Helpless. Will Ingram was in danger again, and Harold Finch was still helpless.
Finch sat behind the wheel of the car and glared at his laptop screen. He could look at the blueprints of the building. He could hear every word Reese and the woman said. What he could not do was be of any possible use to them. He put his hands on the steering wheel and squeezed as hard as he could. The motion caused pain to shoot up his arm to his neck. He held on, reveling in the pain for a moment.
The boy wasn’t halfway around the world this time. He was right there, inside the building somewhere. He was in danger, possibly in pain. And there still wasn’t a damn thing Finch could do about it.
It hadn’t always been like this. He could run once. He could have …
It was all a lie. He could never have kept up with the girl, not on his best day. He would never have been any use to Reese in this situation, even before his injury. He was not a physical man. He never had been. His talent was for …
Finch released the steering wheel. Relief washed up his arm neck. His talent, he reminded himself, was for intellectual pursuits. He could look at the blueprints, he could provide …
He stopped and looked over at the half-constructed building. The front and sides had all the windows in place. In the back, the only bottom two floors were fully enclosed. The space behind the building was enclosed behind a high temporary fence. It was always a challenge in the city to close in a site faster than the thieves could steal the building materials, while at the same time leaving openings to get additional materials inside. What they’d done here was typical. Seal off the easy entrances, and use a crane to get rest in through the unfinished windows. But building officials in the city were highly paranoid about things like fires in construction zones, because of the real possibility that a fire could spread to neighboring properties. So they were strict about security controls for any project as it became enclosed.
Which all meant, Finch realized, that somewhere there was a control panel. And that, that was where his talent came into play.
He tucked his laptop under his arm and slid out of the car. He looked around, then moved carefully through the gate and across to the construction trailer. It was padlocked, but that lock presented no great challenge. As a precaution, he carried the lock into the trailer with him. He snapped on the small work lamp and sat down at the panel.
A quick scan told him everything he needed to know. He tapped his earwig. “Mr. Reese?”
“Finch? Where are you?”
“In the construction trailer.”
“You said you’d stay in the car.”
“Yes, yes. But from here I can control all the interior door locks, and also the construction lights.”
Reese sighed. “Stay there, Finch. And stay off the girl’s feed.”
“Of course.” He set up the phones swiftly, so that Reese could talk to him or to Julie, but that the conversations could not overlap. The last thing they needed, at this juncture, was for Ms. Essex to connect Will’s Uncle Harold with John Reese, and she might be good enough with voices to do just that if she heard him.
Finch stretched his hands out over the control panel and mentally practiced the lay-out. It might be of no use at all, but at least he wasn’t sitting in the car. He set up the laptop on the counter next to him. “Let me know what you need.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Reese caught the first sentry from behind and put him down with a single punch. He wasn’t sure how long he’d need him to stay down, so he secured his hands behind his back with a zip tie, gagged him, and tucked him into the first room to his left. “Finch? Room 102. Can you lock the door?”
In three seconds, the mechanical lock clicked. “Done,” Finch said.
“Good.” Reese drew his weapon and moved into further into the building. His main goal was to clear the stairway, but he didn’t want to give Gund a chance to trap them, either. He wished he had thermal imaging, maybe a little satellite view. He could ask Finch to get it, he supposed. For all he knew, Finch could manage it.
It was a scary notion.
He moved to the southwest staircase and started up.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Julie said, very quietly, “Reese, I’ve got one in the north sixth floor corridor, just off the staircase. He’s wandering. Doesn’t look very bright.”
“Can you get around him?”
“No problem.”
“Leave him, then. Find the boy.”
“He’s all yours.”
Reese nodded his approval. If the man wasn’t paying close attention, Julie could simply slip past him. Apparently she did, because the next thing he heard was a bit of frantic thumping that sounded like a chair being hopped on the floor, and then her voice again, in a whisper. “Will, stop, stop. It’s me. Shh, it’s me.”
The thumping stopped, and shortly after Will Ingram said, “Julie? What are you doing here?”
“Shhh.” There was a snap of zip tie being cut. “How come every time I turn my back, you let someone tie you up?”
