existed a split second before.
Ricci swiftly bound over to him and pressed the squirter of the dimethyl sulfoxide cannister clenched in his gloved fist.
The attendant raised his hands over his face on reflex, but the stream of odorless, colorless DMSO…
A chemical with myriad properties that was originally an incidental by-product of the wood pulping process, used as a commercial solvent for fifty years, a medical organ and tissue preservative for about forty years, and a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory with limited FDA approval for slightly less than thirty years…
A chemical that in the past decade or so had attracted the close attention of nonlethal weapons researchers because of its instant penetration of human skin and its capacity to completely sedate a person on contact and without side effects if administered in sufficient concentration…
The DMSO running down over the attendant’s outthrust palms and fingers made him crumple like one of the foam training dummies Ricci sometimes used in hand-to-hand combat practice.
Ricci caught the attendant in his arms to ease his fall, lowering him gently onto the floor. Then he quickly rose and scanned the garage for ways to reach the building’s aboveground levels.
There was a single elevator about ten yards to the right. Not a chance his men were going to box themselves into that death trap.
His gaze found the door leading to the stairwell to his far left, on the opposite side of the garage.
He turned toward the rest of the men, now standing back-to-back in a loose circle, their individual weapons pointed outward, covering all points of the garage while they peripherally watched for his gestured command.
Ricci was about to wave them toward the stairs when he heard the distinct sound of the elevator kicking in. He glanced in its direction, his eyes fixing on the indicator lights over its door.
It was coming down the shaft from the ground floor.
Coming down fast.
Grillo had likewise turned to face the elevator, his eyes narrowed behind his helmet visor.
He watched its door slide open seconds after its hoisting motor activated, appraised its passengers at a glance.
They took maybe a step out of the car and then froze at the scene that met their eyes, both simultaneously noticing the assault team, the unconscious garage attendant, and the debris-strewn hole in the floor.
Grillo didn’t give them a chance to recover from their initial confusion.
He whipped his hand down to his belt, unholstered his stingball pistol, and pulled the trigger twice.
The mini-flash bangs it discharged hit the floor directly in front of their feet, the fragile rounds shattering like eggshells against the hard cement to produce startlingly loud reports and blindingly bright bursts of light.
The couple staggered dazedly, the woman covering her eyes with both hands, the man tripping backward to sprawl with the upper part of his body inside the elevator and his legs stretched out. Its door tried to close, struck his hip with its foam rubber safety edging, automatically retracted, tried to close again, hit him again, the whole sequence repeating itself over and over as he writhed there on the floor of the garage.
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:
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:
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
