Stark moaned. He couldn’t believe how painful this was. Franks had just gut-shot him! That asshole! He pushed his left hand onto the wound and tried to stop the bleeding. He knew that he needed to put direct pressure on the wound, but that just made it hurt even worse. His right hand had a hole through it, but he tried to fumble his pistol out anyway, while shouting, “Help! Help!” but his employees in the cafeteria were either dead, suffering from gunshot wounds of their own, or running.

Radabaugh reached the bodyguard’s piece, but Franks was on him before he could lift it. Franks stomped on his hand. He had to hand it to the agent; rather than cry about it, Radabaugh wrapped his arm around Franks’ knees, and drove his shoulder against his legs, trying to lever him off-balance. It was a classic takedown move. Radabaugh should have known that would have been impossible against Franks’ mass planted on those tree-trunk legs.

But then Franks toppled, and Radabaugh was trying to wrestle him. It had to have been the shock and the sudden loss in blood pressure, but for a second there, it looked like Radabaugh was fighting a woman who had to be half Franks’ size, but he blinked and it was just Franks again.

Stark gave up on his throbbing right hand. His fingers were hanging like dead fish. He reached across his body with his left and got the Glock free. It hurt so bad he could barely think. MCB rounds were compressed powdered silver, and they fragmented like a bitch in soft tissue. He was probably going to die and it was going to hurt, and it was Franks’ fault.

Two other agents besides Radabaugh had dog-piled on top of Franks, and all three of them were striking him and trying to hold him down. But Franks just got up anyway, dragging the hapless men with him. Stark raised his pistol in his off hand, but he was shaking so badly, he didn’t have a shot with all of his men hanging off Franks’ body.

One agent crashed through a table, hit so hard and fast that Stark couldn’t even tell what had happened. Franks saw Stark aiming at him, and the cunning bastard grabbed hold of the other agent, picked him up, lifted him effortlessly overhead, and threw him at Stark. The man screamed as he sailed across the room. Stark barely had time to raise his hands to protect himself from the impact.

He must have blacked out for a moment. His head had bounced off the floor pretty hard. He couldn’t move. The MCB agent was lying on top of him, not breathing. Stark didn’t know where his gun was.

Radabaugh was still trying to fight Franks hand to hand. He was the MCB’s reigning martial arts champion. He was a Strike Team commando and one of the toughest men in the Bureau. Radabaugh could tangle with damn near any mortal human being in the world and have a fighting chance of coming out ahead.