Balance (72 page)

“How long have you been formulating this plan?”

“We’ll talk about that later, right now we have t
o get out. 
Michael, y
ou have to be the Harbinger of Death,
one more time.  I assume
the sniper’s handlers
are already taking measure
s
, most likely
extreme
measures,
to make sure
the Harbinger
do
es
not
leave this building.  We have to get to the
first floor kitchen, now!
”

Michael, taking the lead, steps into the hallway.  He can tell most of the chaos is on the floor below.  They have to go down four floors to get to the kitchen on the first.

Rena touches his shoulder, capturing Michael’s attention,
“I think we only hav
e about ten minutes, before we’
re in the middle of far bigger problems.”

Michael
looks at
her
wondering
…
how much worse can it get.
 
“Okay, follow me, time to run the gauntlet
.
”
H
e
whispers
, then turns and
heads down the hall
at
full spri
nt.
Rena follows
thirty
feet behind running as fast as sh
e can. 

Approach
ing
the
intersection, he dives
forward
into a roll,
minimizing
his profi
le and lowering his position. 
T
umbl
ing
past the
opening
,
Michael
scans
the
crossing
hallway.
R
egaining his feet
after clearing
the
intersection
,
he yells,
“Clear
!
”

Rena runs past the
intersection
without
h
esitation.

Michael approaches the next hallway, repeat
ing the roll-by.

S
hots ring out
.
T
he wall
beside
him
explodes with
flying debris
.

“Two, In
-
Com
!
”
He
barks
out,
c
ontinuing
past the
intersection
.
K
eeping himself tucked low
,
two-gunman
rush into the hall, immediately turning the direction
Michael
passed
.

Two
more
shot
s
ring out
.

H
is momentum
carrying him to his feet,
Michael
turns, looking back
.

Both men pitch forward, collapsing in heaps, bullet holes
in their foreheads
. 
Rena runs past the fallen bodies,
Michael’s Glock 9mm
leveled in front of her.

The hallway
ends
,
turning right to
ward
the stairwell.
 
The shot
s
fired
alert
another agent waiting at the
entry
.

Continuing down the hallway,
Michael, expecting someone in
the stairwell,
removes
a
knife from his thigh
.
He
throws, hitting
the gunma
n in the t
hroat
just as he steps around the corner into the
main
hallway
.

Stopping just
be
fore
the
bend
,
Michael
leans
against the wall
, catching his breath and
waiting for Rena
to catch up
. 
Reaching
his side,
she quickly kisses
his cheek
.
  Pulling
a small dental mirror from a pocket
, he p
eer
s
around the corner, check
ing the
hall and stairwell entry
. 
Proceeding
down the hallway
,
Michael open
s
the door slowly, looks and listens.  He can hear several people on the stairwell heading up.  He gestures to Rena,
his right hand poking a finger into the hole created
in the center of
his left hand form
ing
into an open fist
.

She taps her temple, once.

Michael
leaps down the open center
of the stairwell.
Falling two floors, he
grab
s
the
handrail
,
then
swing
s
his body
up over
on
to
the
stairs.

Two heads lean over the railing
a floor above him
, looking down
.

Like the two gunmen in the hall,
Rena
dispatches
them
both
,
sho
t
from
behind
.

E
xpecting
reinforcements
,
Michael
detach
es
the glaive from behind his back
and
positions
beside the door
, out of sight
.

The
gun
shots echoing in the stairwell alert two
more
agents on the second floor.
 
The first
agent through the door,
leading with his gun
extended
,
lo
ses his forearm at the elbow,
the glaive slic
ing
cleanly through the joint.
Michael spins
clockwise
in front of the
screaming
man
, dropping his body
low
, his left hand retrieving
a knife from hi
s thigh.
T
he blade
leaps from his fingers
the instant he clears the lead agent
’
s
right side,
hit
ting
the
second
under the jaw, just ahead of the throat
.  T
he front agent fall
s
ba
ckward, tripping over his
dead
comrade.

The melee in the stairwell draw
s
another
from
the first floor
.
He
races up the stair
s
,
his attention focused on Michael.  His weapon trains on the
preoccupied
combatant.

Coming around the corner
,
onto the mid-flight landing,
Rena
shoots
the
unsuspecting
gunman
in the
temple
as his
weapon
train
s
on the man she means to protect at all costs.

