he wasn’t going to kill them because they were just doing their job protecting the United States, but these men, these mercenaries dressed in designer black uniforms, had made the conscious decision to kill him for money. These hired killers were enemy combatants even if they were Americans, and that was by no means certain; they could be and probably were from a bunch of other countries. At least the ones with credible special forces. So the no-lethal-force constraint didn’t apply.

  He opened the desk drawer and recovered the Glock he’d dumped because there was no way to carry it without giving away the fact that he wasn’t a ninja, but that plan had fallen apart at the first test. So now he might as well have two weapons.

  “Ethan.” Andie’s voice in ear made him jump.

  “Jesus, I’d forgotten about the earwig.”

  “No, not Jesus.”

  That was a joke.

  “I’m kinda busy. What can I do for you?” And he meant it, providing it was doing nothing at all.

  “Yes, I know, I can see you.”

  He looked around quickly and saw the camera by the door and waved.

  “You’re waving back, aren’t you?”

  “No, no, I’m not.” She needed to practice lying.

  “I’m working on a plan here.” He’d honed lying to an art form.

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  Not so great, then.

  “Would you like some help?”

  Damned right he would.

  “Unless you’ve got the Seventh Cavalry out there, no.”

  “They’re soldiers from westerns, aren’t they?”

  God, he felt old. Whose stupid idea was it to lumber him with a kid?

  “I was thinking,” Andie said, without waiting for confirmation of the cavalry’s origin. “Seeing you running around on the first floor and now blocking all the stairways with workers and fire wardens.”

  “Yeah, okay, that was a bit of a miscalculation.” He looked up at the camera. “You missed the part about almost getting my head blown off on those same stairs.”

  “No, not really. I saw him.” She left it a moment. “He was on his own. Did you know that?”

  Looking at the camera was giving him a stiff neck, so he looked away. “Yeah, of course I knew it.”

  “It’s just that if you’d shot him, there was nobody else between you and the tenth floor. Just saying.”

  “Didn’t want to make it too easy.”

  “Would you like some help?” She used exactly the same tone as before, casual interest.

  “What you got in mind?” Whatever it was, it was more than he had in his.

  “There’s three men watching the lobby elevator, five covering the top two floors where Orpheus is holed up, and the rest moving floor to floor.”

  Maybe not so dumb having twenty men in the building.

  “If the men in black see you skulking about, say down in the basement and first floor, they might be tempted to come and get you.”

  “Not likely, it would mean they’d have to leave their designated positions.”

  She laughed. “These clowns aren’t soldiers anymore, they’re just egos on legs. Some of them have already wandered off in search of the coffee stations.”

  “That’s depressing.”

  “Yes, but it’s going to save your life.”

  “Only if you can make them think I’m on the first floor.”

  She was silent again for a moment. “You are on the first floor.”

  “How many are watching the stairs?” Ethan said.

  “Three pairs have the stairs split between them, top to bottom. The rest are sitting in the offices watching the elevators in case you sneak past the lobby guards. But the stairs are now also patrolled by fire-evacuation wardens with comms and attitude.”

  “I’ll tell them I’m a DC fire marshal and order them out.”

  That should work, as long as they didn’t see the two automatics he was carrying.

  “So you’re intending to run up thirty flights of stairs?” She said it slowly, as if she was asking a stupid question.

  “Thirty-six,” Ethan said. “Yes.”

  “By the time you get to the top, you’ll be in no condition to fight, you’ll need oxygen.”

  “You saying I’m old?”

  Yes.

  “No, of course not. It would exhaust anybody.”

  “I’ll have a rest on the way.”

  “Okay then. There’s a colonel watching the internal monitors. I’ll let him see you running about on the first floor like a chicken with its head off.”

  He looked around. She was right, that was pretty much what he’d been doing. “They’ve got a colonel?”

  “That’s what he’s calling himself over comms.”

  “I could call myself George Clooney, don’t make me rich and handsome though, does it?”

  “Rich is overrated.”

  “You captured the feed?” he asked before she felt the need to clarify the handsome bit.

  “Well, yeah.” She should have tutted; it hung there in the silence. “And I stopped them seeing you actually doing it.”

  “Good work.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “They’ll use the elevators to get down here.
” He thought about it. “Give me time to get up two floors. As long as I don’t bump into any patrols, it should take me a couple of minutes.”

