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“You yahoos need to run like hell—”
“Fuck! Man down!”
“Who got hit?”
“Hostiles to our six. Motherfuck—”
“Warehouse is clear.”
“Haul ass, people!” Marissa ordered. Through the fiery exchange, Sophie noticed with relief that the commando that got hit was being helped along by Manning. They reached the wall of the warehouse and managed to take cover for a minute.
“Who else got hit?”
Nobody answered. Derek immediately spun her around to him and touched her all over. “You OK, Sophie?” His voice was full of concern.
“I’m fine,” Sophie replied softly.
“Good girl.”
“You guys better hustle,” Edmunds warned through comms. “The whole compound is on our ass, we’ll be needing back up to hold them off.”
“I got the window open,” Cortez said. He really was a lock expert, Sophie thought.
Marissa hefted herself up and went in first. When she gave the all clear, Sophie heaved herself over, getting a boost from Derek. All followed except for the injured commando and Quint. They were remaining outside to help secure the perimeter of the warehouse.
Sophie’s heart was still racing, and she was beginning to hyperventilate.Great. What was that Maia taught her in case an anxiety attack seized her? Fortunately, Derek knew the drill.
“Count slowly, one, two, three, four inhale. Count slowly to exhale one, two, three, four,” he whispered into her ear. All Derek did was babysit her. She should toughen it out.Sheesh!
“I’m fine,” Sophie said, even as she gulped a deep breath saying it. Derek grinned at her and shifted his focus to take a gander of the area.
The warehouse was dimly lit and eerily quiet—a stark contrast to the firefight outside.
“Jesus Christ,” Derek muttered under his breath. “There’s enough munitions in here to start a third world war.”
Rows and columns of wooden crates lined the wall with sections labeled explosives, artillery, rifles etc. No question of this location being a weapons depot. They trailed Marissa’s lead until they encountered a room outfitted with a sophisticated portal.
All of them exchanged grim looks. This was it. Cortez was up. He took out some cool-looking equipment and probes from his backpack. He unscrewed the lid off the electronic lock and fit the probes on to it. After viewing the signal on his sophisticated device, he punched in some codes to reprogram the locks. He cursed a couple of times but finally, after a few attempts, chambers and internal mechanisms whirred and the door jarred open.
Cortez and Chen high-fived.
They opened the door further and went inside. The room was illuminated automatically when a sensor detected movement. There, sitting in the center of the space, were the three suitcase-sized zee bombs.
“You’re up, Sophie,” Marissa said and then speaking through comms: “We’ve got ‘silver linings’, we can apprehend Stoltz.”
“Uh, guys,” Manning called out cautiously as he walked toward the ominous looking devices. “The bomb’s timer is counting down. Is it supposed to do that?”
Sophie rushed forward and looked at the blinking digital numbers counting down.
7:59
7:58
7:57
Oh god.
“It’s armed,” Sophie whispered.
