Red Zone (Red Zone 1)

“Yeah.” Striker took Friday’s hand. “Stay low. Run fast. Keep to my side no matter what happens. Got it?”

“Got it.” Her voice was shaky. She’d never felt more useless in her life.

He looked over her shoulder at his teammate, his friend. “Now!”

Mace pointed his gun over the fountain and started firing. Striker was on his feet in a second, running fast, dragging her along behind him. They jumped over debris and dodged fallen masonry. The air was thick with smoke, making it hard to see. Striker fired into the smoke with one hand while propelling her forward with the other. He was fast, nimble. She was slowing him down.

They ran behind the truck. Two dead men lay among the rubble. One had lost part of his face from a laser blast.

“Don’t look,” he ordered.

But she couldn’t help looking. He’d been somebody’s brother, father, son, and now he was gone. Brutally gone.

“They deserved it. It was them or us.” He blasted the lock on the secure parking area under the apartments.

With one mighty kick from him, the door swung open. He rushed her inside. It wasn’t the biggest of buildings, and there weren’t a lot of vehicles to choose from. Plus, most of the cars were controlled by biolocks to ensure no one could steal them. Without having the same DNA as the owner, it would be impossible to take one.

“There.” He pointed to the far corner, where a family vehicle was stationed. The car was big, bulky, and obviously designed to seat a lot of people. It also had a biolock.

“It’s got a biolock. They all have.” This was hopeless.

“This model has a bypass mechanism.” He thrust the gun at her. “Aim for the door. Shoot anything that comes in.”

“What if it’s Mace?”

“He’ll forgive you.”

He lay on his back and shimmied under the vehicle. Friday kept her eyes on the door as fighting from the street echoed around the cavernous area.

“Don’t fire!” The shout came before the door slammed open. “It’s me.”

She fired. It was a reaction she couldn’t stop. The laser blast hit the wall about three feet to the left of Mace’s head. He paused mid-run to look back at the black hole in the concrete.

“It’s a good job your aim is garbage,” he said as he jogged over to them. “I shouted don’t fire.”

“Yes, but if I were the enemy, I’d shout ‘don’t fire’ before I came in, too.”

He glared at her. “I shouted that it was me.”

“Maybe you should have shouted your actual name, and I wouldn’t have fired.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You sure you didn’t know it was me and decide to fire, anyway?”

“Yes, you oversize idiot, I wanted to shoot one of the two men protecting me from a team of assassins.”

“Done.” Striker came out from under the vehicle. “Get in. Argue later.”

She climbed into the back seat, while Mace took the front passenger seat. Striker started the car and aimed for the garage entrance, knowing the door would open automatically.

They shot through the open doorway. And as soon as they were outside, another car slammed into their side. The door beside Friday was yanked open. Large arms grabbed her and pulled her from the car.

“Striker!” she screamed.

“No!” came the answering roar.

The driver’s door on their car was wedged shut by the vehicle that hit them. Laser blasts shot through the air around them, pinning both Striker and Mace in place. There was cursing. She was thrown into the back of a vehicle.

“I’m coming for you!” Striker?