  “I won’t have to time it, I can watch you.”

  He glanced at the camera and thought about reminding her to prevent the bad guys watching too, but she was already all over that.

  “I’ll wait for you to get to the second fl—”

  “Third,” Ethan said. “I’m on the first, so that’s ticked off the list.”

  “The third floor. Then I’ll send them the feed of the last few minutes. Minus this conversation, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  He pushed the Glock into his belt and pulled the black tunic over it. It bulged, but it wasn’t obvious. He glanced at the cool polo shirt, but let it be.

  The stairwell door creaked loudly as he opened it, and he crouched before he put his head out and took a quick look up and down the stairs. Deserted, not even the customary stragglers who’d gone back for their jackets or sandwiches, and the fire wardens had taken off too, so he didn’t have to give them his impression of a fire marshal, because it would’ve been a very short impression.

  He started to jog up the stairs, then slowed to a walk. The race didn’t start until Andie sent the feed, so he’d save his energy. God knows he was going to need it.

  He’d almost reached the third floor when he heard voices ahead of him and stepped back against the wall and checked which way they were moving. They weren’t. Two guys talking about a titty bar they’d been to in Colombia, in Medellin’s art district. Right.

  From the way they were killing time, they were settled in for the duration. It wasn’t like he could go around them; the elevators were pretty much a no-go, which meant—

  “Hey, coming up,” he called. “No shooting the good guys.”

  They laughed.

  He kept his head down and trotted up the stairs to their landing. The moment he looked up, they grabbed for their guns. He put two in each of them. The Glock for the guy on the left and his Colt for the other. Less than a second and all talk of titty bars was done.

  He snapped the magazines out of their guns and dropped them over the banister into the basement. These two crappy soldiers weren’t going to need their guns again, but leaving loaded weapons lying around is just careless.

  The moment he hit the next landing, Andie told him the race was on.

  “They’re on the move,” she said, and her voice was quiet and calm.

  “Any ninjas taking the stairs?”

  “No, they’re all taking the comfort route and riding the elevators.”

  “Okay. Alert me if anybody does anything dramatic.”

  “Wilco. But you’re going to have to move; this won’t fool them for long.”

  “They’ll need to check the basement and first floor. That should take a while.”

  She took a second to respond. “Don’t think so, there’s a lot of them, and I mean a lot. They’ll find the guy you stripped.”

  “You saw that? Right.”

  “I didn’t look.”

  He started up the stairs at a steady jog; he had a long way to go. He was still moving well when he reached the fifteenth floor and took a little breather and ignored the complaints coming from his knees. Steady breathing means a steady hand and that means a steady aim, pretty important in a firefight.

  Somebody was coming, he didn’t hear them, not like the last two bozos, but he felt the air change, maybe a little movement, whatever. He didn’t question it, he just accepted that somebody was coming.

  He looked back at the door leading off the stairs. It was a way out, but could easily lead to a world of trouble if some of the guns-for-hire had stayed put. He really wanted to avoid a shoot-out right then, all that noise and fuss, and it would slow him down. It never occurred to him it might slow him down permanently. That was a possibility but not one that was worth considering. Which meant he had to take out the approaching men, preferably without shots being fired. There was two of them. He didn’t know how he knew, it was just the same way he knew they were coming.

  Two to one isn’t bad odds, but on a narrow staircase it would be tough to do it silently. He put his Colt back in its holster and tucked the Glock into his belt, bent down and pulled his Ka-Bar from the sheath in his sock. Two ex-special forces operators and on narrow stairs. This could end badly. One flight above him now and coming down quietly on rubber-soled boots.

  One he could manage without too much effort, but two… He had to reduce the odds, and quickly. He could run up the next flight and catch them just as they started their descent. He’d done that once before in Kandahar, but that was facing off to Taliban, and they were just thugs off the street. These guys were in a whole different league.

  The plan he came up with in two seconds of consideration was nuts to the point of lunacy.

  The balustrade was constructed of seven horizontal stainless steel bars with matching vertical bars every couple of yards, and the first of these was just before the bend. It was its position that gave him the suicidal idea.

