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"Two minutes!" he called to Gray "There’s a lead-lined control booth just outside We can still ht now!"

Nicolas shifted behind his hiding place, plainly consideringa run for it But with a twisted ankle on one side and a wounded leg on the other, he ain, so was staying here

Nicolas finally tossed out his pistol and stepped into the open He faced Gray, ars "If this is the only way to live, so be it!"

Gray cursed under his breath Unable to stop the deaths to come, his only recourse was to apprehend the mass murderer who had orchestrated the deadly operation Gray stepped out into the open with his pistol leveled

At that moment, the drone of the hydraulic puroan of twenty thousand tons, the ?

Kowalski stepped over the dead soldier to join Elena at the control panel While Gray had fled on foot, Elena had driven theso hard to the sidecar’s handles that his fingers still trembled They had rocketed to the rear side of the steel archway and sailed up to a concrete bunker that trailed big cables

It was the control shack for the hydraulic jacks

A fierce but brief firefight followed

Kowalski had tried to help, but Elena spun like a ballerina with a h a hail of bullets as if anticipating each shot She took out four soldiers Kowalski ed to kill only one

Nicolas’s ht ended

Once inside, Elena had set to work Bent over the control board, she pushed the hydraulics toward the redline, seeking to close the hangar faster

Just outside the shack’s , one of the toweringready to blow On one of the screens, flashing red warning signs blinked

That couldn’t be good

Kowalski stepped out of Elena’s way and stared at a row of ar On the ures on the floor

Gray and the Russian guy

Frole of the camera, Kowalski could see what Gray could not

Oh, crap!

"Elena!" he called out "A little help here!"

He turned in time to see her suddenly sluht her around the waist His hand found the shirt under her dark jacket soaking and hot He parted the coat and saw her entire left side drenched in blood It seeht

"Why didn’t you say so?" he said with an ache in his voice

She waved to the led to coar’s closure Thequickly, but it was definitely closing faster, accompanied by the scream of hydraulic uish in his voice ofold: fear that he now had even less time to escape, and disar sealed too soon

"Let’s go!" Gray said, pointing his pistol at the man

Nicolas lowered his outstretched arms--and revealed as hidden behind the pile of I-beams The man’s hand had been out of view until now

A second pistol

It pointed at Gray’s belly and fired

Gray ed to twist sideways, but the bullet still burned a line of fire across his stomach He pointed his oeapon and fired The shot, thrown off by the sudden attack, ricocheted harmlessly off the floor Even worse, the pistol’s slide popped open

Out of bullets

The same could not be said for Nicolas

The Russian drew a dead bead upon Gray

As a consequence of his concentration, Nicolas ar A iant hook

The whistling as it plulanced up as the h to anchor ships, slammed into the pile of beams next to him He tried to leap aside, but the is<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>