“I thought you were with them,” he said, hurrying silently to the door. Nothing moved in the corridor, and he could hear no sounds in the building. He turned back and looked at the woman. A bruise was forming on her right cheek, and she looked like she was on the verge of collapse.
“I was with them,” she whispered. “But after Georgetown …” She searched his face for understanding. “I didn’t know it’d be like that.”
“A lot of good people were hurt,” McGarvey said, amazed with himself that he hadn’t already put a bullet in her brain. She was at least indirectly responsible for the Georgetown bombing and the attack at the safe house. For what, he wondered?
“I know,” she said lowering her head. “But it’s gone too far.” She looked up. “He’s crazy. They all are.”
“Okay, take it easy, Sandy,” McGarvey said. He would have to make his judgments and decisions later. Right now he needed her help. “How many are there?”
“Kondo and Kajiyama, and I think only two of the commandos came back.”
“Weapons?”
“Sniper pistols, Uzis, grenades. And they’re all wearing night-vision equipment.”
“How’d you know I was at the window?”
“I was upstairs and heard something on the loading dock. When I looked out my window I spotted you climbing up.”
“They’re going to figure out real soon that I’m not out front. So you better find someplace to hide, and keep your head down until it’s over.”
“You’ll never make it that way.” Sandy shook her head. “They’re too good and too heavily armed.”
“You got any suggestions?”
“If I can get Kondo up here, you can take him. I don’t think the others will have a lot of enthusiasm once he’s down. They’ll probably run to save their own skins.”
“If he thinks it’s a trick he’ll kill you.”
Sandy looked into his eyes, and after a moment she shrugged. “You were thinking about it yourself when you came through the window.”
McGarvey looked out into the still empty corridor. “Okay, see if you can get him up here.”
“Don’t miss,” Sandy said. She brushed past him and went to the open office door across from the stairs. She glanced back at McGarvey, then stepped to the head of the stairs. “Kondo-san,” she called out.
McGarvey studied her. She held herself as if she were in a lot of mental anguish. She had made one too many mistakes, for whatever reason, and she was trying desperately now to make it up with one daring act.
“Kondo-san,” she called louder. “You must come up here now.”
“What is it?” someone called from the foot of the stairs.
“It’s Mr. Lee, on the telephone for Kondo-san.”
Someone came up the stairs, and Sandy stepped backwards into the office. McGarvey ducked back just as a figure dressed all in black, night-vision oculars pushed up on his forehead, appeared at the head of the stairs and crossed the corridor into the office where Sandy had disappeared.
McGarvey waited just a second before he slipped into the corridor and silently raced the twenty feet to the open office door.
“The call is for Kondo-san, and nobody else,” Sandy said.
McGarvey stepped around the corner into the office and laid the muzzle of the Walther’s silencer against the base of the man’s skull.
“This is Seijewa, one of their commandos,” Sandy said.
“Take his gun and goggles,” McGarvey told her. He shoved his pistol harder into the base of the terrorist’s skull. “How many more men downstairs?”
Siejewa said nothing, but his muscles bunched up as Sandy took his weapon and night-vision oculars.
“Was he involved in Georgetown?” McGarvey asked.
“No. But he was at Cropley. They were going to kidnap your wife and daughter and use them to get to you.”
“Some friends of mine died there,” McGarvey said. “So you either cooperate with me now, or I’ll kill you.”
“Americans don’t have the courage—” Seijewa said contemptuously. He started to turn, when McGarvey fired one shot directly into the base of his skull. He started forward, then crumpled like an empty sack.
Sandy let out a squeak and stepped back, nearly tripping over her own feet, her eyes and mouth open wide. “My God—”
“Seeing it first hand isn’t very pretty, is it,” McGarvey said harshly. “Where are the switches for the main floor lights?”
She couldn’t drag her eyes from the body. A puddle of blood was already pooling up beside the head.
“The light switches,” McGarvey demanded.
She looked up, trying to gather herself. “Downstairs. Around the corner. A door to the utility panel.”
“Is it locked?”
“No.”
“Okay, we’re going downstairs. As soon as I’m in position, you’re going to switch on every light in the building.” He glanced at the sniper pistol in her hand. “Unless you plan on shooting me in the back.”
She shook her head. “I’d have to go back to Japan with them. I want to stay here. Even if it means jail.”
McGarvey donned the dead terrorist’s night-vision oculars and went down the dark stairs. Everything in front of him was bathed in an unearthly green glow. He held up at the bottom to make sure no one was waiting for them in the corridor, then signaled for Sandy Patterson to go to the utility panel. He went left past some restrooms and then ducked down as the corridor opened onto what had been the main sales floor. It was littered with uneven stacks of desks, chairs, file cabinets, bookcases, lamps and other office equipment.
He scanned left to right, concentrating his attention toward the front of the store. But the building was huge. The only way he was going to find the remaining three terrorists was to make them come to him.
He glanced back at Sandy down the corridor. She had the utility panel door open and was looking directly toward him, but in his darkness he didn’t think she could see him. Kondo’s people had shut down all the security and fire exit lights, and now Sandy was waiting for some kind of a signal.
A pile of a dozen gray steel government-issue desks was stacked, some of them three high, just across from the corridor. Keeping low, McGarvey crept across to them, stuffed his pistol in his belt, climbed up on one of the desks and then putting his back to the effort, toppled one of the desks stacked on another, sending it crashing into a jumble of file cabinets with a tremendous crash.
He yanked off his night-vision oculars and pulled out his pistol, thumbing the safety off. “Now!” he shouted.
The lights came on, one long string after another, in quick succession. For a second or so the sudden light would completely destroy the vision of anyone caught wearing night-ocular equipment. All of the remaining three terrorists, McGarvey hoped.
Straight down the aisle a dark clad figure that had been crouched behind a pile of steel cabinets turned around as he yanked off his night-vision oculars. Compensating for the degradation in accuracy because of the silencer, McGarvey fired three shots left, on target and right, the third shot catching the figure in the chest and driving him backward into the cabinets.
Someone to his immediate left fired a long burst from an Uzi in his general direction, evidently still half blinded from the sudden light. McGarvey ducked right as a figure dressed in black appeared in the aisle. The terrorist started to swing his Uzi around when McGarvey fired two shots, both of them catching the man in the face and knocking him off his feet.
All the overhead lights went out, plunging the store into almost total darkness.
McGarvey stepped to the right and jumped down from the desk. Almost instantly the desks and cabinets piled above him were raked with automatic weapons fire. The weapon evidently was equipped with a flash suppressor, because McGarvey hadn’t been able to pick out the shooter’s position.