Crossfire (Book 1) (The Omega Group) (6 page)

It was then that the reality of Mirissa’s situation finally
sunk in. She was responsible for all of these people. Their safety, their
gleeful ignorance, was dependent on her. She made a decision right then and
there that she would absolutely never hesitate to kill a Kakodaemon—ever again.

Myrine simply sat in her chair behind her desk, speechless,
as she stared at her daughter. They looked so much alike. Mirissa had the same
long chestnut brown hair waving down her back, minus the gray streaks that had
crept into her own over the last few years. Her hazel eyes and high cheekbones
were an exact match to Myrine’s, and the expression on her face was one that
Myrine had seen in the mirror many times.

She’d imagined this reunion with her daughter so many times
over the years, and dreamt about the warm, loving hug they would share. She had
played out this scene in her mind and practiced everything she’d wanted to say,
but now that it was finally happening for real, her mind went blank. She said
the only thing she could think of. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

“Seriously? That’s all you have to say to me?” Mirissa spat
out the words.

OK, so maybe the warm, loving hug would come later
.
Myrine knew that her daughter had every right to be angry with her. After all,
she’d just been kidnapped by a mother she thought abandoned her as a child. Mirissa
didn’t know, however, that Myrine was only acting to protect her. Everything
she’d done over the last twelve years she’d done to keep Mirissa alive.

 “I know you’re angry with me, and for good reason. I
really want to explain everything to you if you’ll just give me the chance.”

“Mom, there is nothing you could possibly say to…”

Mirissa stopped short when a loud explosion shook the
building. The items on the desk shook, and the sound of automatic gunfire could
be heard through the floor.

All thoughts of the reunion were immediately replaced with
defense strategy. After punching in the security code that would erase the hard
drives of every computer in the building, Myrine jumped up from her chair,
hurdled her desk, and pulled on the edge of one of the bookshelves lining the
wall. Over her shoulder, she barked orders at Ken and Jackie to secure the door
and get a situation report. Once the bookshelf was opened on its hinges, Myrine
grabbed several rifles from the alcove that was hidden behind it. Contrary to
film and television, Myrine preferred the AR10 assault rifle to the more
popular AR15. Although it had a smaller magazine, holding fewer bullets, it
more than made up for it with the much larger sized rounds. When Myrine and her
team were under attack, she wanted pure stopping power. Passing one to each of
her agents and to Mirissa, she then armed herself and got ready for the fight.

Cracking the door to her office open just enough to peek
out, she gave the all-clear sign and started out into the hallway.

“My ring!” Mirissa yelled.

Myrine ran back to her desk, retrieved the ring from the
drawer where she had put it earlier, and tossed it to her daughter. Now that
they all had their weapons, they headed down the hall to the stairwell.

In a practiced maneuver, Myrine stood to the right of the
door while Ken stood to the left. She grabbed the handle and pushed the door in
as Ken aimed his rifle at whatever might be on the other side. Still clear,
they started down the stairs, Myrine taking the lead, followed by Ken and
Jackie, with Mirissa pulling up the rear. The sound of a door slamming open
below, followed by heavy footfalls coming up toward them, made them reverse
course and start climbing. Two flights up they reached the roof access door and
exited into the bright midday sun. Myrine looked for something she could use to
barricade the door, but the only thing on the roof was an old piece of two by
four lumber, and with nothing to secure it, she quickly moved on to plan B.

Mirissa ran to the edge of the roof on the opposite side of
the access door. The next building was only about ten feet away. “We can make
it,” she called over her shoulder.

Myrine joined her as she turned around. “Mirissa,
we
can make that jump, but they can’t, and I won’t leave them behind. Follow me.”

They came around to the other side of the roof where Ken was
busy opening an air vent. He’d removed the cover and the fan (thank goodness it
wasn’t running) and called Jackie over to climb inside. She all but dove
through the vent access and quickly crawled through the small metal tunnel.
Once she was out of sight, Ken called for Myrine but she shook her head,
motioning for him to go ahead of her and cover Jackie. She kept one eye on
their escape route, watching Ken disappear, and the other on the access door.
They were running out of time.

