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  Turrin's words were cut off by the closing doors.

  Bolan double-timed it to the fire escape, intending to use the heavy metal door as a barricade against the invaders. As he pushed it open, a man tumbled through the shattered window and fell into a prone position, dropping his rifle into target acquisition.

  2

  Autofire raced down the hallway, drumming a rapid tattoo against the metal skin of the fire escape door.

  Bolan gripped the doorframe and threw himself around the corner, coming to a halt with his back pressed against the wall, the Desert Eagle held against his ear. Torn metal stuck out from the door where rounds had chewed into it.

  Residual heat from outside the building choked the narrow spiral of the fire escape, and Bolan could feel his shirt sticking to his back. How many men were there? And how the hell had this hit become so important? Somebody with dirty hands in the Witness Protection Program he could buy, but not this. Whoever was putting the assassination teams together wasn't assembling them with halfway measures.

  He yanked the fire escape door open, whirling back as more bullets whined off the concrete wall across from him. The brief glance he had been allowed showed him two more men had joined the battle.

  The warrior pushed off the wall and headed down the steel-reinforced steps. His booted feet clumped noisily in the emptiness of the emergency exit. He bounced off the first wall at the bottom of the initial flight of stairs, placing a big palm on the yellow 7 painted there, in order to help change the direction of his momentum.

  He kept expecting to hear the door above him explode open as the assassins pursued him.

  Had they seen Turrin and Howell board the elevator? Or had they assumed the man they were after had preceded him into the fire exit? They would check the elevators, he told himself, and would notice the descending cage. They wouldn't let the possibility that their quarry was inside the elevator go unchecked. This was strictly a military operation, a seek-and-strike mission that would leave only scorched earth in its wake.

  It was possible that they had someone waiting on the bottom floor and that he had sent Leo straight into their sights.

  Damning himself for not thinking the situation through before punching the button, Bolan pulled the door open and stepped out onto the seventh floor. For a moment he was lost in the darkness that filled the corridor. His eyes darted to the glowing yellow numbers over the elevator farthest from him, wondering if Leo was safe.

  The elevator nearest him was in motion now, too, dropping only a handful of floors behind the little Fed's, leaving the fire escape as the only route down.

  The only conventional route, Bolan corrected himself as he ran to the last office on the left at the end of the hall. Clenching the Desert Eagle in both hands, he raised his right foot and smashed it into the door beside the locking mechanism. The entrance gave with a metallic screech as screws and bolt pulled through the soft wooden frame. The force of the kick knocked the big door backward, stabbing the knob into the plaster wall.

  Movement behind Bolan alerted him to the fact that he wasn't alone. He dropped to one knee, taking advantage of the partial security offered by the open door as he leveled the .44, cupping the Magnum's butt in his left palm.

  The warrior used his peripheral vision to penetrate the gloom. Three men, he figured. Two on the right and one on the left. How many men did that leave pursuing Turrin and Howell? He pushed the question out of his mind. There wasn't enough intel to go on yet. Too damn many for sure.

  "Where the hell is be?" The disembodied whisper drifted down the hallway, and Bolan couldn't be sure which man had spoken.

  "I don't know."

  A Klaxon sounded without warning, filling the floor with a roar of noise as emergency lights flared to life. The sound of a muffled explosion came from above.

  Startled, Bolan glanced at the lighted numbers above the elevator shaft, watching it wink out weakly while signaling the third floor. Then he was hunting cover as the three men opened fire, falling back into the office as splinters gouged for his flesh.

  Dropping to the floor, Bolan fisted the .44 in his left hand and crawled to the doorway again. He kept his hand and arm behind him as he peered around the violated doorframe, then swung the big handcannon into target acquisition as one of his attackers sprinted for the office.

  Bolan waited until the guy was opposite the door, wanting to be sure of putting at least one of them away. The emergency lights in the corners of the hallway gave him a brief glimpse of the dark uniform the gunner wore. The man's face seemed disjointed under the illusion of the combat cosmetic he wore, as if different faces had contributed to the composition of this one, the pieces arranged clumsily.