“I offered to let you tie me up, but you wouldn’t go for it.”
Evidently, Reese thought, the boy wasn’t badly injured.
Another snap. “Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. Wiggle your toes. Get some feeling back in your feet.”
“Who are these guys?”
“Long story. Can you walk? Come here.”
“Julie …”
“Shh. Over here.”
“Julie, I am really sorry. I was a total dick at the airport.”
“Take your jacket off. Put this on.”
“What is it?”
“Second Chance. My personal favorite.”
“I love you, Julie.”
“Other arm. There. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you’re very brave and very kind. I know everything important.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I … oww! Does it have to be that tight?”
“Only if you want it to keep the bullets out. Put your jacket back on.”
Reese grinned to himself. He came upon the second flunky. Like Julie’s sentry upstairs, this one was wandering. Reese guessed that the wanderers and the one he’d already subdued were meant to be the sacrificial terrorists in this little drama. He moved up behind the man. As he reached for him, the man turned around. Reese hit him hard in the jaw. The man staggered back, but he didn’t go down, Instead he bolted for the exit.
“No, you don’t,” Reese muttered. He caught him as he opened the door and dragged him back into the stairwell. The man swung wildly; Reese ducked it easily, hit him in the ribs and then caught the face again as he doubled over.
The man dropped. Reese was pretty sure this one wouldn’t get up soon, but he hauled him by the collar out into the hallway anyhow and shoved him into a room. He tapped his earwig. “Finch?” he called again. “Lock 204.”
Again the door lock clicked. “Done.” In that one word, Reese could hear his intense relief about Ingram.
“I like this lock thing, Finch.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
Reese went back to the stairwell, and back to listening to Essex and Ingram.
“ … one thing that’s important that I don’t know about you?” Ingram was asking.
“Three,” the girl answered. “I have eleven brothers and three sisters. This time tomorrow I’ll have a personal net worth somewhere north of Donald Trump’s. And I’m not really a blonde. Let’s go.”
“Wait. What?”
“Which what?”
“You’re not really a blonde? Yeah, that’s definitely a deal-breaker.”
The girl didn’t laugh out loud, but there was a chuckle in her voice. “Damn it, Ingram …”
And then there was silence.
Reese paused, frowning. The silence was wrong. Something had happened.
And then the girl again, very soft. “Stop it. We have to move.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know if I’d get a chance to do that again.”
Reese took a deep breath and kept moving. There were reasons operatives weren’t supposed to be involved with their assignments. Stopping in mid-rescue for a quick make-out session was just one of many. But the girl, at least, seemed to have recovered her wits. “Here’s what you need to know about wearing a bullet-proof vest: It won’t stop a head shot.”
“Well, duh.”
“Yeah, duh. You’d be surprised how not intuitive that concept is when guns start going off. Second thing. If I tell you to run, I mean it. There are stairs in that corner. Find them, get down them, and run.”
“I won’t leave you …”
There was a soft but distinct thump “ of a young man’s body bring shoved against a wall, not with any great gentleness. “Listen to me,” Essex hissed. “If I tell you to run, it’s because I need to be sure you’re not under my feet when I move. Because I don’t have time to be tangled up with you. I need you to run so I can do what I need to do to keep us both alive. If I have to argue with you, it’s likely to get me killed. Got it?”
After a moment, very grudgingly, Ingram answered, “Got it.”
“Good. Stay close. Let’s go.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Reese climbed the rest of the stairs quickly and exited at the far end of the sixth floor. “Finch, can you seal off the southwest staircase?”
“Of course.” And then, “Done.”
“Good. Stand by on the lights.”
Julie said, sharply, softly, “Get back, get back.” There was a little quiet footwork, no gunshots. Then she said, more clearly, “Reese, my wandering guard is leaning on the stairway door. He didn’t see us.”
“Tuck in and wait for me. I’m almost there.”
“Copy that.”
“Who are you talking to?” Ingram whispered.
“Some guy I met in the parking lot. He’s on our side, I think.”
“You think?”
“I’m pretty sure. It’s complicated.”
“Shouldn’t there be cops or something?”
