Inside the capitol building Nathan and the squad with him caught part of a militia unit creeping up one of the back stairwells. Rather than opening the engagement with rifle fire, Nathan grabbed a grenade and held it up. Two paratroopers immediately behind him did likewise. When they were ready the three men pulled the pins from their grenades. Letting the spoon flip up and arm the grenade, Nathan counted to three before rolling his down the stairs as the other paratroopers chucked theirs up and over the side.

Not quite sure what was going on, the militiamen sneaking up the stairs stopped, squatted down, and looked to see what was making the noise they heard. By the time they saw the grenades it was too late.

It took several seconds for the reverberations of the detonating grenades to die away in the close confines of the stairwell and longer for the smoke to clear. When they saw no sign of anyone below making a second effort, the paratrooper next to Nathan chuckled. “Well, it seems like these boys don’t have such a steep learning curve after all.”

Nathan agreed. “Now all we have to do is figure out where the other little weasels will pop up. Let’s move, out!” With that, he took off down the stairs.

One of the paratroopers with Sergeant Gandulf was the first to spot them. While dropping down from his firing position in a window to reload his weapon, the paratrooper noticed that the elevator doors halfway down the hall were being pried open. With a shout he warned the others, but not before a volley of grenades came sailing out though the narrow opening. Scurrying for cover, all but one of Gandulf’s men found safety. Unlike the militiamen who had pulled back from Nathan’s grenade attack, Gandulf and his men had no choice but to stand their ground. Ignoring the fire from across the street, the paratroopers rose up from where they had sought cover and blasted away at the partially open elevator doors.

Everyone had emptied a magazine’s worth of 5.56mm ball into the elevator doors and narrow opening between them when a hail of gunfire from an uncovered fire exit farther down the hall swept through them, putting another paratrooper out of action. Diving back down onto the floor in an effort to find cover from the fire coming from that quarter Gandulf realized that they were in deep trouble. “Can someone find the lieutenant and tell him he needs to get back here?”

Nancy was on her feet in a flash. “Pull your men back and cover the conference room. Keep the militia away from there as long as you can. I’ll find Dixon.”