“Never mind.” I holster my Glock and reach into my pack. “I’m knocking.”
Talia watches as I pull out a roll of Flex-Linear Charge. It looks like harmless putty tape.
It’s not.
“You’re breaching?” she asks.
“Whisper silent.” I strip the backing and apply the tape along the hinges and the locking mechanism. “It cuts, doesn’t push. Minimal overpressure.”
“Will they hear it upstairs?”
“They won’t hear it over Brass remodeling the lobby.”
I press a detonator cap into the putty. “Cover your ears. Keep your mouth open.”
She steps back, turning away, hands over her ears. I shield her with my body, thumb hovering over the clacker.
Three. Two. One.
Snap.
The sound is sharp, like a dry branch breaking, but contained. A flash of white light outlines the door frame. Smoke hisses from the hinges.
The heavy steel slab groans, tilting inward, no longer anchored to the frame.
I kick it.
The door falls with a heavy clang, echoing loudly in the confined space. I surge through the gap, weapon sweeping the room.
Clear. Just pipes and conduits. A transition space before the subbasement elevators.
“Move,” I order.
Talia steps over the ruined door. She glances at the melted steel edges, then at me. “Efficient, but noisy.”
“It’s what I do.”
We reach the service elevator bank. Two cars. Old industrial lifts with scissor gates and solid doors. I hit the call button. The light flickers. The gears grind somewhere above us.
“It’s slow,” Talia says, checking her watch. “Too slow.”
“It’s the only way down without rappelling the shaft.”
The car arrives with a shudder. The doors slide open.
We step inside. I hit the button forB3. The doors close, sealing us in a metal box that smells of grease and stagnant air. The car descends, rattling in the shaft.
For the first time in twenty minutes, we aren’t moving. We aren’t fighting. We’re just standing in a descending cage.
I look at her. The adrenaline sheen on her skin. The way her chest rises and falls beneath the tactical vest. The blood—not hers—speckled on her boots.
“You stomped him.” The image won’t leave my head. Talia, driving her heel into the operative’s foot. The crunch of bone.
She stares at the floor numbers ticking down.B1…B2…
“He was an obstacle.” Her voice is flat. Monotone. “He had leverage. I removed the leverage.”
“You could have run. When I tackled him. You had a clear line.”
