Chapter 7 #2
“If this connects back to his investigation, he’ll definitely want to know,” Hallie said, echoing Girard’s own comment. She understood the hesitation. Over the past couple of weeks, she’d noted the strain growing on the director’s face through their video calls. “He may not be sleeping anyway.”
“That’s true,” Girard said, with an unhappy sigh, and dialled the number.
Leaving him to the call, Hallie put the papers back down on the table and, trying to think of something useful she could actually do, used her own phone to start taking photographs of the papers.
She was about halfway through the pile, and Girard was still speaking to the director in a low voice that Hallie was doing her best not to eavesdrop on, when a flicker at the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked up to see a small cylinder flying through one of the windows.
She made a sound of surprise that had everyone nearby twitching, and then the cylinder dissolved with a soft thump, releasing a cloud of smoke that spilled out, filling the room between one breath and the next.
“Smoke bomb. Masks on now!” That was Frollo, sounding deathly serious and absolutely in control.
Hallie was blind, eyes watering as the pale grey smoke stung her eyes, irritating her nose and throat. She coughed and then couldn’t stop coughing, stumbling as she tried to get to where she thought the door was. She needed to get outside. Get away.
There. There was a paler patch in the smoke that she thought was a door. She ducked down and found that the smoke was less dense closer to the floor so she dropped to her hands and knees, eyes streaming, throat and lungs burning, crawling towards the door.
She was aware of some movement nearby, another body, heading in the same direction. All she could make out were dark-clad legs and a hazy torso above that. One of the tactical team. Or so she hoped. She couldn’t do anything about it. She kept going. She needed fresh air.
As she reached the opening, gunfire started. It sounded like it was coming from all around, both inside and outside the house, and underneath it she could hear shouting in harsh, rasping voices.
She was at the door. She crawled her way outside, crying in relief as she pulled fresh, untainted air into her lungs, dragging herself away from the open doorway and pausing, sitting back against the wall of the house.
She raised a hand to rub her eyes and managed to stop the movement, seeing the gloves she was wearing were covered in fine dust. Stripping off the gloves, she dug into her pocket for a cloth.
She tried to always have a clean cloth at hand - it had been useful more than once in the past. Rubbing the cloth over her face made her skin sting, but her eyes watered a bit less when she was done, enough so that she could make out more shapes and movement when she opened them.
She blinked, letting the tears clear more of her sight, and then went completely still, breath catching and her heart rate picking up.
The van was where they’d left it. The side door was open, and what looked like one of the tactical team was slumped in the doorway.
Dead or injured, Hallie couldn’t tell. There was another person there, though, on the other side of the van, ducked down so that only their head and shoulders was visible, a rifle resting on the hood of the vehicle, pointed towards the open door to the house.
With her sight still blurry, Hallie couldn’t make out details, just that the person was wearing black that covered their head, and not the helmets that the tactical team wore.
She thought it was a man, but it was hard to tell.
She tried to speak, to cry out a warning, and coughed instead, only then realising that she was a perfect target for the rifle holder.
Fright had her moving again, trying to crawl away, only to be bent double by more coughing.
She might be able to see better, but her lungs were still choked with smoke.
Panic seized her. She had no defences against a bullet. Not one. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t stand up. Couldn’t run.
The zauber at her hip stirred. Rather than its usual lazy stretch, Hallie sensed the artefact at full awareness, bristling with temper, its focus directed out, at their surroundings.
Between one dragging breath and the next, the artefact homed in on the rifle and the masked attacker.
Hallie wasn’t sure what the zauber did, but no sooner had it identified its target than the attacker - definitely a man - yelled in shocked pain and anger, dropping the rifle with a loud clatter, and staggering away from the van into the open.
Several shots rang out from somewhere behind and above Hallie, thudding into the masked man.
She flinched, a high-pitched squeal of surprise escaping her, and then three members of the tactical team streamed out of the house, heading for the downed attacker.
As they moved past her, Hallie saw that they all now had an extra bit on their helmets, a faceplate that covered them from their eyes to chin.
None of them seemed to have any difficulty moving, and none of them were coughing.
Even thinking about coughing triggered another round for her, ribs aching as she fought to breathe.
She lost a moment or two of time, coming back to herself to find a black-clad figure kneeling in front of her, holding out what looked like an oxygen mask that would be more at home in a hospital.
“Put this over your mouth and nose and breathe for a few minutes. It’ll help.”
Dechtire. Although the woman’s voice was rasping, and her whole face was covered, Hallie recognised her.
Trusting that Dechtire meant her no harm, Hallie pressed the mask over her face and breathed, feeling more tears starting as the air came into her lungs without more pain. She had to turn away to cough again, then back to the mask, managing a full two breaths before needing another cough.
As she stayed where she was, just breathing, she saw another two members of the tactical team carrying Girard out of the house and made a low sound, trying to get up.
“Stay where you are,” Dechtire said, putting her gloved hand on Hallie’s shoulder. “The smoke burns, but it isn’t going to kill him. He’s going to be fine. He got a larger dose than you did as he was closer to the smoke bomb.”
“He’s injured,” Hallie said, voice muffled behind the mask.
“We know. It’s alright. Modron knows what she’s doing.”
As Hallie watched, one of the tactical team members set a medical kit bag down next to Girard and then covered his mouth and nose with a mask that looked identical to the one Hallie was using.
All the same, Hallie didn’t relax until she saw that Girard’s chest was rising and falling as he breathed.
Relief brought more stupid tears to her eyes.
He was alive. With Girard breathing, the other woman - Modron - took the medical bag and headed over to the van and the too-still body of her team mate.
From the way she reacted when she got there, Hallie thought that the man was still alive.
Modron carefully lowered him to the ground and began running her hands over his body.
Looking for injures. Hallie’s eyes stung again, relief coursing through her that there wasn’t another dead body to add to Kasmo and Oreste.
She looked over at the body of the attacker. There were two members of Frollo’s team there. They’d stripped off the man’s head covering, and from the way he was lying, Hallie could tell he was dead. She wasn’t sure she could feel sorry for that. Not after he’d tried to kill them all.
“Attacker,” Hallie said, and had to cough again. Breathing was getting easier, but apparently she couldn’t talk properly yet.
“We got him. Dead, unfortunately, but he’s not a threat.”
“Another one,” Hallie said, her voice harsh and rasping.
“Where? Did you see?” Dechtire asked, her head snapping around as she scanned the area.
“No. But two were missing. One down.”
“So there’s one left. Frollo, you got that?” Dechtire asked.
“One hostile still on the loose. Copy that. Everyone stay alert.” Frollo’s voice was somewhere nearby.
Hallie twisted her head around to find him standing not far away, towards the corner of the house, weapon held ready.
He was on high alert. He might be a terrible driver and a daredevil, but he was focused where it mattered.
Even as Hallie’s body relaxed a fraction, knowing that everyone around her was far more qualified than she was to keep watch, another flicker of movement snapped her attention round.
Another object was hurtling through the air, heading for the house.
It snapped through the open doorway and then the world exploded.
Hallie came back to herself in bits and pieces.
Every part of her hurt, inside and out, and there was something over her nose and mouth.
She tried to lift her hand to brush it away, felt something slide off her arm and heard it clatter on the ground.
She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, and saw a chunk of wall plaster on the ground beside her.
Blinked again and realised that she was covered in bits and pieces of mud bricks and more wall plaster.
Turned her head and saw that the wall she’d been resting against was partly gone, the jagged edge of it rising just above her head, clear sky visible beyond where there should have been more wall and a cheap metal roof.