“Return fire!” Stark shouted as he scrambled behind a counter, not realizing that he’d just signed a memo banning guns from the facility. Luckily, that rule didn’t apply to the guy who’d given it, so Stark reached for the Glock 29 on his hip.

But Franks had followed him. He walked around the counter and casually shot Stark in the right hand.

Stark screamed.

Franks pointed his pistol at Stark’s face.

Terrified, Stark lifted his trembling hands. “Franks, please . . .” The gun shifted down. There was a flash and a roar of thunder. It was like a lightning bolt through his gut. Heat began to radiate through his body and out onto the floor. Stark watched incredulously as blood came pouring out the hole in his abdomen. “What the fuck, man?” he demanded, and then it really started to hurt.

The slide was locked back on Franks’ pistol. He looked at it quizzically, as if surprised that he’d run out already. As Franks reached for a spare, he noticed Radabaugh was running toward the dead bodyguard’s gun. Franks went after him.

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.