“You all right, buddy?”

He shook his head.

“You really got to make sure those hooks find their spot.”

“Thank God for you,” he said, then pulled up the rope and wrapped it around his arm.

“It doesn’t look like they heard your racket,” she said, looking down at his hook on the ground below.

“Thankfully,” he said.

The senate building was shaped like an elongated triangle, about 300 feet in length along the longer sides leading to the dome. Beneath the dome was the grand Catherine Hall, over eighty feet in diameter. In the center of the building was a triangular courtyard, crossed by two raised walkways. Beneath the walkways were triumphal arches which broke the courtyard into sections.

Lance and Laurel were on the roof of the dome, directly above the Catherine Hall.

Using Laurel’s rope, they attached the hook firmly to the roof and rappelled down the inner wall to the central courtyard.

They descended the three floors and left the rope hanging where it was. If everything went according to plan, they would be climbing back up it in a few minutes.

There were no soldiers in the courtyard, but they could see them in the corridor inside, standing at attention in their ornate uniforms. They were officially an elite unit, but were more ceremonial than anything, armed with World War II era SKS semi-automatic carbines, complete with foldable bayonets. The guns looked nice, and had an illustrious history in Soviet service before their replacement by the AK-47, but it certainly made Lance breathe easier knowing that was what they were up against.

“You know how to find the office, right?” Lance said.

“Do I look like an idiot?”

As well as disabling the sensors, Laurel had been responsible for memorizing the internal schematics of the building, and she led the way across the courtyard and through one of the huge triumphal arches.

The glass doors from the courtyard to the building were unlocked, and led to a grand hallway, complete with wood paneling and polished marble floors. One side of the corridor was lined with windows looking out on the courtyard, while the other was lined with stone statues, interspersed with flags bearing the presidential seal.

There were two guards at the end of the hallway and Lance shot them both with a silenced pistol. He ran up to them and dragged the bodies behind a statue. Then he looked around the corner and saw two more guards on the top of a grand, curved staircase.

They had their backs to him and he was about to take them out when Laurel tapped his arm.

“We’re going this way,” she said, leading him past the staircase and further along the corridor.

She counted four sets of doors and they stopped outside the fifth.

“This is it,” she whispered.

“What’s behind these doors?”

“An anteroom, and then Davidov’s office.”

“Are there guards in there?”