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  “They’re going for the files in Aikman’s office,” January commented. “It’s going to be strictly crash and burn for a total evidence scrub on the jackal network.”

  “Clear,” Wilson ordered. “We move on my go.”

  The team cleared.

  Flicking the auxiliary channel selector toggle on the T-jack, Wilson moved over to the tach frequency being used in conjunction with the state police, who’d rolled on the call with them. “Falcon, this is Redball.”

  “Go, Redball.”

  “We’re confirmed here. The count stands at ten perps and one hostage, but that’s not a final tally.”

  “Roger. We’ve targeted at least one spotter a block from you people, but he’s not moving. There’s no reason to think he’s made us.”

  “Affirmative. When I give you the signal, shut down the neighborhood. Nobody goes in or out unless they’re checked through by your people or mine.”

  “Understood, Redball.”

  Wilson gained the final landing. The office building was the tallest structure in the immediate vicinity. The nearest building was across twenty feet of space and two floors down. A dome-shaped greenhouse made out of plastic tarp and pine slats sat on the roof below.

  Pigeons cooed and moved restlessly on the greenhouse and on the building’s eaves.

  Vache was on the last step of the metal stairway when the window shattered. The muffled whir of a silencer on a fully automatic weapon chased away the street sounds of passing cars and humming streetlights. Spinning glass fragments and slivers dropped to the metal landing or shot against the railing and broke in high-pitched crunches.

  A hail of bullets caught Vache midstride and drove him back down the steps.

  The wicked snout of an Ingram MAC-11 pushed through the broken window. A harsh voice shouted a warning.

  Moving quickly, uncertain whether Vache’s Kevlar-lined trench coat had absorbed the rounds, Wilson twisted at the side of the window and reached inside. He followed the line of the gun, saw it coming around to face him when his fingers caught the material of the gunner’s clothing. Closing his fist, he yanked with all his strength, pulled the man kicking and screaming across the shards of glass remaining in the window frame. Working with the impetus the initial yank had created, he kept the gunner at a headlong pace that ended in a sudden plunge over the side of the railing.

  The ululating scream that followed ended suddenly, made even more jarring by the sound of collapsing metal and breaking boards.

  “Vache!” Wilson whirled in time to see the FBI liaison pulling himself back up the railing.

  “I’m okay. Body armor stopped the bullets.” Vache’s face was pasty white and, his mouth was set in a line of grim determination.

  Wilson nodded and blew on the mike. “Rawley.”

  “Go. I copied the action.”

  Wilson clambered through the shattered window. The Delta Elite was a compass needle before him, wavering as it sought out threats. “How many inside now?”

  “Still reading six perps and possibly Aikman.”

  The room was a small office containing stuffed bats, owls, and snakes. Maps and star charts adorned the badly painted walls. A bookcase full of books on the occult covered the adjoining wall of the office at the side. The desk near the bookcase held a stuffed raven perched on a branch and a crystal ball at least eight inches in diameter that rested in a pewter collar.

  Wilson oriented himself using the memorized blueprint Scuderi had retrieved from public records. They were in Madame Julka’s office. The glass pane in the center of the door advertised palm reading, channeling, compatibility reports, personalized horoscopes, and counseling by appointment only.

  “We’re blown,” Wilson said as he tried the door. It was locked. “Close it in and let’s see what we can salvage.”

  The team checked off and moved into their positions. January and Scuderi had just made their debarkation point behind the office building and were scrambling.

  Wilson aimed the 10mm at the lock and changed channels on the T-jack. “Falcon, this is Redball. Shut ’em down. The integrity of the covert operation has just gone bust.”

  “Roger, Redball.” The state police commander faded out of the linkup.

  Wilson pulled the trigger twice and the lock became a confused twist of battered parts while sparks sailed like miniature comets.

  Bullets slammed into the glass panel from outside and dissolved it into a collection of jigsaw pieces that rattled against the bottom of the door.

  Dodging against the wall, Wilson reached up and pressed the SeekNFire actuation switch. His synapses thrummed with the adrenaline rush as his palm read the stats on the Delta Elite and fed them into his reflexes.

