walkway gate, the other manning the vehicle gate at the back alley. Two of the five Russians were at work in the lab in one wing of the house, as they always were at this time, after the arrival of the airfreight shipments. Ilya Andropov was in his office. Anatoly Markov was at the security console, idly checking the monitors, with the fifth—a gaunt, sharp-featured young man named Vladimir—dozing on a sofa in the room.
Markov noticed Winston Stickney tossing the first of the bricks over the wall. Markov got a good look at him and recognized him.
He shouted: “Goddamn, it’s the American. Vlad, go get him!”
Vladimir Raznar woke on the sofa, uncomprehending.
Markov was still shouting, yelling for Andropov and the two in the lab, yelling about intrusions in the perimeter. He shouted again at Raznar, and this time Raznar understood and ran out to the side gate and up the walkway and the sidewalk, looking for the American.
The two from the lab came out, and Markov sent them onto the grounds to find whatever had come over the wall.
For a few minutes, events overtook them. There were the firecracker explosions, and the fire trucks, and the customers and the girls filling the sidewalk, mingling with the firefighters who struggled to hook up hoses. Markov and Andropov watched all this on the monitors, until Andropov noticed the two firefighters on the inside stairs, up at the top of the landing.
He pointed out the shot. “Toly, something’s wrong here.”
“It’s a fire,” Markov said.
“Go see what’s happening.”
“Boss, it’s a burning building.”
“I don’t see any fire,” he said. “Go! And take this.”
It was a pistol, a 9mm automatic.
Markov took it, tucked it into his waistband, and hurried out the door.
——
Favor ignited another smoke bomb when he entered the Optimo offices, and placed it under one of the desks.
Using a flashlight, he went to a PC at one of the nearby desks and turned it on.
Smoke filled the office as he waited for the machine to boot.
He said, “Ari, you ready?”
“I’m waiting.”
He found a USB port at the front of the machine and plugged in the flash drive. “It’s in.”
Stickney said, “Al, one coming your way. With pistol.”
Mendonza was on the landing, waiting at the top of the smoke-filled stairway. He held the pike pole at the ready, blunt end forward. As a figure emerged from the billowing smoke, Mendonza swung the pike at shin level, taking the man off his feet. The pistol flew as the man smacked hard into the floor, face-first. Mendonza swung the pike again, down across the man’s back, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Mendonza kicked the pistol across the floor and turned back to the staircase, pike pole at the ready again.
Favor said, “Ari, anything?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s been thirty seconds. That must not be a network machine.”
“Shit.”
“Try the rooms in the back,” Stickney said.
Favor unplugged the drive, shut down the PC, and made his way through the smoke to the back of the room.
The flashlight’s bright spot found a door to his right. He tried it. Locked.
He swung the ax, and the door splintered.
He stepped in, found the PC and the power switch.
He turned it on and waited for it to boot.
Stickney said, “Al, two more. One with a long gun.”
Favor plugged in the drive. “Ari, it’s in.”
Mendonza stepped down into the thick smoke of the stairwell. He held the pole out in front of him, waited, and jabbed hard at the first shape he saw in the smoke. It was the barrel of a shotgun, and he knocked it aside with one flick of the pole, then went hard at the belly of the man behind the gun.
The blow knocked the man back, off balance, into the second one behind him, and they both fell backward down the stairs. Mendonza pressed forward down the steps, holding the pole out in front of him. The outline of a pistol appeared in the smoke. Mendonza knocked it aside and jabbed with the blunt end of the pole, looking for windpipes, abdomens, groins.
Ari said, ”We’re in.”
Favor pulled out the flash drive, pressed the PC’s power button, and left the room. He crossed through the office, over the broken glass, down the stairs. He stepped over the two sprawled figures on the steps, to where Mendonza waited near the door, looking up for him.
They walked out of the smoke and into the night.
“Out,” Favor said.
Stickney watched until they had disappeared into the tumult on the sidewalk, swallowed up, and he pulled