Invasion (The Alien Wars #1) (30 page)

What if the soldier was hiding by the fire escape door on the next level? That would explain the noise he just heard. And if he was hiding, that’d mean the door was probably blocked with debris or something, else he would have escaped that way. He probably didn’t have a gun, but he still could have another grenade.

Keeping as quiet as possible, he went down the steps, one at a time. He had gone down six when he attempted to crane his neck over the side. If he could, he wanted to see the man without being spotted.

Peering over, he saw the jammed door and sitting next to it was the soldier. He held a grenade in his hand.
Logan
drew back, but not before he had been spotted.

The man released the pin on the grenade and waited a few seconds. He then threw it with all his might.

As it hit the wall,
Logan
leaped back, just before it exploded. As the debris settled,
Logan
hurried back down and whipped out his pistol, aiming at the man. “Stay where you are!”

“Why should I?” The man spit. “First
chance
you get you’re going to kill me.”

“That’s not true,”
Logan
replied as he slowly walked down the steps one step at a time. He saw the soldier’s eyes shift from him to the jagged staircase and back again. He realized what the man was contemplating and tried to convince him otherwise.

“There’s no need to jump. I just want to have a talk with you.”
Logan
paused as the man walked a few feet closer to the edge of the broken staircase. “Do you like working for Sanchez?”

“Not really,” the soldier replied.

“They why don’t you work with me in taking down Sanchez?
Together we—”

“Together we can do what?” The man leaned against what was left of the wall. “You’ll never defeat Sanchez. He has an army of people that’ll protect him.” Despite the situation, the man grinned. “Fact is
,
the penthouse suite where he lives is rigged with explosives. So, if you’re planning on taking him down, you better be prepared to go down yourself. He only needs to press one button and the whole building will come crashing down.”

“You’re bluffing,”
Logan
said.

“Bluffing? Why would I bluff?” The soldier smiled thinly. “I have no reason to bluff.
Just like I have no reason to join you.”
The man backed up and took a running leap.

Logan
watched as he cleared the first empty space and landed hard on a small piece of concrete. He barely managed to clutch onto the edge. He hauled himself up and prepared to jump again.

Wanting to deter him,
Logan
pulled the trigger. An empty click greeted him. He was out of bullets. “Damn!” He tossed the weapon to the ground and hurried down the stairs. Reaching the spot that the man had jumped from, he considered his options.

A moment later, the man made the second jump. This was the easiest one as it was only a few feet.
Logan
glanced at the fire escape door and saw that a massive piece of concrete was jammed against it. There was no way he could move it.

He watched as the man hauled himself up and prepared to jump again.
Logan
realized that the next jump was the most dangerous one, but if he made it, only two small leaps remained. He’d then head for the next fire escape door and use the elevator to reach Sanchez.

If Muscles had been on the lower level, everything would have been all right. But he had no way of knowing where Muscles was, so he realized that he was the only one who could stop the man.

With a gleam in his eyes,
Logan
backed up and leaped. He sailed over the space and grabbed the edge of the concrete. Pulling himself up, he saw that the man was just about to make the leap.

Logan
got to his feet and jumped again. As he crashed down on the concrete, the man flew through the air.

With only a small space to land on, and being so close to the corner of the building, there was a real risk he could go too far and tumble right over the edge and disappear into the inky blackness.

Logan
stumbled to his feet and watched in horror as the man did precisely that. His feet hit the concrete at an odd angle, and he tumbled headfirst across the hard surface. He tried to get a grasp to slow his momentum, but failed.

“Help!” the man waved his arms as he got closer to the edge. Before
Logan
could say anything, the man fell, screaming out in desperation as he tumbled down.

Logan
sat down and held his head in his hands. What a waste. He hadn’t imagined that it’d end this way.

“Hey!”
came
a voice from below.

Logan
looked down and saw Muscles on the floor below. “You’re too late.”

“Too late?
What do you mean? Where is he?” Muscles glanced around as he tried to see where the man was.

“He went through there.”
Logan
pointed to the hole in the wall.

Muscles lowered his pistol. “I see. Did he mean to do it?”

“No. He tried to make the jump and miscalculated.”
Logan
stood up. “I thought it looked too dangerous when we were standing where you are, but it looks even more dangerous from up here. I’ll go back the way I came and meet you by the other staircase.”

Muscles nodded and retreated down the steps.
Logan
breathed a sigh of relief as he tried to compose himself. To see someone just disappear over the edge like that and to know that they were falling to their death was horrible.