  Vache went to ground behind the cheap desk. The second burst smacked the side of the crystal ball and sent it rolling. Before it dropped over the edge of the desk, at least two rounds caught it and splintered it into dozens of gleaming pieces. The raven disappeared in a small cloud of black feathers and the stink of cordite filled the small office.

  Holding the 10mm in both hands, Wilson came off the wall in a Weaver stance, pointing through the open area the pane of glass had occupied only a heartbeat before. His night-vision goggles illuminated the outside corridor.

  The gunner finished loading a fresh magazine and brought the MAC-11 back up.

  Wilson squeezed off two rounds that caught the man in the face and neck. The hollowpoints kicked the man back against the wall, then he slumped forward onto his face.

  Twisting the knob, ignoring the heat of the metal caused by his earlier bullets, Wilson yanked the door open and went through. He secured the corridor for a moment as Vache came through on his heels. Movement caught his eye.

  Unbelievably, the man he’d put down was in motion. Most of his lower face was gone, and he was bleeding profusely. Blood formed a slick covering over his dark clothes and splotched the hands that worked to pull the pistol from the belly holster. The reflexes were dulled and jerky, but they were getting the job done. The pistol came up in short arcs of movement.

  Dropping his Delta Elite into target acquisition, Wilson put the remaining three rounds of the clip into the man, aiming for the vertebrae joining the skull to the neck. A final shiver coursed through the body.

  Vache breathed a hoarse curse. “I figured he was dead.”

  “Not dead,” Wilson said as he crossed the corridor to examine the perp. He fed a new magazine into the 10mm. “But he should have been down.”

  “Was he on PCP or blue angel?”

  “No.” Wilson pointed at the gleaming bits of metal fused to the patches of spine showing through the wounds. “Endo-skel.”

  “I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never seen one in action before.”

  “This is only the third time I have,” Wilson said. “Maggie ran into a guy wired for one earlier. And he was Asian, just like this guy.” He pushed himself up and went down the hall, following the map he had inside his head.

  “I thought we were tracking Boston Mafia,” Vache said.

  “Prio is Boston Mafia, but that guy is Asian. Not the domestic variety. You don’t find much endo-skel work being done in the States. In the Far East, the Triad, Yakuza, and opium warlords specialize in it.”

  “Doesn’t that stuff shorten your life span? Isn’t that why the Bureau decided against it?”

  “Yeah. It may make them harder to kill, but they’re thrown into the breach a lot sooner and a lot more often. Dead is still dead.” Wilson jogged around the next corner and cut right, choosing the shortest route to Aikman’s office.

  “The Asians do jackal work too, don’t they?”

  “Most of them. But usually their clientele go to their hospitals. They don’t operate stateside much because there’re too many laws here.”

  “Maybe they’re looking to open a local branch with DiVarco.”

  “Doesn’t figure. DiVarco doesn’t have a history of playing second-banana for anyone.”

  “Coul
d be they were here to put him out of business.”

  “He’s not that big.”

  “You didn’t think he was big enough to be fronting a jackal network that ran all the way down the east coast either,” Vache pointed out.

  “True.” Wilson paused at the next corridor intersection when voices reached his ears. He waved Vache back against the wall behind him, then blew into the mike to access the T-jack. “Rawley.”

  “Go.”

  “At least some of the perps are equipped with endo-skels.”

  “Understood. Anytime I fire, I’ll be keeping that in mind.”

  Wilson glanced around the corner and saw two men standing guard at either side of an office door at the end of the hallway thirty feet away. They carried machine pistols like the first perp’s. “Maggie.”

  “Copied,” Scuderi replied.

  Mac and January copied as well.

  Wilson doubled back to the last office they’d passed. He fired two rounds into the locking mechanism, then lifted a booted foot and drove it hard against the doorjamb.

  The door exploded inward and partially came off its hinges. It hung askew with the glass pane advertising Atlanta Sports Promotions, Inc., spiderwebbed in cracks.

