Danger Close by James Sumner (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

our people. If they voice their support for the changes Herrera wanted to make, it could turn the tide among the rest of the country. Perhaps it can keep the peace on the streets a little while longer. It will give us time to come to a diplomatic resolution with General Guerrero.”

Jericho raised an eyebrow. “You definitely missed your calling, Colonel.”

The office door opened and Montez appeared. He seemed out of breath. His cheeks were colored, and his demeanor was flustered.

“Well?” asked Ramirez.

Just as Montez opened his mouth to speak, Jericho’s phone began ringing in his pocket. He quickly took it out and looked at the screen. When he saw who was calling, he excused himself and paced away along the corridor. Alone, he answered.

“Julie, hey. How’s it going?”

“Yeah, fine,” she said, tersely. “Listen, we—ah, damn it! Do you mind?”

“Are you all right?”

She sighed. “Sorry. The EMT keeps dabbing an open wound with something that smells like bleach, and it’s off-putting.”

“What? What’s happened? Are you okay? Talk to me.”

“Relax, I’m fine. Just… okay, I’ll bullet-point it for you. It’s a long story. We know who the shooter is. Her name, anyway.”

“You what?” He paced back and forth, shocked. “How?”

“That’s the long story. Ray’s hunch about the contact in Brooklyn played out. Well, kinda. Not exactly, really. But it inadvertently led us to the shooter, so it’s fine. Except she managed to escape. Twice.”

“Okay, Julie, you’re not making any sense.”

She sighed again. “Sorry. Ray and I are a little banged up. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. But going after her took it out of us.”

“Took it out of you? Both of you? I don’t understand. Are you saying he fought his way free?”

“No, I’m saying she did. The shooter’s a woman named Jay. We don’t know who she is or who she works for. Or even where she disappeared to. We just have the name.”

“How do you know she’s the shooter?”

“She admitted it to Ray after he slept with her.”

Jericho stopped pacing and closed his eyes for a moment. “Of course, he did.”

“It’s the craziest goddamn piece of bad good luck I’ve ever seen, but that’s where we are. So, we know that after she left Paluga, she traveled to Brooklyn and took out Ray’s old contact. Then she tried to take out Ray. Sounds like she knew who he was from the get-go. You know I won’t ever defend his exploits, Jericho, but he was played. It almost cost him his life.”

“Shit.” Jericho rubbed his temples. “How is he?”

“He caught more damage than I did in the fight. She went toe-to-toe with us both and got away. She also killed our two-man escort.”

Jericho frowned. He’d heard concern in Julie’s voice plenty of times before. But this was different. This almost sounded like fear.

“Julie, are… are you okay?”

“I said I’m fine, Jericho,” she snapped.

He took a patient breath. “Hey, Julie… this is me, okay? It’s me. Are you all right?”

There was a long silence on the line. Jericho simply waited.

“She’s a level of dangerous I’ve never seen before,” said Julie eventually. “I wasn’t prepared for how violent she was. How… wild. You should’ve seen her, Jericho. She was practically feral.”

He nodded. “Hey, it’s okay. You were caught off-guard. It happens. We’ll get her next time.”

“Is this it now? Have things gotten so out of control that we’re fighting people this… demonic? Are we in over our heads here? Buchanan’s got his back against the wall in Washington. He’s on his own, no lawyers, no nothing. You’re stuck overseas in a political powder keg. And Ray and I… we’re fighting in the streets with a new breed of trained killer I honestly don’t think we’re equipped to go up against.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We have limits. We have rules. We have obligations to other people at all times. This… Jay, she didn’t. She was fighting for her life and seemed to relish every second of it. How are you supposed to compete against that?”

He shook his head. “I… I don’t know. So, you have no leads on where she went after you encountered her?”

“No, nothing. Not even anything on any local security feeds, either. It’s like she vanished into thin air.”

“Okay, let me see what I can do.” He took a deep breath, eager to change the subject. “Have you spoken with Buchanan?”

“Not since before he headed to Washington.”

“No idea how the hearings are going, then?”

“We’ll know when we need to, I guess. Until then…”

Jericho missed the tail end of what she said, distracted by the sudden noise of hurried footsteps from all around. From every corridor and every room nearby, Palugan soldiers poured out, running toward the entrance. He looked behind him to see Ramirez storming after his men.

“Julie, I gotta call you back.”

He hung up without waiting for a response and fell in line with the colonel.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

Ramirez’s gaze was focused ahead, his expression hardened. His mouth was a thin line of determination.

“The general and his men are outside,” he said.

“How many men?”

Ramirez turned to Jericho. “Too many.”

“Great…” Jericho tapped the comms unit on his chest to open a channel to all GlobaTech operatives based in the palace. “I want everyone in the courtyard now. Re-group on me.”

They marched side by side to the main entrance and stepped out into the mid-afternoon heat. Despite an inherently milder climate than most countries on the mainland, it was still scorching. Dust sizzled and swirled in the warm breeze. Jericho put his sunglasses on to protect him against the unrelenting glare of the sun.

Both he and Ramirez lingered at the bottom of the steps. All twenty-five GlobaTech operatives appeared and formed a tight cluster around them. Scattered across the courtyard and the upper balconies were Palugan soldiers loyal to Ramirez—just over fifty in total. The sound of helicopters just outside the palace’s airspace faded into existence, quickly becoming deafening.

“Mother of God…” muttered Ramirez.

Just beyond the large gates, two platoons of Palugan soldiers stood grouped together, spread across the road and hillside,