No matter. She's got something stronger than hollow points.

  Slapping at her pocket, Hammett removes the grenade. According to The Instructor, the transceiver has a diamond-hardened case, and is practically indestructible.

  Chandler, however, is not.

  She pulls the pin and throws it, fastball style, at her sister's head.

  # # #

  Fleming took a turn into the main lobby, leaving the Russian behind.

  She couldn't help wondering how Chandler was dealing with their dear sister. Right now, she'd give nearly anything to be able to get upstairs to help. When Hammett's men had started shooting, she hadn't been able to hear much over the earpiece. Now her pulse was beating so hard in her own ears, all she could make out was a loud explosion.

  She hoped to hell it was only gunfire.

  "Chandler? What's going on?" Her voice sounded shaky, even in her own ears.

  There was no answer.

  Fleming's arms felt weak, as if all the adrenaline was suddenly draining from her system. Her chest and legs hurt like hell. While the liquid armor she'd borrowed from Forsyth's body had stopped the Russian's rounds, they'd still left countless deep bruises in their wake and what felt like at least one cracked rib.

  Approaching one of the building's exits, she slowed the chair and took several shallow and painful breaths. If everything went to hell, as it indeed had, she and Chandler planned to meet at the Congress Hotel, but the thought of wheeling out the door and leaving her sister to face Hammett alone left her cold.

  But could she really help? She was injured, and while she normally wouldn't let that stop her, she had the extra problem of being out of ammunition.

  When they'd arrived, she'd had to stay on the ground floor because cops had closed off the restaurant and the express elevators leading to the top floors. Now those cops were dead. The elevators were accessible. And the bodies of Hammett's men were scattered around them.

  Hammett's armed men.

  A few of their weapons and a short elevator ride, and Fleming would be back in business.

  She turned away from the exit and headed back into the building.

  # # #

  Getting shot while slathered in the liquid body armor felt a lot like getting hit with a bat.

  Then, a moment later, the ball hit me as well.

  But it wasn't a ball. It was heavier and green and unmistakably a grenade.

  It cracked into my hip, then rolled a meter to my left on the black marble floor. My heart froze in my chest. I had no time to think, no time to get a safe distance away, so instead I crawled toward it. No time to even pick it up, I swatted it and covered my head as it rolled into the corner of the restaurant.

  The explosion was epic, impossibly loud and bright, the light blinding me even though I had my hands over my eyes.

  Then came the wind.

  I blinked away motes, and saw that the grenade had blown out two of the floor-to-ceiling picture windows. The wind was gale-force.

  I crawled away from it, not anxious to get sucked outside.

  Hammett, still on the stairs, had to grab the railing so the gust didn't knock her over. I dug into my bag, pulling out the spare Sig, and unloaded on her. It took a few shots before I was able to adjust to the crosswind, but then I began pegging her like a tin bunny in a shooting gallery.

  She dropped her gun, but the rounds didn't drop her, and I guessed she must have slathered herself with the body armor as well. So I went for the head shot.

  That's when she charged me.

  I tried to adjust, but I was dizzy and hurting, add the wind, and my shot went wide, and then Hammett was throwing a tackle, lifting me up off of the ground, driving me toward the broken window.

  # # #

  Victor pries two spikes from his foot. The hot ooze of blood soaks through his sock, and he curses the bitch and her tricked-out chair.

  She's long gone now, he's sure.

  He's not happy.

  He turns and hobbles back to the express elevators. Bodies litter the floor, blood pooling on light marble. Nikolai is still wailing, his leg dragging behind him as he tries to crawl.

  Victor doesn't feel like carrying him, but although he wants to put a bullet in the worthless man's brain, he resists, instead kicking him in the ribs. "Shut up and pick up your weapon," he says to the man in Russian. "Be ready."

  Dialing his wails down to whimpers, the man does as he's told.

  "When Hammett steps off those elevators, shoot her." Victor has had enough. He's going to collect his transceiver.