“There should be, but I didn’t want to get you killed.”
“Oh.” To his credit, the boy stopped asking questions then.
Reese made his way swiftly down the hall. On this floor, and probably everything above it, only the stairways had security doors. Most of the rooms were unfinished and didn’t have any doors at all. He cut through some of the unfinished rooms and, as he’d hoped, came to a doorway behind the wandering sentry. If he could drop him without any noise, they’d be down to three against one “ against two, if he counted Julie, which he supposed he really should.
The man turned and wandered away from the stairway door and up the hallway toward Reese. Reese jumped through the doorway and grabbed him, spun and threw his head against the wall. It was only drywall, so it did more damage to the wall than to his head. “Julie, go!” Reese barked.
The wanderer got to his feet, shook his head, and charged at Reese. Reese dodged to the left, but the man got his arm around his waist and threw him with his momentum. Reese spun, banged his shoulder off the doorframe, and followed the man into the unfinished room.
He grabbed the guy, and the guy grabbed him, and they spun, each searching for an advantage, down the long row of openings to the other end of the building. At each doorway Reese tried to bang the man’s head against the framing lumber, and his opponent did the same, but neither of them could manage a good solid blow.
Finally the man released him, wheeled and threw an elbow. It connected against Reese’s cheekbone. But he threw his own fist against the man’s ribs and felt something crack. They parted, circled, both trying to catch their breath while they sized up their opponent. It wasn’t actually until then that Reese notice that the man had six inches and fifty pounds on him. He shrugged. The bigger they are, he thought.
He heard the stairway door open, and then Julie barked, “Get back, get back,” again.
And then a man said, “Stay right there, Julie.”
And the girl answered, “Get out of the way, Joe.”
Reese swore through gritted teeth. The big guy came at him again. Reese ducked under his arm, landed a nice right-left combination on his belly. Evidently the man did his crunches; it was like hitting a brick wall. An arm like an anchor rope surrounded Reese’s own ribs, and the guy actually lifted him off his feet while he pounded his kidneys with his free hand.
“You can’t go that way. I told you to go home, Julie,” Kemp said. He sounded broken, desperate. “I did everything I could to get you to leave. Your parents, the security they have on that farm … you’d have been safe there. But you wouldn’t go. I tried to protect you, Julie.”
“You sold me out, you son of a bitch!”
“I tried to make it right!” he pleaded. “I tried to fix it. I tried. But you were so damn stubborn …”
Reese reached down and wrapped both arms around the big man’s knee. He pulled up sharply, and the man stumbled, let go of John’s waist to keep his balance. Reese spun around and threw an elbow while he was still staggered. The man bent forward, and Reese followed with an uppercut.
As the man staggered back, Reese grabbed a two-by-four and hit him in the side of the head with it.
The big guy went down in a heap.
Reese dropped the lumber and spun.
“ … what else could I do, Julie?”
“You could have told me they were coming,” she snarled.
The handler’s voice was suddenly quiet. “They’re coming, Julie.”
Reese stepped into the hallway and took an instant inventory. By the stairway door, furthest from him, Kemp was aiming a gun at Julie “ or possibly past her. Julie was aiming her gun back at him, but she was turning her head toward Reese.
Between Reese and the girl were two men. They were facing her, with their backs to him. Aiming their guns at her head.
Time froze. Reese had all the time in the world to see what was going to happen. And no time to stop it.
She wasn’t going to have time to turn around. He wasn’t going to have time to shoot them both.
And then there was a blur of brown motion, from his right to his left. High, airborne, jumping out of one doorway and into the one across the hall. And it carried the girl away with it.
Time moved. The two men together fired anyhow. Kemp fired. Reese fired. Twice.
Kemp fell. One of the men fell. The other one spun and fired at Reese, then darted into a doorway to the right.
Will Ingram said, very softly, “Fuuuuck”
“What the hell did you do?” Julie asked. She sounded winded. No, squished. Reese moved down the hall toward where they’d disappeared, but carefully, slowly, watching for the wounded one to reappear.
“They were … gonna take … a head shot,” Ingram panted back. “You said … that was bad.”