  The warrior aimed the big Magnum, unloading a pair of .44 skullbusters at the center of the Halloween face, watching it dissolve before the sudden high-powered onslaught. The man's body was blown backward against the opposite wall, the body leaving a dark, oily smear as it sank to the floor.

  Bolan was up and mobile again before the corpse finished its slide. He was sure the outside team had blown the generators, plunging the building into semidarkness and perhaps trapping Turrin and Howell between floors in the elevator. He kept the .44 up and ready and threaded his way through the office. He found the inner office door and hurried through.

  Once inside the small office, Bolan closed the door behind him. Taking the penlight from inside his jacket, he thumbed it on and scanned the room. Lurid posters of exotic locations with shapely, tanned flesh leaped out at him, grabbing his attention for a moment. Then he turned his eyes to the office phone, tracing the length of phone cord trailing from the box.

  He bolstered the Desert Eagle and focused on the cord. Using a small pocketknife, he cut the phone cord and started to pull on it, following its length to the base of the wall. Staples popped free of the wood and fell onto the carpet.

  He strained to hear whatever noise the men might make as they approached the inner office, waiting expectantly for a scuff or scrape, wondering if any movement would be audible in the closeness of the room. Already the air was turning stale and muggy, unable to be released through the air-conditioning and backup air units.

  The phone cord came free easily, and he twisted it over his palm and under his elbow as he gathered it. How many feet could he get? For a moment it became stuck under the inner door. His shoulder and back muscles strained as he pulled on it with both hands. It held long enough for muscle cramps to start, then popped loose, the end of the cord snapping against the door.

  Before the small echo could die away, a burst of slugs thudded through the shallow wooden paneling of the door, ripping from top to bottom without pause.

  Bolan spun away, unlimbering the .44 and triggering off three rounds that made holes he could put his fist through. Then he was at the window, lifting the phone in his fist and swinging it at the glass. The first blow left spiderwebbed cracks that ran from top to bottom. The second emptied the frame of most of the glass, and he used the butt of his gun to remove the rest of it.

  He looked down at the street seven floors below, then back at the shattered door, realizing he had no choice. He had been in tighter situations, he told himself as he secured one end of the phone cord to the desk, but he was damned if he could remember one at the moment.

  Thinking of Leo trapped in the stalled elevator with the remainder of the hit squad working its way down to him, Bolan threw a leg out of the window, letting his body follow naturally. Under his weight, the desk scooted jerkily across the carpet until it came to a stop against the wall below the window. After testing the knot he'd made in the slim wire, the warrior grabbed twin fistfuls of the doubled strand and rappelled downward, working his way lowly to the window below on the next floor.

  Whirling rotors screamed around the building toward his position. Realizing he'd be visible to the chopper pilot, Bolan kicked away from the building, letting the cord slide through his hands with almost burning speed. The aircraft turned the near corner
of the building with agonizing slowness, looking like some impossible insect monster from a 1950s science fiction movie.

  Bolan turned a half circle as he swung back toward the building, momentarily out of control. He slammed against the brick wall on his right foot, trying to regain control of his momentum. The impact numbed his foot, but needles of returning feeling assaulted it almost immediately, probing just beneath the skin. He saw the helicopter turn on one side, heard the change in the rotor's pitch, then watched it swerve toward him. A rifle barrel protruded from the passenger side of the aircraft.

  Bolan propelled himself away from the building, slipping the cord through his hands, aware that the length was approaching the end, hoping it was enough. Bullets whined off the bricks, chipping splinters from his previous position.

  The warrior's outward swing took him almost eight feet from the building, then he was penduluming back. Too damn fast, he thought. Yellow muzzle-flashes ignited the darkness to his right and behind him. He wondered briefly why he couldn't hear the sound of the shots. Then he felt the barrier of glass contact his boots, felt enough tautness to wonder if it would give, if he had judged the angle right or if he would only hit a glancing blow and hang suspended from the too-short cord while the gunner on the helicopter picked him off.

