"Stay to the wall," Brandt instructed Rebecca, then put his rifle over the guard rail and fired. That should keep them a bay for a few minutes.
They only had eight more floors to climb. Make that seven, as they passed the third floor landing. Prenner was a climber, that was for sure. He could see why Svengurd was smitten.
Rebecca, bless her heart, was keeping up. She was flushed and practically panting, but not complaining a bit. They had passed by the fourth floor landing when the sound of a door being broken open came from above them. Those were no evacuees.
Especially not as a grenade came tumbling down the steps. Prenner shot it, exploding the small bomb before it could get much closer. Another grenade came at them, faster this time. Prenner turned his rifle and hit the thing like a baseball, knocking it into the open space of the stairwell, where if fell several flights, exploding at the level of their pursuers.
How convenient.
The men above must have realized that grenades weren't a whole lot of use. That's when the firefight started.
Brandt groaned. This was going to be a stair-by-stair fight, gutting it out for every step until they could take the landing above them.
"May I take radical action?" Prenner asked, above the shout of gunshots.
"If it gets us out of this, yes," Brandt agreed.
Prenner took a wad of C-4, balled it up, stuck a detonator in it, and then reared back like a major league pitcher and threw the thing up the stairs to the landing above. The guy must have played baseball, because it landed and stuck to the wall right in the strike zone. The point man put his finger over the red button and pushed it.
The wall exploded above them, knocking the enemy down. One fell over the railing, screaming all the way down until he hit the floor, silencing him completely.
If that didn't say to the enemy "don't fuck with us," nothing else would. The door on the level above opened and footsteps ran from the landing. Glad the hired guns got the message loud and clear.
They made their way up to the next floor. Brandt jerked open the door to find the gunmen fleeing. He didn't take the shot. They were probably just ordinary guys looking for security work at an office building. They hadn't signed on for the religious war the Disciples had started.
Rebecca's lungs screamed their complaint, but she didn't slow. They were so close to being out of here. They were on the ninth floor, and they just had one more floor to go. Then the building groaned in a way that a building should never groan. It felt pained, as if the building was injured.
"Oh shit," Stark said in her ear.
"Oh shit, what?" Brandt demanded.
Bunny jumped in, "It looks like they have a self-destruct fail-safe. They just blew the four corners of the building's foundation."
Rebecca put her hand on the railing as the building listed to the right. She would have gone over it if it hadn't been for Brandt's hold on her. Then they were going down.
"Climb!" Brandt yelled.
The walls swayed in front of them as the guardrail snapped in half. They raced up the stairwell while it was still a stairwell.
"Lopez better be there," Brandt rumbled.
"Oh, he's there alright," Bunny said, although Rebecca wasn't quite sure what she meant.
They made it to the roof's landing when an entire wall tumbled down. Brandt shoved Rebecca out of the way as it crashed against the steps. Rebar stuck out like the Disciples' daggers. He was helping her climb over them when a section of roof collapsed right on top of him.
Brandt screamed. Brandt screamed. She'd seen him shot, stabbed, and he'd never let out a peep. What the hell had happened that he screamed?
His lower half was covered in rubble.
"Go on," he said.
"Yeah, right," Rebecca said. "Prenner!"
The point man hurried back, helping her lift the rubble as the building shook and swayed around them. They could see sky above them. Screw the roof, they were the roof now.
Finally, they got a slab of wall off of Brandt's legs. One foot was pointed in the wrong direction. No wonder he'd cried out.
He tried to rise, but his right knee buckled under him. Rebecca threw his arm over her shoulder. Prenner did the same, pulling Brandt up to his feet.
The door seemed a long way off, though. Then she heard something above her.
"Get in!" Lopez yelled.
He was in some kind of man-powered, well, "flight apparatus" was the closest thing she could call it. Lopez was pedaling like mad as the wings flapped up and down.
"What the fuck?" Brandt said.
"It's Bangkok," Lopez reminded them. "Roll with it."
Rebecca tried to help Brandt into the seat next to Lopez.
"What's wrong?" Lopez asked.
"His knee is blown."
"Well, we need someone who can pedal," Lopez informed her.
Prenner hopped in beside him and started pedaling.
"Grab hold!" Lopez yelled as the building beneath them collapsed inward.
Nearly blinded in pain, Brandt grabbed a hold of the strut, as the floor was no longer the floor. The building was gone. Just gone. Rebecca was dangling next to him. He really needed to take her on a real honeymoon.
Despite both Lopez and Prenner pedaling a hundred miles a minute, they were losing altitude. Then the plume of smoke hit, giving them a little air under their wings. They sailed out over Bangkok. They sailed over the police at the front door. They tried to shoot, but Davidson backed them off. When the police got into their cars to give chase, they found that Davidson had shot out their tires.
On their own, they flew over the streets of Bangkok. And no one noticed. Really? A two-man, bike-propelled flying apparatus with two people dangling from the struts, and barely anyone looked up, and if they did, they simply looked back down. No craning of necks or pointing of fingers.
