Her momentum carried her right up to the steps and there was no chance of avoiding a collision. She didn’t have time to raise and fire her weapon, so she dipped a shoulder and crashed into the Jap with as much force as she could focus, projecting her energy right through him. He flew forward about two feet and slammed into the top step. She struggled for her balance, lost it, regained it and found herself on top of him, stamped her leading boot on top of his thigh and rammed a knee into his face. His head snapped back and as she sailed right on over his body she pointed the MP5 straight down, squeezing the trigger. She didn’t even hear the muted cough of the discharge as three rounds of 9mm hollow point sliced open the guard’s torso. Blowback splattered her goggles with gobbets of hot offal that glowed a bright opalescent green in low-light amplification. She felt a dull but massive impact on her hip, from a ricochet she guessed, then the ground came rushing up at her and a much hotter, searing pain exploded in her shoulder as she slammed into concrete and snapped a collarbone.

“Son-of-a-bitch!”

“Y’all right, Ms. Duffy?” Bukowski hauled her up by her good arm. “Thanks, too, ma’am. Owe you one.”

“We’ll call it quits for the gum,” she said. “How’s your head.”

The marine pinched the side his helmet where a bullet had glanced off. Duffy switched to infrared for second. The track mark stood out in glowing pink.

“My circuits are okay,” said Bukowski. “How’s your shoulder?”

A violent crash of gunfire from upstairs drowned her out. She was about to try to speak again when a long burst of firing and the double crump of two grenades shook the building.

Lieutenant Chen’s voice came in over the platoon’s dedicated tac net.

“Top floor secured. No prisoners taken.”

The video feed wasn’t live, which made it infinitely worse. The signal came through on a fifteen-minute delay, and from the looks of the firestorm running through the streets of Manila, that was long enough for anything to happen. Lieutenant Commander Black wanted to turn away from the screen, to shut off the rush of chaotic savagery that swirled around his woman. He wanted to run from the Media Center and hop a chopper into the city to yank Julia right out of there.