The door burst open and five heavily armed men came pouring
out, wearing black and gray camouflage and outfitted with earpieces. They each
carried the LR-300, a gas operated compact assault rifle based on the old M16
design. They were obviously very well funded. Myrine dove to the right and
Mirissa to the left. One quick, perfectly aimed shot from each and the first
two assailants were down, sporting new holes right between their eyes. Without
skipping a beat, Mirissa rushed the next gunman with a straight hand to his
throat, crushing his larynx and guaranteeing his death moments later. When she
turned her focus on the remaining two men, Myrine was standing over their prone
bodies.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Mirissa said.

Myrine cringed at the comment the moment it escaped her
daughter’s lips because she knew she had just tempted fate. That notion was
confirmed when a stream of fresh gunmen came through the door.

As though they were reading each other’s thoughts, the women
ran to the edge of the roof where Mirissa had been earlier. Without pausing,
they jumped and landed hard on the adjacent building. A hail of bullets
followed them, and before they had regained their feet, they were firing back.
Judging by their opponents’ weapons, they would surely be wearing body armor
and a headshot was the only way to guarantee a kill. Being off balance and
aiming at such a small target, the two women expended a total of five rounds
before finding their marks.

Three more of the intruders fell, while two others attempted
the same jump as the women had just completed. A shot to each of their chests,
although not fatal due to their body armor, stopped their momentum, and they
fell the five stories to the street below.

Keeping their heads low while running, Myrine led Mirissa to
a door that opened into a stairwell. Flying down the stairs the two women
reached the ground floor in a matter of seconds, and, after checking the lobby,
walked calmly to the back door, concealing their rifles as best they could. The
rush of people leaving the building after the bomb blast next door made it easy
for them to go unnoticed.

“I have to go back for my agents,” Myrine said. Mirissa
nodded in agreement and the two made their way to the back corner of the
building adjacent to their target. A quick look told them that no one was
standing guard, so they jogged over and took up the familiar positions on
either side of the delivery door.

Once back inside her office building, Myrine took the lead
and Mirissa covered their backs as they crept down the hallway that ran the
length of the back of the building. Smoke was everywhere and visibility was
near zero. Halfway down the hall, the left side opened into the lobby. When
they turned the corner, they found the site of the earlier explosion.

It had decimated the lobby, blowing out all of the windows
and destroying the guard desk. Judging by the small crater in the floor and the
widespread damage throughout the large room, the explosion was most likely
caused by a fragmentation grenade. Although the initial explosion radius of
these types of grenades was smaller, the fragments could travel up to 200
meters at high speeds. The airflow from the newly broken windows had allowed
much of the smoke to clear, but the increased visibility wasn’t necessary to
see that the two guards that occupied this room were dead.

Filing that away to deal with at a later time, Myrine
continued down the hall toward the stairwell, checking each room they passed
for survivors.
Where is everyone?
These offices should have been full of
people when the bomb went off, but there was nobody, alive or dead.

After clearing the first floor, they moved up to the second.
Going through the door to the hallway the same way they had gone through every
door today, they again started checking for survivors. And again found no one.

As they made their way up the stairs to the third floor, the
stairwell door opened before they had gotten into position. Shocked to see
them, the intruder fumbled with his weapon, trying to level it. Myrine grabbed
the muzzle and pulled hard, using his momentum to bring him down the stairs.
Mirissa ducked low and struck out with a sidekick to his knee, shattering it
with a sickening crunch and leaving his tibia swinging painfully. Myrine
crushed his larynx to stifle his screams.

Leaving the man writhing on the floor, they entered the
third floor hallway and immediately dropped to their knees at the sound of
nearby voices. After a moment, with no unwanted visitors, they crept down the
hallway, keeping their bodies as low as possible. They followed the voices to
the conference room halfway down the hall on their right and chanced a look
through the large window above them.

