Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

“You don’t understand. The answers are on that computer. I’ve almost figured it out.”


The man’s face registered dismay, but only for a second. “Nothing we can do about that now. We can start over when we’re safely away from here.”

Rainer finally seemed to acknowledge her concerns. He paused at the top of the stairs. “There might be information on that computer that they can use against us.”

Richard shrugged. “It won’t matter. They’re not getting out of here alive.”

He took a phone from his pocket, and after dialing, he held it to his ear. “We’re being attacked,” he said, without preamble. “Turn them loose.”





TWENTY-FIVE


King watched Rainer disappear through the doorway with a cold knot of rage in his gut, but his anger wasn’t directed at the escaping traitor; he was mad at himself.

A litany of his failures ticked off in his head. We moved too soon… Should have gotten more intel… Should’ve planned better.

None of those measures would have really made a difference, and waiting would only have given Rainer a chance to slip away completely. No, this wasn’t a failure of planning or leadership; it was just plain bad luck, but that didn’t lessen the sting.

I should’ve just taken the shot, consequences be damned.

Glowering, he shouldered his weapon and started forward, moving toward the door through which his quarry had vanished.

“Jack?” an anxious voice called from behind him. It was Tremblay. “Talk to us, boss. What’s the plan?”

King ignored him and kept moving. Rainer had to be stopped, no matter what.

“Jack? Sigler? King!”

That stopped him.

King.

He wasn’t just Jack Sigler, pissed-off Delta shooter. He was King; he was their leader.

He pivoted on his heel. He saw, as if for the first time, Zelda leaning against the wall, struggling to breathe. “Legend, are you hit?”

Zelda winced, but there was fire in her eyes. “The vest stopped it. I’ve been hit harder than that.” She managed a grin and added, “Not by you.”

“Then on your feet, soldier. Eastwood, you and Legend head back and bring the van up. Juggernaut, Bob…you’re with me. We’re gonna get what we came for.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed Zelda’s pained visage—she probably thought he was benching her and blamed herself for not having taken out Rainer when she’d had the chance—but she grabbed Somers’s shoulder and pulled herself erect.

Tremblay likewise seemed heartened by King’s decisiveness. He and Silent Bob quickly caught up to their team leader and cautiously followed him through the doorway.

King swept the muzzle of his MP5 up the stairwell and checked for blind spots before heading up the steps. At the second floor landing, he waited for the other two operators to line up behind him before throwing the door open and moving through. His finger was tight against the trigger, ready to shoot, no matter who was on the receiving end or what the ultimate consequences were, but the hallway was vacant.

“Shit.”

He knew Rainer was too smart to retreat to a dead end, but he also knew that the turncoat Delta officer had not come here alone; were his co-conspirators waiting behind one of the closed doors, waiting to ambush them?

Only one way to find out.

Before he could approach the first door, a voice sounded from his radio receiver. “This is Nighteyes. We’ve got activity at Building—”

The transmission broke off in mid sentence, and for a moment, King feared that somehow the sniper had been discovered, but then Shin’s voice came back. “I don’t even know how to describe this. You guys need to get out of there right now.”

King heard the urgency in the man’s voice, but turning back wasn’t an option he was prepared to consider. The mission came first, and the mission was to take down Kevin Rainer and the other traitors; his own survival was a secondary priority.

He advanced to the first door, and as soon as Tremblay and Silent Bob were in place, he threw the door open and moved in. As before, he was poised to fire at the first target of opportunity, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw in that room.

Unlike the ramshackle interiors they had encountered in every other corner of the compound, this space had been scrupulously maintained. The walls and ceiling, and even the floor, were a brilliant, almost sterile, white. The effect was intensified by the bright overhead lights that blazed down with sun-like intensity. The place looked clean enough to be a surgical operating room.

Which was exactly what it was.