Under Fire. Carol Ericson

a big man, his fighting days were behind him. Their best hope was to make it to the lab and wait for help.

      The black-booted foot stepped between the desks, smashing the other lens of Dr. Arnoff’s glasses. A second later the shooter lifted the desk by one edge and hurled it against the wall as if it were a piece of furniture in a dollhouse.

      Exposed, Dr. Arnoff scrambled for cover, his army crawl no match for the lethal weapon pointed at him. The bullets hit his body, making it jump and twitch.

      Ava dug a fist against her mouth, and her teeth cut into her lips. The metallic taste of her blood mimicked the smell permeating the air.

      Then her own cover disappeared, snatched away by some towering hulk. She didn’t scream. She didn’t beg. The gunman existed in a haze behind the weapon that he now had aimed at her head.

      His gloved finger on the trigger of the assault rifle mesmerized her. She mumbled a prayer with parched lips. Click. She sucked in a breath. Click. She gritted her teeth.

      Click. He’d run out of ammo.

      He reached into the pocket of his fatigues, and adrenaline surged through her body. She clambered over the discarded desk and launched herself at the lab door. With shaking hands she scrabbled for the badge around her neck and pressed it to the reader. The red light mocked her.

      Her badge didn’t allow her access to this lab. Her exclusion from the lab had been a source of irritation to her for almost two years. How could she forget that now?

      She dropped to her knees and crawled to Dr. Arnoff’s dead body. Her fingers trembled as she unclipped the badge from the pocket of his white coat.

      Amid the clicking and clacking behind her, the gunman muttered to himself.

      Expecting another round of shots at any second, Ava swiped Dr. Arnoff’s badge across the reader. The green lights blinked in a row as if she’d just won a jackpot. She had.

      She yanked open the heavy door and shoved it closed just as the shooter looked up from his task. Five seconds later, a volley of bullets thwacked the glass.

      Knowing the gunman could lift a badge from any of the dead bodies around him just as she had, Ava slid three dead bolts across the door and took two steps back.

      This windowless room, clicking and buzzing with machinery, computers and refrigeration, offered no escape, but it did contain a landline telephone. Maybe someone had been able to make a call to the police when the mayhem started, but no cavalry had arrived to the rescue yet.

      After his first round, the crazed man outside her sanctuary had stopped shooting. He seemed to be searching the bodies of her fallen coworkers—looking for a badge, no doubt. He wouldn’t find Dr. Arnoff’s.

      Ava pounced on the receiver of the telephone on the wall beside the door. Her heart skipped a beat. No dial tone. She tapped the phone over and over, but it remained dead.

      Even if she had her cell phone, which remained in the pocket of her lab coat hanging on a hook in the clinic, it wouldn’t do any good. Nobody could get reception in this underground building in the middle of the desert.

      The lock clicked and she spun around. The shooter was leaning against the door, pressing a badge up to the reader. The lock on the handle responded, but the dead bolts held the door securely in place.

      She’d resented being locked out of this lab, but now she couldn’t be happier about those extra reinforcements.

      He grabbed the handle and shook it while releasing another roar.

      Ava covered her galloping heart with one hand as she studied the glittering eyes visible from the slits in the ski mask. What did he want? Drugs? Why murder all these people for drugs? Why come all the way out here to a high-level security facility to steal meds?

      He gave up on the door and shook his head once. Then he reached up and yanked the ski mask from his head.

      Ava gasped and stumbled back. She knew him. Simon. He was one of her patients, one of the covert agents the lab treated and monitored.

      Guess they hadn’t monitored him closely enough.

      “Simon?” She flattened her palm against the glass of the window. “Simon, put down your weapon. The police are on their way.”

      She had no idea if the police were on their way or not. The lab used its own security force, so she and her coworkers never had a reason to call in the police from the small town ten miles away in this New Mexico desert. Since the lab’s security guards had made no attempt to stop Simon, she had a sick feeling Simon had already dealt with them.

      “You need help, Simon. I can help you.” She licked her lips. “Whatever you need me to say to the authorities, I’ll say it. We can tell them it was your job, the stress.”

      His mouth twisted and he lunged at the window, jabbing the butt of his gun against the glass, which shivered under the assault.

      Ava blinked and jerked back. She made a half turn and scanned the lab. If he somehow made it through the door and she got close enough to him, she could stick him with a needle full of tranquilizer that would drop him in his tracks. She could throw boiling water or a chemical mixture in his face.

      He’d never let her get that close. He’d come through shooting, and she wouldn’t have a chance against those bullets. None of the others had. She gulped back a sob.

      The bullets started again. Simon had stepped away from the door and continued spraying bullets at the glass. That window hadn’t been designed to withstand this kind of relentless barrage. She knew. She’d asked when she started working here, curious about the extra security of this room.

      He knew it, too. Sweat beaded on Simon’s ruddy face as he took a breather. He didn’t even need to reload. He rolled his shoulders as if preparing for the long haul.

      Then he resumed firing at the window.

      Again, Ava searched the room, tilting her head back to examine the ceiling. Unfortunately, the ceiling was solid, except for one vent. She eyed the rectangular cover. Could she squeeze through there?

      Simon took another break to examine the battered window, placing his weapon on the floor beside him.

      She tried to catch his gaze, tried to make some human contact, but this person was just a shell of the Simon she had known. The sarcastic redhead who did killer impressions had disappeared, replaced by this creature with dead eyes.

      Ava’s breath hitched in her throat. Beyond Simon, a figure decked out in black riot gear loomed in the doorway of the clinic. Was it someone from security? The police?

      Not wanting to alert Simon, she inched farther away from the window and kept her gaze glued to Simon’s face.

      The man at the door yelled, “Simon!”

      How did he know who the shooter was? Had someone from the lab seen Simon before the rampage started and reported him?

      Simon turned slowly.

      “Give it up, Simon.” The man raised his weapon. “We can get help, together.”

      Simon growled and swayed from side to side.

      Would he go for his gun on the floor?

      Taking a single step into the room, the man tried again. “Step away from your weapon, Simon. We’ll figure this out.”

      Simon shouted, “They have to pay!”

      Ava hugged herself as a chill snaked up her spine. His animalistic sounds had frightened her, but his words struck cold fear into her heart. Pay for what? He’d gone insane, and they’d been responsible for him, for his well-being.

      “Not Dr. Whitman. It’s not her fault.”

      Ava threw out a hand and grasped the edge of a counter to steady herself. Her rescuer knew her name? His voice, bellowing from across the room, muffled by the mask on his face, still held a note of familiarity