Maxie ducked as the machine gun fire sprayed over her head. The massively large and ancient desk was working pretty well as a shield at the moment, but her instincts told her that this shoot out couldn’t last forever.

She studied the situation as carefully as if it was a simulation at the academy. She and Jason were pinned down in the large reception area by three of Helena’s goons (she’d picked up Lucky’s term for them) who stood at the other end of the reception area in an opening that led to a hallway and some offices. The large rectangular room was filled with desks and couches and chairs, most of which were riddled with bullet holes. Maxie looked around the room. There had to be a way to get the drop on these guys. She knew it. There was just something she was missing, some part of the equation that she forget. Her eyes landed on a door with a brass plate marked restrooms and she grinned.

“Cover me,” She yelled at Jason over the gunfire as she indicated the door on the opposite side of the room.

“What the hell?” Jason barely had time to formulate the question before Maxie darted from behind the couch. Damn. Without thinking, Jason preceded to lay in a heavy dose of cover fire to keep the guards distracted while Maxie darted first behind a couch and then another desk. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as she made it to the other door.

Maxie closed the bathroom door behind her and smiled. The blueprints had been right and for once Maxie thanked God for Helena’s cheapness. Rather than build a separate bathroom area for her employees, she had simply put a second door leading to the offices on the other side of the bathroom. The door was locked, but a quick shot from her pistol took care of that with relative simplicity. The offices were eerily silent while Maxie made her way back into the hallway.

She walked up silently behind the two men who were shooting.

“Drop your weapons.” She yelled as she trained her gun with deadly accuracy on the two of them. Boy it felt strange to yell that without saying police in front of it.

The two men turned, stunned to find themselves staring down the barrel of a high caliber automatic weapon.

“Don’t,” Maxie whispered coldly. “You would be dead before you could even pull the trigger.”

He tried anyway. A half a second later, one man lay dead at her feet and Maxie had her gun firmly against the second man’s temple. She almost grinned. “I did warn him, which is more than he had the right to expect. Now drop your gun.” The man complied and Maxie kicked the gun out of his reach. She called out for Jason and then turned to the man who was still alive.

“Now what do I do about you?” Maxie pondered as Jason approached, his eyes widening a little in shock as he saw the dead man and realized what had happened. “You see my partner here would probably kill you in a second, but me, I don’t know. You see the first rule of being a detective is that dead men don’t talk. The second is that sometimes you want to hear what a man has to say. So I’ll give you thirty seconds to convince me that you should live before I make sure your buddy here has some company while he rots in hell.”

Watching her, Jason finds it hard to believe that the same women who blushed and stammered trying to say the word condom is so cool and deadly under pressure. She was good, if the PCPD had more officers or detectives like her, he and Sonny might have found things a whole lot hotter for the last decade or so. But then he figured that there was probably no one else quiet like Maxie.

“Don’t shoot me,” the man broke into a sweat as he stared down the barrel of Maxie’s gun. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about Helena Cassadine just don’t shoot me.”

“She won’t. I will.” The third man stepped forward from behind Maxie and before anyone could move, shot his partner. “Lower your weapons,” the older man said harshly as he trained his weapon right on a stunned Maxie, who was still looking at the second body on the floor in stunned disbelief. “Lower them now or I kill the blond before she gets a minute older.”

Maxie turned on the gunman. “You killed him. He was on your side and you killed him.”

The third gunman grinned. “My late wife’s cousin. Mostly useless. He would have betrayed the Cassadine family and no one does that and lives.” He focused his attention on Jason and Maxie again. “No one.”

Maxie shrugged casually and averted her eyes from the dead bodies on the floor, trying not to glance at her watch she looked up and prayed that Lucky was watching. “Didn’t I see this once in a movie? Let me see.” Maxie pretended to remember as she slid a few inches away from Jason. “Bad dialogue. Lousy acting. All smoke and mirrors. No substance. Not like the shower scene from Psycho. Or the chase scenes from Titanic. Or even the flash flood in the Towering Inferno.”

Both Jason and the third gunman looked at Maxie like she was insane as she kept babbling on and on about movies. Jason, having decided that the violence of the day had unhinged Maxie’s mind, moved closer, ready to defend Maxie with his life.

Suddenly the sprinkler system for the whole floor came alive and with the water serving as a distraction, Jason lunged for the gunman, knocking the gun out of his hand. Maxie immediately reached for the gun as Jason and the man continued to fight.

Dropping the automatic rifle, Maxie reached for her service pistol in its holster, aimed, and fired.