Michael
turns
sharply
at the gunshot
,
then
moves
to
meet
her
on the second floor landing. 

Swinging
her gun past him
,
Rena
shoot
s
the remaining agent
,
with the severed arm
,
as he attempt
ed
to
reclaim his pistol
.

Grabbing
her
wrist,
Michael
pull
s
Rena
with him
to the first floor.  Stopping outside the door, he
glance
s in through the window, finding
no
sign of activity
visible
.  H
e
cautiously
precedes Rena through the
door.  The hall looks clear, the
fighting
still concentrated on the floors above.
 
They repeat the staggered gauntlet to the kitchen
,
meeting no additional agents
.

Taking the lead,
Rena guides Michael through
the kitchen to a rear entrance
,
norma
lly used for
staff and
deliver
ies
. 
O
pening
the
security
door,
she
scans
the back alley, just
as a
bla
ck sedan races
up
,
c
oming to a stop
in front of
them. 
Exiting the hotel, they run
across the
open expanse
to the
waiting
car
.

Never
looking at the driv
er, she quickly opens the door
.

With
Rena
f
acing the rear of the car
,
standing between him and
the
open
door,
Michael
sees the flash
from
one of the hotel windows
above them
, down the street
.
 
In a heartbeat,
his
world slows to a crawl
.
I
nstinctively
,
he pulls Rena
forward
,
turning her
body
as
he
slid
es past
, putting himself between the sniper and the woman h
e loves.  He
feels a
searing pain in his forehead
.
 
Hearing a
second
shot,
the window
at his back
explodes
,
immediately
followed by
a burning in his side
.

Gazing
into the turquoise eyes of an angel, h
is vision turns crimson
…
th
e
n
the world
around him
explodes
in flames
.

Rena stares
at Michael’s blood covered face, completely oblivious
to
the flames explodin
g from the windows
of the hotel.  Her arms wrap
around his chest,
holding his body
from crumbling
,
fighting back a
scream
as his eyes
,
veiled in blood
,
close
.
  In shock, she gazes at the man she loves.

The familiar,
authoritative voice of the driver snaps her back to reality
. 
“Rena …
G
et into the car …
G
et into the car
, now
.”

She turns Michael’s body,
l
a
ying him down on
his back ac
ross the rear seat of the sedan. 
Climbing
in,
she
crouch
es
in the space normally reserve
d for feet and legs, pulling
the door close.

Dropping
the transmission into
reverse
,
t
he driver
slam
s
the ac
celerator to the floor
.
T
he
Mercedes
surges
,
gaining speed
b
y
the
second
as it backs
down the alley. 
U
nder
the
cover
of smoke and flame
,
the
hotel
exploding
around them, t
he sedan, in reverse, charges
into
the parking ramp
across the street.
 
Backing full speed into
the
deserted
ramp, t
he driver turns the steering
wheel
clockwi
se as far and fast as possible.
T
he car’s front wheel
s, smoking in protest,
break free
of the payment
,
the front of the vehicle
s
wings
around
wildly
as the car continues across the
open
space
.
T
he drive
r
reacts, shifting the transmission
to drive
,
pressing
the accelerator
hard
to the floor
while
reversing the st
eering wheel
,
countering
the spin. 
S
quealing,
t
he car corrects
,
then
speed
s
away from the
smoke billowing in
to
the
ramp
.

The driver na
vigates the car th
r
ough the ramp
to the far end of the structure.
L
ocating
the exit
,
the
Mercedes
leaps
to the street two block
s
from the
collapsing
hotel.

L
aying across
Michael’s lifeless body
,
Rena
cr
ies
hysterically,
“Michael,
oh
Michael … damn you … this wasn’t supposed t
o happen … You can’t leave me, not now … not now!
”

“Rena …
Rena
!
” the driver yells
. 
“
C
heck his pulse … now!
”  He hasn’t spoken to her like this
, parental,
in many years, not since the night
she tol
d him to leave her alone.  They ha
d talked, but
the
y were never the
same, t
he relationship damaged beyond repair. 
So, w
hen she contacted him
several
mo
nths ago with
the warning
, comprehending the danger
,
he
never questioned a single direction, did everything exactly as she
instructed
.
 
