Page 28 of So Lethal (Faith Bold #22)

The testing facility looked exactly like the long-abandoned storage depot the general told Faith to call it.

It was a single rectangular building made with concrete and painted Army green.

The windows were blacked out, but some of the tint was peeling, making it look like a low-rent urban office park in a city far less affluent than San Jose.

The officers and agents moved ahead cautiously. If Harrison was entrenched in there, then approaching him aggressively could end badly. Faith wanted to make sure that everyone stayed together.

“Try to keep him alive if possible,” she whispered into her radio, “but safety first.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ferris replied.

The group spread out as they drew close.

Faith checked her weapon and drew her flashlight.

“Okay, everyone, look sharp. We’re going to do a walk around and note entrances and exits before we go inside.

When we do enter, we’re moving quickly, but carefully.

We don’t know what the interior looks like, so we need to be prepared for anything. ”

The others murmured acknowledgment, and Faith said, "Michael, take half of them and go left. The rest of you go right with me."

Michael nodded, and the group split and walked around the facility.

It was of medium size for an Army building, which made it very small for a storage depot.

Seventy feet long and fifty feet wide, Faith guessed.

About twenty feet high, which wasn’t encouraging since it meant two stories.

Ferris had called a few more units to join them, but they still had only fifteen including her, Michael, and Turk.

On paper, that should be more than enough, but she’d tangled with ex-military killers before, and they were typically much more dangerous than civilians.

She debated waiting for more units but decided against it. They’d just have to cross their fingers and do their best. Harrison wasn’t special forces. He did have combat experience, but most of his career was spent testing weapons, not using them.

Besides, Faith had combat experience too, as did Turk.

They completed their circuit and met at the back of the building. "A couple of windows blown out on the left side," Michael told her. "Upper windows, so it's hard to say if he did it or if they were like that already."

"Have two officers wait outside to watch them," Faith instructed. "Whether he did it or not, they still represent his best chance at exiting. Take the rest of your team to the front entrance, and let me know when you're there. Just like last time, we're going in together."

“Cooper and I will stay outside,” Ferris said. “I’m okay in a firefight, but I’m much better at coordinating activities. Radio me if you need anything—additional units, medical, anything—and I’ll make it happen.”

Faith nodded. "Get medical out here now. We'll need it for Harrison, if nothing else."

Ferris nodded and trotted off with Cooper. Michael gave Faith a tight grin and said, “Okay. Let’s get this done.”

She clapped him on the shoulder, then got into position. Turk growled low in his throat and stared fixedly at the door.

“You smell him, boy?” she asked.

He dipped his head, keeping his eyes firmly ahead.

“We’ll get him,” she promised Turk.

“All right,” Michael said. “We’re ready.”

“Okay. Use night sticks to take out the windows. No shooting.”

“Loud and clear.”

“On three: one, two, three!”

Two of Faith’s officers smashed the glass doors open while she and the rest of the officers held their weapons at the ready. Flashlights clicked on, illuminating a hallway with a door on either side every fifteen feet or so.

Once the door was open, the breaching officers stepped back. Faith led the others in, and they split into two smaller groups to take turns clearing the rooms.

“We’re inside,” Michael said. “First room is clear.”

“This one’s clear too,” Faith called.

The room appeared to be an old bunkroom with four bunk beds arranged along three of the walls and a tiny bathroom at one end. If Harrison was here, he was probably in one of these rooms.

They moved through the facility, clearing three similar bunk rooms. Faith's ears rang with the clipped tones of "clear" every fifteen seconds or so.

As they neared the center of the facility, Faith worried that they might be wrong and Harrison wasn’t here after all. She felt fear probing at the edge of her mind and pushed it away. Just focus.

They reached the end of the hallway and opened the other door. As soon as they did, a high-pitched ringing assaulted Faith’s ears.

This was far more powerful than the tinnitus she’d felt in the hotel. She gasped and collapsed to her knees. For a terrifying moment, she wondered if her body had betrayed her and taken her out of the fight.

Then she saw Turk on the ground, along with the other officers. Harrison had used a very powerful attack of amplified sound to drop them.

Then she saw him, a silhouette standing near the middle of the room. She got to her feet, pushing through the pain and rushed after him.

His eyes widened, and Faith saw a youthful face with clear blue eyes and fine blonde hair. His file said he was thirty-two, but he looked ten years younger than that.

She leveled her weapon at him and tried to say, “David Harrison, you’re under arrest!”

She made it through “under” when he rushed her, moving with exceptional speed. He knocked the flashlight from her hand and grabbed her gun. Faith called for Turk, but when Turk tried weakly to get to his feet, he fell over again.

Nausea filled Faith, and she wasn't sure if he had hit her or if she was finally unable to resist the wave of sound slicing through her ears. Either way, she weakened enough that he was able to wrestle the gun from her. She grabbed it again, then forced him backward off of his feet.

