Page 39 of The Atlas Maneuver

He heard pops. From past the double doors.

Sound-suppressed shots.

Then, others.

Unmuffled.

Return fire?

AIKO HEARD THE SHOTS AND STOOD FROM THE CHAIR.

What was happening?

She headed for the office door.

More shots rang out from the other side.

She eased the wooden panel open and peered out, seeing two of her men pinned down at the top of the stairway.

“There is a man with a gun, below,” one of her men reported.

Who? How had he made it inside?

She’d been waiting for a transport to arrive. Kelly Austin had to be secured away from Basel, in a safe place. Keeping her at the consulate, or the embassy in Bern, was not an option. No one outside of the highest levels in the imperial household knew anything about this operation, and she’d been ordered to keep it that way. The PSIA was administered by the Ministry of Justice, tasked with internal security and dealing with espionage. To prevent abuse and provide some oversight, any investigation conducted by the agency had to be first approved by a special commission. But this operation had remained secret with no approvals. She’d been specially assigned and provided with a support team, and she reported straight to the imperial palace.

Now someone had breached the consulate?

She fled the doorway and darted across to the window. Below, parked, sat a van, just as she’d ordered, complete with business credentials that were surely fake. The van was here.

Yet a man was shooting?

What was going on?

COTTON SNUCK A FEW QUICK PEEKS AROUND THE CORNER AND SPOTTEDone shooter on the ground floor firing a sound-suppressed pistol upward toward the second floor. The intruder was pinned down as shots were returned from the unsuppressed weapons that had caused the shooter to take cover.

Hard to know the players here without a program.

But the guy shooting up surely killed the man in the kitchen.

And that was enough for him.

“Hey,” Cotton yelled.

The guy with the sound-suppressed pistol whirled.

Clearly surprised.

Cotton shot him in the chest.

AIKO HEARD SOMEBODY CALL OUT, THEN A GUN BANGED FROM BELOW. Unmuffled. No more pops came up their way.

Somebody else was here?

She gestured for her men to retreat and get Austin while she assessed the situation. They both slipped into a room to her immediate right, which placed them, and her, away from the second-floor railing.

“Excuse me. People up there,” a male voice said from below. “I took the shooter out. He killed one of yours in the kitchen.”

She stayed silent.

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