“Rome!” Cohen snapped and pointed to the counter directly in front of them. “A bomb! Remote control on the counter up front! Six feet to his right. Don’t let him get there!”

“Got it,” Leetch yelled and fired off a shot at the workstation sheltering Snider.

Cohen dropped to his knees and patted for his gun. His hand met Lopez’s. She thrust the cold handle into his palm. Without taking his eyes off Snider’s comer, he barked: “Lina, Graham, to the elevators on three. Got it?!?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“One … two … three—”

Cohen sprang from his crouch and fired off three shots in Snider’s direction. The powerful recoil of the magnum jerked his hand back with each noisy blast. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lopez and Kilburn scramble for the gaping doorway and heard their footsteps crunch and grind on the door’s broken glass.

Snider popped up to fire a shot but sank back down as quickly when Leetch unloaded two rounds at him. A computer monitor exploded in the corner of the room and more glass rained on the floor.

“Keep me covered,” Cohen yelled to his partner. He dropped to the floor and crawled to his left. He heard a whistle and then the thud of a bullet smashing into the desk behind him. Leetch’s reply came with two roaring bangs.

Cohen lunged the rest of the three feet to the workstation lining the far wall. He landed painfully on his left wrist and then scrambled behind the floor-to-counter unit. Roughly twelve feet long, he figured the unit would provide some cover to nearly halfway down the length of the room.

He crawled on hands and knees along the length of it. Just as he reached the far end, Leetch yelled, “Seth, he’s moving!” Leetch fired two more shots. “The remote!”

In horror, Cohen looked around the corner just in time to see Snider’s hand reach over the central desk and pat the tabletop for the bomb’s remote. “Get out, Rome!” Cohen screamed. He fired two desperate shots at Snider’s groping hand. Then he saw the fingers grasp the small fob.

Cohen leapt to his feet and sprinted for the front desk, dodging the rows of workspaces and firing his gun wildly.

He made it to within six feet of the desk when he felt a force hurl him forward in the air. A brilliant orange-red flash filled the room. The explosion sounded like a firecracker detonating in both ears. He slammed onto the floor shoulder first. The building shook. Smoke and dust filled the air. The smell of sulphur and burnt almonds overpowered him. Water rained down from the ceiling sprinklers.