Her brothers began screaming in her head as she reloaded in one smooth motion and the guard dropped to his belly, seeking cover.

But she still had him in her sights. And as he crawled forward, her second shot caught him in the middle of his back. He did not move again.

"Captain, this is Diaz. You're clear!"

Mitchell and Smith jogged forward toward the main entrance of the central building, while Ramirez and Nolan broke right toward the long, curving wall of the east building and its rows of rectangular windows. Once they drew closer, they'd have two guards to pick off before they moved inside.

According to the CIA's inside guy, Colonel Xu was in the central building, while each of the others were staying in the south, east, and north buildings, respectively. Their locations had been assessed by the Ghosts' intelligence analysts and sent to Mitchell's HUD so that he and the others need only follow the intel indicators to find the men.

Admittedly, Mitchell had chosen to take out Xu because he knew Fang had been stationed on the roof of Xu's building. Fang had come down when the rain had picked up, and Mitchell assumed that the bastard was somewhere inside.

Ramirez crawled on his hands and knees through the muck as he neared the first guard, who was sniffling and huddling beside the door, his weapon pointed at the ground. Ramirez needed him to turn his head a bit more, so he issued a curt, "Hey!"

The guard looked down, up, didn't see Ramirez. He frowned, blinked, and then . . . he finally spotted him and made that turn.

One silenced round to the head ended his surprise and discomfort.

Ramirez waved on Nolan, and they kept tight to the wall, racing around to the opposite side of the building, where the second guy was posted near the other door.

They got down as they approached, and Nolan drifted out a bit from the wall, lifted his pistol, just as the guard raised his head and looked at them.

The shot kicked him onto his back.

Ramirez rose and raced to him. Clean head shot. He glanced back at Nolan, raised a thumb. They tried the door: locked. Ramirez fished out his tool kit and got to work, while Nolan covered him.

They still had one more guard in their way. He was, of course, posted outside Admiral Cai Ming's door.

Nolan breathed a curse and suddenly fired. Ramirez turned his head to watch a guard posted outside the south building tumble to his death.

"He was just coming around," Nolan explained. "And can you hurry up? It's not like bad guys are trying to shoot us or anything."

Ramirez jabbed one of his tools into the lock. "I'm an artist, bro. Patience."

Huang peered out his window and saw the dead guard lying beside the central building. It was happening now, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.