Son of Cerberus (The Unusual Operations Division Book 2) by Jacob Hammes

doctor, taking a large portion of it off and splattering it against the wall.
    Cynthia wasn’t done yet. She had her pistol out in the blink of an eye and started squeezing off rounds toward the murderous imposters. The loud banging pistol threatened to blow her eardrums out with every round she sent, yet she continued shooting as if she couldn’t feel a thing. Thankfully, Stephen still had his wits about him. With one of his huge arms, he grabbed Cynthia around the waist and darted off down the corridor in the opposite direction of the gunmen. With her serving to cover the three retreating individuals, they made it to the end without so much as a scratch.
    There was no return of gunfire. The two killers were either biding their time or Cynthia had already ended it. Whatever the scenario, Stephen didn’t wait to find out. He had his own pistol in hand, crouching low near the corner of the hallway.
    “We’re Federal Agents,” Stephen shouted down the hallway. “Put your weapons down now and we won’t kill the two of you outright.”
    “That’s not very Federal Agent-like,” the man said in a thick Spanish accent that had not been present before. “Unfortunately, we need that girl more than you do. Could you please send her down to us, or we will just keep killing doctors and nurses as they come around the corner?”
    Stephen contemplated what they were saying for a moment. He couldn’t be serious about ruthlessly killing anyone who walked around a corner, could he? They had already killed two people without blinking an eye, so it was very possible that they would kill more.
    “C’mon,” the woman taunted this time. Her voice was deep and sultry, also with a Spanish twinge. “You need to give her over to us before more people die, agents. You know how this works. Give us the girl and you get to keep others from dying for no reason.”
    A door opened up at the end of the hall and a man immediately screamed a guttural cry as bullets tore through his body, putting him down before he knew what was happening. The fake detectives had been serious.
    “What could these guys want with her?” Stephen whispered to Cynthia. She didn’t answer. Something inside of her was working overtime. She was formulating a plan, or so Stephen thought.
    He poked a hand around the corner and heard the clap of the silenced pistol and the snap of tiles as they were blown into smithereens. He gladly pulled an undamaged hand back around the corner.
    “You want me to give you the girl, but you’re going to blow me away first chance you get!” he hollered down the hallway.
    “Forgive me,” the man said, laughing. “I’m a little twitchy. I mean, you do have a trigger happy girl down there who tried to blow us all away. Wouldn’t you be nervous, too?”
    Suddenly Stephen heard the woman yell something in a foreign language. The voice he heard gave him instant relief.
    “Police,” he heard someone at the end of the hallway shout. “Put your hands where I can see them.”
    Cynthia smiled and rubbed her hand, somehow content with what was happening at the other end of the hallway. She might have known something was going to transpire that would get them off the hook, by the look on her face. If she had, she should have known to get farther away from the corner. The quiet clicks of silenced pistols were met with the loud banging of heavy police revolvers. More tiles started flying off the walls and floor and they crawled farther into the nook they were taking cover in.
     
    Henry was heading down to speak with someone who might have what he was looking for. Sometimes, pieces of radioactive material had to be transported from one hospital to another inside heavy, lead-lined boxes. He was hoping to get his hands on one of them so they could transport this mystery box inside of it.
    Truthfully, he didn’t even know whether or not using a container like that would offer any help. He didn’t know what they were up against. It would be up