Page 18 of The Lazarus Protocol

The aircraft circled away, probably trying to come in for a different angle.

Dan tried the rear door on the van, but it didn’t open. Adam eyed the fire escape against the building—not far but at the same time probably farther than he could go without getting shot.

Ice let out a frustrated cry. “Ouch.”

Adam looked over, and the guy lifted a pistol.

“What? She didn’t need it.”

Dan tsked. “Thou shalt not steal, bro.”

“Tell her the murder one if you get a chance. I don’t think she knows about that one.” Adam took the pistol. “Both of you stay here.”

A woman’s cry, more anger than pain, came from the middle of the forecourt.

“She’s up.” Ice shuddered.

Dan said, “I think you made her mad.”

Adam looked around the back left corner of the van and made a run for it along the side of the building. Glass shattered to his right and a guy in black clothing flew out of a window onto the asphalt.

Kai and Ash jumped out of the window after him, keeping to the wall on that side of the building.

The helicopter flew overhead, but Adam didn’t think the gunner could see Ash and Kai from that angle. The aircraft would have to come all the way around, and right now Adam was in the crosshairs.

Just the way he liked it.

Adam tore up the fire escape, his boots pounding on the metal stairs. At the top he ducked down, waiting for the right moment and taking a second to check the pistol.

When the chopper was close enough, he raced out onto the roof and raised the gun up in the air. He squeezed the trigger over and over, pushing out round after round at the underside of the helicopter, hoping—maybe even praying—that he’d hit the fuel tank.

The gunner swung the barrel around to aim at him.

Adam dove onto the roof and rolled, heard the helicopter engine whine over him, and wrapped his arms over his head.

Bullets hammered the roof around him.

Wind whipped at his clothes, and the scream of the rotors struggling filled the air. The chopper whined through the sky, plummeting fast, and hit the ground in a ball of fire. Followed by a boom that shook the whole building.

Adam rolled to his back and stared up at the stars. He’d died more than once before. Eventually, it would happen for the last time. “Not today, I guess.”

SEVEN

Undisclosed Location, Idaho

Noah hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders and stopped for a second. Four miles in, and he still had no idea how far it was to the house, but he was almost positive some kind of four-legged animal had been tracking him since he entered these woods. The thing was about fifty feet to his right. He couldn’t quite see it, hunkered down in the tall brush. But every time he moved, he would’ve sworn it moved with him.

The sun had set behind the horizon, darkening everything with the orange glow of twilight. In this part of the world, in the height of summer that put the time at close to ten. Hopefully, he’d make it to her house before it was midnight and he wound up stumbling through empty woods in the dark.

Noah glanced at the brush to his right. He didn’t want to run into a hungry animal.

He slid out the phone from his pocket. No signal.

The lane in front of him had to be an old fire road, and to her credit it was maintained. Brush had been cleared from the sides of the road, and the ground between the trees. A wildfire on one side would have a difficult, though not impossible, time jumping to the vegetation on the far side.

That left him walking on barren dirt pocked with gravel and rutted with potholes, wondering if the road would ever end. “Maybe that’s the point,” he muttered.

Great. Now he was talking to himself.