  He picks up an AR15 off Sergei and hits the up button. The chime sounds and the elevator door slides open. He steps on just as shots squeeze out from Nikolai's position.

  What the hell?

  He peers out in time to see the cripple roll in from the opposite direction. Nikolai is shooting, but she is not dying. She rolls past the open elevator, leans down and scoops the weapon from Peter's dead hands. She empties it into Nikolai.

  She has her back to him, either not yet aware he's there or confident her chair will protect her.

  He steps up behind her. Keeping his body out of range of whatever blade she might produce, he flings the assault rifle's shoulder strap over her head and yanks.

  Her head slams against the back of the chair.

  He keeps the pressure on. Once she stops struggling, he tips the chair forward and dumps her onto the floor.

  She lays limp on the marble.

  He levels his weapon on her, waiting for the slightest twitch.

  A cough shakes her body. She's still alive.

  His first inclination is to end her before she tries something else, but then he notices her earpiece.

  This one might be more useful alive.

  Victor hears a police radio crackle. Any second, the cops will be swarming the place.

  He drags the cripple over to the express elevators and hits the call button, summoning the lift.

  It's time for this debacle to end.

  # # #

  Hammett aches all over from being shot, and this little game has gone on long enough. The wind is howling and whistling, whipping through her hair. She body slams Chandler to the floor, pinning her down, and Chandler's gun bounces across the floor and out the window. Then Hammett reaches for her Spyderco knife, wanting nothing more in the world than to slit this bitch's throat, get the phone, and get the hell out of Dodge.

  Chandler grabs her wrist, trying to leverage Hammett away, and Hammett drops a knee onto her stomach, provoking a lovely grunt of pain.

  "Didn't you hear, Chandler?" she shouts above the wind, raising the blade up. "You're second best. I'm number one."

  "This... this is what you are," Chandler says, punching Hammett's knife-hand.

  Hammett almost laughs at the attempt, and then feels the spike of pain, accompanied by a roiling nausea. She looks at her hand, and sees Chandler has stabbed her with a piece of silverware.

  Chandler grins, her face manic. "You're forked."

  Then Hammett's nose explodes when it meets Chandler's fist.

  # # #

  Fleming wakes up to pain. Excruciating, unrelenting pain.

  It takes her back years, to waking up on the operating table, her shattered bones poking through her skin in so many places her legs looked like cacti. She screamed so hard her throat bled, screamed while the nurses scrambled to put her under, screamed even as she slipped into unconsciousness.

  This pain was similar. Except she wasn't in a hospital. She was in an elevator. And her legs weren't the cause of her agony. It was her finger.

  Her broken finger, that the Russian was twisting back and forth, pulling it and snapping it again, and again.

  Fleming tries to claw his face, his goddamn smiling eyes, but he easily slaps her hand away, twisting even harder, prompting the biggest scream of her life.

  # # #

  Hammett pushed herself away from me, and I rolled to all fours, taking a quick look over my shoulder at the howling Chicago skyline, less than two meters away.

  My stomach twisted into a vertigo knot, and then I scrambled after Hammett. She was staring at the fork in her hand as if it had magically appeared. Her nose was a mashed tomato, leaking down her chin.

  I bent down, reaching for my VORAX blade, when my head was pierced with the most horrible sound I'd ever heard. A scream, in my earpiece. So sharp and shrill that it drowned out the whooshing wind.

  Fleming.

  # # #

  Victor twisted the cripple's finger once more, grinning at the screams he provoked. Then he snatched the earpiece from her and shoved it into his own ear.

  "You hear that, Chandler? That's your sister. You couldn't save your dear Kaufmann, but I'll give you a chance to stop her pain."

  He twisted so hard he heard the knuckle pop out of place. The high-pitched keening probably woke up every dog in the building.

  "I want the transceiver, Chandler."

  # # #

  For a moment, I was unsure what to do. Fleming's cries cut me to the core, and suddenly I was back in that helpless place, watching Kaufmann break down, lose his humanity, knowing it was me who'd betrayed him. In that instant of inaction, Hammett pounced on me, throwing a reverse kick. I managed to catch it on my shoulder, bunching up my muscles. She followed with a knife thrust, and I managed to block that, too.