  “Depending on their time frames, they may come to investigate that,” Wilson warned. He grabbed hold of the desk in the outer office and pulled it under the makeup air duct set in the ceiling. “Can you hold this room?”

  “Sure.” Vache took up a position beside the doorway and held his pistol in both hands.

  Leathering the 10mm, Wilson clambered on top of the desk. Papers and the phone went shooting in all directions. He shoved his fingers through the duct work, secured a hold, and yanked downward.

  The duct work pulled free with a screech. A cloud of dust and fiber particles followed it down, then mushroomed out again when it banged off the desk and clattered to the tiled floor.

  Wilson took a miniature oxygen mask from an inside pocket of his jacket and twisted the T-jack’s mike out of the way. He pressed the mask against his lower face and activated the electromagnetic seal. It pulsed and adhered itself to his flesh. The compressed air cylinders along his cheeks gave him a twenty-minute supply, more than enough time for what he had planned.

  With a slight flex of his legs, he leaped up and pulled himself into the yawning mouth of the airshaft. He elbowed his way into the heating duct and crawled toward Aikman’s office. Dust and debris billowed up around him, and he knew if he wasn’t using the oxygen mask he wouldn’t have been able to breathe without it filling his lungs with gunk.

  The building was old, and the ductwork provided enough space for him to move through at a constant pace. Gunshots sounded behind him as Vache engaged the perps.

  Less than forty seconds later, Wilson was peering down through the duct in the ceiling over Aikman’s desk. He drew the Delta Elite and tested the screws holding the duct in place. He guessed that he could easily knock it loose when it was time.

  Aikman was inside the room with three Asians. No one spoke. While Aikman went through hard-copy files and tossed them onto a pile in the center of the open floor, one man stood guard over him. Another man covered the door, and the remaining man was at the computer workstation in the corner. Screen after screen of information bytes flashed on and disappeared as the man stroked the keyboard.

  Wilson peeled the oxygen mask away for a moment and swiveled the T-jack mike down to his mouth. “Rawley.”

  “Go.”

  “What kind of reading do you have on Aikman’s office?”

  “I show four people, plus yourself.” A special identify-friend-or-foe program was wedded to the thermal-imaging scope. The IFF keyed off the Omega shields to let anyone using sniper weapons know friendlies were in the immediate area.

  “Can you see the man on the door?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “When I give you the word, drop him. We’ll scramble on the others.” He identified Aikman’s position for Rawley, knowing the FBI man would have the hardest time keeping the accountant clear in the confusion.

  “I’ll be waiting on you.”

  Moving forward to position his weight in the best place, Wilson slipped a smoke grenade free of his jacket and armed it. “Now!” he said. His elbow came down hard on the duct and sent it tumbling free.

  The office window exploded inward, mirrored by the guard’s body slamming against the door as the big .50-cal round impacted in the center of his neck at the third vertebra. The sound of the shot took a beat to catch up.

  The heavy metal duct dropped onto the floor. Wilson slid over the edge and followed it down. The smoke grenade left his fingers before his feet hit the carpet. He dropped and rolled, coming up in a semi-prone position with the 10mm extended toward the man beside Aikman. Melded with the SeekNFire technology wired into his reflexes, Wilson squeezed off three rounds.

  The first bullet caught the man’s gun arm and snapped his pistol away just before an angry tongue of flame reached for the cowering accountant. The next two bullets drove the Asian into the cracked office window. Off balance and dying, he tried to right himself.

  The smoke grenade went off with a loud pop and unleashed a cloud of oily black smoke that filled the room in less than two seconds.

  Raising the Delta Elite again, Wilson put two more rounds through the Asian’s face. The man’s head whipped back and he began the long fall to the pavement five stories below.

  Aikman was screaming in terror, hunkering down beside filing cabinets and covering his head with his arms.

  The night goggles were programmed to adjust to the special smoke and Wilson had no problem seeing. He sealed the oxygen mask back in place to save his lungs from the acrid smoke.

  The fourth man came from the computer workstation and reached under his jacket for a weapon.

