rest of the way together, all the way down to the parking garage.
Zoya complied in silence, but inside she was telling herself two things. One, she needed to find an opportunity in this moment of chaos to get away.
And two, Court had come for her.
* * *
• • •
Court had made his way to the second floor after killing the two guards and dumping them in the elevator, then pushing the button for the top floor and leaping out. He didn’t know who would find them, but he did know that once they were found it would create a moment of chaos that he wanted to exploit.
And he didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity. When the frantic radio call came over the walkie-talkie he’d taken from a dead guard, he understood enough of the Russian to recognize that the principals, whoever they were, would be descending from the top floor via a staircase at the back of the building. Court raced through a hallway past one laboratory after another, his Glock’s silencer shifting left to right to cover all the angles as he moved.
Two men came out of a doorway on Court’s right. He fired one round into each man’s head, then shifted aim to a third figure, moving just behind them. At first he thought he was looking at a child but quickly realized it was an Asian woman in her thirties or forties, her black hair tied severely back, and her tiny frame covered in a white lab coat.
She held no weapon, just stared at Court with uncomprehending eyes.
“You’re interesting,” Court said. “You’re coming with,” and he pulled her into the well-lit hallway, past the two dead bodies, and he shoved her up against the wall.
He began running his free hand all over her body while he pressed the suppressor to the back of her head.
“English?” he asked while frisking her. He pulled a phone from her back pocket and slipped it into his. He left no inch of her body untouched, taking no chances that she might have a gun or a blade stashed somewhere.
Her body began to shake uncontrollably and for an instant he thought she was having a seizure from panic.
But when she didn’t answer him he repeated himself. “English?”
He put his hand in the crotch of her slacks, and pressed up, almost lifting her off the ground in the process of searching her. She shut her eyes tight and slammed her forehead against the wall. “Stop it!”
“Cool,” he said. “You do speak English, which means you and I can have a chitchat. Where’s the Russian woman being held?” He knelt and felt over her quivering legs.
She didn’t answer him, even when he stood back up and spun her around to face him. Her pupils were all but dilated now. She looked to Court like someone with a preternatural fear of sharks finding herself surrounded by great whites in an ink black ocean.
He realized his hand was wrapped around her throat, but he was just holding her in place, not clamping down. He detected some sort of aversion to touch, but just as he was about to use this to get her to talk, the elevator fifty feet down the hall dinged, and Court immediately dropped to the floor amid the two dead guards he’d shot a minute earlier. The woman stared down at him in shock and confusion and Court said, “Raise your hands.”
“What?”
He twitched the pistol in his right hand so she’d notice it. “I said, raise your hands.” She did so.
“You say a single word, and I shoot you first.” He lay flat, his legs draped across the bodies there, his right arm outstretched with his pistol in it pointing at the elevator, his captive standing above him.
* * *
• • •
Janice Won was frozen in fright, fighting waves of nausea she’d never felt in her life, but she did manage to turn her head towards the elevator. Two Russian mafia men carrying rifles came out; one went to the left wall of the hallway, the other to the right. They saw her immediately and held her at gunpoint. They both knew the scientist and were aware she spoke Russian, so one called out to her. “What happened?”
Won did not reply at first. Below her she heard the man whisper.
“Byt ostorozhen. Ya gavaryu paruskie.” Be careful. I speak Russian.
The crazed gunman played dead at her feet, and she knew if she made any utterance of this fact, any gesture to