  Another scream threw off my concentration, and this time Hammett used a Muay Thai kick known as a Kradot thip—a jumping foot-thrust. It connected with my thigh, forcing me backward, backward toward the edge of the world.

  "Don’t give him shit!" Fleming cried out, followed by more shrieks of agony.

  I took a quick glance behind me, the night wind slapping my face, the ninety-five story drop so steep I couldn't see the ground.

  Hammett took two steps toward me. She'd yanked out the fork, and was slashing her knife in front of her, cutting the air. Not any martial arts move I was aware of, but terrifying nonetheless.

  I dug the cell phone out of my pocket and held it up. "Come closer and I throw it off the building."

  Hammett stopped, but her face morphed into a bloody sneer. "It will survive the fall."

  "Maybe. But how long do you think it will take to find? If ever?"

  I was liking the idea more and more. I never asked for this responsibility in the first place. I didn't want to be the President's back-up plan. I didn't want to have the fate of the world resting on me. Better to chuck the transceiver hard as I could, and hope it would be lost forever.

  The elevator chimed, first on the floor, then in my ear. Victor stepped out, dragging a still-crying Fleming across the floor by her hand.

  "Hold it," Hammett warned. "She's got the transceiver."

  Victor scowled at her. "I know, you ass. And look what I've got." He raised up Fleming, holding her like a prize fish.

  "Give me the phone, Chandler."

  "Don't do it," Fleming gasped.

  Victor kicked her, then dropped her to the floor and stepped on her neck. He unslung the AR15 around his chest and pointed it at Fleming's head. "The phone! Or she dies."

  Fleming's eyes found mine. I saw fear there. But also resolve. She was willing to die so the transceiver is safe.

  I should be the same way.

  I need to think of the greater good.

  These maniacs can't have access to nuclear weapons.

  I have to throw the phone away.

  I have no other choice.

  They're going to kill Fleming anyway. Fleming, and me.

  The world is more important than we are.

  But I couldn't drop the phone.

  I'd only known Fleming as Fleming for a short time, but I'd known her as Jacob for years.

  I couldn't watch her die. I couldn't watch anyone else I cared about die. Never, ever again.

  "Let her go," I said, with more bravery than I felt. "Or I'll drop it."

  Hammett began to creep closer to me. I took a step back, my heels on the window pane. For a millisecond I wondered if I should just keep going, plummet to my death with the phone. Then I wouldn't have to watch Fleming die, and this worst day of my life would be over.

  But my tank still had a bit of hope in it. And where there's hope, there's always a way.

  "Here's how it will work," I said, staring at Hammett. "You let Fleming go and throw me your gun, and I'll throw you the phone. Or I chuck it out the window. Am I bluffing, Hammett? Do you see anything on my face that indicates I'm lying?"

  Hammett narrowed her eyes. "She's telling the truth."

  "I will drop it, Victor. And you can spend a few months combing the entire block looking for it. That is, if someone doesn't pick it up and take it home."

  "Do it," Hammett said.

  Scowling, Victor released Fleming, then tossed his gun my way. It didn't reach me, coming to rest on the carpet two meters from my feet.

  True to my word, I tossed him the phone.

  Hard.

  Real fucking hard.

  Victor did what anyone would have done. He ducked.

  Hammett and I both went for the gun at the same time. She reached it first, but I was ready with a punt to the head. She bunched up, and I connected with her shoulder, then drove an elbow down on the back of her neck.

  "Broken!" Victor yelled. "The phone is broken!"

  It was broken because that was the trac phone Fleming had given me. The transceiver was still in my backpack. As Hammett ate the ground, I got a hand around the sling of the MP9, tugging as hard as I could even as she grasped the butt of the weapon. I saw Fleming crawling toward us on her elbows, her face a stone mask of determination, and then Victor was on me, hands around my throat, his eyes bulging with rage.