  He crashed into the glass and exploded through. Curled into a ball at the base of the window, he reached for the Beretta, knowing it held a full clip while the .44 was down to a few rounds.

  The helicopter's shadow fell across the window. The Executioner raised himself to a kneeling position, arms stretched outward over the glass-covered ledge. The Beretta popped as Bolan emptied the clip, his hands shaking as if he'd grabbed hold of an invisible wind.

  Even as the 93-R blew back into the locked and empty position, the helicopter gave a full-throated roar and bounded skyward. The chopper was gone before he had a chance to ram another clip into his gun.

  Bolan pushed a fresh clip into the Desert Eagle, then unlocked the door of the office he was in and headed for the sixth-floor corridor.

  He waited a moment at the outer door before exposing himself. The emergency lights illuminated the hallway with an eerie glow, and the shadows seemed suspended and stretched out across the walls. Seeing no one, he ran for the elevator shaft that Leo and Howell had descended. He shoved the fingers of his right hand through the sliding doors, and they parted grudgingly.

  Using the powerful penlight, the Executioner scanned the cavity as best he could. The cage hung suspended two and a half stories below, stranded between two floors.

  Bolan leathered the .44 and removed his jacket. Holding it in both hands, he leaped for the elevator cables, feeling the muscle-burning strain tear at his upper body as he fought gravity. He slid down the cable too fast at first, then clamped his hands tighter. His descent slowed as the cable rasped only bare inches from his unprotected face, shredding the jacket.

  The impact was considerable, and he went to his knees with the force of it. Bolan located the emergency access panel and used the Gerber to pry it up and remove it.

  He didn't look inside. Ignoring the pain in his hand, he wrapped his fingers around the butt of the .44 and tugged it free. He called Leo's name softly.

  "Striker?"

  Bolan grinned despite the situation. "Yeah." He peered inside the cage, seeing Turrin and Howell pressed against the walls. The faces of both men looked bleak in the lancing beam of the penlight. Shards of glass at Turrin's feet told Bolan the Fed had smashed the interior emergency light to maintain the protection of darkness.

  "Give me an arm up," Leo said.

  Bolan did, powering the smaller man through the hatch with little difficulty. Then he reached for Howell. Perspiration made his hand slick, and Howell's hand slipped away. He reached again, closing his fingers around the man's wrist. As he pulled, an invasion of light near the man's feet signaled the arrival of the attackers. A rifle barrel moved into the inches-wide opening provided by the doors of the lower floor.

  Cursing, Bolan yanked with everything he had, knowing if the gunner sprayed the interior of the elevator, the ricochets would cut Howell to bloody rags. Thunder erupted inside the cage as the man cleared the opening. Howell gave a muffled groan, and the Executioner recognized the too-familiar sound of a bullet striking flesh.

  "Help him, Leo," Bolan growled as he drew the .44. "He caught one." The Desert Eagle drummed a death-beat as he touched off the rounds, knowing they would chew through the thin walls of the elevator into the flesh beyond.

  The rifle drew back instantly.

  "How bad is it?" Bolan asked as he shoved a fresh clip home. He sensed Leo helping Howell up behind him. The elevator doors to the fourth floor were almost beyond reach.

  "Clean one, Mack. In and out the calf."

  Bolan glanced over his shoulder, noting the grayness of Howell's face. "Can you make it?"

  The man flashed a brief smile. "I got a choice?"

  Bolan gave him the ghost of a grin. "If you want to call it that." Leo produced a handkerchief and wrapped it around Howell's leg.

  Using the heavy blade of the Gerber to separate the doors over his head, Bolan forced a handhold and levered himself up, widening it as he went. He reached back into the elevator shaft for Howell, helping the man scramble to solid ground.

  A hollow thump sounded in the elevator cage as Bolan grabbed Turrin's hand. The sudden widening of Leo's eyes told the Executioner he knew as well as Bolan did what the noise signified. He pulled hard, trying to get his friend up as quickly as possible, feeling their hands slip for one sickening moment. Then Leo was up, rolling onto the carpet away from the shaft.

