Which was why Taylor stopped at the van first. The guys had been fully outfitted to the same standards as Berlin’s normal tac team, so they looked right from a distance. Taylor could figure out why. Graf didn’t want Taylor and Whitaker questioning what was happening until he had them cuffed and in a somewhat private location. A shootout in the heart of Berlin would have brought other cops, who almost certainly weren’t on the Trust's payroll, which would have then brought questions Graf wouldn’t have been prepared to answer.
What all this meant was they’d gotten more than a pistol and a few magazines when they’d disarmed their prisoner after putting him in the van. Taylor stood at the edge of the storage building and judged the distance. It was about fifty feet to the sentry, too long for what Taylor needed. That meant, subtlety was out the door.
Taylor burst out around the side of the building and charged the sentry, moving as fast as he could with his left arm extended. The sentry noticed him after the first ten feet and started to lift his rifle. It was still further than Taylor wanted, but he couldn’t wait any longer. Pulling the trigger on the taser, Taylor sent two cables shooting out towards the man.
Since the man was a vest and full kit, he had to aim low since the barbs wouldn’t have penetrated on the man's torso. Thankfully his aim was on the mark, and both barbs impacted on the man’s thigh. As fifty thousand volts course into him, the sentry went ridge and toppled over. Taylor had been concerned he’d have his finger on the trigger, which would be bad considering the sudden muscle contractions. Thankfully, he hadn’t gotten that far, and his finger was still outside the trigger guard.
Taylor closed the ground, the button of the taser depressed the whole way to make sure he didn’t have a chance to get up until Taylor reached him. Time was still of the essence, and Taylor didn’t have time to wrestle with him before getting the man secured. As soon as he was on top of the sentry, Taylor smashed the taser into his face, and then a second time when he still seemed like he would be able to get up. The case of the plastic and metal weapon cracked, but the next step wouldn’t have to be quiet, so it didn’t matter.
The man’s body went slack. Taylor pulled the cuffs out of his belt and rolled him over, wrenching the unconscious man’s arms behind his back and snapping the cuffs on. He also took the man's weapons for safety's sake, figuring he could drop them inside somewhere.
A sound made Taylor whip around. Whitaker, who clearly made shorter work of her guy, came jogging around the corner.
“No problems?” Taylor asked.
“Nope. He won’t get up any time soon. Let’s get moving.”
With Whitaker’s help, they dragged the sentry from the front of the building around back, putting him with the man who’d been stationed by the elevator, to keep a random passerby from seeing the man and freeing him or calling the police.
That done, they circled back around and went in the front entry. Taylor had his borrowed pistol out in a single hand grip, his left hand still dangling at his side. Whitaker, who was in better shape to open doors, lead the way with her borrowed rifle. The stairwell was halfway into the building, down a long row of storage lockers.
They could hear Graf ranting in German before they got to the top of the stairs, clearly agitated about Whitaker’s surprise. As they got to the doorway at the top of the stairwell, Taylor and Whitaker paused, listening. Taylor only knew a smattering of German, but he recognized the word for phone and isn’t or doesn’t, along with Whitaker’s name.
Taylor guessed he’d tried to call his men and get the combination off Whitaker and was upset they weren’t answering. Taylor slowly pressed the push bar and opened the door, trying to peek into the hallway and get a picture of where everyone was.
For once, Taylor’s luck didn’t hold. One of the commands Graf was shouting out must have been for one of his guys to go back to the construction lot and find out why no one was answering because as Taylor peaked down the hall, he came face to face with one of the armed men.
Unfortunately for the other guy, Taylor had known they were there and had been prepared for something unexpected to happen, and had his weapon up. Graf’s man, on the other hand, had no idea there was anyone else in the building, and certainly wasn’t expecting an armed opponent. Taylor didn’t hesitate. Taking a split second to adjust his aim, targeting an area high on the chest above where the armored plate in the vest would be and fired.
For a brief moment, Taylor could see the man’s eyes widen before he dropped, twisting backward as he fell. Taylor had to hand it to Graf’s other men, they weren’t slouches, hardly hesitating before moving to cover and returning fire. Taylor barely had time to pull back into the small alcove created by the stairwell before the whizz of bullets ricocheting off the cement and metal doors.
Taylor stepped back to let Whitaker have the corner. Since she was crouching tall, Taylor leaned against the opposing wall, still undercover, kneeling low.
Whitaker blind fired back a few rounds to make them pull back before she leaned out and started taking steady aimed shots.
“We are short on reloads.”
“Did you see how many of them there are?”
“I saw two others, but not Graf. Cover me.”
Whitaker started firing a steady stream towards Graf, and his men as