This really was Bangkok.
Losing altitude, they coasted toward the airport. Brandt seriously doubted they had clearance, but given their "apparatus," he doubted they needed it.
Soon, their feet were barely above the tarmac.
"I'm going to try to land us," Lopez said. "But you might want to be ready to run."
Brandt didn't think he could run, even if he tried. After all the missions, he was taken down by a knee injury. It was just dumb.
Rebecca dropped off first. Bracing for the pain, Brandt let go, as well. His knee, which had always behaved before, just couldn't hold him up. Crumpling to the tarmac, Brandt cringed. Rebecca rushed over.
"Don't move it," she insisted, dropping down beside him.
They watched the "flying apparatus" bounce once on its wheels, then roll onto the tarmac. Still peddling, Lopez brought the "apparatus" around to them.
"Was that so steampunk, or what?" he said, grinning ear to ear.
Brandt wasn't even sure what that was, but he nodded. It had worked, and that was all Brandt cared about.
Lopez hopped out. "Okay, I am going to find something that isn't leg powered and get us out of Thailand."
Brandt liked that idea best. Stark shoved the flash drive they had collected into the small tablet he was carrying. "Sending now."
"Got it," Bunny said. "And yes, these are the Disciples' records. We should be able to track down their safe houses with this information."
Gingerly trying to rise, that news made the injury worth it. If Rebecca and he ever hoped to have a "normal" life, the Disciples had to be taken down.
Forever.
EPILOGUE.
Rebecca walked down the tidy hallway of the Camp Zama US Army hospital in Japan. Lopez had flown them here from Thailand, since it was the closest military hospital in the area. Levont was already in surgery for his broken leg, and Brandt should have the results back soon from the MRI of his knee.
In her hands, she carried a gift for him. Not stupid balloons, or even candy. Nope, she brought him beef jerky. And not that wimpy, sweet Teriyaki jerky, either. Nope, this was heavily peppered. Nice and hot jerky, just like he liked it.
She knew how worried he was about the injury. And if peppered jerky couldn't cheer him up, nothing else could, except possibly her news.
Rebecca walked into Brandt's room to find him lying back, with his swollen knee propped up. Between the brace, you could see the damage. Black and blue didn't even begin to describe it. There were purples and yellows and greens. The entire color spectrum was represented in his flesh. She had known it was bad given how ginger he was on that leg, but she hadn't known it was that bad. No wonder he was so worried about when he could return to the team.
"Here ya go," she said, tossing the jerky to him.
He caught it mid-air with a grin. "Peppered, right?"
"Yes, He-Man, peppered," Rebecca said, then turned to a more serious topic. "Get the results back?"
Brandt shrugged, which was never good. It was like his shoulders were trying to shuffle away the bad news. "Blown ACL with a meniscal tear. A few surgeries and physical therapy and I should be as good as new."
She doubted that. Football players seldom recovered from an injury that severe, and they weren't throwing around grenades and such.
"Stupid, isn't it?" Brandt asked.
"What?"
"Levont is tortured for two weeks and will be out in the field in 6 weeks. I'll be lucky to be back in 6 months."
She walked up to his bedside and took his hand. "About that."
"Oh, I don't like this already."
"Bunny says that there is a position open with Homeland Security in San Francisco." Brandt went to speak, but she put a finger over his lips. "Before you say 'no,' feel this." She put his hand over her abdomen.
"Is it that weird gas thing you've been having?"
"No!" Rebecca smacked him in the arm. "I know that I'm not showing as much as Maria, but..."
Brandt's hand slid over her belly. "You mean... you mean you're pregnant?"
Looking into his eyes, she nodded. "Yes."
He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her from the floor. Then he tried to spin her around, but his knee wasn't quite up to the task, and they fell back onto the bed. "San Francisco it is!"
They kissed until the door burst open and Lopez, Davidson, and Prenner walked in.
"Did I hear 'pregnant'?" Lopez asked.
"Yes, you did," Rebecca replied.
"I thought you had a certain glow," Davidson said, giving her a hug.
"Congratulations," Prenner offered, as well.
"And we're sure it's Brandt's this time, right?" Lopez joked.
Rebecca punched him in the arm. "Yes!"
"Too soon?" Lopez asked with a broad grin.
"Forever plus a day would be too soon," Rebecca countered, given the fact that Lopez had allowed Brandt to marry another woman when the baby had, in fact, been the corporal's.
But all of that angst and torment was over. She and Brandt were married and about to start their family. The only slight twinge of regret was Vakasa, the little girl who had sacrificed herself to save Rebecca. She knew that Vakasa would have loved to have had a little brother or sister.
Rebecca put her hand to her belly, thinking of the life growing inside. No matter a boy or a girl, the child would be named Vakasa.
"Hey, is that beef jerky?" Lopez asked.
The magical moment was shattered by the men tearing open the bag and digging in like a bunch of Neanderthals.
Over the men, her eyes met Brandt's. With a smile, he laughed. "At least we're ready for kids."