I leaped onto the backs of his knees and drove my thumbs as hard as I could into his kidneys. He gargled with rage and pain and started to get up on his hands and knees. I wrapped my legs around his middle and hung on as he started to buck. At the same time, I unzipped the bag and searched inside for the incendiary grenade; I found it and wrapped my fingers around the hard metal.
Kaznakov was on his feet now, writhing, banging me against the wall, struggling to get me off his back. I grabbed his shirt collar and yanked; the shirt and jacket tore open. Still gripping his midsection with my legs, I pulled the pin on the grenade and dropped it down the back of his shirt. Then I jumped off and started hobbling toward the door where I'd come in. When I didn't hear footsteps behind me, I stopped and looked back.
Kaznakov was standing where I'd left him, a dazed expression on his face as it slowly dawned on him that there was a live grenade inside his shirt. He began to dance and claw at his shirt and jacket, trying to get at the small, deadly sphere that was ticking against his flesh. But he knew he was finished; at the last moment he stopped his wild dancing and stared at me. I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
A fountain of flame suddenly shot up from his back. There was a loud whooshing noise, and Kaznakov, without a sound, disappeared into that red fountain. He stayed on his feet a few more seconds, the shadowy outline of a giant petal in a huge crimson flower that was spreading through the corridor; then he sank down. The air was filled with the stench of gasoline and roasting human flesh.
I ran for the exit, pushed through the door, and froze.
Someone was racing up the stairs. I had no gun and no place to hide. I backed up against the wall of the stairwell and crouched, ready to spring if I ever got the chance. The man rounded the bend in the stairs just below me.
"Tal!"
Tal stopped and looked up at me. There was blood streaming from both his nostrils, bright crimson stains on flesh the color of chalk. He swiped at the blood with the back of his hand, then yelled at me. I couldn't hear him above the din of the alarm bell, but I could read his lips: "Follow me! Hurry!"
I scrambled off the landing and down the stairs after Tal. Despite the beating I'd taken, I felt vital and alive, powered by a terrible excitement: I'd killed Kaznakov.
We met Lippitt, his gun drawn, between the first and second landings. His eyes were wide, face flushed. "What the hell?" he shouted at Tal. "I was only gone a minute! How the hell did you get in?"
"The door must have opened automatically when the fire alarm went off!" Tal shouted back. "I just pushed on it and it opened!"
"Why didn't you wait for me?" Lippitt demanded.
"No time! There's no time now! Every second counts!"
Lippitt nodded curtly, turned, and led the way down toward the basement. He paused in front of the basement door.
Tal stepped forward. "Wait here," he said.
"No," Lippitt said. He was looking at Tal suspiciously. "I go where you go."
Tal glanced at me. "Will you wait here, Mongo?" There was a note of impatience in his voice. "Fire or no fire, there'll probably still be a guard standing in front of the Fosters' room. I may be able to bluff him, but certainly not if you're along."
I nodded. What Tal said made sense. Still, Lippitt was right on Tal's heels as they went through the basement door. I waited ten seconds, then pushed the door open a few inches and peered down the corridor. The hallway looked the same as the one on the third floor-except that there was a guard standing in front of a door fifty feet down the hall in these, the "living quarters" indicated on the schematics.
Tal walked quickly, with an air of absolute assurance, even when the guard raised his rifle and challenged him. Lippitt was walking a few feet behind Tal, using the taller man's body to shield the automatic in his hand.
Tal spoke rapidly to the guard, in fluent Russian. I felt a little chill up my spine. I could understand Lippitt's sudden nervousness. The discussion quickly degenerated into an argument, with Tal maintaining, from what I could gather from his hand gestures, that the Fosters would have to be taken out of the room because of the fire. The guard was apparently insisting that Tal and Lippitt produce some kind of credentials. Tal made a show of going through his pockets while Lippitt ended the discussion by hitting the guard over the head with the butt of his gun.
Lippitt immediately went to his knees in front of the door and began to pick the lock. I pushed through the door and ran down the hall, arriving just as Lippitt finished his work and opened the door.
The Fosters were standing in the middle of the room. Mike Foster had his arms wrapped tightly around his wife. Both were still in their nightclothes. "Mongo!" Foster shouted when he saw me. "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!"
Something in Foster's voice caused his wife to push his arms away from her shoulders. She turned slowly to look at us. Elizabeth Foster was a beautiful woman, even without makeup and numbed by sleep. But now her thin lips were compressed by terror, her violet eyes muddy with shock. She gasped when she saw Lippitt.
"You!"
"Hello, Mrs. Foster," Lippitt said softly.
Foster's mouth opened and closed without making a sound. He kept staring at me, as if he couldn't believe I was there. I knew how he felt.
"Let's go," Lippitt said.
It was Tal who led the way out. "This way," he said, turning to his right and motioning for us to follow.
Lippitt abruptly stopped in the doorway, blocking our way. I watched the gun in his hand swing up and point at Tal. "Hold it," Lippitt said. "That's not the way out. We go out the way we came in. That's the plan!"
Tal's eyes flashed angrily. "We can't make it that way, Lippitt. They'll be waiting for us! You tripped an alarm when you opened the door."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"Look at the doorjamb!"
Lippitt and I looked in the direction where Tal pointed; there was a thin, almost invisible wire running the length of the jamb.
Lippitt hesitated. "The way you want to go leads right up to the lobby; there'll be a lot of firepower there."
"There'll be more at the other exits," Tal replied. "It's our only chance; the last place they'll expect us to show up is the main entrance! Think, man!"
Lippitt's gun was still firmly pointed at Tal's chest. "You know too goddamned much about this place to suit me," Lippitt said tensely.
Foster turned to me. "Who do we follow, Mongo?"
"Tal," I said quickly, without really knowing why.
Ignoring Lippitt's gun, Foster brushed past me and pushed the agent to one side. Gripping his wife's hand firmly, he started after Tal, who was already walking toward the open stairway at the far end of the corridor. Lippitt and I exchanged glances.
"You'd better have guessed right, Frederickson," Lippitt said ominously. His gun started to swing around, stopped just short of my forehead.
There didn't seem to be much sense in stopping to argue the point, so I ducked under the gun and started after Tal and the Fosters. Lippitt's footsteps came up quickly from behind me as a contingent of guards suddenly appeared on the stairs just above us. Tal grabbed the Fosters and pulled them to the floor while Lippitt squeezed three quick shots over our heads. The three men fell dead, each with a bullet hole placed precisely in the middle of his forehead.
As Elizabeth Foster started to scream and tremble, her husband scooped her up in his arms and ran up the stairs after Tal. Lippitt followed, and after grabbing a pistol from one of the dead guards, I brought up the rear. I almost bumped into Lippitt as I rounded a curve in the stairs. Tal, Lippitt, and the Fosters were crouched down, backs against the wall, while someone poured shots down the stairwell.