The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

I moved up to the window that had a view of the street below. Looking around, I found the car Tim had sheltered behind, and though I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t see anybody else in that area either—definitely no sprawled bodies. That was a good sign. Hopefully, he was still hunkered down beneath his cover, waiting for the right moment to escape.

“We’re in their roost,” I transmitted to Mags as I set up my position, using the wall next to the window as cover. “There are no more enemies up here at this time. Don’t shoot at us; we’re going to hit their men once they start moving toward you. I want you and your teams to start pulling back to the stairs. Come around the opposite building through the alley and then come right for us. Use the park for cover, and we’ll give you cover from above.”

“Roger,” she said, as gunshots sounded from Alejandro and Cruz’s room. I picked up the rifle lying over the floor, next to the man I’d killed, and cradled it against my shoulder, taking a moment to check the magazines. There were a few more on the table next to the window, so I checked them too.

I took a few shots, but then noticed a large group below as they began to move out, heading for the park in low, crouching runs. “Get ready,” I transmitted, pulling the rifle up. “Fire on them and break them up. Shoot to kill—we don’t need any of these guys running around.” I thought of the woman in that room and gritted my teeth. “Ever.”

The men below began to creep farther into the park, spreading out and moving silently. I saw another group of men break away and head right, cutting across the street and using cars for cover. They were closest to me, so I angled my sights toward them.

“Everyone ready?”

“Ready,” announced Cruz.

“More than ready,” added Alejandro, his voice grim.

“Good—fire.”





28





Violet





“Amber, hold up. I got a big group emerging from the building just around the corner from your position.”

I tracked the small crowd silently from above, watching as it continued to grow, their heat signature becoming larger and stronger. The steady stream of bodies leaving the building stopped—I had lost count at about fifty people, as the bodies blended together on the scanner, but it was probably between that and a hundred—and I held my breath. The orange blobs at the head of the group turned right, and I cursed.

“Amber, they are heading your way,” I said, swinging the drone around and heading back toward her. “You’ve got maybe a minute to hide.”

“You want us to go into the buildings?” she asked, her mic popping.

“No,” I said, remembering Henrik’s warning. It had worked for Viggo’s group, but I didn’t want to take any more chances. I ground my teeth, thinking. “Up the fire escapes,” I said. “As fast as you can until my mark, then slowly.”

“Roger,” she replied with a grunt, and I pulled the drone to a stop above the intersection, watching.

I tilted the nose of the drone up some, exposing more of the street to the sensors, and watched as the crowd grew closer, marking their speed closely. I waited until the last second, trying to buy Amber’s team time to get as high off the ground as possible. I hoped she hadn’t put her entire team on one single fire escape.

“Now,” I transmitted, swinging the drone around and heading down Amber’s street, the mob of people just reaching the corner. I maneuvered the craft higher as I moved, and slowed to a stop when I caught sight of Amber’s team spread out on the fire escapes, slowly climbing up. They were on the same side of the street, but split between two different fire escapes, a narrow alley separating them.

Amber was squatting in the corner of the third-floor balcony, her gun trained on the street below, while her team crept by her, heading straight for the fifth story. “I’m thinking I’m just going to do this Violet-style,” Amber whispered softly, and I smiled nervously.

“What’s Violet-style?” I asked, rotating the drone around to do another sweep of the buildings across the street.

“Running pell-mell across the rooftops in order to escape a mob.”

I chuckled ruefully and shook my head, switching from the thermal scan to the night vision and maneuvering the drone around so I could peer through the windows of the buildings her team clambered on. Maybe I was being too thorough, but with the thermal scanner unable to reliably read through building walls, I was not taking any chances.

“Owen really loves to exaggerate that story,” I replied, my eyes searching the green image on the screen for anything out of the ordinary.

“Hey, you aren’t the only one suffering in that story,” she said testily, then affected a deeper, dramatic voice. “‘Amber was barely conscious, her life slowly draining out of her with every step we took. We were surrounded by the enemy, and I knew that if we were caught, she would surely die.’”

I bit back a laugh as I shifted to the next building to repeat the process. Then we fell silent, and I didn’t say anything, in case she was moving or doing something that required her concentration. After a moment, she asked, “How’s he doing?”

My eyes flicked over to where Owen was sitting on the stairs, his back pressed against the wall, and frowned. “He’s… He’s here.”

I moved up to the next windows, letting silence fill the line. “I really want to hate him, you know,” Amber admitted softly.

I said the only thing that came to mind. “I know.”

Blinking at the screen, I leaned closer and squinted my eyes, trying to discern what I had just seen. It had looked like a flash of movement, which wasn’t uncommon, but there was something about it that was weird. It hadn’t been dark… It had been light. I peered a little closer and stroked a finger across the screen, running my fingers over the thin vertical line that was now jutting out the window. I switched over to thermal, and blinked when the red-hot body of a person lit up, standing just behind the wall next to the window. I realized what that vertical white line was—it was light shining brightly off of a silver muzzle, reflecting the light of the moon.

“Amber, adjacent building, two o’clock from your position. Individual is armed and pointing at your position.”

“Most of my team’s up on the roof. The civilians just passed us and are moving away. We’ll be clear in—”

Whatever she said I lost as the door to the command room I sat in slammed open and the basement went dark.

“What the—” I heard Owen utter, then he grunted, and I heard another clatter and a slam. Almost in the same moment, my chair was pulled out from under me, and I fell, hard, on my rump. Pain jolting my body, I scrambled forward on hands and knees, under the table that held the screen. Then it seemed that things were flying all around me.