Page 137 of Agency

The stairwell was only wide enough to comfortably fit one full-sized adult. A full flight of steps led to a bottom landing, which continued to the right around a ninety-degree corner. Two bright fixtures hung from the ceiling at even intervals, and additional lights ran along the steps to make sure they were visible.

My tongue felt thick, my breath sounded ragged, and goddamn did my knees ache. Running my tongue across my lips, a single bead of sweat trickled down my forehead as I began to do a quick risk analysis of the situation.

If I went down and someone popped around from the bottom corner, that was all she wrote for me. I was done for. But, sending flash-bangs down the hall ahead of me might just alert any hostiles below to my presence, not to mention run the risk of damaging the servers. And Morgan had said I needed those servers intact for the USB virus to work. Data could still be pulled from damaged hard drives. Nothing short of either a full acid bath or thermite would reliably destroy them for some forensic practices.

So, straight down was the only way. Fucking great.

I took another deep breath. Swallowing hard, I nodded to myself. Only way to go. Only way. Weapon still raised and trained on the stairwell stretching down, I began my descent into the depths.

Nothing but the hollow sound of my footsteps and hoarse breath filled my ears as I made my way lower and lower. The quality of sound changed, and the slight shift in air pressure forced me to work my jaw till my ears popped. As I reached the second-to-the-last step before the landing, the sound of cooling fans began to reach me.

Server room. And B-I-N-G-O was his name-o.

I cut the pie at the bottom, revealing more stairs leading down to the beginning of a short, smoothly finished, concrete-floored hallway.

Rolling my foot to move more silently in my combat boots, I made my way down this next flight, weapon raised. Careful, quiet, like a predator.

As I descended lower and lower and lower, more of the narrow hallway became visible, along with a portion of the room beyond.

I couldn’t help myself. I went faster and stepped into the chilly hall.

Servers. A solid bank of them were grouped into a half-dozen cages, filling a fenced-off area to my left. The room opened to the right, and the edge of a desk poked out into my field of vision from behind the sculpted concrete wall.

Desk. Desk meant people. Or, at least, person.

“Holy shit,” I breathed to myself as I reached the bottom third of the stairs. “Holy fucking shit.” Picking up my pace, I finished the last of my descent with my weapon still raised and slammed my back against the wall as I reached the ending of the hallway.

Cocking my head to the side, I listened as I drew my weapon up and across my chest.

Typing. Not particularly fast, not particularly slow. Normally paced.

Not startled.

Great. Likely a civilian. Just great.

Another deep breath. Another moment to listen to my racing heartbeat. Another moment to consider how all this could go wrong.

But there was nothing else I could do. I was here, the information was there, and some desk jockey was literally sitting between me and doing my job.

Readying my weapon again, I went around the corner. The second I saw the youngish brunette wearing glasses and a heavy purple cardigan, I started barking orders.

“Hands up, hands up! Back from the keyboard!”

She didn’t even look my direction. Not until I was actually advancing on her desk, and standing right behind the central panel of her three monitor work station, did her shocked eyes lift to mine. Her mouth fell open in surprise and she pushed back from the desk, raising her hands as she did.

“Up! Up!” I shouted. “Up, gets your hands up!”

Hands shaking, she raised them as ordered, her big, dark, doe eyes blinking from behind thick lenses as they shifted between my weapon’s muzzle and my painted face. But her fingers stopped right at her ears, which had me barking again.

“No! Hands up! Now!”

“Sorry!” Cringing, she plucked out wireless earbuds, tried to click some buttons of the side with the tips of her fingers.

“No! Drop ‘em! Throw ‘em aside!”

“Sorry!” Her cringe deepened, and she slunk deeper into her big office chair, hands still holding her earbuds. “Oh my God, I’m sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry! I was trying to pause my music, okay? Please don’t kill me!”

“Fuck your music!” I snapped. “Throw those to the side!”