The intruders had corralled the remaining agents into this large
room and were in the process of interrogating them.

“Where are they?” the apparent leader asked.

As expected, none of the agents uttered a word. They were
well trained, and Myrine knew that everyone captured in that room would die
before giving up her location, even if they had known it. She couldn’t let that
happen. She knew, intellectually, that she should leave with her daughter and
hole up in one of her safe houses until she could rally the troops and come up
with a game plan, but she also knew there was no way that would happen. For the
last decade these people had been her only family, and if she had proven
anything during that time, it was that she would do anything to protect her
family.

Signaling to her daughter to retreat to an empty office a few
doors back, they silently went back the way they came. Once inside the office,
they assessed their situation.

“There are three armed guards in that room that we’ll need
to deal with quickly and quietly. There’s no telling how many more are in the building
and we don’t want to attract any more attention. Once we have the guards
subdued, we can get the hostages out through the same stairwell we used to get
here, and, hopefully, out the back delivery door.” Myrine was planning this
rescue on the fly, but she knew they only had minutes before their intruders
started using lethal force to get the information they wanted.

“Our rifles will be too loud, so bring out your blade,” She
instructed her daughter.

“I don’t have my knife. Your goons took it when they
kidnapped me and shoved me in that little room.”

“Not that knife,” Myrine retorted. “Your ring!”

The look of confusion on her daughter’s face told Myrine
everything she needed to know. She held her right hand out in front of her,
made a fist, and closed her eyes. Almost immediately, the ring began to grow.
The small green snake that was once a simple inlaid emerald design, came to
life and began spiraling up Myrine’s forearm, getting thicker and longer as it
went. Its scales shimmered a beautiful green as its head settled to a spot just
under her shoulder. The end of the tail, still resting on what was left of the
ring, sprouted a double-edged blade that measured eight inches in length and
came to a sharp point.

“Hasn’t your Guardian taught you how to use your ring yet?”
Myrine asked.

“I guess he hasn’t gotten to that little tidbit of
information yet,” replied Mirissa, unsure why Greco had omitted such an
important lesson.

“For now, let me do it for you.” Myrine grabbed hold of her
daughter’s right hand, curled her fingers into a fist, and once again closed
her eyes.

As her ring started the same transformation as her mother’s,
Mirissa’s eyes widened.  “It feels… weird.  Like it’s a part of me,
almost.” When the snake’s head reached her upper arm, it looked right at her
before settling under her shoulder. Mirissa moved her arm up and down, bending
and flexing.  “It moves like it’s liquid. It’s incredible.”

 Once they had a semblance of a plan, if you could call
it that, they headed back down the still-empty hallway to the conference room.
Keeping lower than the windows, they settled on either side of the entrance
and, when set, Mirissa thudded her fist against the bottom of the door.

It only took a moment for one of the armed men to come out
into the hallway, looking for whomever it was he assumed was there. He looked
both ways down the corridor, failing to look down, and, with the door blocking
the view from behind him, Mirissa stood swiftly, covered his mouth, and drove
her blade right through his neck, from one side to the other. Keeping her left
hand over his mouth, she wrapped her right arm around his chest and silently
brought him down to the floor.

One down.

Within a few seconds, another gunman walked into the hall,
calling for his partner. As he stepped through the threshold, the now dead
man’s foot blocked his path. Looking down to find the obstacle, his eyes met
Myrine’s, just as her blade ran across his throat from ear to ear.

The third gunman was more prepared. Sensing that something
was wrong, he stopped short of the doorway with his gun at the ready. Using his
foot to push the door to its fully opened position, he swept his weapon from
right to left, looking for the opponent he knew was there.

Not wanting to wait for him to get one or both of them in
his sights, Myrine swung her leg out in a low, sweeping kick, knocking his feet
out from under him. As he fell, he leveled his rifle and got a single shot off.