WYATT DOVE TO THE TILED FLOOR AND MADE SURE VOCCIO was low alongside of him.
Bullets banged off the walls.
He couldn’t tell how many shooters they faced. The lobby remained in darkness, only a peripheral glow from the parking lot offering any assistance. Two wide chairs blocked them from the source of the gunfire, about fifty feet away.
He pulled Voccio closer to him.
“Stay down,” he whispered.
The glass doors he sought, the ones Voccio had said led to the rear parking lot, were twenty feet away at the end of a short alcove. He was determined to get them both out of here. His heart pounded with a familiar alarm, the silence around him broken only by Voccio’s nervous breathing. He laid a reassuring hand on the other man’s arm and shook his head, signaling for him to remain calm. If he could hear each breath, so could their attackers.
He was curious about Malone. How had his adversary fared? He hadn’t seen the end of the parking lot standoff and wondered if Captain America was hurt, dead, or across the room firing.
Outside, the rain had slackened.
“I can’t take this anymore,” Voccio said.
He was in no mood for defeatism.
“Stay with me. I know what I’m doing.”
MALONE DESCENDED THE STAIRS, RETRACING HIS ROUTE TO the ground floor, coming ever closer to the loud retorts. He found the exit door, eased it open, and caught sight of shadows advancing across the lobby. Not much light, but enough to see two men with automatic rifles concerned with a target on the far side of the room. These could not be the same two from before. They’d disappeared down the second-floor corridor, headed to the other side of the building and another staircase.
These must be the ones on the other end of the radio.
Whoever these people were after, their quarry was now caught in a pincer, men ahead and behind. He could not reveal himself, as anonymity seemed his best defense, but he also could not just wait to see what happened.
So he aimed and fired.
WYATT HEARD SHOTS AND SAW MUZZLE FLASHES BEYOND WHERE he’d spotted the shadows advancing.
Somebody was behind his two problems.
Malone?
Had to be.
MALONE FIRED AGAIN, CATCHING ONE OF THE SHADOWS IN THE shoulder, hurling the form forward into the wall with a dull thump. The other shadow reacted, whirling around and unleashing a burst of rounds. He jerked himself back inside the stairway and allowed the metal door to close.
Bullets dinged off the other side.
Apparently, his presence had not been expected.
WYATT HEARD THE STAIRWAY DOOR-BEHIND WHERE HE AND Voccio lay-open and he turned as movement disturbed the darkness.
Men were also behind him.
The shooter whom he assumed was Malone had taken down one of the men in the lobby, and the other was now firing at a second illuminated exit. He rotated on the floor, spine down, and fired at the door less than ten feet away.
They had to get out of here.
Voccio was apparently thinking the same thing. The doctor belly-crawled toward the outside exit.
Not smart.
Little cover existed between here and there, though the main threats across the lobby seemed occupied.
He watched as Voccio found the glass doors, slammed a hand into a quick-release latch, and slipped outside. The other gunman, the one firing at Malone, heard the escape, turned, and aimed toward the doors. Before he could fire a shot, Wyatt sent three bullets the man’s way. The form spun, flailed backward, then shrank to the floor.
Two attackers down.
Voccio raced outside.
An instant later both downed forms came to their feet, rifles in hand.
Then he realized.
They wore body armor.
Neither he nor Malone had stopped a thing.
MALONE ABANDONED THE STAIRWELL DOOR, CLIMBING BACK to the first floor, negotiating another hall nearly identical to the one a floor above and finding the second stairway on the far side. He was going to make an end run on the two men he’d seen earlier, but just as he turned the corner for the exit, the stairway door opened.
He darted into the first office he saw and carefully peered around the jamb. A man with a rifle took measure of the hall, then, satisfied that all appeared quiet, emerged. Malone laid his gun down on the carpet and prepared himself, keeping his back to the wall, waiting for the target to pass. As that happened, he lunged, wrapping an arm around the man’s neck from behind, the other hand going for the rifle.
He wrenched the weapon free, spinning the man around and driving a knee into his groin. He’d already felt the body armor and knew that blows above the waist would be futile.
His opponent buckled forward and cried out in pain.
Another knee into the man’s jaw and the body recoiled backward. He readied a third blow, this time a fist to the face, when the man suddenly planted a foot into Malone’s left kidney.
A mist of pain engulfed him.
His adversary ignored the rifle on the carpet and beat a retreat toward the stairway door.
Malone shook off the blow and started his pursuit.
The fleeing shadow turned, pistol in hand.
A backup weapon.
The gun fired.
WYATT CROUCHED LOW AND HEADED FOR THE EXIT DOORS. AS he came close to the glass he turned back, ready to fire, but no one was there.
He took advantage of the quiet and released the doors, fleeing out into the night. Immediately he assumed a position adjacent to the exit, using the exterior brick wall as cover, glancing with caution through the doors back into the lobby.
Three men rushed from the building, out the main entrance.
At first he thought they were circling, readying an attack from the outside, but then he saw the glow of headlights from the front parking lot, the three bolting toward a waiting vehicle.
No way these guys were such bad shots.
They’d been waiting for him and Malone, prepared and equipped, but they’d accomplished nothing except making a lot of noise and shooting up the lobby.
Another shot disturbed the silence.
From inside, an upper floor.
Where was Voccio?
He scanned the blackness and caught sight of the doctor, fifty yards away, hustling toward a parked car. He tore out the gun’s magazine and slammed home a fresh one from his pocket. He glanced back inside and spotted another form emerging from the stairway across the lobby and leaving through the front doors.
Apparently the party was over.
Something was wrong.
He stared back toward where Voccio was entering the car. He should leave, too, with the doctor.
Then it hit him.
That’s exactly what they wanted him to do. His mind performed a rapid calculation and the result struck him like iron.
A growl signaled a cold engine starting.
He opened his mouth to yell.
Voccio’s car exploded.