As she fell, she saw that she was falling not toward the ground but into a yawning pit, the floor of which was at least twenty feet below They landed hard, and Faith gasped as the wind was driven from her lungs.

She heard the clattering of her gun as it skittered fell through a grating and disappeared into the darkness below. .

Then Harrison reappeared. His face was twisted into a snarl, but he made no sound as he kicked her into a black pit at the center of the platform they were in.

She fell again. She managed to tuck herself into a ball, but the landing still drove the last of her strength away. She crawled away, hands and knees shaking, fighting desperately to stay awake.

The darkness was nearly complete down here. She turned toward the only light available, the soft circle of gray that filtered down from windows at least forty feet above her and twenty-five feet away on either side.

That allowed her just enough time to see Harrison bring his boot down toward her neck.

She rolled over, and the boot slammed forcefully onto the ground.

The echo reverberated powerfully in the enclosed space, and Faith realized that the sonic attack had stopped, or at least wasn’t affecting her down here.

She rolled to her feet, but a fist buried itself in her liver, and she dropped again. She forced herself upward, hands raised to protect herself, but Harrison had disappeared into the darkness.

She stilled, breathing softly and listening. She heard Harrison’s soft breathing, but she couldn’t see where it was coming from. She knew that sometimes people with hearing loss experienced a slight improvement in their other senses. She desperately hoped that wasn’t the case for Harrison.

A footstep echoed, then a shuffling noise.

A slight change in air pressure told Faith he was running for her.

She ducked, but she had misjudged the attack.

Instead of avoiding a punch, she ducked right into a knee.

Had her hands not been in front of her head, the blow would have knocked her out cold.

As it was, it still drove her onto her back and bruised her arms badly enough that they would be useless to her. She kicked out blindly and felt a rush of satisfaction when her foot collided with flesh. A groan escaped Harrison’s mouth, oddly pitched and too loud.

He might not even be aware that he’d made noise. She could use that to her advantage.

If she could hit him again, that was.

Something hit her temple with the force of a bowling ball. She managed to remain conscious, but her arms dropped, the connection between mind and muscle temporarily discombobulated.

She gasped and moaned as she staggered backwards, trying to lift her trembling arms back up to her face. She caught movement to her right, and with a cry of effort, spun around and kicked her heel in a half-moon. It collided solidly with someone, and Faith heard another cry.

She followed the cry and attacked again, sending a flurry of punches at her unseen target. Harrison blocked most of them, but a few landed, and one connected solidly enough with his jaw that he grunted again.

He grabbed her shoulder and tripped her, sending her to the floor. She didn’t have nearly as far to fall this time, but she was bruised and badly shaken from the first two. As soon as she hit the deck, she began to shake again.

She forced herself quickly to her feet and saw a slightly darker shadow move through the darkness. She threw a hard boxing combination, but Harrison evaded each punch. After the final jab, he spun her around by her shoulders and kicked the back of her left knee.

She went down, but not far. A tourniquet wrapped around her neck and cinched tight.

Faith's mouth flew open. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Already, she felt pressure in her eyes and sinuses as Harrison cut off circulation to her brain.

She dropped her weight and shoved her hips back, trying to throw him over her shoulder, but he held his arms out and kept her at a distance so she couldn't affect his balance.

She jumped upright and tried to headbutt him, but he kicked her knee out again, so she hit his chest instead.

She drove upward again, colliding hard with his jaw. He flinched backward, but when she threw her arm in between his and tried to break the hold by driving her elbow down onto his bicep, he twisted his hips, lifting her off of the ground and throwing her hard to the floor face first.

He planted a knee in between her shoulder blades and pressed down while lifting his hands and drawing the ligature even tighter. Her eyes bulged and rolled back in her head. Spots formed in her vision, and no amount of struggling made a damned bit of difference.

He had pulled her into his element and gotten the best of her. In her last moments of panic, she clawed at her neck trying to loosen the tourniquet only to find to her horror that it had compressed so tightly it was now even with her skin.

She heard the blood rushing through her ears, felt her heart pound thickly as it struggled to pump blood. Consciousness started to fade, and her hands dropped to her sides.

Then the pressure relaxed. For a half-second, she didn’t register it, but then she gasped and jerked as blood flow returned to her brain. She gasped again and began to cough as she pulled at the tourniquet and unwrapped it.

She heard growling behind her and a loud, frightened wail. She staggered to her feet and turned toward the sound, but she couldn’t see anything until a flashlight beam from above shone on Turk. Dried blood matted his fur under his ears, but he had a hold of David Harrison.

“Don’t move!” Michael shouted. “I swear to God, I’ll shoot you!”

Harrison couldn't hear Michael, of course, but he could understand what the handgun pointed at his face met. He dropped to the deck, and when Faith called weakly for Turk to release him, he didn't resist further.

Faith dropped to her knees and hugged Turk. Turk licked her face and whined, staring at her as though to convince himself she was okay.

“Good boy,” she croaked. “Good boy.”