At the far end, he found the rusty metal stairs, cramped and steep. They led to an unlocked steel panel, flush with the ground overhead. Janson barged through, and the night air felt cool on his skin after the steamy warmth of the kitchen.

He closed the steel panel doors as quietly as he could and looked around him. He was on the rear right side of the Palace Hotel, next to the parking lot. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that twenty yards ahead of him were long-limbed trees and grass: concealment, but not protection.

A sound—a scraping noise. Someone moving with his back to the wall, his feet planted firmly on the ground. Someone who was moving toward him. The person knew he was armed, and was taking all possible precautions.

He felt the stinging spray of brick and mortar against his face before he heard the cough of the gun. His assailant had gained an angle on him! His assailant was three hundred feet away; accuracy would be paramount. He had, he calculated, four seconds to assume the rollover prone position. Four seconds.

Janson dropped to both knees and extended his left hand in front of him to break his fall as he pitched forward; then he extended his firing arm downrange and rested it upon the ground, rolling up on his right side as he did so. With his left ankle braced against the back of his right knee, he stabilized his position. Now he was able to put his supporting hand on the weapon, the heel of his palm firmly and squarely on the packed-gravel ground: it would provide a solid shooting rest as he placed his forefinger inside the trigger guard of the CZ-75. What the Czech gun lacked in concealability, it made up for in stopping power and accuracy. It would enable far more accurate cluster shooting than his own palm-sized weapon.

He identified his target—it was the suited guard he had just left below—and squeezed off two shots. They were silenced, but the recoil reminded him of just how much force they conveyed. One missed his target; the other struck him in the neck, and the man sprawled to the ground, spouting blood.

A muted explosion came from behind him: Janson tensed until he realized that it was the tire of an SUV ten feet away, abruptly deflating as a bullet struck it. There was another gunman stalking him, it appeared, and the direction of the impact plus the geometry of the building told him approximately where he was situated.