The men fell as the bullet pierced his heart. Unfortunately, it went through his heart and into Jason.

“Oh my God,” Maxie whispered in horror as she ran to his side. He held on to his shoulder where a steady stream of blood was oozing from his side. “I didn’t mean. I shouldn’t have...” Maxie bit her lip. “Damm.”

“It’s okay,” Jason whispered a little shakily. “It’s just a flesh wound. Come on Maxie. You saved our lives. Don’t let a little blood get to you.”

“But it’s your blood,” Maxie expelled a deep breath even as the sprinklers continued to cascade water on them. “Damm it Spencer can you turn off the sprinklers now.” She nearly yelled into her comlink as she reached underneath her shirt and removed her silk bra.”

The sprinklers stopped and Jason smiled. “That’s why the references to the movies and the rain and the fire and all that. I thought you were losing your mind and you were trying to get Lucky to turn on the sprinklers to cause a distraction.”

“Fat lot of good it did,” Maxie said as she unhooked the front clasp to her bra and slipped out of it, then used it as a bandage to tie up Jason’s wound.

Jason grinned. “I had hopes of getting you out of that thing again, I just didn’t think it would be like this.”

Maxie blushed.

“Guys.” Lucky’s voice broke in over the comlink. “I hate to interrupt this touching moment and sometime soon I’m really going to want the details, but unless I miss my guess you are about to have company.”

“Helena?” Jason swore.

“No, but a few more of her men. I’m counting four. I’m going to try to stall them on the elevator but I make no guarantees.”

“All right.” Jason looked at Maxie. “Let’s get out of here.”

Maxie shakes her head. “Where is Emily?”

At the moment, Emily was actually thanking God for her illness because the nausea from the medication had kept her from gaining a lot of weight from this pregnancy, which made it possible for her to crawl through the air vent even five months pregnant. She ran the route that would take her from the kitchen to the room Jonathan was being held in in her head. Left. Right. Right. She had to hurry before the guard figured out that something was wrong and moved Jonathan. Finally she reached the vent over his room and she felt a wave of relief wash through her when she saw him sitting in the corner. Unharmed. Pulling the rifle around, she used its handle to break the vent and send it crashing below. A moment later Emily herself slipped through and landed not so gracefully but in one piece on the floor below.

“Mom!” Jonathan yelled and moved forward but Emily waved him back. “Get down!” She yelled at her son as she calmly raised the rifle and pointed it at the door. The guard opened it and before the look of surprise on his face could register, Emily shot and he fell. She lowered the gun. She’d do it again in a heartbeat to save her son, but killing a person wasn’t any easier today than it had been six years ago. She shrugged. She’d save the guilt and turmoil for therapy afterwards. Right now she’d concentrate on hugging her son.

After a second, she raised his head and looked into his brown eyes. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“Me? Scare you? You were the one who went after Helena. I just followed.” Jonathan said tearfully. “I can’t lose you. Not after losing Lucky. I can’t.”

“Jonathan I...” Emily paused. “Listen. We’ll talk when we get out of here. There are things you need to know. But it can wait.” Emily took her pistol and handed it to Jonathan. “Take this but only use it if you need to.”

Jonathan looked a little pale as he studied the weapon and nodded.

They had made it down the hallway when they heard footsteps. Emily pulled Jonathan into a doorway. When the first steps got closer she raised her rifle and stepped forward.

“Jason! Maxie!” Emily exclaimed giving her brother a hug. “You guys are both okay.”

“Yeah and its good to see you in one piece too little sister.” Jason smiled at his nephew. “And you too Jonathan. But we are about to have company so I suggest we get out of here.”

“That seems to be the recommendation of the day.” Emily looked at Jason. “Back stairs?”

“Back stairs.”

Emily led the way through the penthouse to the hallway leading to the kitchen. They had just entered the kitchen when they heard noises coming from the living room.

“Come on...” Emily yelled as the voices got closer.

Maxie hesitated The voices were too close. Twenty flights of stairs offered too many opportunities for gunfire and no place to hide. The chances that somebody was going to get hurt if they were pursed down the stairs were too great.

“Maxie come on.” Jason tried to pull her but she broke away.

“We need a distraction and you know it.” She yelled at Jason. “You go. Get Emily and her son to safety. I’m going to see if I can buy you some time.”

“No. I’ll do it.”

Maxie shook her head. “You’re hurt. You can’t shoot with that arm. Go. There isn’t time to argue or none of us will make it out of here.”

“Maxie I...”