  Wanting to take the man alive if he could, Wilson pushed himself to his feet. He could tell from the Asian man’s reflexes that he could see through the smoke as well. Wilson launched a spinning side kick at the man’s head. Bone-crushing force stopped him short as the man seized his foot in mid-kick, then yanked.

  Wilson’s shoulders hit the carpet. He twisted to look up as the man raised his pistol and pointed it at his face. Wrenching himself violently to the side, Wilson stamped out with his free foot and caught the man in the crotch.

  The man groaned and slumped forward.

  Twisting again, Wilson landed two rapid heel kicks that opened cuts on the man’s face. His foot came free. Rocking back, he flipped himself to his feet, then ducked under his opponent’s weapon and felt the heat of the muzzle flash burn his neck. Lashing out with his gun hand, he smashed the Delta Elite’s barrel against the man’s wrist. Bone broke in harsh snaps.

  The pistol dropped. The perp screamed in pain and frustration.

  Sidestepping the man’s sudden rush, Wilson hammered out three quick blows to his face. The last one lost most of its force as it slid away over the film of blood coating the man’s features. Turning after his opponent, Wilson seized the man by the neck and slammed him down to the ground. Wilson followed, landing with his knee in the man’s back. Air hissed out of the man’s lungs in a painful scream.

  Leathering the 10mm, Wilson took out his handcuffs and tried securing the man’s uninjured wrist. Sudden explosions scattered around the room knocked him off balance. Before he could move, the enormous strength granted by the endo-skel system allowed the man to surge up even though Wilson was on his back.

  Fires blossomed into existence in four different places around the office. One of the explosions blew a file cabinet drawer across the room to imbed in the wall under a Norman Rockwell-print calendar. Another fire blazed from the computer workstation.

  The man grabbed Wilson’s wrist and pulled him from his back.

  Wilson rolled with the throw and came to his feet facing the man. As he took his stance he blocked a punch, grabbed the man’s shirtfront, and fired a rapid series of bone-rattling knee kicks into
the man’s stomach. Once he was unconscious, it didn’t matter if the perp had an endo-skel or not.

  Feeling the burn of taxed muscle, grimly aware that the evidence he so desperately needed was probably being lost to flames, Wilson dragged the man’s face down to meet his upcoming knee.

  The impact was dulled, meaty. The man slid downward and didn’t move again as Wilson cuffed his hands behind his back. The sound of approaching sirens came through the broken window.

  “Slade.” Maggie Scuderi stood in the doorway of the office, silhouetted by the flames racing up the walls in liquid pools. She had her pistol in front of her and was scanning the room.

  “Get Aikman out of here,” Wilson said, pointing. “He’s in the corner.”

  Scuderi didn’t waste words. She crossed the room, grabbed Aikman in a riot-control hold, and marched the accountant through the door.

  Sprinting across the room, Wilson dragged the bacteria gel-drive system from the desk. Components scattered and bounced across the floor. Sparks shot out, bright and hard in the collected smoke. Triggering spring holding the concealed Crain dagger, Wilson slashed the blade through the wiring connecting the hard drive to the rest of the system. It came free in his hand. Carbon had already blackened the surface, and the metal was hot to the touch. He wasn’t sure if it could be salvaged at all.

  The monitor blew with a popping hiss, and flying glass twinkled from the escaping sparks pouring from the unit’s electronic guts.

  “I’m activating the Kidde system now,” Darnell January called out over the T-jack. A heartbeat later, white, puffy foam from the fire-suppression system filled the room. It was like being in a child’s water-filled snow globe.

  The foam left streaks across Wilson’s goggles. He reached down and grabbed the unconscious man by his shirt collar, then dragged him from the room as flames rose higher and higher. The heat was searing. He doubted if the Kidde system would be able to save much.

  “Slade,” Rawley called out. “Hit the deck. Now!”

  Wilson went down immediately. A blur of movement dropped from the ceiling above him. He released the hard drive and his prisoner as he went for his pistol. The Delta Elite came up automatically, but he knew it was going to be close as the Asian man raised his own machine pistol from a distance of less than ten feet. Whatever the outcome, he knew he was going to take some damage.