“Have you hailed them?” he asked into radio.

“Roger. No response,” came the reply.

He held the radio to his mouth. Everything might depend on this. “Safeties off. Put a bead on those planes. I want to know who comes out. But no shooting unless I give the word.”

He pulled the radio away from his mouth, took his finger off the transmit button.

“Roger,” came the reply, from a half dozen voices.

Then a moment later. “I’ve got ropes. Men hot roping out of vehicle one!”

Shit. That meant assault!

Wu Jiabao pulled the radio back up.

“Oh my god,” it crackled. “They’re all…”

“Fire!” he yelled into his radio.

The sound of gunfire answered him.

And groans.

Screams.

“Status!” he yelled.

Silence.

“Status!” he repeated.

Silence.

“Chief,” one of his men said.

Wu Jiabao looked over. The man was studying the house monitors. And there, on them, he could see armed men moving through the home.

Armed men with identical faces.

Wu Jiabao swallowed.

“Flank the door,” he ordered. “Take cover behind the bar. Prepare to repel.”

Then he walked over to the couch, hauled the scrawny politician up by his lapel, put a gun to his head, and put the man between him and the door.

His wife and family screamed.

“Run into the bedroom!” he yelled at them.

Sun Liu struggled, and Wu Jiabao clubbed him with the gun.

“I need you alive,” he told the man. “But I’m willing to blow your nuts off.”

That stilled him.

Wu turned to the house monitors, just in time to see a monitor show one of the invaders point a gun at it.

And then it went dark.

More than half of them were dark now.

He watched as they came closer, bit by bit, penetrating into the house.

Destroying every camera they came to.

Until they were right outside the door.

He waited, in view of them, his pistol pressed to Sun Liu’s temple. He felt his men shift, become anxious, felt the anxiety rise, felt it rise further.

Why weren’t they coming in?

BOOOOOM.

With a shuddering explosion, the door blasted inward. Wu staggered on his feet, felt Sun Liu try to get free. He jerked the man brutally, righted himself, brought the gun back to the man’s head.

A figure appeared in the doorway.

His men opened fire.

The figure was gone, not there anymore.

His men kept firing.

Clips went dry.

Then men in white were inside the room, firing back.

And suddenly all was still.

And everywhere he turned, he saw his men were dead.

“Don’t come any closer!” Wu said, staring at the clone who’d come in first. The man had an assault rifle pointed forty-five degrees down, mostly at the floor. “Stop right there! Back away or I’ll blow his…”