Grillo put the stingball gun away, satisfied with how the weapon had delivered. Poor guy was going to have some bruises to show for his unexpected adventure, but what could you do?
He looked at Ricci.
Ricci completed his interrupted hand signal, waving at the stairwell door.
His team dashed across the garage in its direction.
The men climbed the stairs as one, as trained, a single composite organism armored in synthetic materials, their guns bristling like deadly spines.
A few steps below the first-floor landing they paused for Rosander to peer around the corner with his telescopic search mirror, a low-tech, reliable, simple tool. Ricci’s cardinal rule was in play here: Use the fiber-optic scope when you wanted maximum stealth, but when the actual insertion began, when speed was of the essence, you didn’t want to screw with finicky shit like flexible electronic coils and video apertures.
Nobody in sight, they hustled up onto the landing. Ricci motioned for two of them, Seybold and Beatty, to split off from the others and cover the first floor. This was an organism that could divide and reassemble itself as required.
Up the next flight of stairs, ten now having become eight; Ricci and Rosander were in the lead.
Midway to the second floor, on the next landing, Rosander again stuck the pole around the corner and saw the reflections of three men on the mirror’s convex surface.
He signaled quickly. Two fingers pointed at his eyes: Enemy in sight. Then three fingers in the air, revealing the number of opponents on the way down.
“Militia,” he mouthed soundlessly to Ricci, who was squatted beside him.
Ricci nodded.
His men readied themselves in the short moments available. This time they wouldn’t be facing a bleary-eyed garage worker or a couple petrified with astonishment, literally struck blind on the way back to their car after booking a trip to paradise at the ground-floor travel agency.
They held their guns at the ready.
The militiamen continued downstairs toward the landing.
Ricci’s hand was raised, motionless, slightly above shoulder height: Hold your fire.
It was his show. His and Rosander’s. They could not worry about taking accidental hits from their own teammates behind them.
The militiamen were carrying assault rifles, Russian AKs. One of them glimpsed the assault team below.
His gun muzzle came up as he grunted out a warning to his companions.
Ricci squeezed the trigger of his baby VVRS, its electronic touch control set for maximum blowback. Lethal as lethal could be. And quiet.
The militiaman fell to the landing, spots of crimson on his chest. Then a quick burst of gunfire from above, bullets swarming down the stairwell.
The still body of the guy he’d hit pressing against his shins, weighty against his shins, Ricci stayed put and swung his weapon toward the remaining two. The mirror in one hand, Rosander had lifted his gun with the other and was already spraying them with ammunition. A second man collapsed, rolled downward, olive fatigues stained red. The third kept standing, got off some more counterfire, and Ricci heard a grunt from Rosander as the pole of his inspection mirror flew from his fingers and went clattering against the metal risers below.
Edging back against the handrail, out of the shooter’s direct line of fire, Ricci triggered his gun again, aiming for the legs, and when he saw the legs give out, finished the militiaman with a sustained burst to the chest.
Silence. A pale gray haze of smoke.
Ricci looked around at Rosander.
The visor of his helmet was splashed red. Dripping red where he’d been hit. Ricci could not see his face through it.
He glanced at the others behind him, shook his head. They couldn’t linger here in the enclosed stairwell. They had to keep moving. The exchange of gunfire had been brief and probably wouldn’t have been heard too far beyond the concrete walls of the fire stairs. But it might have drawn the attention of someone nearby.
Keeping his eye on the mission, Ricci ordered his unit to resume its hurried advance.
As they passed over the bodies lying across the stairs, Grillo snatched the search mirror from where it had dropped.
They would need it later on.
The strike team pushed through the door to the second-floor hallway, each of its members familiar with the floor plan, knowing the exact location of Obeng’s office at the rear of the building.
The thing none of them knew was what sort of obstacles to expect along the way.
The corridor was empty as far as they could see. Closed office doors on either side. Then, perhaps ten yards up, an elbow bend. They would need to turn it, head down another short, straight length of hallway, round another corner. And then they’d be there.
Easily said.
They ran forward, guns at hip level, eyes sweeping the sides of the hall.
Ricci saw a door open a little. Third ahead on the right. He signaled a halt, pointed to it. His men fanned out, sticking close to the walls for cover.
Watching.
Waiting with their guns angled toward the door.
The crack widened, widened, and then a muzzle poked through.
The wait extended. An eternity of seconds. More of the weapon appeared. A semiautomatic pistol. Its barrel slipped tentatively outward into the hall.
That kind of firearm, that kind of cautiousness, Ricci was betting they were dealing with a cop here.
He looked into the eye peering out at him through the crack.
“Toss it!” he said.
The hand ceased to move but held onto the pistol.
Ricci kept looking into that eye. The man behind the door could see how his team was equipped, the serious ordnance they were carrying. Maybe he’d have the brainpower to realize he was outclassed.
“We’re not interested in you. Or any other officers with you,” Ricci said. “Lose that gun, come out with your hands up, you’ll be fine.”
There was another hanging pause.
Ricci couldn’t afford to delay any longer with this small fry.
“Last chance,” he said. “Give it up.”
The opening between the door and its frame widened.
Ricci lifted his weapon, prepared to fire.
The pistol dropped from the man’s hand onto the corridor floor. Then he stepped out of the office, arms raised above his head.
A uniform, sure enough.
Ricci moved forward, kicked the relinquished gun aside, then grabbed the cop by his shoulder and pushed him face against the wall for a frisk.
He patted him down hurriedly, found a revolver in an ankle holster, and handed it back to one of his men, a young recruit named Newton. The cop wasn’t packing anything else.
Ricci hauled his captive away from the wall and stayed behind him, his gun pressed into the base of his spine, his free arm locked around his throat. Using him for cover in case anyone in the office decided to do something stupid.
At his nod, Grillo and Simmons moved to either side of the half-open door, flanking it, their weapons steady in their hands.
Ricci slammed it the rest of the way open with his booted foot.
The office was nearly bare. A couple of chairs, a metal desk with a push-button telephone on it, a trash can beside the desk.
Two more uniforms were inside, both with their hands high in the air.
Ricci glanced at Newton.
“Dump whatever weapons they’ve got in there,” he said, indicating the trash can with a jerk of his chin. “The phone, too. Then pull the can out into the hallway.”