seconds. At the touch of a button, the disc was scanned, identified by a bar code imprinted on its surface, and then ejected from the repository in a gleaming stainless-steel tray.
Slipping the disk into a protective plastic sleeve he took from a wall dispenser, Lombardi dropped it into the breast pocket of his jacket and gave his partner the ready signal.
The two men strode from the vault less than three minutes after entering it, passed through the waiting area without a glance at the dead supervisor, and reentered the outer corridor as if they had nothing to hide.
They were swinging back into the main entry hall when the lab tech's screams pierced the air and all hell broke loose around them.
Kirsten knew she wouldn't be able to hide from her pursuers much longer.
The man she'd heard on her left had reached the end of the aisle he'd been searching, swung into the aisle immediately beside the one where she was crouched, and then turned back up in her direction, pausing every couple of steps to poke his head back and forth between the cars. He was now standing directly across from her, separated from her by a single row of vehicles. And the others were closing in from elsewhere around the court.
The man on the left took a step up the aisle, then another. Kirsten's breath came to a stop. She could see his boots and the bottoms of his jeans under the chassis of the car she was leaning against. Her heart was booming in her ears like a timpani, and in the panicky, half-crazed moment before she got a handle on herself, Kirsten was afraid he'd be able to hear it as well.
In a minute or so he would turn up her aisle, and it would be over.
She had never in her life felt so terribly helpless and alone.
God, God, what am I going to do?
No opening had presented itself. Nobody had driven in or out of the lot, and she had no reason to think anybody would before it was too late to make any difference.
She suddenly realized the only thing she could do was run for it, break for the driveway, and hope that by some miracle she could reach the street before they did. She knew even that wouldn't necessarily mean she was safe— the men who'd come after her and Max had been willing to strike on a thoroughfare as busy as Scotts Road, strike with hundreds of pedestrians around, for godsakes. If this group was just a fraction as bold, they might not have the slightest concern about who saw them.
But she hadn't any choice. It was either leave the pot or be cooked.
She waited another second, took a deep gulp of air, and then forced herself to spring to her feet.
The man on the left spotted her instantly. Their eyes made the briefest contact, hers full of hunted terror, his absent of any hint of sympathy or compassion.
Then he rasped an order to his companions and came hurtling across the aisle at her.
Kirsten turned and fled.
The first indication that something was wrong came the moment they pulled their rental car up to the curb, and was the only one they needed. If there were a way to think things were normal after arriving at a person's home and finding the door kicked in, Nimec didn't know it.
He glanced out the windshield at the street, at the outside stairs, at the walkways spanning the rows of doors on the building's upper stories. All were empty.
'Have your weapons ready,' he said to Noriko and Osmar. He withdrew his own Beretta 8040 from its concealment holster, ejected its standard ten-round clip, and chocked in the twelve-round magazine/grip extension. 'Don't seem to be any eyes around, but if somebody does call the local gendarmes, we'll get it straight with them later.'
Following his lead, the others jogged out of the car and across the ground level unit's front yard to the partially open door.
Nimec instinctively moved to the right of the door frame, gesturing the others to the left, making sure there was some wall between them and whatever potential threat might be inside.
'Kirsten, this is Pete Nimec!' he called through the opening, leaning his head around the splintered jamb. 'Are you okay in there?'
No reply.
He pulled back against the wall, cocked his pistol, and looked across the doorway at his teammates.
'Go!' he said.
They rushed into the apartment and fanned out in a practiced crossover maneuver, Nimec moving to the left of the entrance, gun held ready, Noriko and Osmar following him and buttonhooking to the right. The three of them rapidly pivoted to cover the center of the room with their weapons, legs apart, making broad sweeps of their sectors of fire.
They seemed to be alone in the place.
'Kirsten, you here?' Nimec called again.
Still no answer.
Noriko tapped his arm. 'Look,' she said, pointing straight across the living room.
The back door was wide open.
Nimec's eyes flicked between her and Osmar.
'Come on,' he said, and rushed toward the door.
The two intruders paused in the hall and exchanged glances. Confused, frightened staffers poured from doorways on either side of them. Not a word was spoken. They could see that the greatest commotion was down the left bend of the corridor, and knew the bodies of the guards had been discovered. Their original intention had been to walk out the main entrance, and they would have to gamble on still being able to leave that way in the disturbance. It would be dangerous, but any attempt to leave the building through emergency exits would trip sensors that would likely pinpoint the specific door being opened. And they had no illusions about having eliminated the threat from security. The men at the surveillance monitors would not have been the sole members of the plainclothes team on premises. And there was the uniformed guard at the door.
The intruders could only keep their fingers crossed that he'd be sufficiently distracted for them to slip past. Otherwise, they'd have to kill him, too.
They moved forward through the scared, noisy people in the corridor, and were nearly at the checkpoint where they'd had to leave their guns when an alarm sounded, a loud on-and-off noise that grated on the eardrums. The guard at the door seemed to be tracking them with his eyes as they approached.
'We're going out to radio for assistance,' the one who'd called himself Lombardi said. His hand was in his jacket pocket.
The guard looked at him.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'The building's been sealed.'
'Don't insult me,' Lomardi said. 'We have a job to do.'
He started to move forward, Samford walking beside him. The alarm grated on and on.
The guard clamped a hand around Lombardi's arm.
'You need to call somebody, we have phones in here,' he said. 'But nobody's leaving.'
Lombardi smiled. His hand was still in his jacket.
'Don't bet on it,' he said, and squeezed the trigger of the pistol he'd taken from the guards in the monitor room.
Hit at point-blank range, the security guard catapulted backward off his feet, a cloud of blood exploding from his chest. Lombardi pumped two more bullets into him as he dropped to the ground, finishing him.
He turned to his companion and waved him along. He was aware of screams, pale faces, racing feet behind them on the concrete floor.
They hastened toward the door, and got as far as the archway of the weapons detector when someone behind them shouted out an order to halt. They kept walking.
'I said freeze!' the voice repeated. 'This is your final warning!'
Without turning, they quickened their pace.
A gunshot fired out from behind them. Lombardi whirled and saw a plainclothes guard in the center of the corridor, both hands around a gun, his knees bent in a shooter's stance. Lombardi returned fire, missed, heard a thud-thud-thud from the suited guard's gun, and then was slapped across the middle by something he didn't see. He looked down at himself, his eyes wide with shock, and had just enough time to glimpse the bloody amalgam of flesh