“Go.” She gave him one last look as she headed out of the kitchen into the rest of the penthouse.

Jason turned and without looking back led Emily and his nephew to the back stairs and to safety.

Two minutes later Maxie was crouched in the doorway of one of the rooms leading to the main hallway that stretched across the penthouse exchanging gunfire with three or four men further down the hall. She thought she’d killed or injured at least one, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Spencer.” She yelled into the comlink so that she could be heard over the roar of gunfire. “I need to get out of here and the stair and the elevator are out. Any suggestions?”

Lucky began searching the blue prints and the diagrams. He knew enough to know that Maxie had offered her life up so that the other three could make it, but he wasn’t going to let her die if there was a way to get her out of there. “There’s a fire escape that leads to the roof, but it’s three rooms down from you.”

Maxie bit her lip and considered the options. There were none. Laying down one last intensive round of fire, Maxie pulled farther into the room she was in and barricaded the door with furniture. Reaching into her vest, she pulled out a small explosive device, another gift from the WSB, and set the timer on it for sixty seconds. Then she set the timer on her watch to match. Opening the window, she looked out . The fire escape was probably a hundred feet away and the ledge was eight inches wide at the most. Gingerly, she climbed out and stood on the ledge, momentarily thanking her mother for those years of gymnastic lesson that had taught her about keeping her balance. All she had to do was carefully slide without falling or getting shot at or getting blown up when that bomb went off.. No big deal. Hell, she’d had the nerve to ask Jason to make love to her. She could handle this.

She had about five or so feet to go when she looked at her watch. Damn. She was out of time. Just one last chance. Stretching her body to the side, she reached and managed to grab hold of the fire escape with one hand just as the explosion blew out the window and rocked the entire building, shaking the fire escape but Maxie held on, dangling by one hand twenty stories above the sidewalk. This one was going to give her nightmares and she had a funny feeling she wasn’t going to be going on any high bridges anytime soon.

Somehow Maxie managed to swing the rest of her body onto the fire escape and climb up the stairs to the roof. Now if she could only figure out a way to get off the roof, she thought to herself as she pulled herself on to the roof from the fire escape. She could hear sirens in the distance so she knew her little explosion had drawn attention. She barricaded the door leading to the stairs from the outside. If any of Helena’s men were still functioning and still inclined to come after her, they’d have to come up the fire escape like she had and that would make them vulnerable.

All she had to do was hang around for the police to get here. Then she would explain why she had broken into the a private residence, shot the place up, killed at least two men, and blew a hole in the building. And there was no way she would tell them the whole story, because that would drag Jason and Lucky and Emily and poor Jonathan into the public eye. She’d loose her badge. Hell, maybe she’d take Jason up on his offer to marry her and be his “moll.” She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. First Jason had never really mentioned marriage. Second, badge or no badge, Maxie could never live with what Jason did for a living. She sat down discouragingly when she heard a helicopter come up behind her. She looked up and saw this black helicopter lower a ladder to her.

Maxie hesitated and then grabbed it. She had a feeling that she knew who and what was responsible for the choppers sudden appearance. Hanging onto the bottom of the ladder as tight as she could, she closed her eyes as the helicopter flew through the sky, the ladder swinging below it with Maxie dangling on the end. Maxie added roller-coasters to the list of things she thought she might avoid after this experience.

Ten minutes later, the helicopter lowered the ladder onto the roof a nondescript office building and as soon as it was close enough, Maxie jumped off and landed with a slight roll.

Scrambling to her feet, Maxie looked at the tall, distinguished, silver haired gentlemen who stood and looked at her in total and complete silence.

“Hi Dad?” Maxie said weakly. “Long time, no see?”

Frisco Jones, WSB Chief, finally smiled as he pulled his daughter close.

“You do realize that you are about to get the lecture of your life,” He said emotionally.

“Do you think it can wait? I have to meet some friends at the airport?”

Frisco groaned, resisted the urge to have his own daughter arrested to keep her away from her friends, and led the way into the building and to a car waiting below.

After realizing that Maxie was on her own, Lucky finished up his own assignment. Quickly, he inserted a small disc into the computer and fed it a virus that he had developed. Within two minutes, the hard drive would be erased, including the digitally recorded images the security cameras had picked up. The whole system would be off line and there would be no evidence to prove that any of them had been here.

Pulling the disc out, Lucky picked up his gun and headed to the back entrance to meet his wife and child and get out of this hellhole.

next chapter: Reunions and we catch up with Luke and Laura in Greece.