“I’m planning on it,” Derek mutters. “Where will you be, Andrew?”

“With me,” I say.

“Alexander?”

“He’ll be with me, too,” I tell him. “Alexander knows the layout of the building best.” I pause. “Derek and his team will meet up with us at a rendezvous point once they’re done with their part of the mission. There will be too much chaos to try to hook up in the middle of the fight.”

The cold heat of adrenaline burns my gut. An all-too familiar feeling.

Will I ever get used to this sort of thing?

“I’d guess we have about twenty minutes,” I say. This is something that we already know, but I don’t want anybody to forget that we’re on a tight schedule. There is no room for mistakes. Not here.

“We can keep them busy and distracted for a long time,” Derek replies, looking at me, “but that’s only as long as they don’t bring in backup.”

“Which is why we’ll only have about twenty minutes,” I say. “If we can keep this isolated, we’ll be good to go.”

Despite the adrenaline rushing through my body, I feel steady — calm, almost. A controlled, directed anger. It’s a brand new feeling. And I like it.

“And if we can’t find Chris in twenty minutes?” Uriah asks.

It’s the unspoken question, and now it hangs heavy in the air.

“Then we’ll free who we can and get out,” I reply firmly. “And we’ll think of another way.”

In my heart, I know that if we fail, there won’t be another way. Omega will expect a second rescue attempt, and they will be waiting for us to try something. Harry Lydell would kill Chris. It would mean game over.

This is something that everyone knows, but nobody wants to say it.

There’s no reason to.

“We’ll wait until it gets dark,” I continue. “Remember, in and out. Make it quick. Improvise, adapt and overcome. I don’t want any friendly casualties. Understood?”

“Understood,” Uriah echoes.

“Good.”

I look around at the many faces watching me. All of them, good men and women — even the ones I don’t necessarily get along with on a personal level. They’re risking their lives for Chris — and for our cause.

“Vera,” I say. “I want you with me.”

She doesn’t reply. She simply nods, her expression a perfect poker face.

Life is short. It’s even shorter when you’re a soldier. Do the right thing, because tomorrow, you might not get the chance.

The alley behind the Holding Center is big enough for prisoner transport trucks and buses. Steam rises off the damp, rocky asphalt. An Omega transport truck is parked near the rear entrance — a rollup metal door, ten feet tall. It’s secure, so prisoners can’t merely jump out of the truck once the door opens and run away. The sound of muffled voices and shouted orders echo off the walls of the buildings.

We wait. More than anything, I want to jump up, force my way inside the building and get this over with. But doing that would be suicidal. If we don’t stick to the plan, we’ll all die — and that would suck. Big time.

“How much longer?” Vera hisses.

“It’s getting dark. Be patient,” I reply.

Manny is picking at his shirtsleeve, preoccupied with a loose thread on the cuff. He looks relaxed, as always. I envy his ability to shut the stress out. The ability to simply be.

“You know,” Manny whispers, “if we get away with this, it may be the first time Los Angeles has ever had a successful downtown jailbreak.”

“So we’re making history,” Uriah says.

“Glorious history.” Manny grins. “The best kind, of course.”

In the stagnant white noise of the back alley — the hum of the Holding Center’s generator, the echo of Omega voices — a detonation interrupts the rhythm of sound. The ground shakes a little. It’s so familiar that I hardly blink.

“That’s our cue,” I announce.

A red security light begins blinking in the back of the building. The rear entrance rumbles upward a few beats later and fifteen black-clad Omega troops pour into the alley. All young. All men. All very foreign.

Each of my team members has an assigned sector — a specific job, a specific point of focus. I am completely shocked that fifteen troopers have flooded out of the building — I hadn’t expected this much luck.

Nevertheless, my heart twists in my chest as I bring my rifle up to my shoulder and train my sights on one of the fifteen troops. Vera, Manny, Uriah, Alexander and myself each pull the trigger on our weapons. A sporadic smattering of rifle fire fills the air, echoing off the alley walls. Troops collapse at odd angles, dead before they even hit the ground. It’s eerie. Our aim is so perfect that there is no screaming. Just fifteen gunshots and fifteen dead patrols on the asphalt, pooling in blood.

“Go, go, go!” I yell.

This is our chance. The rear entrance is open. We were not expecting this — I was expecting that we would have to blow it open.

Thwap!

A bullet whizzes by my head. I jerk to the side and roll into a crouch. A guard is standing in the open doorway, frantically making an effort to close the entrance. Uriah takes him down. The dead trooper hits the ground with a thud. We push inside the door. And we move on toward the objective.

Good job, Derek! I think.

We stack and go, clearing the hallway corners and taking out moving targets.

It’s cold and stale. Yelling and gunfire can be heard within the concrete confines of the building. The epicenter of the noise isn’t too far away, either. Just at the front of the building, where Derek and his team are creating a distraction.

“Right, right, right!” I say.

This floor is empty. We veer down a wide hallway. Two Omega guards are fumbling in the corner for their weapons, probably left behind to guard the back of the building. My team is deadly. Vera and Uriah kill them instantly with controlled rifle fire.

Perfect.

This hallway is filled with cells. It’s a standard county jail, with cement flooring and metal bars. The stench of vomit is powerful. We spread into the area, breathing hard, sweating. Check left, check right, scan for threats and the objective — Chris. The first cell holds a skinny man, the second cell holds a woman covered in hundreds of lacerations. My brain registers the fact that this is a torture chamber, but I have no time to dwell on it. We are moving too quickly.

In all, there are ten cells — all of them hold prisoners that I do not recognize.

“Bingo!” Uriah yells. There is a main switch at the end of the hallway — a literal emergency door release in case of fire. I slam my fist against it and the cell doors unclick. They are unlocked. The prisoners seem dazed at first — unable to believe that their cells have been opened.

I don’t have time to make a speech.

“Keep going!” I shout. “Move it!”

Panic hasn’t seized me…yet. I was expecting to find Chris here, on the first floor. I don’t recognize any faces. None. Is he dead? Did Harry Lydell already order his execution?

Alexander grabs my arm and says, “This isn’t everybody.”

I nod and move swiftly to the stairs.

A lone guard is coming around the corner. I catch the movement of his body out of the corner of my eye. A symphony of keys jingle on his belt. I automatically shoot him in the chest, never hesitating for a moment. He hits the ground with a thud, a strangled scream still in his throat.

I drop to my knees and yank the keys from his belt.

We run through the hallway, taking another corridor that dives to the left. This one is longer than the others, and more heavily guarded. We quickly kill six more guards, and as the Omega casualties pile up, the timer in my head starts ticking faster. The more security we encounter, the longer it takes to reach our objective, and we’ve got just minutes to hit, rescue and run.

I spot something on the wall, above a door.