“So you decided to throw yourself in front of it? Are you all right?”
He was catching his breath, slowly. “That fucking hurts.”
“I know. Get off me.” There was another thump.
“Owwww!”
Reese reached the open doorway and took a quick look in. Ingram was flat on his back on the floor. Julie was sitting up beside him. He looked back to the hallway. “He alright?”
“He’ll live,” Julie answered. “Sit up, babe. Try to breathe deep.” And then, “That was very brave, Will. Do it again and I swear I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Thanks. I didn’t think that would hurt so much.”
“Kevlar’s like an abstinence ring. You still get all the momentum, just none of the penetration.”
Ingram tried to laugh, ended up sucking in air instead. “Fuck,” he said again.
“How we doing?” Julie called to Reese.
“One wounded, and Gund,” he answered. “Everyone else is accounted for.”
“Nice.”
“Don’t underestimate Gund. Get him up and get to the staircase. We can lock you in there.”
“We?”
“Tech support.”
“Nice. I get flipped by my handler and you get tech support. I’m working for the wrong damn agency.”
“I could have told you that, little girl.”
The injured man stuck his head around a corner down the hall and fired two rounds at Reese. John ducked through the door and fired back at him, then ran across the hall and fired again from the other side. “Get him out of here.” He moved toward the gunman.
“All right,” Julie said, to Will. “I know it hurts like a bitch, but I need you to cowboy up. We’ve got to move.”
The young man groaned, but evidently made his way to his feet. “Did you really just tell me to cowboy up?”
“Do you feel like you got kicked by a bull?”
“Well … yeah.”
“All right, then. Come on.”
Reese glanced down at the girl’s handler. He was definitely dead. Reese put his own gun away and picked up the dead man’s.
He heard the injured man moving at the back corner. The doorway to the far stairway jiggled. Reese grinned and moved. “Not that way,” he murmured. But by the time he got there the man was gone.
“We’re in the stairwell,” Julie said.
“Lock it down,” Reese said. He heard the mechanical locks over Julie’s feed. “Tell me when you get to the ground floor and we’ll let you out.”
“Will do.” And to Ingram, “Nice and easy. Come on.”
Reese stood very still and listened. The unfinished rooms and doors and hallways made the entire floor like a darkened maze. He liked mazes. And the injured man left a blood trail. He followed it around to his right. “Finch,” he said quietly, “when I give you the word, I need the construction lights on, north side, sixth floor.”
There was an instant of pause. “Ready.”
Reese moved around one more corner. “Now.”
The lights flared on behind the gunman. He spun around toward them, with his gun up. Reese fired, and the man fell.
“Nice work, Finch.”
Then there were gunshots from the far stairwell.
“Julie!” Reese shouted.
“Found Gund,” the girl answered, in a breathless whisper. “Need to get off the stairwell.”
“Unlocked,” Finch said a second later.
“Doors are open,” Reese relayed. “Where are you?”
“Four. He’s below us. You clear the rest?”
“All clear.”
“Good.” And then, to Ingram, “Listen to me. Go up one floor, get off this staircase, find a place to hide and stay there. There’s no one in the building but this guy. And he’ll follow me.”
“Wait, you’re not …”
“Will. Go.”
“No!”
“You can’t run. I can.”
“Head shot.”
“Will. Please. You’re going to get me killed. Go!”
“Damn it, Julie …”
“Go!”
Footsteps moved away. There was another gunshot, and then Julie’s own feet moved.
“Where are you?” Reese asked.
“I’ll be back on four in a minute,” she answered. There was more shooting, and then the sound of a door slamming open. Reese ran onto the stairwell on six and started down. As he passed the fifth floor, the door was just closing. Evidently Ingram had finally acted on his orders. He heard the fourth floor door slam again. It had to be Gund. He was only ten steps behind him.
He bolted through the door and rolled to his right. “Finch,” he said as he cleared the door, “lock the stairwell again. Let’s keep him on one floor.”
“Got it.”
Reese stayed low and listened. He couldn’t hear anyone moving. “Julie?” he said, very quietly.
“Southwest corner,” she answered. “I don’t know where Gund is.”
