When the shooting began an instant later, the suddenness startled the three crouching men.
Bullets chewed the wood around the doorknob. Even as the hot lead screamed into the office, a booted foot kicked the door open. A masked commando rolled into the room, rifle up and searching for targets.
Fabio laid him out with a single shot to the forehead. The dead man was falling to his knees as the next wave of soldiers leaped through the open door. The heavily armed men dove behind desks and chairs, all the while shooting at the Gabinettos. Returning fire, Fabio and his brothers took cover behind a row of filing cabinets.
More shooting echoed from the rear storeroom. Fabio heard the sound of another door being kicked in.
"Dere's more coming in the back!" he yelled. As he fired at the shadowy figures, Fabio suddenly thought they might be coming to collect the guy he and his brothers had knocked out. One thing was sure; if Fabio Gabinetto was going down, he'd make this was a hollow victory.
He swung his gun toward the back of the office, ready to plant a few rounds into the unconscious man.
His eyes went wide.
The guy was gone. The open storeroom door was only a few feet from where they'd dumped him. "Dammit!" Fabio growled. He smacked Jennio in the side of the head with his gun butt. "I told you we shoulda whacked that guy," he snarled. As Jennio rubbed his head with his free hand, Fabio turned his attention back to their attackers. With an angry scowl, he resumed firing at the mysterious masked men.
MARK HOWARD HAD COME around more than an hour earlier. Feigning unconsciousness, he'd watched the activity in the office through slivered eyes.
There didn't appear to be any way of escape. Though his bonds were loose, he couldn't very well wriggle out of them in full view of his captors. He'd lain quietly on the floor, his body cold from his own sweat, with no hope of survival.
His shocking salvation came when the door to the office was kicked open amid a barrage of bullets. The new arrivals quickly got into a gunfight with the men who'd grabbed him while he was skulking around the rear door of the Miami Raffair office. Mark seized his chance. Hands still tied behind his back, he had crawled desperately on toes and knees into the back room.
In seconds, Mark slithered out of his bonds and was upright, running for the rear exit. He had almost reached it when fresh gunfire erupted through it. As bullets pierced the steel door, Mark dove through an open doorway to his left. He landed roughly on the floor of a small office.
Mark was scampering to his feet just as the first gun muzzle appeared around the door frame. It moved in tentatively, like the sniffing nose of a curious animal.
He was cornered. The only door was the one he'd just come through. There were no windows. As his eyes darted around the room, Mark saw a familiar shape lying on a chair.
His heart knotted at the sight of his gun. He pounced on the weapon, tearing at the holster's Velcro straps.
His stalker in the hallway heard the sound. The man twisted around the corner just as Mark lifted his gun. With a look a fierce triumph, Mark squeezed the trigger.
It didn't budge.
He suddenly remembered he'd left on the safety. Problem was, it was so long since he'd bought the damn thing, he didn't remember where the safety switch was.
And as he twisted and shook the weapon in helpless frustration, the masked man who had just entered the small room raised his own gun, ready to fire.
Mark's eyes grew wide. He felt his breath catch as the rifle was aimed at his chest. The world slowed to a crawl, then stopped completely. Distorted sounds came in amplified waves to his suddenly acute ears.
Shouting from out front. Fresh shock above the roar of gunfire. Nearer, the rustle of fabric as the gunman raised his elbow. Hand shifting in slow motion, finger tensing on the rifle's trigger. To the right, a deafening explosion as the wail to the small office suddenly burst in.
For Mark, the world tripped back to normal time. In a hail of plaster dust, the upended body of Emilio Gabinetto soared through the wall. Before the gunman could fire, the flying Gabinetto had slammed into him with the force of a speeding freight train.
Scooping up the masked man bodily, Emilio continued on. The two men were crushed into a pile of indistinguishable arms and legs against the cinderblock wall of the building. With a sigh of collapsed lungs, the big bundle of knotted flesh dropped to the floor.
Mark stared at them in shock.
Through the hole in the wall, he could hear the sounds of confused shouting. Men yelled in English and Spanish.
A persistent noise like that of snapping kindling rose to his ears. Somehow, Mark instinctively knew he was listening to the sound of snapping bones.
In spite of the fear he felt, Mark peeked through the jagged opening Emiiio Gabinetto had formed. He saw a flash of something small and red flying toward a cowering Jennio Gabinetto. Before the gangster could shoot, the red dervish was upon him. The instant the blur resolved into the shape of a tiny, kimono-clad man, Jennio became airborne. Mark's eyes hadn't yet understood what they'd just seen when the warning burst like a solar flare in his brain.
He threw himself to his belly an instant before Jennio Gabinetto soared through the hole his brother had formed.
The body pounded against the wall and bounced off, collapsing lifeless on the prone form of Mark Howard.
Mark felt the air rush out of him as the mound of dead flesh settled on his back. He struggled to pull air back in his lungs. He was trying to wiggle out from under the huge body when he heard an angry hiss of Spanish nearby.
Twisting his head, Mark saw that another commando had entered the room from the back door. Even as the firefight was dying in the front office, the man strode toward the CIA analyst.
Mark had dropped his gun in the fall. He made a frantic grab for it even as he squirmed under the body.
His fingertips had barely brushed the gun butt when the hard crush of a boot heel stomped on his wrist. He felt the sharp sting of snapping bone.
The commando swung his rifle barrel at Mark's exposed head. And in that instant before finger brushed trigger, Mark heard a shocked gasp.
"Remo, cover your eyes!" cried a squeaky voice. From his ankle-view of the world, Mark saw a pair of plain black sandals materialize before his eyes. There was a loud crack of shattering bone, and the body of the commando collapsed in a heap inches from Mark's nose.
"What's wrong?" asked a new voice. A pair of leather loafers appeared next to the sandals. "Who's that?"
"Do not look!" implored the first. "Whatever it is, it is writhing like a Pyongyang harlot beneath that behemoth."
"Top guy's dead, Little Father."
"Worse still. Stop that this instant," the first man clapped disapprovingly. "My young son does not need to see such depravity."
"By the looks of it, this guy wasn't very well liked by anyone around here."
A pair of hands dropped beside the loafers. A face at once both cruel and curious peered at Mark Howard.
"Hiya," Remo Williams said.
Mark felt a sudden blessed lightness as the body of Jennio Gabinetto was lifted off of him.
"Okay, what's your story?" Remo asked as he tossed the three-hundred-pound corpse lightly over his shoulder. His eyes strayed to the fresh rope burns on Mark's wrists.
The CIA analyst climbed to his feet, cradling his injured arm. "CIA," he explained, panting.
"Oh," Remo nodded, the light of understanding dawning. "The Keystone Kops of the spy world. Word of advice for the future, Nick Danger? Really bad form to get smothered under a big fat guy while you're doing that dippy spy stuff you people do." And with that, he turned from Mark. "This way," he said to Chiun, pointing out into the large back room.
Chiun was standing beyond Remo. His wrinkled face offered Mark a look of disapproval. When Remo headed for the door of the small office, the Master of Sinanju spun after him, kimono hems swirling around his bony ankles.
Mark knew without a doubt that these were Smith's men. And loud in his ears, the feeling was screaming that this was both a moment of great import and dire consequence.
By the sound of it, the two men had cleared a path to the front door. He could duck through the hole in the wall and escape into the night, without further risk to his own life. But his heightened instinct told him that there was something more to be learned here.