There was no door on the other side of the room, Cole soon noticed. There was only one way in, and one way out. It was a room with only one purpose, he realized.
Cole checked the door he’d entered through, but it was unsurprisingly locked. He then started a careful search of the room, almost losing his footing on the slippery pools of blood that had collected across the plastic sheeting. There was nothing he could use — no doors, no windows, no hatches. But, he observed with a flash of hope, there were no cameras either. Not the sort of place you’d want permanent records to be kept of, he guessed. But it gave him the briefest glimmer of a chance — it meant that the building’s security probably hadn’t realised what had happened yet.
Cole picked up the two guns that had fallen to the floor and quickly checked them. Six rounds left in one, seven in the other. The gun he’d taken initially had twelve rounds left. He tucked the other two pistols into the waistband of his trousers, then searched all three men. He found an extra fifteen round magazine on all three of them, and slipped these into his pockets.
Only moments later, the door started to open and the first man of a clean-up crew entered the room. There were three men in total, mops and buckets in hand, and their eyes went wide at the dead bodies on the floor in front of them. They started to react, turning and going for their weapons, but it was too late; Cole fired just three shots and all three men dropped dead, the 9mm rounds exploding through their skulls with sickening force, spraying the plastic-covered walls with blood, bright red in the harsh lighting.
He was sure that they were all good men, just doing their job, but Cole never even considered letting them live. Shooting guns out of men’s hands was all well and good for John Wayne, but in real life, things just didn’t happen that way. Cole had to escape and, innocent or not, there were now three fewer men to follow him. Like Cole, they had known the risks of their chosen profession when they had signed up. The guilt would creep up on him one day, perhaps a week later, perhaps a month, but Cole would shed no tears for them. After all, they would have shed none for him.
He spun out into the hallway, keeping close to the doorframe for cover, his eyes tracking the path of his guns as they scanned quickly up and down the corridor. They was nobody else there. He dropped the two pistols he was holding, and immediately crouched over two of the new bodies, quickly searching them. He removed identical handguns from holsters on the waists of both men, and stood up. Better to have two fully loaded weapons, he figured. He felt sure he would be using them again.
As if to prove his scepticism, a crash sounded at the other end of the corridor. Spinning out once more into the hallway, his eyes went wide as he saw another four men rushing out of the huge doorway at the other end of the corridor. Shit. A silent alarm, tripped by the security force that was undoubtedly surveilling the corridor by means of hidden CCTV.
A burst of gunfire from a compact Heckler and Koch submachine gun that narrowly missed his head focussed his attention like a laser beam. Instantly, Cole adopted a low, side-on kneeling position to minimize the target he would present and fired down the long corridor with both guns, rapidly stroking the triggers until both weapons were empty. Even at that distance, all four men went down; perhaps not dead, but certainly out of action. Their inexperience had been clear to Cole from their first shots — fired on the run, without rooting themselves to take proper aim. Cole, on the other hand, had preserved sufficient presence of mind to do so, and the results were apparent.
Another sound started to echo down the room, and it took several precious moments for Cole to realize what it was — doors locking. The sound had started at the far end of the corridor and was working its way rapidly down the hall. All his exits were being cut off. Cole barely had time to wonder if the entire corridor would become an airlock, allowing them to kill him with some sort of poison gas, before he saw the door to the chamber out of which he had escaped also swing shut and lock with a solid clunk.
Spinning round desperately, he dropped his guns as he reached out for the door that led back into the lounge area. He only barely managed to grab the handle and yank the door open, mere fractions of a second before the lock electronically activated, thick steel bolts shooting out from the inside edge of the door; mercifully not into the housings in the doorframe, but into fresh air.
Hearing more noises behind him, he just had time to glance back through the doorway as more armed men poured into the far end of the hallway, before he jumped through the gap and into the lounge bar, swinging the heavy door shut behind him. He heard the impacts of the bullets on the far side of the door, but ignored them. Instead, he immediately surveyed the room in which he now found himself, analysing his every option. As he quickly took in every feature of the big lounge, he realised with disheartening realism that there were not many choices open to him.
As he watched, armoured doors slid powerfully shut across the arched entranceways through which he had initially passed earlier that morning. There didn’t seem to be any other doors, except for one on the library’s mezzanine level, on the right hand side opposite that of the one on the ground floor, although it was undoubtedly securely locked by now.
The people in the room were the same group as when he had left just minutes earlier; various types and ages, scattered around the lounge, some half-way through their lunch, others still digesting the daily newspapers. But all now looked fearful, terrified. Having entered the CIA’s protective custody, they would all assume that Cole had been sent as an emissary of their own respective governments to kill them.
A thought suddenly entered Cole’s mind suddenly, unannounced and unbidden. My family. He suddenly realised that it would not just be himself that would be in danger; he had been betrayed and now his family would also be a target. He couldn’t die here; he had to escape. He had to. He had to get out and warn them. He vowed that nothing would stop him; nothing would stand in his way.
A collective scream echoed around the room, and everyone dived for cover, fearing that they would be next. Cole knew his time was running out. The security team would be at the door within the next couple of seconds, and they’d want blood; Cole had already killed or seriously wounded eleven of their colleagues. Sprinting over to the bar, which offered the furthest point from the doorway, Cole grabbed hold of a short, spectacled man in what appeared to be his mid-forties, who was cowering on the ground, hands over his head. Cole yanked him to his feet and placed his gun to the side of his head just as the door burst open.
A team of eight men entered the room, fanning out down that side of the lounge, taking up positions in front of the dining booths. The two men on the far sides had H&K SH sniper rifles; a little bit of overkill for this sort of environment, Cole couldn’t help thinking, but it made him a little more cautious of just where exactly he angled the short man’s body. Cole crouched slightly to better cover himself, and saw the other six men all had assault rifles, pointing directly at him.
‘Don’t shoot!’ Cole shouted violently. ‘Don’t fucking shoot! I’ll put a bullet in this guy’s fucking head, you know I will!’ The men exchanged looks with one another, before looking to the man just right of centre, who Cole took to be the section leader. As the man seemed to consider matters before giving his orders, Cole hoped beyond hope that the guy he’d grabbed was of significant importance to someone.