She’d always been so much
smarter than he was, than everyone. 
Rena has always been
amazing beyond measure. 
Yet, n
o one should have to live the burden she’d shouldered. 
T
o see
her
now
,
in utter anguish,
for t
he first time ever …
h
e’d do everything in his power to fix this
.
No one
,
more than
she,
deserved
that. 
“Rena, listen to me.  Does he have a pulse?”
Speaking in a strong measured voice, Leonidas hopes to break through her hysteria.

Forcing composure,
she sits back, her hand still resting on
Michael’s
chest, still
maintaining her tether to
him.  With her other, she wipes her eyes, clearing the haze from her vision.  Scanning his body, s
he identifies two sources of blood, one on the forehead above his left eye, the second from the
left
side of his abdomen.
  Gently,
carefully
, she
places
two fingers on
Michael’s
neck, feeling for his
carotid
artery, tipping
her
head down to concentrate
,
and daring
to hope
.
A moment later she whispers,
“Thank
G
od, thank you
God.”
A
good strong pulse.
“Yes.
Y
es
… he has a pulse
!” She
proclaims
.

“Great.  Okay, there are towels here in front, take them and stop the bleeding.  Tell me what you see.”

T
owel in hand,
Rena
focuses on the head
first,
carefully
wiping
away the
blood
.
F
inally able to
clear enough to see the source,
she
’s not sure
what she saw
bef
o
re the blood covered the
wound.  T
ak
ing
a deep breath
, she
carefully plac
es
a shaking index finger on the
bloody opening
to determine if
structural. 
Using her sense of touch
,
finding
the edge
s of the torn skin, Rena
p
ress
es
deeper,
to
the hard
bone structure underneath
.
S
he
m
ov
es
her finger
cautiously
, her sense of devotion warring with her feeling of morbid intrusion
.  F
eel
ing
no
jagged edges, she whispers to herself,
“Michael, y
ou lucky
son of a bitch
.
”
 
Looking over her shoulder,
Rena
relays
her findings to the driver, as much
reinforcing them for
herself and Michael,
“The head wound seems to be a deep graze
, and probably a concussion
.
  I can’t
detect
any
apparent
skull damage
”

“Good”
Leonidas replies
, never looking back to confirm what he knows to be true.

Packing the
laceration
,
Rena
wraps a towel around Michael’s
head to stop the bleeding. 
She
t
urn
s
her attention to his
abdomen.
I
t’s not bleeding much
,
but there’
s
far
more blood
on the seat
than the
wound
seems capable of producing
. 
R
each
ing
behind his back,
fe
eling for another puncture, Rena
finds it, left side, below the rib cage
.

Closing
her eyes, clearing her
thoughts
,
Rena
recal
l
s
the human
anatomy
, all she’
d
studie
d
.
I
ns
ide the canvas of her mind,
she
construct
s
a three-dimensional imag
e of
the entire human internal
organ
system. 
Visualizing
a fully detailed human
body floating in space, spinning about an axis through the torso
,
she
stud
ies
the form. 
At her command, o
rgans relocate,
explod
ing
into
the open space outside the
body, permitting her
to
see everything individually. 
Her mind
superimposes the bullet trajectory through the
silhouette of
the
figure
.  One by one,
the organs
relocate
back into the
body
.
R
ota
ting the
form
,
view
ing
it
from the
back,
she
dives forward,
rac
ing
along
the bullet’s trajectory
,
like Alice down the rabbit hole.
I
n the theater of
her
subconscious,
she
sees the bullet puncture the skin, then muscle, continue untouched, until it grazes the liver, passing the large intestines, then exit through the muscles and skin of his abdominal region. 
Opening
her eyes,
Rena
return
s
to the here and now.
 
“It’s a through
and through.  I think the liver
’
s been
hi
t.  We need to get him to someone, quickly
.”

“Rena, you need to stop the
bleeding.  I know someone, half-
hour from here. 
We cannot stay there.  We
have to get in and out
fast. 
So w
e need somewhere to go.”

“We’re going home.
” She
replies
.

“Are you sure about that
?”

She hesitates for a moment, “More sure than I’ve ever
been in my entire life … P
atera
.”

She has not called him
P
atera,
‘
father
’
,
in a very long time.  She would not have used it now, unless completely sure.  No one, save himself
,
had ever been in her home.  To take
this man
there meant many things
, all of which were positive signs
.
 
Leonidas makes a quick call.