Then the building’s fire alarm sounded.
The sound of an explosion came from outside, resulting in another shaking of the building. A plume of dark smoke rolled upward past the exterior windows.
“You’re fuckin’ kidding!” Foster demanded with an incredulous expression as his phone’s handset was practically plastered to his ear.
A strange, high-pitched electronic alarm pierced the air in conjunction with the fire alarm.
“Our building’s under attack!” Foster exclaimed as he slammed the handset back onto its base.
An FBI office building was under attack? The very idea seemed foreign to me.
“What? By whom?” Tevin demanded.
“Everybody, vests and heavy arms, now!” Denton ordered.
As everyone, including Sanders, scrambled toward a nearby line of reinforced cabinets, I rushed over to the windows to search below for what was taking place.
All I could see were people scrambling about as black smoke and flames poured from both the building and a couple of crumpled vehicles that were overturned. I also heard people screaming.
The door to the office slammed open.
“Hurry up, you guys!” called a security guard who’d already drawn his pistol.
Deputy Director Tevin and agents Denton, Foster, and Collins, all wearing vests and carrying heavy weapons, squeezed past the young man as he held the door open.
“What’s going on downstairs?” I demanded as Sanders pressed a bulletproof vest into my hands.
The young rent-a-cop, who looked barely old enough to even own a gun, appeared wide-eyed with shock.
“S-some…guy…just threw a bus into our lobby!” he stammered before running down the hallway to catch up with the agents.
Chapter 21
“Threw a bus?” I demanded while shrugging into my protective vest.
Sanders glared at me. “Hurry up, Bringer, we’ve gotta’ get down there!”
She sped across the office toward the door with a shotgun cradled in her arms as I followed closely at her heels while buckling my vest into place.
My thoughts were jumbled as we blindly rushed down the hallway toward the nearby stairwell.
This is turning out to be another one of those days.
Then my mind settled into the mode I’d become accustomed to lately—the mindset of the combat zone.
You rarely knew exactly what you were stepping into; you just had to quickly assess your circumstances and react based upon your training.
Only, I didn’t have any training for what I might be facing, though I tried not to think about that.
As we descended the stairs, I managed to take one deep breath just before Sanders and I barreled through the door and into the lobby.
We were greeted with a loud crashing sound from the front of the building followed by a small car sailing through the air toward us.
I grabbed Sanders by the arm and propelled us both to one side onto the tile floor. I formed my shield just as the hood of the car impacted the tile, casting shards of glass and other shrapnel around and against us.
“Find cover!” I shouted, then launched into a dead run through what had become a debris-strewn lobby.
Smoke filled the formerly stately-looking lobby as a small fire burned against a nearby wall. A large metropolitan bus lay on its side, and I heard shouts and screams from inside as fire-rescue attempted to extricate them.
Police, security guards, and civilians alike crouched in place behind furniture and decorative rock support columns, each person’s face reflecting a mix of horror and disbelief.
“Get these people out of here!” I shouted, dodging mangled debris and obstructions as I headed to the lobby entrance.
Sporadic gunfire sounded, closely followed by the sounds of ricochets and muted impacts.
The building’s entrance was a series of large, jagged rends and holes where vehicles had been cast either against the building or through the pane glass front façade.
“Our rounds are bouncing off!” a nearby police officer yelled into his radio as he crouched behind an upended patrol car.
Bouncing off?
Trucks and cars were overturned and burning, and black clouds of smoke billowed into the air around me.
Agents Foster and Collins simultaneously fired shotguns toward the main street as my eyes focused on their target.
A man of medium height and average build stared back at me with a sneer as bullets suspended before him in midair.
“Bringer,” he said. “So, you finally came to play.”
His broken English was accompanied by what sounded like an Eastern European accent.
Not that I was a linguistics major.
Then he chuckled, and projectiles quickly whistled downrange at me and against my shield, only to ricochet in other directions.
“Feel free to intervene anytime, Bringer!” Agent Denton shouted from behind the safety of a concrete barricade as he rammed a fresh magazine into his automatic rifle.
I realized I needed to shut the guy down, but based upon the carnage around me, I felt as if I was in way over my head.
“Who are you?” I demanded, stalling for time, as I tried to determine how best to handle the situation. “And how do you know me?”
His contorted facial expression gave him a sinister appearance.
“My name doesn’t matter,” he said with a glance over his shoulder at a nearby construction area. “And neither do you.”
The guy never even moved as a cement mixer truck parked not far away flew into the air and barrel-rolled in my direction, sloshing mixed cement in all directions as people screamed or shouted around me struggling vainly to extricate themselves from the area.
I barely managed to fling my body out of the landing zone before the vehicle crashed against the building and crushed an upturned police car that I’d been standing next to.
Shards of pane glass mixed with a hail of building façade exploded behind me, showering the area with additional debris. An entire section of the second floor gaped open to the outside world.
More gunfire erupted around me from multiple directions as the sounds of approaching sirens filled the air. Agent Sanders appeared beside me, crouching behind a concrete barrier.
“Can you stop him?” she asked.
I didn’t have a freaking clue.
“Get everybody outta’ here, fast!” I shouted.
She nodded, but the look in her eyes told me that she wasn’t feeling hopeful, either.
