“Wake up?”
Court smashed the Ruger pistol into the side of the man’s head, and the security officer slumped back on the landing.
Court stood, heaved his pack, and headed for the stairwell.
—
When he drew up his attack on Alexandria Eight, Court knew the weakest link of his entire infiltration would be the period—maybe no more than fifteen seconds—between exiting the tower stairwell and entering Denny Carmichael’s private suite. Court would have to move down a winding open staircase from the third floor to the second floor, completely exposed to everyone and anyone in the main hall of the building. For all Court knew there could be two dozen armed men standing around on the ground floor or on the second-floor landing, and they would all have a straight line of fire on him until he made it off the landing and through the entry to the hall of the south wing. And perhaps even more importantly than the fact that he’d be exposed to the guns, it would only take one person triggering a warning for the security office of the building to flip a switch, at which point the steel doors would close and the pneumatic locks would engage, sealing the south wing off from the rest of the property.
He couldn’t stay invisible and he couldn’t crawl down the stairs, because he would still be in view. No. He just had to run for it and hope no one saw him, at least until he was close enough to the hallway door to get through before it was shut and locked from the inside.
And Court had to do all this with forty pounds of gear on his back.
He moved out of the tower stairwell and onto the winding staircase around the main hall. The light was good here, which wasn’t good news for Court, but he was happy to find no CIA security officers on the stairs or on the higher floors.
He began moving down the stairs. Below him at least a half dozen armed guards stood at ground level, congregated at the main entrance to the building. They all appeared to still be looking outside at the five SUVs way down the driveway.
This ruse worked for a while, but finally Court saw one of the men turn away from the front door, idly look up, and see a man head to toe in black, his face darkened with greasepaint, and a massive black backpack on his back.
As much as he hated it, Court was impressed with the speed at which the man reacted.
“Contact!” The guard below raised his weapon, and Court picked up the pace, rushing towards the hallway doors half a floor down and twenty yards away.
With the first echoing cracks of rifle fire in the huge room, Court knew the security officer positioned behind a desk just inside the south wing would be reaching for the button that would close that part of the building off from the rest of the property. This would slam the door shut, drop steel over the windows, and lock steel doors to the attic above. Court would have zero access to Carmichael and al-Kazaz once the door—now fifteen yards away—slammed shut.
Masonry on the open stairway exploded just in front of Court but he ran into the dust and bits of debris. He didn’t bother with fighting back; even firing a couple of rounds in hopes it would force his adversaries to take cover would cost him more time than he could afford to lose.
He just kept running down the stairs, taking them three at a time. The backpack strap bit into the ragged wound on the right side of his rib cage.
All the M4s in the entryway were firing now; the noise was insane in the three-story-high room, and Court felt the jolt of a round slamming into his backpack behind him. It pushed him against the wall but his momentum kept him moving onward, and his balance was good enough to keep him from stumbling and falling down the stairs.
A light above the south wing door began flashing when Court was just ten yards away. He saw the double doors closing quickly in front of him. A squawking alarm that kept time with the flashes rang out but it was drowned out by another half dozen rounds. Court felt the overpressure and heard the zing of a bullet passing a foot from his face, but he ignored the desire to duck and instead he dove forward, arms outstretched, and he landed on his chest on the marble floor, and then tumbled right past the closing steel doors.
As soon as he was through he tucked his feet to his body and the doors slammed shut right behind him.
But his problems had just begun. There were two men at the far end of the south wing hall, one hundred feet away and looking in his direction. The security desk was just on his right by the double doors, so he rolled out of his backpack, then rushed behind the desk. Here a lone security officer drew his pistol to fire at the man in the black greasepaint but Court slid under the man’s aim and took him out at the legs.