Carmichael jammed his finger onto the trigger, yanked it back, and fired a long fully automatic burst of 4.6-millimeter hollow point rounds into Kaz’s stomach at a range of one foot.

The weapon lurched in Carmichael’s hand, so he took hold of the forward grip to steady it.

The loud roar of the gun drowned out the tamped explosions on the wall fifteen feet away, and Denny’s eyes were locked on Kaz, whose expression of pure shock and agony shone bright as day in the fat red flames of the gunfire.

Denny emptied most of the magazine into the flailing body of al-Kazaz, then he spun to his left, aware suddenly of the noise, light, and motion there.

He turned wildly with the gun in his hand still firing, and then Denny Carmichael rocked back on his heels, slammed into the bookshelf behind him. The HK flew from his hand and then he dipped forward, dropped onto his knees, and fell down flat on his face behind the conference table, coming to rest across the legs of al-Kazaz.

He’d been shot twice in rapid succession, straight through his necktie and into his heart.

—

Dakota raced through the ragged breach and into the conference room. One of his assaulters in the gun port had just shot a hostage, he’d seen it through his NODs as he entered, but his main objective all along was to kill Violator, and that had not changed.

He lined up in front of his men, cleared the room, and moved right, towards the hallway there. With three operators on his heels, he led the way.

At the foot of the attic stairs he met up with the two men who had breached the door to Denny’s office. They’d reported no joy on the target, so they knew he was in the attic.

All six operators began moving up the steps.

—

Court shouted to Catherine King, twenty-five feet away in the attic. “Lie flat on the ground, facedown, hands out to your sides. Cross your legs at the ankles. No matter what happens, you don’t move till they move you. You do all that and you’ll be safe.”

Two decades of yoga had not instilled in Catherine the sense of calm necessary to endure all that was happening around her. She thought her heart would burst, but she complied with Court’s instructions, lying on the dusty old wooden floor near the stairwell. Looking across the darkened attic, she could barely see him, kneeling in front of a large backpack.

She called out to him. “Let me talk to them! Maybe I can—”

“No! Do not move from where you are!”

“Six, lie here with me! They will kill you if you don’t—”

“Just stay there, Catherine,” he ordered.

She looked at him again. Cocked her head. “What are you doing? What . . . what is that?”

—