Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

the sedan and leapt into a low crouch. He caught a glimpse of the looming building across the intersection, but all he could make out were multiple rows of dozens of windows framed by granite façades. To make matters worse, King still had both submachine guns. They’d take Slater’s head off before he could even attempt to return fire with his Glock, and that didn’t even take the second shooter into consideration.

For all he knew, there could be five shooters with their sights trained on him.

Retreat.

His brain spoke the command, and his body answered. He ran flat out through the maze of cars, weaving left and right like an NFL linebacker, anticipating a gunshot at any moment. Spending most of his adult life in combat had helped develop his sixth sense, and he used it now to throw himself down at just the right moment. He figured a shot would follow soon after, and—

Two separate rounds impacted the vehicles around him.

One louder than the other.

.50 calibre, versus a standard round.

Dead ahead, resting diagonally across the intersection from the old bank building, was a residential apartment complex. It was a chic establishment, new and stylish, with lots of glass and lots of new brick carefully curated to seem rustic and faded. It was huge, too — he figured there must be at least two hundred apartments within. Not one of them was glowing with artificial light. In his peripheral vision he spotted faint candlelight in some of the windows, but overall the building was just as invisible as the rest of Manhattan.

Most importantly, it had a manual revolving door set beside the electronic doors.

Slater couldn’t see a thing inside the lobby.

It was as close to a safe haven as he was going to get.

He made a beeline for it, keeping as low as possible, moving as fast as possible.

Another enormous bang sounded across the street, but he didn’t feel any displaced air, and all his limbs stayed intact.

So the bullet had gone wide.

Heart in his throat, he sprinted over the sidewalk and leapt into the open partition of the revolving door.

Momentary terror seized him. What if it’s locked in place?

If the doors didn’t move against his resistance, he’d be trapped in a glass box.

A sitting duck to a trained marksman.

He threw his weight into the sturdy glass, hoping, praying, silently pleading.

It rotated instantly.

He pushed it harder until it was spinning faster than it was designed to, which got him to the other side in a couple of seconds maximum.

He dived into the empty lobby and threw himself to the cold tiles on his belly.

The momentum carried him, and he slid a dozen feet into the space. One of the glass panes in the revolving door shattered behind him, accompanied by the distant reverberation of another report. Slater’s blood ran cold as he slid, and when the skid petered out he leapt up and ran for his life, toward the abandoned reception desk. He vaulted over it, came down in an ungodly heap on the other side, and lay on his back panting for breath.

Still clutching his Glock 22 in a palm slick with sweat.

Safe.

Just.

42

Click.

She was through.

Violetta sat bolt upright in her chair. She normally maintained a respectable posture in front of the people who worked for her, but fatigue and frustration got to everyone after long enough. She’d been halfway slouched in the seatback, her glassy gaze fixed on the room, her ears prickling in the tense atmosphere. Her men were exhausted, jacked up on copious amounts of caffeine and more obscure stimulants to keep their pulses going long after their bodies were screaming for sleep. They seemed unimportant in comparison to the hard and uncompromising auras of her field operatives like King and Slater, but they were equally as important, if not more so. This was the new world, and most of the new world took place within computers and digital clouds.

But even they hadn’t managed to make a dent in this chaotic situation.

Now, though, reinvigoration flowed through her as someone finally patched her through.

After endless waiting and countless attempts, she’d managed to get a hold of Detective First Grade Jim Riordan.

Infamous for supposedly being the toughest, meanest son-of-a-bitch in the NYPD.

That’s who she needed right now.

She had connected to him via digitally encrypted radio, and she pressed her satellite phone to her ear. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Someone at One Police gave me a vague description,’ he said. ‘I think I get the idea.’

1 Police Plaza, she thought. NYPD’s headquarters on Park Row.

She thought about it.

Figured someone there would be privy to her team’s presence in Manhattan.

Shrugged and continued.

She said, ‘Do you understand I’ve been granted full control over any cop I can get a hold of?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They told me that in the same breath they said who you were.’

She paused. ‘You okay with that?’

‘I have to do what I’m told, don’t I?’

‘You understand what’s at stake here?’

Riordan grunted an affirmation.

Violetta said, ‘You got a problem with someone you don’t know telling you what to do, Detective Riordan?’

‘No, ma’am,’ he said, but his voice betrayed the truth.

She said, ‘Is it because I’m a woman?’

He scoffed. ‘You think a lot of yourself, lady.’

‘How about we cut the shit?’ Violetta said. ‘Tell me what’s really on your mind. I can handle it.’

‘I’m on the phone with you when there’s people who need help. Does that answer your question?’

‘In thirty-six hours there’s going to be a million more people who need your help, and that’s not an exaggeration. You can’t get to everyone. You need to prioritise.’

‘And what is it exactly you want me to do?’

‘I take it I can rely on your discretion.’

‘Stop talking fancy and just tell me what you need. Then I’ll see how I feel about it.’

‘There’s an address in the Bowery. Write it down.’ She fed it to him, and faintly heard him scrawling it on a piece of paper. ‘That address is the key to cutting all of this short. The intelligence