Chapter 234 Hiding Behind The Oak Desk

Chapter 234 Hiding Behind The Oak Desk
The final man swung his rifle like a club. The heavy polymer stock connected with Sebastian’s shoulder. Sebastian grunted. The radio transmitted the sound of the impact. My chest ached. My fingers dug into the edge of the mahogany desk. I sat locked in a box at the top of the world while my partner bled in the dark.

Sebastian absorbed the blow. He grabbed the man by the throat. He drove him backward. They crashed through the remaining pane of boardroom glass. The camera feed inside the room showed Sebastian pinning the man to the long mahogany conference table. A single gunshot ended the struggle.

Sebastian stood up. He rolled his shoulder.

"Status," I demanded. My heart hammered against my ribs.

"A bruise," he answered. He stepped back into the hallway. "Give me the next location."

Victor’s men began to understand the trap. The radio silence from their lower teams bred panic. They realized they hunted a ghost in a lightless maze. They stopped trying to sweep the floors. They focused on the climb.

"They abandon the sweeps," I reported. "They consolidate. Six men remaining. They regroup on floor fifty. They push up the east stairwell."

"Bob holds floor sixty," Sebastian said. "I will catch them from behind. Squeeze them in the middle."

I watched the green figures on the screen. The six mercenaries sprinted up the concrete steps of the stairwell. They abandoned caution. They wanted the roof. They wanted the executive suite.

Victor Salazar climbed behind them. He held a smaller handgun. He favored his left leg. He looked up at the ceiling of the stairwell.

He noticed the small, blinking red dot of the backup camera.

Victor stopped. He pointed his gun directly at the lens.

The screen flashed white. The feed for the floor fifty stairwell turned to static.

"He sees the cameras," I warned Sebastian. "He shoots the lenses."

Floor fifty-two went dark. Floor fifty-four went dark. The static consumed the left side of my tablet. Victor blinded me floor by floor. He severed my connection to the hunt.

"I am losing visual," I said. Frustration choked my voice. "They shoot the hardware. I have no eyes on the east stairwell."

"Switch to the hallway feeds," Sebastian instructed. "Wait for them to breach floor sixty."

I toggled the camera inputs. I pulled up the feed for floor sixty.

Bob waited behind a barricade of overturned oak desks. Two Wolfe enforcers knelt beside him. They wore night-vision goggles. They aimed their rifles at the heavy steel door of the east stairwell.

The tension in my office felt thick enough to cut. I stared at the green screen. The silence stretched. The ambient glow of the city outside my window offered zero comfort.

The steel door on floor sixty exploded.

A massive breaching charge ripped the heavy metal from the hinges. Smoke and debris flooded the hallway.

The mercenaries poured through the gap. They threw flashbang grenades. The intense bursts of light blinded the infrared cameras. The screen washed out in a blinding white glare.

"Bob!" I called into the microphone.

Static answered me.

The glare faded. The green tint returned to the screen.

The hallway turned into a slaughterhouse.

The two Wolfe enforcers lay motionless on the carpet. Three mercenaries sprawled near the ruined stairwell door.

Bob engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a massive fighter wearing heavy body armor. The mercenary drove a combat knife into Bob’s side. Bob roared. He twisted his body. He snapped the man’s neck with a brutal, wrenching twist.

Bob collapsed against the overturned oak desk. He pressed his hand against his bleeding side. He struggled to raise his rifle.

Two remaining mercenaries stepped over the bodies of their comrades. They aimed their weapons at Bob.

Before they pulled their triggers, the glass wall behind them shattered.

Sebastian repelled down the empty elevator shaft and kicked through the frosted glass of the lobby doors. He landed behind the mercenaries.

He fired two precision shots. The mercenaries fell forward.

The hallway fell quiet.

Sebastian rushed to Bob. He knelt beside the wounded enforcer.

"I have him," Sebastian spoke into the radio. "He took a blade to the ribs. He lives."

"The feed shows clear," I said. I let out a jagged breath. "You broke the squad."

"Where is Victor?" Sebastian asked. He stood up. He scanned the hallway.

I looked at the tablet. The floor sixty feed showed zero movement besides Sebastian and Bob. I checked the camera for floor sixty-one. Empty. Floor sixty-five. Empty.

My blood turned to ice.

The static on the stairwell feeds mocked me. Victor did not breach floor sixty with his men. He used the six mercenaries as a distraction. He sent them to die against Bob's barricade.

He climbed higher. He bypassed the firefight.

I checked the camera for floor sixty-nine. The floor right beneath me.

The camera lens shattered. The screen turned to static.

"Sebastian," I whispered into the microphone. The cold reality gripped my throat.

"I hear you," he responded.

"Victor bypassed floor sixty. He bypassed the choke point."

A heavy, metallic thud echoed outside the double doors of my office.

The sound did not come from the radio. It came from the hallway.

"He is on floor seventy," I said.

A muffled voice carried through the thick mahogany wood of my locked doors.

"Ramona," Victor called out. His voice sounded mangled and wet through his wired jaw. "Open the door."

Sebastian cursed over the radio. The sound of his boots sprinting up the stairs echoed in my ear.

"Do not move," Sebastian ordered. "I am two floors down. Keep the deadbolts locked."

I stood up from the desk. I stared at the heavy brass locks holding the mahogany doors shut.

A loud, hissing sound hissed from the hallway. The smell of burning sulfur seeped under the gap in the door.

He did not plan to pick the locks.

"He possesses breaching charges," I told Sebastian.

"Get away from the wood!" Sebastian yelled.

I dove behind the heavy mahogany desk. I covered my head with my arms.

The world exploded in a deafening roar of fire and splintered wood.