The stairs were empty at this time of the afternoon, so they came out onto the fifth floor, still undetected. They made their way down to Karel Skála’s door, and Ryan knocked while Dom sized up the lock.
After a second and third knock, Ryan nodded to Dom and stepped out of the way. While Dom dropped to his knees and began working on the lock, Ryan watched up the hallway, keeping his eyes trained on the stairwell. The elevator bank was closer than the stairs, but Jack knew he’d hear anyone coming via elevator long before the doors slid open. No, their main concern now was the possibility of a neighbor coming out of one of the five other apartments on this floor, or else the stairwell on the far end of the hallway flying open.
No words were exchanged between the two men. Ryan wanted to tell his cousin to hurry the fuck up, but he fought the urge. He knew Dom would defeat the lock faster than he could, so he forced himself to be patient.
Finally, Jack heard the click of the latch opening, and then he followed his cousin through the door.
The small entryway was dark and unremarkable, and this led to an equally dark hallway about twenty feet long. Halfway down on the right was an archway, and they found this led to a well-appointed living room. There was not a single light on in the small apartment, so Jack flipped on a lamp by a sofa so they could look around. Everything was neat and undisturbed.
Both men sniffed the air, trying to decide if anyone might be in the apartment, but neither man detected any particular smell.
They split up and did a quick but careful walk-through to make sure the place was unoccupied, then they met in the living room.
Dom spoke softly. “An office in back. No computer. Guest bedroom is empty as well.”
Jack said, “Master bedroom off the right here. Lot of junk lying around, it will take a little while to search this place. Let’s snoop around. I’ll start in the office. You start in the bedroom.” He then called Gavin. “Gavin, everything okay?”
Gavin Biery replied from his overwatch position: “All’s well outside.”
Jack reentered the master bedroom and looked for anything interesting out in the open, but that didn’t take long. Skála looked like he lived the life of a regular educated European male in his late twenties. There were clothes lying around, books and magazines on his bed, some cheap art on the wall. The guy obviously liked to play squash; there were racquets and other gear lying on a shelf, and a picture of Skála posing on a squash court and holding a trophy rested on his dresser, next to the small trophy itself.
Jack stepped into the master bathroom and went through the medicine cabinets, noted the man had what appeared to be a prescription to combat male pattern baldness, and a large bottle of over-the-counter medicine to treat an upset stomach.
On the other side of the apartment Dom combed through the office. He didn’t speak or read Czech so he couldn’t identify any of the papers or notes on Skála’s little desk, but nothing looked terribly interesting. He felt around under the desk, pulled out the drawers and looked for false compartments, and he searched behind the bookshelves of the small office. When he came up empty in this room he went into a guest room and checked under the bed, then stepped into the bathroom and started searching there.
In Skála’s bedroom Jack opened the closet and saw Skála had an impressive array of suits on one side, and on the far side, in the back of the closet, a long row of winter coats were pressed together tightly. Jack decided this would be a great place to hide a safe or anything else Skála wanted to keep hidden, so he began feeling around through the coats. While he searched for any sort of a safe or hidden door, Dom called from the kitchen.
“We can plant a bug in here, but we’ll just have to come back and get it if he doesn’t show up before we leave.”
Jack felt play in a board in the back wall of the closet. He yanked a few coats off the rod and dropped them to the floor to reveal a loose piece of wallboard a foot and a half wide and several feet tall. He started to pull on it, and while doing so, he said, “Hey, cuz. Check this out. I might have a—”
The large board peeled back easily, and behind it knelt a pale white man in his underwear. His eyes were red but wide, and he held a large metal object in his hand.
The man screamed and raised the metal object.
“What the—” Jack leapt back in surprise, which worked to his advantage, because the man jumped out from his hiding place swinging.
Jack rolled backward across the bed, ended up on his feet against the shelf with the squash equipment on it. The attacker came forward, leapt up on the bed, and raised the weapon high to swing it down. It was a brass lamp, big and heavy, and the man wielded it like a two-handed sword.
“Wait!” Ryan shouted, but the man swung again as he jumped off the bed. Ryan spun out of the way and felt the breeze as the brass lamp whipped by his face.
Ryan heard his cousin shout from the kitchen. “Jack?”
Ryan didn’t have time to answer. He stumbled back over the dresser as the man closed quickly, chasing Jack with the heavy blunt object. He swung again, but Jack managed to fall backward out of the bedroom and into the hall before the lamp connected.
He rolled to the left and shouted at the man again. This time he said, “Skála, wait!”
Dom Caruso turned into the hallway from the kitchen, his pistol already out of its Thunderwear holster. Skála swung at the gun before Caruso could fire, and the brass lamp in Skála’s hand clanged against the steel and polymer weapon, knocking it out of Caruso’s hand.
Caruso leapt back to avoid a second swing, but then he moved in quickly, got between the attacker and his weapon, and he slammed the man hard up against the wall of the hallway. The brass lamp clanged to the hardwood floor and Dom shoved the man again. The back of his head made violent contact with the wall. He slid down to the floor, dazed, and Dom stepped over him, fists balled and ready to break his jaw with a right cross.
Jack shouted, “No! Don’t hurt him. It’s Skála.”
Dom looked at the man’s face for a second, then he relaxed his hands, turned, and went to retrieve his pistol.
Jack stood up and looked down at the dazed man in his underwear. “You speak English?”
The Czech man was only twenty-eight, but his blond hair was wispy thin. His eyes were impossibly bloodshot, and he smelled like sweat and urine. Jack’s first impression was the man was some sort of a drug addict.
Skála nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“What the fuck were you doing in your closet?” Jack asked.
He coughed a few times. His throat sounded as dry as paper. “Hiding from you bastards.”
“How did you know we were here?”
This confused the man, it was plain to see. He rubbed his eyes. “You… Aren’t you with the North Koreans?”
Caruso holstered his pistol. He was pissed at losing his weapon in a fight with a man with more luck than training, and his anger was reflected in his voice. He snapped back, “Do we fucking look like we’re with the North Koreans?”
Jack added, “We’re American.”
Skála said, “So? The last American I talked to was working with the North Koreans.”
Hazelton, Jack thought, but he did not say it. Instead, he said, “We’re not with the North Koreans. Are they after you?”
Skála just nodded. He was still coming out of his daze, and he was plainly afraid.
Jack said, “We’re going to sit down in the living room and talk a minute. We have a man outside and we are in communication with him. He’ll tell us if anybody else shows up.”