“Per Raj they are, yeah. And I think if they’re off, then it’s Cliff’s side doing it. I don’t want us stuck in a metal box that can plummet us to our messy deaths, call me crazy.” On cue, Patsy Cline started crooning “Crazy.” Algar was enjoying this entire raid far too much.
The last person in a hazmat suit came near. “We’re leaving now. Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Mister President?”
“I’m positive, yes,” Jeff said.
Watched the hazmat team leave. Reader and Tim stepped through just before the floater stopped shimmering.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.
“Our jobs,” Reader said flatly. “In case you’ve forgotten what your jobs happen to be these days, which I’m really clear that you have.”
“Claudia and Lorraine are handling things at Dulce,” Tim said. “We came back to help you. Forgive us, we just can’t help ourselves. It’s in the job descriptions—help Jeff and Kitty even when they insist they can do it all themselves.”
“Oh, it’s always nice to see you two, stop whining.”
“Also, Dulce shares that there was nothing in the rubber cobra, but that there was indeed a little note in the fake bomb,” Tim continued. “It said ‘Kill you soon, see you sooner.’”
“Really? That was it?”
Tim shrugged. “Cliff’s insane, Kitty. I mean really and truly over the edge. It’s no less stupid than putting children’s toys into your suitcase as an opening salvo.”
“True dat.”
“I’ve checked in with Camilla,” Reader said, ignoring me and Tim. “All’s well at the palace, everyone remains safe, but no word from anyone still missing.”
“What about Rahmi? Where is she?”
“I have no idea.” Reader looked worried. “She came in with us. We hit G-Company thugs in the stairwell, but we were able to get through them easily enough. In fact, Rahmi slammed her staff through all of them, in the heart or head, depending, because she said she was following your rules and making sure they were really most sincerely dead.”
“I’m so proud.”
“Uh, yeah, that’s one emotion that you could choose in that instance. I went with relief that she’s no longer hating men you consider on your side and calling it good. But once we got into the restaurant and the fighting started I could barely keep track of who was who. The gas masks really make you anonymous.”
“That’s it.” Everyone looked at me. Heaved a sigh. “She shifted to look like one of the thugs. She’s going with them to protect Chuckie. She’s the only one who has a shot at it, too, at least right now.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jeff said. “Because I know whatever Cliff has planned for Chuck is going to redefine horrific.”
“Then let’s get the rest of the team here and get to finding where Cliff’s hiding out.”
“You don’t think he’s here, in the tower somewhere?” Siler asked as we headed for the stairwell.
My music changed to “God We Look Good (Going Down In Flames)” by The Exies. “Nope. There’s always a risk of the poisonous gas getting into the general ventilation system. Cliff doesn’t care who he kills, but he’s attached to staying alive.” Had a thought spurred by the musical choice. “Mister White, the Bag of Bigness, please and thank you.”
White opened it up. I took out all the extra semiautomatics. Ensured they were all ready to go with the safeties off. Put two in my back pockets, kept the third in my hand, then opened the stairwell door going down at hyperspeed. Verified that everyone in it, and there were a lot of men there, were all carrying weapons and all looked like bad mofos. Sprayed bullets out of the first gun while I pulled the second and started the same with it. Emptied one clip, dropped the empty gun, grabbed the last pistol. Continued shooting until I was out of ammo. No one in the stairwell was upright any longer.
“Nightcrawler, if you would?”
He nodded and went invisible. Every head got a direct shot, including when he had to move bodies. He had to reload three times, which included him having a shootout with the couple of people I’d missed due to them hiding. Then he was back. “Good call.”
“Yeah, hopefully none of them were good guys.”
“They weren’t. They all had G-Company tattoos visible.”
“Great, my conscience is clear.” Opened the door going up as my music changed to No Doubt’s “The Climb.”
Lots of dead bodies to wade through, which we did, while Reader called someone and requested dead body removal for both stairwells. Told him to have teams verify that everyone else in the Burj Khalifa was alive and not poisoned or shot to death or something and also requested a cleaning and repair crew for the observatory deck.
Once we were past the stairway morgue we were able to move at hyperspeed. Jeff took me, White had Reader, Siler took Tim, and we all headed up thirty-six freaking floors. Fortunately, my sadistic track coaches in both high school and college had adored making their teams do stair charges on a daily basis, so doing this was no big deal, since my career with Centaurion had ensured that I kept all my track and kung fu skills at optimum.
The positive was that we were all able to update each other in the time it took, because hyperspeed didn’t make running up this many stairs easy, just faster. And Jeff was close to drained, so we weren’t going all that fast, and I was providing most of our hyperspeed.
“Remember,” White said as we neared our destination, “we’re looking for Jeremy, Malcolm, and Colonel Butler as well as Christopher.”
We hit a problem in the stairwell between Floors 158 and 159 in the form of two things, one of which was my music changing to “Just Stop” by Disturbed. Came to a screeching halt and made the others do so, too. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?” Jeff asked. “There’s no one and nothing here.”
“Right. That’s the problem.” Remembered the schematic that my goggles had shared with me while they were still working. “This section, floors one-fifty-six through one-fifty-nine, are communications and broadcasting. Christopher went dark when he hit one-fifty-nine. Meaning there was no one lying in wait for him between one-fifty-six and here.”
“So?” Jeff asked patiently.
“So, there were a million G-Company thugs hanging out in the stairwells above and below the restaurant, lying in wait to catch anyone who might manage to escape and anyone who might be coming to rescue those trapped inside. The bad guys took Chuckie, and even if they took the elevator down instead of the stairs, no one called off the guys lying in wait. Ergo, if there were any here, they weren’t called off, either.”