Logan
stepped back a few feet and jumped back to where he’d been standing a few minutes earlier. Then after taking a look back once more at where the man had disappeared, he hurried up the steps.

By the time he arrived at the other stairs, Muscles was already there. “Did the man say anything of interest before he died?”

Logan
thought. “Well, he did say something, though I wonder if it was true or not.”

“What?” Muscles said. “Tell me.”

“The man mentioned something about Sanchez rigging the penthouse with explosives and that it’d only take a press of a button to send this building crashing down.”

Muscles frowned. “We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“It could’ve been a lie.”

“Did he look as though he was lying?”

“Well, no, but—”

“We’ll have to search the penthouse then.” Muscles strode off. “Let’s hope we run into the others on the eightieth floor. I don’t want to waste time searching for them.”

As the two reached the rendezvous point, they met Jet and Baldy. Quickly, they told them everything that had happened. With time running out, they climbed up to the eighty-third floor.

Logan
opened the fire escape door and peered through. Everything seemed nice and quiet. After waving the others through,
Logan
walked down the hallway. As he didn’t have a weapon on him, he waited for the others to catch up.

“Where is the entrance to the suite?” Baldy said.

“Just up here.”
Logan
continued walking until he reached the door. He tried opening it. “It’s locked.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jet said.

As Muscles saw that Jet intended to shoot the lock off with his pistol, he stopped him. “Wait! If someone hears a gun being fired, they’ll come searching. Besides, if Sanchez or someone else comes along here, they’ll see that the lock is shot off.”

“Then how do we get in?” Baldy asked.

Logan
grinned. He fiddled around in his pockets as he tried to find something. A few moments later, he pulled out his key pass. “I’ve been carrying this around all this time, wondering if I was going to get a chance to use it.” He slid the pass into the door. A second later, the door was unlocked. “There, nice and easy.”

Logan
put the pass back into his pocket and waited for the others to enter. With everyone else in, he took one more look down either end of the hallway before closing the door.

“I guess you want us to be all careful and professional, right?” Jet said.

“Of course not.
If this place is wired with explosives, we got to find them. So tear everything apart.” Muscles went to the couch and threw the pillows off it. He slit the fabric with a knife and felt around.

As Jet searched the rest of the room, Baldy headed for the kitchen.
Logan
decided to have a look in the office. As he walked across the room and passed the bar, he remembered the last time he had been here. It had been happier times. And cleaner times. Back then, the bar was nice and tidy, where now it was a mess with empty bottles spread everywhere.

He
snickered
a little as he remembered how Donald had given him the key pass. He’d almost given it back. Now he was very glad that he hadn’t.

The office was quite large with an old, stout wooden desk, a leather chair, and rows and rows of bookshelves.
Logan
had briefly been in this room once or twice and hardly remembered it, but he knew that it wouldn’t have looked like this normally.

Books lay scattered all across the floor, some spread wide open and some closed. The model train in the corner was a terrible sight for any train lover to see. It looked like a mini war had taken place.

Logan
sighed. Whoever had made a mess of this room had probably been drunk. At least Donald wasn’t alive to see it. Not that it really mattered. The model train had been a passion for Donald in his earlier years, but after his wife passed away, it had been gathering dust.

Logan
glanced around the office. Apart from the desk and the bookshelves, there wasn’t any place where explosives could be, so he quickly searched those two things.

After pulling out numerous books, he didn’t find anything. He made his way back to the others, who were gathered in the lounge room.

“That was a waste of time,” Jet said.

“The man was probably lying,” Baldy said. “Come on, let’s go to the party room and get Sanchez.”

“I don’t think he was lying,”
Logan
said. “As he said to me, there wasn’t any reason for him to say such a thing.”

“He was probably trying to stop us from attacking Sanchez,” Baldy said.

Logan
shook his head. “Maybe those explosives were just a
rumor
that Sanchez spread to stop any of his men from taking control.”

Muscles glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late. If we hurry, we can make it to the party room just before nine.”

~*~*~

Xavier breathed a sigh of relief as the person moved off. He had no idea why they’d stopped, but at least they had moved on.

Things became quiet for a while, and soon Xavier thought he’d take a peek. Opening the trunk a bit, he peered through. He couldn’t hear or see anything. He decided he’d give it five minutes and then, if things still remained the same, he’d climb out.

Five minutes passed without incident. Xavier took hold of his rifle and climbed out. He slowly turned around, looking in every direction. No one was in sight.

Xavier glanced at his watch. It was coming up to eight-forty. After closing the trunk, he started to walk back to the generator room, stopping every now and then to listen.