A number of additional police cars and a tactical vehicle stopped just down the street from the immediate war zone. As the newly arrived reinforcements confronted our miniature Godzilla, I moved further away from the building and around burning vehicles to get closer to my target.
I conjured a burning ball of flame in my palm.
His sharp look in my direction indicated that I’d hardly left his radar, and his eyes immediately focused on the fireball.
As fresh gunfire erupted from the tactical team, a nearby construction crane abruptly shifted from its secured position, arcing into the air toward the line of authorities. Bodies flew in all directions in a desperate attempt to avoid being crushed.
The crane flattened two patrol cruisers and nearly demolished the tactical team’s vehicle.
I launched my fireball at him, but he deflected it to the street beside him as if he’d smacked aside a lit matchstick.
That was a bad sign; very bad.
A child’s wails caught my attention and I looked to my left to see a young boy of no more than four fleeing from behind a nearby car for the safety of a bakery shop.
“Kyle!” screamed a woman who darted from behind a hiding place to pursue the child.
The rogue attacker barely cast a look in their direction before a power pole snapped in half, dropping toward them.
I extended my arms toward the woman and child, desperately trying to force my protective shielding in their direction. Yet, instead of blocking the impact of the pole, at least I managed to use my shield to push them out of harm’s way.
The momentary distraction was nearly fatal for me as a sports car flew at me from my blind spot. In the last second before impact, my shield reformed before me.
My body was thrown twenty feet or more by the force of the vehicle’s impact. Only my involuntary roll on the asphalt prevented me from being crushed as the car rolled over me to crash against the brick façade of the building behind me.
Shrapnel of brick shards and glass pelted my shield as I struggled to force air back into my lungs.
I was sorely pissed over feeling horribly unprepared and ill-equipped to confront my opponent.
Additional gunfire momentarily erupted but was muted following subsequent crashing sounds and screams.
This has to stop now!
Ignoring the aching in my body, I regained my feet and formed a fireball in each hand while seeking my target.
“So, you are a fire man!” quipped our attacker.
A helicopter roared overhead, and a sniper took multiple shots at the man from the chopper’s open side door.
The rounds harmlessly ricocheted away from him.
I launched both of my fireballs at him, to which he appeared momentarily surprised by the pair of them.
Nevertheless, he cast them aside; one erupting against a dump truck as the other one bounced across the asphalt to extinguish with a flash against a concrete curb.
A whistling sound pierced the air and I looked up to see a streak of smoke intercept the police helicopter. It burst into flames, plummeting in my direction.
Angling my shield upward, I retreated from beneath the chopper’s impending crash zone. A man’s flaming body hit the ground just before the helicopter made a metallic crunching sound against the pavement.
I maneuvered closer to the cockpit but quickly determined that both pilots were scorched and lifeless.
Gunfire erupted from remaining members of the tactical team at the roof of a building where the former smoke trail had originated from.
This guy has a fire support team?
“We’re done playing now!” the man yelled in his clipped accent.
An invisible force punched against my shield, knocking me to the ground, and I felt as if my head had just been pummeled by a boxer’s fist.
The man advanced toward me.
Another helicopter appeared overhead, and the guy barely spared a glance up at it. A second later, the chopper seemed to waver in midair as its engine groaned under some invisible strain.
I tried regaining my feet as I watched the helicopter change from hovering to falling. The man regarded me with a self-satisfied expression as the chopper careened toward me.
Once again, my shield formed as I hastily managed to stagger away from the crash zone at the last second.
The helicopter landed on its side with a metallic crunch as one side of its primary blade tore into the pavement and broke into dangerous fragments. The pieces shot in all directions, including many shards that impacted my own shield.
A nearby police officer was hit by debris, and he fell to the ground making desperate gurgling sounds.
My opponent shifted closer to the downed helicopter as yet another invisible force impacted my shield, knocking me to the ground.
I hastily envisioned an invisible sphere and cast it toward him, but he merely chuckled as it bounced against the helicopter, shifting the downed hulk slightly.
“Amateur,” he chastised. “My time is wasted here.”
My thoughts were awash with a bitter sense of futility when inspiration struck.
I sought a pile of iron rebar from the nearby street construction area, reaching out to them with my senses.
I desperately drew them back toward me, hoping to catch the backside of my opponent.
Unfortunately, his shield encircled him, and the rebar either bounced against him or impacted the chopper’s metal underbelly.
That appeared to amuse him.
“You are like pitiful child,” he teased.
A series of gunshots sounded and I saw the rounds halt before the man’s face. He sneered and instantly cast them back in the opposite direction.
A series of muted grunts and shrieks sounded from behind me; the sounds of further suffering.
I was out of ideas.
I’m not strong enough.
“Our visit is done here.” The man concluded. “Too bad.”
I was also out of time.
The smell of jet fuel assailed my nose as the man raised his arms for the first time, pointing them in my direction. Despite my shield, I felt my breath being slowly squeezed from my body.
My head pounded from the strain of maintaining my shield as I tried to breathe while nearly choking on nearby fumes.
Fumes!
My eyes focused upon the wet pavement beside the helicopter as fuel trickled from the chopper’s fuselage where metal rebar had pierced it.
I sneered at the man, who frowned at me in a puzzled fashion.