“No!” Martinelli pointed at one of the men surrounding him. “The phoenix must be whole! The ritual?—”
“Fuck your ritual,” I yelled.
The operatives reached for weapons, but their movements were wrong—fumbling, uncertain, looking to their leader instead of engaging. They were true believers, not soldiers like the men below. I moved while they hesitated.
I shifted aim and fired at Martinelli’s hand. He screamed as blood flew from his hand, and he dropped the firing switch. It skittered across the stones while he fell to his knees next to Brooke.
She twisted hard against her captors’ grip, using their moment of surprise. She broke free from one, then the other, and sprinted straight for the control box that connected all the fireworks. She ripped it from the table, raised it over her head, and threw it to the ground. The plastic casing shattered, circuits and wires spilling out.
“Stop them!” Martinelli screamed, cradling his hand against his body.
Two operatives rushed me. The first one telegraphed his swing, allowing me to step inside his reach, bringing the Glock’s grip into his nose. He spun and dropped, blood gushing from his face.
The second tried to grapple, going for my weapon. I let him have it—or thought he had it—then reversed, using his momentum to drive him face-first into the stone wall. He slid down, leaving a red streak.
Movement to my left. Martinelli was pulling something out of his pocket. A silver lighter.
“Manual launch!” he shouted to his men. “Light them manually!”
“Rav!” Brooke screamed. “The Greek Fire’s in the fireworks!”
“She’s safe,” I yelled into my comms, “but they’re about to light the sky up.”
Martinelli flicked the lighter, the flame dancing in the wind, and touched it to the nearest mortar’s backup fuse. The wick caught instantly, sparking toward the launch charge.
“No!” Brooke was already moving.
She didn’t try to stop the fuse—too late for that. Instead, she hit the mortar tube with her full body weight, knocking it sideways just before it fired.
The mortar was launched horizontally rather than vertically. It streaked across the rooftop and slammed into the low stone wall less than ten feet from where they’d stood.
The mortar casing ruptured on impact, and instead of dispersing at altitude, it exploded in front of us; the boom reminding me of an RPG. Burning grit and fragments sprayed across the rooftop—shards of casing, pyrotechnic stars, glowing debris—some of it sticking where it landed, some of it bouncing and dying on the stone.
The scream that tore from Brooke’s throat stopped my heart.
She was clawing at her chest, at the tactical suit that was supposed to protect her.
Martinelli was screaming, too, and his men forgot about me to help him.
I rushed to Brooke, dropping to my knees beside her. The burning debris had found her unprotected neck and chest. Some of it had fizzled out on impact, but some was actively burning. “I’m here, Brooke.”
Memories of her briefings in Afghanistan echoed in my brain: keep your gloves on; don’t touch anything else once you’ve made contact; and depending on the chemical, either use water or the neutralizer immediately.
“Gloves!” she screeched.
“They’re on, sweetheart. Just try to breathe. I’m here.” My hands went to the zipper, trying to open it further, to get the contaminated material away from her skin. But the zipperteeth were warped and jammed, heat-scorched and fouled with blackened residue. It was locked solid, no matter how hard I pulled.
I’d made contact now, so no touching anything else. Not her face. Not my gear. Nothing.
“Pack,” she gasped. “RSDL?—”
I hauled off her gloves, which were also contaminated now, then pinned her hands above her head with one leg. “Don’t touch anything, Brooke. You know the rules of contact.”
She fought against me for a second, but switched to bowing her back away from the ground. “Please, Rav, please! It’s alive!”
“I got you.” I stripped my gloves, turned them inside out, and tossed them aside. I shrugged off my backpack, yanking out the decontamination kit and a fresh pair of nitrile gloves. I couldn’t move fast enough.
There were too many fucking steps. But I couldn’t risk hurting her more.
