Excerpt from The Ascent by Adam Plantinga, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Argento started backpedaling. Make 'em think you're doing one thing. Then he moved forward. Then do the other. He stepped in close to the trooper, at a forty-five-degree angle. He took the Guardian out of his hand with a sharp twist of the trooper's wrist and moved away, flush against the wall, the gun down at his side. It had been a risky move. The white trooper could have exceeded Argento's expectations and lit him up when he tried for the gun. But Argento had never been risk averse. Especially not these days. In fact, at that moment, he didn't care if he took a bullet. Getting shot might be a step up for him.

"If she has all the help she needs," Argento said, "then why was that so easy?"

Excerpted from The Ascent by Adam Plantinga. Copyright © 2024 by Adam Plantinga. Excerpted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.