Vigilante by Robin Parrish Page A

sometimes heard him muttering them under his breath: control the environment, account for all parameters, stay one step ahead, and adapt as the situation changes. His training had taught him how to know exactly when and how an enemy was going to strike so that he could have a countermove ready before the attack came. If he lost focus for even a millisecond, he would be vulnerable. But she knew he was far too good at this to ever lose focus.
    When Nolan reached the top of the stairs, he switched to X-ray and spun in a circle. The floor was empty—probably on the orders of the hostage taker—save for the crazed man and his captives in the far corner. But the one skeleton that was standing was walking away from the window now and toward the outer office.
    “Police have entered the building and are on their way up,” Bradford hissed.
    Nolan burst into the open and quickly ducked for cover behind a cubicle. The gunman’s skeleton appeared from the corner office and his head turned, scanning the area. His head stopped in the direction of the stairwell and remained there for a long moment.
    “He must’ve left the door ajar,” Branford whispered.
    The man took a step backward and then looked again around the office, a large, open space filled with dozens of cubicles. The partitions didn’t reach all the way to the floor, so he dropped to his knees and looked under them, searching for the intruder’s feet. But Nolan suspended himself atop a U-shaped desk so that he was visible from neither above nor below the thin partition walls.
    The gunman held up both of his weapons and, with a roar, pulled their triggers. A rainstorm of bullets showered the room as he spun in place, and Nolan flinched at the impacts of several bullets that hit him but couldn’t penetrate his graphene-infused clothes.
    The gunman’s skeleton spun to return to the corner office—no doubt to fortify himself against the intruder—and Nolan was already moving.
    At a dead sprint, Nolan reached the hostage taker in seconds. While running, he’d retrieved his staff and extended it, so that when he caught up to the man, he swept it into the backs of the man’s knees, causing him to buckle. The man’s trigger fingers tensed involuntarily and shot round after round wildly into the walls and the ceiling. He scrambled back to his feet, but Nolan was far too quick.
    Nolan stretched out his gloved hand and tapped his thumb to pinky. The electromagnet was activated, one Uzi flew from the man’s hand until Nolan grabbed it out of the air, and then he nabbed the second one. It was so fast the man had no idea what was happening until it was too late. Nolan stepped forward and landed a rock-hard fist against the man’s jaw followed by an uppercut beneath his chin, and the guy actually lifted several inches off the ground before going down hard, unconscious. Nolan ejected the guns’ magazines, pocketed them, and then tossed the useless stocks on the ground beside the crumpled man.
    “Hold it right there!” shouted a nearby voice, and Nolan heard the hammer pull back on at least half a dozen police-issue nine-millimeter semiautomatics.

21
    B ranford wiped gathering sweat from his forehead that was threatening to douse his eyes as he watched the events playing out on his screens.
    Nolan didn’t stop to count the number of policemen who had spilled out of the stairwell. He ran as shots were fired, and another tiny but powerful impact jabbed into his thigh. He raced into the corner office, locking the door behind him. He ran to the room’s center, grabbed the oversized desk, and dragged it quickly to the door to serve as a makeshift barricade.
    “Get out of there!” Branford roared.
    Nolan looked about, taking in his surroundings and by extension, his options. The five hostages were still kneeling on the floor up against a side wall, and with a wave of his hand, Nolan ordered them to stay put.
    He ran over to the corner plate-glass window and looked out at the