Joe Dumkowski drove the lead ambulance. Beaman sat in the passenger’s seat, thinking. They had to find Smitrov and get out fast. If they got held up, all was lost. The entire incident would be very ugly. They would be dead. The rest of the world would hear nothing of what had happened. Or it would add to the international crisis, played up as yet another wanton attack by the Americans on the friendly, innocent Russian people, a treacherous follow-up to the attacks on the Russian submarines.

Smitrov could be anywhere. Unaware that anyone had seen the kidnapping, Durov might have left the Russian president in that shed. Or he could have moved him somewhere else. There was no time to search. They had to trust their luck. Go for the building where they had last seen him and pray. If he wasn’t there, they would face the impossible task of getting out of the base and to the rendezvous with the mini-sub.

“Left at the next street,” Beaman ordered. “We’re going to that warehouse down by the pier.”

Dumkowski whipped the wheel over and slid around the turn, straightening up just in time to miss plowing into a brick wall. The vehicle shot down the street. Dumkowski made a sharp right at the next intersection. Down another narrow, empty street and then another screeching, sliding turn. Two more turns and Beaman was looking at the same alley where he had watched Smitrov get ambushed. He looked up at the darkened windows. He hoped they didn’t hide another ambush.

“Hey, boss,” Dumkowski yelled. “Isn’t this the place?”

Sure enough, the metal warehouse stood right in front of them. Beaman answered, “Yeah. Let’s go in the front door. We’ll see if the doorman has our reservations.”

The ambulance slid to a halt, and a second later Cantrell and Broughton tumbled out the back. They rushed across the open space as Tony Martinelli swung the other ambulance around, heading for the warehouse’s back door.

Cantrell ran low and hard, barreling through the double doors and rolling across the small lobby space. He came up fast, his M-4 flashing like a cobra ready to strike. The single hapless guard didn’t have a chance. He was still thinking about reaching for his pistol when two .225-caliber slugs tore through his forehead.

Broughton was a fraction of a second behind Cantrell. His weapon spat twice, tearing through the guard’s chest, boring through his heart before leaving exit holes in his back the size of softballs.

Beaman and Dumkowski sprang past the first pair and rolled through the next door. They were in a huge, empty room. The place was bare. There wasn’t even any litter on the deck. Beaman was still looking around, trying to find any threats, when Johnston and Jason Hall stormed through a door across the room, weapons ready to rock and roll.

“Anything?” Beaman asked.