Garrett had bought himself exactly as much time as the flashbang allowed, which turned out to be just enough.
He'd pulled the pin when the two operators cleared the last of his improvised fire barrier and came through the smoke at a run. At that range, there was no good option — so he chose the one that hurt everyone equally. The detonation went off less than four feet from his face, and the world turned into a wall of white noise and pressure that knocked him flat and left him staring at the ceiling with no useful information about which direction was which.
The two operators went down with him. All three of them lay on the floor of the eighth-floor corridor, temporarily nonfunctional.
The fire door at the end of the hall hit the wall hard as Soren came through it at a run, rifle up, s
