Day of Wrath

Each cot was occupied by a soundly sleeping man. Perfect.

She smiled coldly. Why fight fair when you didn’t have to fight at all?

Taking care of the two men took just a couple of minutes. The procedure was simple: Whack each sleeping man over the head to stun him. Shove a piece of old cloth into his mouth and wrap several lengths of duct tape around the man’s face to hold the ready-made gag in place. Then tightly bind the wide-eyed, thoroughly frightened, and still groggy German’s wrists and ankles with cable ties. Easy and effective — the best combination. Helen snagged their weapons and shoved them into her rucksack. Even though these clowns weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, she wasn’t going to make the mistake of leaving usable weapons behind.

Two down, an unknown number to go, Helen thought as they left the bedroom and edged back out into the hall.

She softly recounted their progress to Farrell and listened as he made his own report. “That patrol seems to be still mucking around in the woods. I’ll keep you posted if I see them heading back your way.”

They kept working their way from room to room — moving carefully and cautiously, consciously fighting the urge to hurry.

Stealth was their best ally now — not speed. The next two bed rooms were empty, though both showed signs of recent occupancy.

By now Helen had a pretty good mental picture of how this floor was laid out. Living quarters ran in a giant U along the outer walls — at least five rooms laid out to house two men each.

The inner loop of the U contained a rest room, a small kitchen, and a conference room that obviously served as both a lounge and an eating area.

They found and disposed of two more sleepers in the fourth bedroom.

Body armor and web gear hanging from hooks above the cots made it clear that these guys were guards — not technicians.

The fifth and final bedroom was unoccupied, and the only two other rooms on the floor were both dedicated to machinery and equipment storage.

Helen closed the storage room door behind her and looked at Peter. He was down on one knee with his pistol out — covering the stairwell leading down. “Ready?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, starting to rise.

And then the fire door to the stairs swung wide open.

Startled, Thorn raised his weapon.

A young, thin man wearing overalls stepped out into the hallway.

He carried a steaming mug in one hand. His other hand was still holding the fire door open.

Time stood still.

No weapon, Thorn realized suddenly. He’s not carrying a weapon. Years of training warred against the instinct to kill, and his training won.

You did not shoot unarmed civilians. Especially not when you were already acting outside the law. They’d have to take this guy alive.

His finger relaxed on the trigger.

The young technician saw them at the same moment. His eyes widened.

Time kicked back into gear.

The mug went one way in a spray of scalding brown liquid.

The technician went the other — whirling round and throwing himself down the stairs. “Alarm! Alarm!”

Shit.

Thorn raced toward the stairwell. He took the stairs down at breakneck speed, skidded onto a landing, rebounded off the wall, turned — and threw himself flat as a high-velocity round fired from below tore low over his head. The bullet gouged concrete shards out of the stairwell wall and then tumbled away.

He stuck the SIG over the edge of the landing and squeezed the trigger twice firing blindly down the stairs. He yanked the weapon back without bothering to see if he’d hit anything.

The gunman below switched to full automatic and sprayed bullets back — ripping at the forward edge of the landing. Ricochets whirred everywhere — slamming into the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs. One smashed into his body armor hard enough to leave a bruise.

Thorn rolled away, frantically wiping the powdered concrete dust out of his eyes. Jesus! There was no way he was going to get down those stairs alive — not against that kind of firepower.

He spun around and threw himself back up the stairs almost as fast as he’d gone down them — clutching his left side where the stray round had hit him.

Helen grabbed him and pulled him through the door as a new burst of firing broke out below them. More submachine gun bullets lashed the stairwell wall and whirred away overhead. She patted him down frantically. “Are you all right?”

Still trying to catch his breath, he nodded.

“Thank God,” she said and then fired her own pistol down the stairs.

Thorn went prone beside her, and squeezed off another round — still firing blind. The aim now was to discourage the people below from trying to rush the stairs.

Another three-round burst of submachine gun fire spattered bullets across the pockmarked concrete.

“Any ideas?” Helen asked dryly, half shouting to be heard over the rising crescendo of gunfire.

Options raced fast through Thorn’s mind. He discarded most of them just as rapidly. Right now he and Helen were locked in a stalemate.

They couldn’t get down the stairs. And the bad guys couldn’t get up.