He spun Kirsten around and swept her in toward his chest, trying to get a firmer hold on her. Frantic, she snatched a glance past his shoulder, saw his companions rushing up through the living room, and thrust her hands out at his face, clawing at him, digging her fingers into his eyes.
That bought her a momentary reprieve. Emitting an animal yelp of pain, her attacker shoved fiercely away from her and covered his face with his hands, spinning in a blind semicircle, bowling wildly into the men behind him. At the same time, Kirsten flung herself at the door, clutched the knob, and tore it open.
Gasping for breath, a gale wind of terror and desperation roaring through her brain, she dashed out into the automobile court.
When the white-smocked techie first opened the door to the security office, the coffee she brought the guys every day at the same time balanced on a cafeteria tray in one hand, she simply couldn't credit her eyes. She stood there in the doorway, looking at the bodies and the blood streaming from the unrecognizable remains of their heads, the blood spattered everywhere in the room, the blood and strings of gristle covering the monitors on which closed-circuit images of the halls were still flashing through their preset sequences as if nothing eventful had occurred to disrupt the daily routine, and then suddenly the world went into a crazy tilt and the two coffee cups spilled from the tray and hit the floor where there was all that blood and gore and she opened her mouth wide and screamed, screamed at the top of her lungs
Screamed until long after half the people in the building had come running toward the office to see what in the name of God and his blessed angels was the matter.
Kirsten squatted on her haunches between two parked cars, trembling with fright, trying not to move, afraid the slightest sound would give her position away to her pursuers. She could hear their feet crunching on the asphalt as they moved up and down the aisles, searching for her amid the rows of slotted vehicles. There weren't as many cars in the lot as there would have been at night, when many more residents of the apartment complex would be home from work, but she would take what small blessings she could… and for the first time in her life feel grateful for the large government-sponsored housing developments that had virtually wiped out the city's traditional architecture.
More footsteps. Closer. She hugged herself, trying to think clearly through her fear. If she could manage to hide until someone came along either to leave or fetch his car… or perhaps inch her way around toward the driveway leading to the street, then maybe she'd have a chance to get some help…
Kirsten heard the crunch of another footfall, this one no more than two aisles down to the left of her, then an entirely different set a little further off to the right.
They were boxing her in on either side.
She stiffened, biting down on the fleshy part of her hand, stifling a mutinous scream. While part of her kept insisting that she give in to the urge, there was a more rational part that understood it would be the worst mistake she could possible make. If she screamed, they'd know exactly where she was, would be on her in an instant, well before anyone could come to her aid.
No, she dared not do it. Dared not make a sound. Dared not move a muscle.
The moment she did, Kirsten was sure she would be theirs.
The optical mini-CDs were stored in specially designed, alphanumerically-tabbed electronic "stacks" lining the walls of the vault. Once inside, the pair of intruders had been able to locate the object of their search within 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.