“The stairwells are locked. He’s stuck on this floor. We’ll get him. Stay there.” Reese stood up and moved, silently, keeping his gun “ Kemp’s gun “ in front of him in both hands and his back to the wall. Cleared every doorway as he came to it. If he couldn’t locate the assassin, he at least wanted to be next to the girl. Ingram was on the floor above them and locked in, so he should be safe.
He felt the cool breeze come in from the unfinished windows at the back of the building. In the midst of all this chaos and gunfire, it was still a perfectly lovely night outside. It was easy to forget. He moved toward the breeze.
Someone moved to his left. Reese pivoted and moved that way. A second noise, further away. John stopped. He was being led away from the girl. He stopped following the sound and went back toward Julie.
The space at the back of the building was completely unfinished, with none of the dividing walls installed. There were, however, two dozen upright support beams, each big enough to conceal a man. Reese stayed in the hallway and looked in, but didn’t enter. “Finch,” he said softly. South side, fourth floor. Be ready to light it up.”
“Ready,” Finch said immediately.
He moved down the hall to an open doorway roughly in the center of the space. If Gund was there and he flinched at the light, he could spot him. “Finch … now.”
The room flooded with light. To the right, Reese saw a tiny motion. He raised his weapon and moved from the doorway to the shelter of the nearest beam. Took a quick look around the side. Gund fired at him, and he ducked back, the darted out to return fire. By then, of course, the assassin was gone.
He moved up to another beam.
Heard Gund move, and fired in his direction.
Moved one more beam.
He was pretty sure Gund was two beams down, one row toward the windows. He waited, peeked, then moved.
As he settled his shoulder against the next beam, Gund stepped around the adjacent beam and aimed his gun squarely at his head. Reese ducked and rolled back behind the pillar.
From behind Gund, Julie Essex shouted, “Hey!”
Gund spun and fired at her. She fired back, but it was Reese’s bullet that killed him.
Time stopped again. The girl stood very still, with her arms flung out to her sides. Gund’s bullet had caught her squarely in the center of her vest, over the heart. Abstinence ring, Reese thought. No penetration. But all the momentum. It knocked her backward, actually skidding her feet across the slick unfinished floor. Reese saw the open window frame. Saw where the momentum and the window and the woman were inevitably going to collide. He moved, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it.
Julie Essex fell backward out the window.
Reese ran to the window opening. He hoped she’d managed to grab something, that he could haul her back in. Hoped for miracle. Hoped again hope. Against reason. But before he could look down, he heard the unmistakable crunch of a body hitting the ground.
From the window above him, he heard Will Ingram scream, “Julie! Julie!”
And then, impossibly, he heard her answer. “What?”
“Finch,” he said, “work yard lights.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ingram shouted, “why aren’t you dead?”
The girl actually clambered to her feet, and for a wild instant Reese thought that she was unhurt. Parkour before lunch …. Then the floodlights came on. He could tell immediately that her left shoulder was dislocated; it was bent at nearly a right angle to her spine. But she was up, walking …
… except she wasn’t. She put weight on her left leg and it simply folded into a ‘Z’ shape between her knee and her ankle. She hesitated, balanced on her right leg. Looked down at the gruesome breaks. She lifted her left foot and shook her leg, and it resumed its normal shape. She took another step on it. It folded again. She stopped and simply looked at it, as if she could not comprehend what was wrong.
“Julie, sit down!” Ingram screamed over his head.
She looked up, bewildered. “What?”
“Sit down!”
“Why?”
“Because your leg’s broken.”
She tilted her head. “You can diagnose that from there?”
“Yeah, I can. Stop trying to walk. Sit down.”
Finch came around the side of the construction trailer. “Oh, thank God,” Will said. “Uncle Harold! Uncle Harold! Make her sit down. I’ll be right there.”
Finch hurried to the young woman and put his arm around her waist from the unbroken side. “Here, here,” he said gently. He half-carried her toward the stairs at the back deck. As he lowered her down, he looked up and met Reese’s eyes. There weren’t any words. Reese didn’t need any. He moved into a shadowy spot and kept watch.
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