  The whump of the compressed explosion blew the elevator doors from their tracks, one of them smashing heavily against Bolan's legs.

  "Get up," the warrior commanded as he pushed himself to his feet. He stood guard while the two men composed themselves, anxious to be moving again. Howell favored his left leg and Turrin stood unsteadily, the trench coat hanging limply.

  "Once we reach street level," Bolan said, "we're going to be okay. There are places to hide, to maneuver. Until then, we've got one way down and that's the fire escape. Part of the team that's hunting us will be covering that from below, and you can bet that more of them are in the upper stories."

  "Why don't we try to wait them out?" Howell suggested. "Surely the police are on their way."

  Bolan shook his head. "They're not playing a waiting game. They came here to get you, and they won't leave until you're dead or become totally inaccessible to them."

  Howell's face tightened. "Then leave me here. I'll take my chances until the police come. Maybe they'll let you and Leo go."

  "That's not the way these guys operate," Turrin replied. "First they'll kill you, then they'll want your son dead. Every time this team operates, it's an all-or-nothing mission. You're the only person I know who's lived through one of their assaults. I've asked enough questions these past two weeks that I can be fairly certain they know me well enough to want me out of the way, too. Chances are they waited until I was in the building before they made their move. What they couldn't count on was the backup we would have with us."

  Howell nodded, and the grin he gave Bolan and Turrin was without mirth. "Fair enough, gents. You had your chance to get rid of me."

  Bolan took the lead, followed by Howell. Turrin brought up the rear. The warrior cautiously pushed the fire escape door open. Nothing moved. The emergency lights were bright flares at every deck, almost powerful enough to penetrate the darkness gathered like fog around the spiraling stairways.

  Aware that he was no longer a single target and had more than just himself to consider, Bolan moved down the first flight of stairs, pressing himself back against the recesses of the wall. He motioned the two men following him onward.

  He heard Howell suck in his breath and hold it as they neared the third-floor landing. He wanted to tell the man that not breathing was the last thing his body needed to deal with. Bolan kep
t his own oxygen flow even and unhurried, at one with the weapons in his hands and with the blood coursing at breakneck pace through his veins.

  When he reached the landing, Bolan blocked the door with his foot, standing clear of the entrance in case the gunners tried to shoot their way through. Once Howell and Turrin had cleared the landing, he pulled the door open, flattening himself against the doorframe as he brought up the .44.

  The empty hallway gaped back at him. Only the exploded doors of the elevator shaft seemed out of place. Where were they?

  The flat crack of Turrin's .38 signaled a fusillade of return fire. The 5.56 mm tumblers splatted against the concrete walls from above, sending sparks shooting across the landing. The gunfire, amplified inside the enclosure, became a dirge from hell that made conversation impossible.

  With his forearm, Bolan shoved Howell ahead of him, down the stairs under the temporary safety of the stairway. The warrior slipped the 93-R inside his waistband and grabbed a fistful of Turrin's trench coat, muscling the little Fed over the railing that separated the upper and lower staircases just as a barrage ignited the ironwork into a short-lived fireworks display.

  Then Bolan was leading the charge down the final flights of stairs, weapons in both hands.

  The bottom door of the fire escape had a small window. Dodging to one side, Bolan tried to penetrate the darkness that lay gathered inside the foyer. He summoned a mental image of how the room had looked when he and Turrin had entered the building earlier — the main desk there, the security office here, artificial plants lining that wall. Then he realized the emergency lights weren't on in the foyer.

  Meaning someone was waiting for them to walk through the door. But how many men?

  "Sarge?"

  "It's a sucker play," Bolan replied, turning his attention to an abandoned garbage bin that stood against the opposite wall. He snared it, noting the pile of crumpled paper inside with grim satisfaction.

  Voices, unclear and indistinguishable, drifted down the staircases.