  He put the K-Bar back in its scabbard and ran up the rest of the flight on his toes, grabbed the handrail and stepped over, wedged his foot against the bar and the step and held on with his right hand, his left he pulled back and leaned under the stairs as far as he dared. He looked down. It was a hell of a long fall. He’d try to avoid that.

  They were coming, he could hear a hand running on the plastic-coated handrail. A sensible thing to do, something to hold if he tripped. The hand appeared on the rail as it switched back to the next flight.

  Ethan timed it. Now. He swung his left foot back onto the side of the step, took the hand on the rail with his left and just snatched it forward. There was a grunt and the man pitched head first down the stairs.

  Ethan didn’t wait to admire his success. He threw his left leg over the rail like he was riding a hobby horse, and slammed his fist into the second ninja’s groin. The shock and pain half doubled him forward, and Ethan reached up, grabbed his tunic and tossed him down the stairs. He tried to step forward, which was stupid, he should’ve dropped as low as he could and taken the stairs at a roll. It would’ve hurt like hell, but he might have survived it. Instead he tripped and went face down. The two men lay dead still against the wall twelve steps down. Twelve concrete steps. That worked. Always said God loved him, just liked to mess with him.

  He pulled his Colt, crouched and listened for any other surprises, but it was still and quiet. He glanced once at the crumpled bodies and started moving again.

  “Saw that,” Andie said. “Not too shabby.”

  “Thanks. The colonel still happy with his boys and their hunt for the sneaky marine on the ground floor?”

  “What floor are you on? Fifteen?”

  “Sixteen now.” He could almost hear the next problem coming and picked up the pace.

  “They found the zip-tied guy and they’re on their way back to their positions.”

  “Ones on twenty and twenty-one?”

  “They never moved.”

  That was bad news. They hadn’t scurried off to get a piece of the action, which meant they were the best of this bunch. “Five covering those two floors?”

  “Confirmed,” Andie said. “Wait one.”

  He’d put the Colt away to free his right hand to grab the handrail on every bend and slingshot him up the next flight. The plate on the door said eighteen. He slowed down.

  “Can’t see twenty-one, there’s no cameras there, but there’s five tangos spread out on twenty. Looks like an executive conference suite with one, two…four glass rooms off a central reception area. They’re in them all. One guy behind the desk. I think he’s eating the receptionist’s lunch.”

  He stopped one flight down from the landing on twenty and let his breathing settle. He leaned over the rail and looked down, way down, but there was no sound of anyone stupid enough to run up that many floors. He glanced up the stairs and thought it through. It was t
he day for mad ideas, it seemed.

  “What are they doing in the offices?”

  “Sitting at the desks. Some with their feet up. I don’t think they’re very worried about you turning up.”

  “Good.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Where are the desk phones?”

  She was silent for a long two seconds. “On the desks.”

  He’d asked for that.

  “Here’s a question that could win you and your partner that dream holiday.”

  “I’m in the navy and on a suicide mission with a bunch of marines; who’d be stupid enough to be my partner?”

  “Can you ring all the phones?”

  “Of course. Ask me something hard.”

  “Ring them all at the same time?” He waited for what seemed like a minute and resisted the impulse to repeat the question.

  “Ready to go.”

  “Okay, on my mark.”

  He moved up the last twelve steps very slowly, listening for the slightest hint that some hero was prone on the landing waiting for him to stick his head up. Had there been somebody there, he would’ve heard him breathing. Well, he hoped he would. He stayed crouched until he was near the top, then put his head up and snatched it back down. There was nobody there. No surprise, but worth the dicking around. A bullet in the brow can give a man a serious headache.

  He put his ear to the door but kept his body against the brickwork in case one of the ninjas heard something and put a round through the woodwork. Nothing. No sentries, no tripwire, no claymore, nothing. The quality of this generation of operators was seriously disheartening.

  The door would be unlocked. He tried the handle very gently. It was unlocked. He suppressed a sigh. When this was over, he was going back to Lejeune and light a fire under the whole fucking lot of them.

  “Andie.”

  There was no response.

  “Andie.”

  “I’m here.”

  “I thought you’d gone for coffee.”

  “I’m working.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He put his hand back on the door. “On three.”

  “Ready.”

  He took a breath. “Three.”

  Every phone on the floor jumped into life, and he threw the door open and stepped into the office.