Chapter 71: The Net Closes
"So this is your plan?" Sasha's voice through the phone was composed, almost conversational. "Blow up your own teammates along with the rest of us?"
On the security camera feed, Simon watched her scan the room — exits, sight lines, positions of her people. She was processing fast. He'd expected that.
"I told you before you waste any more time," Simon said. "The secondary exits are chained. The only way out is the front door."
"And how do I know that device on the desk is functional?" Sasha said. "Anyone can put a box on a counter."
"Fair question." Simon watched Chuck on the feed, confirmed the position, and dialed a number on a separate phone.
The explosion was audible even from the roof. Two hundred grams of C4 under Sasha's town car converted it from transportation into fragments and displaced air. The windows of the two nearest storefronts came in.
"I apologize," Simon said into the phone. "I overestimated the containment. That was more than necessary."
Through the camera, he watched Sasha's people react — one of them moving toward the exit instinctively before Sasha's hand came up and stopped him. She was still calculating. Still running the math.
"What do you want?" she said.
"What I said before. Release my people. Walk out the front door. We're done."
"And if I don't?"
"There are ten devices in that building," Simon said. "You've seen what two hundred grams does to a vehicle. I'll let you estimate the aggregate." He paused. "Or you can look out the window."
On the feed, Sasha moved to the front window.
Outside, Chuck was standing on the sidewalk under a streetlight, the chip on its chain clearly visible in his hand.
"My partner is going to place the chip in a vehicle," Simon said. "You and your people walk out, get in the vehicle, drive away. Your teammates inside stay with my people until you're clear. Then everyone goes home."
"How do I verify the chip is genuine?" Sasha said.
"You don't," Simon said. "That's the trade. Same uncertainty I'm operating under. You're betting I want my people back more than I want to blow up a Best Buy competitor."
A pause.
"If the chip is real," Sasha said, "I'll release them."
"Then we have an arrangement. My partner is leaving the area now." Simon keyed his earpiece. "Chuck. Clear out."
Chuck was already moving before Simon finished the sentence. He'd been waiting for it.
Inside the Buy More, Sasha left two men watching Casey and Sarah, took the remaining three, and walked toward the front entrance with the careful attention of someone who expected the ground to shift under her.
Simon watched the separation happen on the camera feed.
"Go," he said into the earpiece.
Casey moved first.
The kick was a precise application of the leverage available from his seated position — feet coming up and forward, heel connecting with the jaw of the nearest guard with the compact efficiency of someone who had been counting down the seconds since they'd been taken. The guard went backward over a display unit and didn't come up.
Sarah was already moving on the second one, who had turned toward Casey's attack — exactly what she'd expected and had positioned for. Two seconds. Both guards down.
Casey found the shelving unit Simon had marked — the one with the small color-coded label attached to the third shelf from the bottom. He reached behind the panel of product and found the package taped to the back: two handguns, six magazines, two combat knives, two earpiece units.
He cut his own restraints first, then Sarah's.
"Simon," Casey said into the earpiece, clicking it on. "Status."
"Three outside, Sasha included. Two down inside. Four tangos remaining on the exterior."
"Perimeter?"
"I have the northeast angle from the roof across the street. MK14, ten-power. I've been tracking their positions for the last three minutes."
A beat.
"When did you get an MK14?" Casey said.
"Later," Simon said. "Sasha's at the front door."
The three men outside spread as they came through the entrance — a practiced deployment, looking for the shooter position. Simon let them move.
He put the first shot into the gun hand of the nearest one. The weapon went airborne with the man's fingers bent in directions they weren't designed for. He went down making sounds that suggested the structural damage was significant.
The second shot was lower — catching a man who'd been using a parked car for cover and had exposed his leg below the frame. He folded and the gun he'd been holding clattered across the pavement.
Third shot: same approach, different target. The man's weapon hand came off the pistol grip.
Three men down, none dead, all of them no longer holding weapons. Simon was keeping it non-lethal by design — unconscious or immobilized was preferable to the paperwork that other outcomes generated.
That left Sasha.
She'd identified the general direction of the shots by then — was moving low, using cover, looking for an angle that took her out of his field of fire. She was good. Better than her people.
Simon watched her through the scope.
Watched her realize, as she worked the geometry, that there wasn't an angle that worked. The roof gave him elevation that neutralized most of her options.
She stood up.
Casey and Sarah came through the front entrance behind her.
Sasha looked at the two weapons pointed at her. Looked at the darkness across the street where the shots had come from. Looked at her three men on the pavement.
"You won," she said.
She set her weapon on the ground.
Casey had her in cuffs before the sentence finished.
Simon came down from the roof as the NSA support team was arriving — a van, six people, the rapid deployment of the cleanup machinery that followed these situations. He was carrying the rifle case by the time he reached street level.
Casey looked at it. "What is that?"
"MK14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, custom-sourced. The C4, detonators, and the rifle ran about eighty thousand total."
Casey's expression processed this.
"Is that billable?" Simon said.
"No," Casey said.
"Worth asking." Simon looked at the cleanup team working around what remained of the town car. "I'll write it off as a professional development expense."
Sarah came over. She looked like someone who had been held captive for eighteen hours and was managing that fact with professional equanimity. "The explosives. You're keeping them?"
"They're already in my car."
"Use them as a last resort only," she said. "Not a first option, not a second option. Last."
"Understood," Simon said.
"And the weapons acquisition channel you used—"
"Legitimate need, no repeat business without cause," Simon said. "I'm not building an arsenal."
Sarah looked at him for a moment. Then nodded.
"Where's Chuck?" she said.
Simon checked his watch. Checked his phone. Realized he'd never called him back.
He dialed.
"It's done," he said, when Chuck picked up. "Come back."
"On my way," Chuck said.
The NSA team finished boarding up the broken window and was loading the captured personnel into their transport when Chuck pulled up in the Mustang — which Simon noted had been driven at a speed inconsistent with the cautious approach Chuck usually took to other people's vehicles, and filed that observation away.
Chuck climbed out. Looked at the scene. Looked at Simon. Looked at Casey.
"I made it back," he said.
"You went quite far," Casey said.
"The chip needed protection," Chuck said. He reached into his jacket and produced it. "Here. Safe and secure."
Casey took it.
Sarah looked at the chip. Then at Chuck. "The one in the vehicle was the decoy?"
"Of course," Chuck said, with the tone of a man who had planned this from the beginning.
Simon reached into his own jacket.
"Actually," he said, and held up the genuine chip, "this one's been with me the whole time."
Chuck stared at what he was holding.
Then at what Simon was holding.
Then at what he was holding again.
"Where did you—" Chuck started.
"I switched them when you weren't looking," Simon said. "During the setup. You were moving too fast and I didn't have time to explain." He handed the genuine chip to Casey. "The one Chuck's been carrying is a blank from the electronics section. The real one never left my pocket."
The silence that followed had several layers to it.
Casey looked at the chip in his hand. Then at Simon. Something moved through his expression that wasn't quite approval — Casey didn't really do approval — but was clearly in the neighborhood.
"Good call," he said.
Chuck looked at Simon.
"You could have told me," Chuck said.
"You would have acted differently," Simon said. "I needed you to behave like you were actually carrying it."
Chuck thought about this.
"That's actually correct," he said, after a moment. "I definitely would have acted differently."
"I know," Simon said. "That's why I didn't tell you."
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