36. Blaze Robinson

The elevator doors chimed when they opened, and I glanced over at Colleen Frost, Twist's wife, who was absolutely fuming.

She was small, yes, but her eyes were narrowed. Her jaw was shoved into an underbite with her rage.

When Colleen saw me watching her, she muttered, "These. Fuckers."

Yes, these fuckers, indeed.

As the elevator descended and my feet lightened in my trail runners in the lower gravity, Skull Trim glanced at me and sneered, "I guess your little farmer didn't understand everything we were talking about on the plane."

I looked down my nose because I was about eight inches taller than the mercenary and said back at him in perfect Moscow-accented Russian that I, like everybody else, had learned at the Le Rosey boarding school, "She understood everything, and you didn't pass Mary Varvara Bell's loyalty test. Good luck when we reach the forest."

Skull Trim scowled, but his grimace was tinged with worry again.

The other two mercenaries in the elevator behind Colleen and me shifted from foot to foot, their dress shoes shuffling on the glassy marble floor.

We were the last elevator down.

Micah, Twist, Kylie, and Sarah were ahead of us in the lobby, standing in the square and facing away from the elevators.

Mary Varvara Bell was already there, too, checking her phone nonchalantly as the mercenaries prodded Colleen and me into position behind the others.

The lobby was crowded.

Straight ahead, a dark-haired man was leaning against the far wall and holding a newspaper, looking over the top of it at us.

Even at that distance, I could see his ice-gray eyes, and somehow, I remembered him speaking with a cut-crystal British accent.

As Colleen and I stopped behind the others, the man folded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm, looking away to the left.

This building's open spaces were often thick with people wearing thousand-dollar suits and flashing red-soled shoes as they ascended to their law firms' offices or stockbrokers' headquarters on the floors above. I'd been in the building when visiting New York City before, not knowing that this would be my last stand on this day.

But today, an unusual number of people wore baggy suits as if they were trying to fit in with the upper classes. Their shoes were mirror-shined scuffed leftovers from their or their kids' weddings, and some of them who weren't even trying wore trail-running shoes like me.

Skull Trim poked me in the back with what must've been a handgun and ordered, "Move out."

We prisoners walked forward in formation as the crowd's random movements suddenly swirled, a significant number of them coming toward us and picking up the pace.

The Koch Group mercenaries didn't see the change. They had been trained in urban combat like a civil war but not counterterrorism.

They were the terrorists.

The walls of running humanity closed in.

A wave of human beings crashed over us.

Fists swung.

Boots smashed.

Bodies flew through the air, leaping toward me and the other five hostages.

I ran towards Sarah even as she walloped a roundhouse kick, kicking the nearest mercenary in the face and making him stumble.

Kylie sidestepped toward Colleen who inexplicably had her hands free, yelling, "Gun in my purse! Gun in my purse! Shoot these fuckers!"

Colleen dipped a hand into Kylie's brown-patterned bag and came up with a Beretta 92F, which she shoved into the ribs of the nearest mercenary reaching for Sarah and pulled the trigger.

The mercenary bowed sideways and crumpled, holding his ribs.

But Skull Trim already had his handgun out, and he pivoted to point it at Sarah and pulled the trigger, blasting a center-mass shot.

Burning gunpowder peppered my arms still bound behind my back, and I jumped, trying to cover her even though I knew there was no way that I could outrace a bullet.

She stumbled backward like she'd been punched, holding her stomach, and I ran two steps and fell on top of her as she collapsed.

My brain howled, and I knew I was screaming but the world was silent except for the siren wailing in my head.

I love you. You are everything to me. You are my whole world, and I will die on top of you rather than be separated from you.

The memento mori ink in my skin burned like an infinite number of needles were carving every frog skeleton all at once into my flesh, each grind a reminder of the people I'd failed who died because of me.

No, not you, Sarah. Please, God. I trade my life for hers. Send me to Hell, but let her live.

Skull Trim was bringing his weapon around to point at my face where I lay on top of Sarah, rage twisting his features.

A flying body knocked him over like he'd been standing on railroad tracks, and an iron train had taken him out.

My Bully Boys and dozens of veterans I'd counseled over the years swarmed over us, disarming the mercenaries and piling on top of the six of us hostages.

I flipped over, my stupid hands still tied behind my back, and yelled though I could not hear myself. "Sarah? Sarah!"

I was straining against the zip ties around my wrists.

Cold steel touched my skin, and the plastic binds popped.

I wrapped Sarah in my arms, praying, screaming for an ambulance in a voice I could not hear, and then Sarah opened her eyes in my arms and covered her stomach with both hands, scowling. "Ow."

More people wearing cheap suits poured in from the front doors, yelling, "FBI! Freeze where you are! Hands up!"

The stockbrokers bolted.

The lawyers complied while shouting about their rights.

My veterans continued to fight, making sure every single one of the Russian mercenaries was beaten unconscious, and Logan and Mary Varvara Bell were pinned to the floor.

I held Sarah's face. "Don't move. The ambulance will be here soon."

Sarah pulled her hand away from her stomach, but it was clean.

No blood.

"That felt like I got kicked by a horse. A really big horse."

I grabbed that red fluffy abomination of a shirt she wore and lifted it.

A round, shining bullet was embedded in the very specialized corset that the FBI had supplied. "The bulletproof corset worked?"

"Is that what it is? I just thought corsets were really uncomfortable. That's what all the books say."

Over by the elevators, one of the Interpol guys I and Rogue Security had liaised with on several operations was guiding two FBI agents over to Logan and Mary Varvara Bell, pointing them out in the mob of battered bodies.

My veterans sprang off of the two prone figures, and the FBI agents handcuffed Logan and Mary Varvara Bell and began reading them their rights.

Jonas from Interpol wandered over to where we were lying on the floor. "Good work with the wires. We recorded it all in the van. More than enough to put those two away."

I wrapped my arms more tightly around Sarah and held her face against my shoulder, rocking her. "It's over," I said to reassure myself as well as her. "It's over."

Her voice was muffled against my collar as she mumbled, "About that farm of mine."