Page 16 of The Lazarus Protocol

“They’re in the hall.” Dan kept his voice low.

“Push through,” Adam ordered.

It was a risk, but they couldn’t be stuck here pinned down in a stairwell. They had to make progress, and with the lights out, at least they had an advantage. So long as this other team didn’t have night vision.

Dan grabbed the door handle and hauled it open fast so that Ash had the element of surprise, going through the door first. He squeezed off a shot, and someone screamed. A thud. One down was one less combatant to worry about.

Kai ducked into the hall behind them, and Adam heard the sounds of a scuffle. A gun not loaded with beanbag rounds went off, the triple snap of a semiauto popping like fireworks in the hall. Flashing so that he had to shut his eyes against the light.

Adam swept through after them and squeezed off his own shot. He caught the guy wrestling with Kai in the back of the head, and they both went down. Swung his gun to the left and fired again at another guy in black fatigues, a dark-colored bandana on the lower half of his face. Braids wrapped around his head as he spun and fell to the floor. No time for him to fire.

Ash was across the hall in the security office. “Come on!”

Adam saw him drag the guard from a crouch behind the desk and haul him toward the door. “Let’s go,” he said in Spanish. “We’re getting out of here.”

A flicker of recognition passed in the guy’s expression. Sure, Adam spoke gringo Spanish he’d picked up here and there, not the Spanish more prevalent here in Argentina that sounded almost Italian. But panic was a universal language, as was, Let’s get the heck out of here.

Adam radioed, “On our way out,” and headed for the door at the end of the hall with the others behind him. “Give me a route.”

“You won’t like it,” Marina said.

“Pretend I might.” Far as he could see, there were limited options.

“There’s a woman between you and your exfil. She’s the only one not wearing a face covering. I ran her features through my facial recognition program.”

“So who is she?” Adam stopped at a door marked EXIT in glowing red letters, the only light in the hall. A door with that universal push bar across the middle. Close enough to being outside that he could almost smell the fresh air.

“No hits.”

Adam flinched. “Nothing? How is that possible?”

“The only way is that she isn’t in any database my program can worm its way into⁠—”

“Which is practically every database on earth,” Kai said.

Marina continued, “Neither is her image anywhere on any social media.”

“Because nothing is private,” Kai added.

Adam shot the guy a look. Kai lifted both hands like, Fine, I’ll give it up. “Marina, seriously? In this day and age?”

“Right, let me just run your face through the same program. Hmm, no hits. That’s surprising in this day and age. Probably because I scrubbed your face from every database I found, and that was after the military decided that you suddenly didn’t exist.”

Adam said, “Point taken.”

The last thing he wanted was to discuss anything that concerned how the military had ended his “life” or what would happen if he was caught by a particular subset of the US government. The small group that wanted him either dead, or as good as dead.

Adam rolled his shoulders, trying to rid himself of the feeling of being trapped.

Marina said, “She’s on the other side of that door, waiting for you to come out. And she’s holding Ice hostage.”

“Then I guess we give her what she wants. Get our boy back.”

“Is that a good idea?” Marina asked.

“Is ‘good’ even a qualifier I need to worry about for my ideas? Can I just worry about effectiveness?” Adam paused. “Or do you have another door I can use?”

Ash turned. “Kai and I will find one.”