  He tugged me off of Hammett, and pushed me back, back, toward the broken window.

  Gunfire, behind Victor. Five or six shots.

  Oh... no...

  Although I was getting strangled and about to be thrown off the building, I strained to see what happened, blinking away the encroaching darkness.

  No... no...

  Hammett was standing over Fleming, the barrel of the MP9 smoking, Fleming still trying to slink away, leaving a thick streak of blood across the floor.

  "Don't drop her, you idiot!" Hammett called. "The transceiver is in her backpack!"

  Victor reached one hand down for the bag, and I raked my fingernails across his eyes, then tried to kick him in the crotch. He pushed me back further. My feet were hanging in open air. I was going over the side of the building.

  He released my throat and I fell off the 95th floor and into open space.

  I had a moment of pure, animal terror, rivaling drowning, then I jerked to a stop and slammed into the side of the building. Pain yanked through my bad shoulder. My elbow was hooked around one of my rucksack's straps, and Victor held the other.

  Legs kicking, feet scrambling to find purchase, I reached for Victor with my free hand, stretching to grab his arm or shirt. He swatted my attempt away and tugged down the zipper.

  The stun gun began to slip out of the opening, then tumbled toward me.

  I reached for it...

  ...missed.

  Victor dug around. He pulled his hand out, the transceiver clutched in his fist. He gazed down at me, his eyes glinting.

  "See you at the bottom."

  Then he let go of the strap.

  # # #

  It was over.

  Fleming was unarmed and outnumbered, and even if she’d had healthy legs before they certainly weren't healthy now. She hadn’t smeared liquid body armor on the backs of her legs, since they were already protected by her chair, and Hammett had shot them full of holes. Then Fleming had watched Chandler—poor, dear, heroic Chandler—fall out the window and felt something inside of her die.

  "Hello, Fleming," Hammett said, gazing down at her. "Apparently you survived that fall in Milan. My my my, how pathetic your life must be."

  Hammett nudged Fleming's legs, and she set her jaw to avoid crying out.

  "Don't worry," Hammett said. "We're not going to kill you yet. We have one more use for you first." She turned to look at Victor, who had walked over.

  "It wasn't working out between me and Chandler," he said. "So I had to drop her."

  Victor eyed the MP9 dubiously, but Hammett was wiping it down with her shirttails, then tossed it off to the side. "We carry her down in the elevator. If the police stop us, we're taking a wounded woman to an ambulance."

  "What if she talks?" Victor asked.

  "She won't talk," Hammett said.

  Fleming saw Hammett's boot come down, and then everything went blessedly black.

  "You shouldn't fear the inevitable," The Instructor said. "And it is inevitable that one day you'll die."

  For the second time that day I was falling off a building into open air. But the Hancock Center was a lot taller than my apartment, and I was in much better shape earlier.

  Panic making it impossible to breathe, I hugged the rucksack to my chest like a teddy bear. Cold wind beat my face, my body. My fall felt slow, painfully slow, each fraction of a second stretching out into hellish, terrifying infinity. Tears streamed from my eyes and I saw nothing but a swirling mosaic of darkness and light.

  Then something skimmed past my leg.

  I didn't think, just grabbed it.

  Fire seared my palm.

  A cable! A goddamn life line!

  The window washers.

  An image flashed through my mind, earlier in the day, searching for a place to hide the phone, noticing the cables outside the restaurant windows, the ones that lowered the window washers' suspended scaffold.

  I couldn't hold on—I was falling too fast—but I felt the cable or rope or whatever it was still whizzing by, still near. Thoughts blasted through my brain like machine gun fire:

  Can't grab the scaffold—can't hold on—hit it square and I'm dead—thrust an arm through the rucksack strap—push it tight over my shoulder—one shot, just one shot at this—might rip my arm out of the socket—gotta try—scaffold rushing up at me—the whole city beneath my feet—dizzying height—stretching—reaching out with the other strap—timing it just right—even with the scaffold—streaking past—looping the strap around the corner winch bracket—