The door burst open and banged against the inner wall. His keen sense of hearing told him a heavy boot hit the metal mesh of the landing. Using the mental image he had of the room, he lifted the Glock, peeked out from behind the giant turbine, and took aim at what he hoped was the right spot.
When he squeezed his trigger twice in quick succession, the back-to-back bark of the weapon was obscenely loud in the enclosed space. Still he didn’t miss hearing the accompanying yelp of pain.
Gotcha! He thought a split second before the room exploded with weapon fire. The thunk and screech of hot rounds burying themselves in hard metal was an acoustic assault.
So much noise and chaos was designed to rattle the mind, rev up the lizard portion of the mind into fight-or-flight mode. But Angel was no ordinary man. Instead of cowering in the corner, he gritted his teeth and ducked back behind the turbine.
Adrenaline singed his blood as he listened closely to the cadence of the bullets.
Two shooters.
Both aiming precisely for the turbine and hitting it.
A less experienced operator might chalk that up to the enemy having seen the muzzle flash of his Glock, but the precision and placement of the shots told him the gunners weren’t firing randomly. Which meant they wore night-vision goggles.
A slow smile curved his lips.
Sonya, dear, brave woman, was still standing tall behind him. He wanted to turn and hug her and tell her how proud he was to know her, but time was of the essence. Grabbing her hand, he gave her fingers another squeeze and leaned close to whisper in her ear, hoping his words carried over the racket of the assault.
“You have to let go of me for a bit.”
Palming her cell phone from his hip pocket, he thumbed on the screen. It took him less than a second to locate the flashlight function on the device. Then he turkey-peeked from behind the big turbine and aimed the flashlight at the door at the same time he aimed the Glock.
He got a brief glimpse of the two shooters in night-vision goggles while they were momentarily blinded by the light. Luckily, a moment was all he needed. Four more squeezes of the trigger and the Glock spat up death.
His first shot hit the man on the left, entering under the asshole’s chin and exploding out the back of his neck. In the yellow glow of the flashlight, the gushing blood looked as black as tar.
Angel’s second shot arced wide—damnit!—burying itself in the wooden doorframe. Luck, or more like good training, ensured his third and fourth shots flew true. The second shooter took a round to the chest that knocked him back a step. The final slug exploded his right cheekbone.
Angel ducked behind the turbine, switching off the phone’s flashlight. One man injured—he didn’t bother speculating how badly. Two men dead. And who knew how many more were waiting to come through that door? He could hear at least three, maybe four distinct voices shouting from somewhere outside the room.
Three or four men and only nine rounds left. Would that be enough?
He could feel Sonya’s presence beside him, hear her ragged breaths. Wait for our fate, he’d said. But surely, after everything he’d sacrificed, everything he’d suffered, surely fate wouldn’t be fickle enough to end him now, just when he’d found the love of his life again. Just when he’d determined to start living again.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the voices coming from outside. Only two men were speaking now, and their words were hushed. Even so, he caught snippets of conversation.
“Car…”
“Combat gear…”
“Frag grenade…”
The last two words stopped the breath in his lungs.
He would fire every last one of his bullets, fight each and every man out there hand-to-hand if that’s what it took. But one thing he could not combat was the destructive power of a fragmenting grenade.
Gritting his teeth, he quickly ran through his options…
He could run up those steps, gun blazing, and hope he could take out the rest of Grafton’s men. Of course, if he didn’t have enough ammo, or if one of the goons happened to slip into the engine room behind him, then Sonya would be—
He didn’t finish the thought, simply moved on to option two. He could throw himself on top of the grenade when it hit the floor. He’d be blown to smithereens, but Sonya would be saved, except… Then no one would be left to defend her.
No. Nope. So that left option three. Maybe he could use the grenade against the men. Of all the scenarios, this one was the trickiest. He’d need to hit the flashlight on the phone at the perfect moment, track the trajectory of the grenade, snag it before it landed, and then send it back to its source before it went off. Plus, he’d need Sonya to lay down covering fire so he didn’t get shot. Timing would be everything.
And luck.
He was going to need a shit-ton of luck.
