In the next two seconds he grabbed the roof at its apex and swung down and kicked through the window. To the men below, ducking for cover, it would have been like he’d done a disappearing act. He forgot all about them for now. Unless they intended climbing the roof they were stuck outside and no immediate threat, so he went after those who were inside. The room he found himself in was a cramped and jumbled space, little more than a peaked crawl space filled with junk and old furniture. There was no bulb in the ceiling fixture, but enough ambient light was coming through the shattered window for him to negotiate the junk and make for the exit door. He didn’t observe niceties, just booted open the flimsy door and leaned out and fired his gun in a short volley of three rounds. The man he’d expected to find waiting on him didn’t disappoint: he took two of the bullets in his chest and went down screaming. An illegal machine pistol clattered on the floor beside him. Rickard quickly stooped and grabbed the gun in his left hand. Distractedly he noted that the gun was a Czechoslovakian Scorpion—the old type that still used .32 ACP rounds. It was a popular machine pistol throughout the world; he only hoped that there weren’t any more in the house.

Earlier he’d counted three male voices from inside—the mathematics were subjective: maybe there were others who were more disciplined and could keep their mouths shut, so he had no idea how many he was going up against. He didn’t care because the Scorpion kind of leveled the playing field in his favor.

He was in a short hallway with a flight of steps leading down to the living space: a bottleneck if he didn’t move. He went down the stairs at a run and ducked into the nearest doorway he could find, the machine pistol extended in his left hand. Without looking he unloaded a burst of fire into the room, sweeping low where people would naturally crouch. The bullets churned the furniture and struck flesh. Rickard barely flicked a glance at the man lying dead behind a grimy settee. He turned and looked back out into the hallway. Whispering voices filtered to him from rooms nearer the back of the house. He quickly scanned over his shoulder and saw that the main entrance was indeed barricaded by a steel door with a single slot cut in it through which money would be exchanged for drugs. The reinforcements couldn’t come on him that way.