Accession: CATU Book 5 Ch. 13

Julie ducks out of the line of fire and continues up the stairs pressing her body against the wall. When the demon terrorist sees her effort is ineffective she stops shooting and takes the stairs up. She passes through the storage area then out a door at the top and onto the roof.

To her surprise Spencer is standing halfway between her and the edge of the roof. He has his pistol aimed at her. She slides to a stop and they lock eyes. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," he says.

"And what do you consider easy?" Errios asks turning her body to present a smaller profile to him.

"Simple," he answers with a smile. "You get on your knees and I put a bullet in the back of your head."

"Not what I would expect from someone that upholds the law," Errios says. She keeps her SMG pointed to the ground making sure not to make a movement that would trigger a response from the CATU agent.

"For you I make exceptions," he retorts.

A clatter from the stairwell resounds onto the roof. Errios doesn't need to look back to see what the noise is. Neither does Spencer. Instead, the demon terrorist pulls the trigger and begins lifting it up at Spencer. The shots go wide as Spencer begins firing forcing Errios to jump out of the path of flying bullets.

Errios lands into a roll and up to her feet. She swings the SMG around behind her and fires without looking back and in a dead run makes for the edge of the building.

By the time Julie reaches the top of the stairwell and exits onto the roof, both Errios and Spencer are twenty yards away. It is clear that whatever plan the demon has for escape means leaving the rooftop with the case and Spencer won't be able to catch up in time.

So she drops to her knee and holsters one of her pistols. With the other she grips with both hands and takes aim. In her head she takes in direction of the wind, distance and temperature then fires.

The bullet rips through the air and strikes Errios' hand at just the moment she leaps. The case hits the roof and slides a few feet then comes to a stop. Errios grabs the landing skid of a helicopter that seems to materialize from nowhere. She looks back with a scowl as the helicopter goes for a higher altitude. Spencer drops and fires wildly at the ascending craft, but deals relatively no damage and misses the demon completely.

Spencer curses out loud. "Don't be so hard on yourself," Julie says as she walks by him. "I couldn't get to her myself. Nice trick you pulled too. How did you get up here so fast?"

Spencer smiles to himself but doesn't answer right away. He gets up and brushes the dirt from his knees and answers a moment later. "Window cleaners," he says with a little smugness in his voice. "I saw them on the way in and figured she only had plans to go one way: up."

"Well, we may have not gotten her, but she didn't get what they came for either." Julie holds up the case.

"Nice shooting," Spencer remarks. "What do you think is in it?"

"I don't know," she answers followed by a shrug. "Let's find out."

She sets the case down and flips open the lid to reveal three rows of ten vial-like containers.

"What the hell is this?" Spencer questions. His mind is rolling through the possibilities but not wanting to commit to any idea.

"I don't know," Julie says genuinely puzzled. "But we don't have time to ponder."

Spencer looks over the edge of the roof. The parking lot is filling up with police cars. "Wow, we've become popular."

"What do you mean?" Julie asks coming up beside him.

"Well we have not only the police but the CO19 Force Firearms Unit, the SO13 Anti-Terrorist Branch and the SO15 Counter Terrorist Command."

"Friends of yours?"

"Well kind of," he shrugs. "We are linked together network wise."

"Can you get us out of this mess?"

"I doubt it."

"Then we're doing this the hard way."

Julie pulls a set of straps from case and hands it to Spencer. He takes it and straps it to his back.

"Where is this cleaning platform of yours?"