It opened with a distinct scraping noise, of metal against stone—one that the assembled guards could not have failed to hear.

Astonishingly, they did not react. Why? Another decoy? Birds on a wire—this time a flock of them?

A flurry of thoughts ran though Janson’s mind. Then he caught the word Theyilai!

Even with his guidebook Anuran, he knew that word: tea. The guards were expecting somebody—somebody coming with a samovar of tea for them. That was why they did not start at the noise. On the other hand, if that tea did not arrive soon, they would grow suspicious.

Now he could see directly some of what he had glimpsed through the fiber-cam. A single, naked incandescent bulb provided lighting. He heard the gentle burble of conversation resuming, the card game still at full steam. The smoke that had wafted up through the stairwell suggested at least a dozen cigarettes lighted simultaneously.

Seventeen guards for one man. No wonder they had little worries about the security of their hostage.

Janson thought about the young KLF proter champ, with his high-stakes play, the play that meant either disaster or triumph. Nothing in between.

Everything now was a question of timing. Janson knew that Katsaris was awaiting his command, a silent thermite grenade in his hand. Ordinary combat procedure would have called for a “flash and banger,” but an audible explosion might alert others. If the soldiers stationed in the barracks were mobilized, the odds of a successful exfiltration would shift from slim to none.

Katsaris and Janson each had a modified MP5K, a 4.4-pound submachine gun made by Heckler & Koch, with a short barrel, a sling-attachment buttcap, and a sound suppressor. The magazines held thirty hollow-point rounds, for close-quarter, interior use. The 9mm Hydra-Shok bullets were less likely to ricochet; they were also more likely to destroy any flesh they encountered—to tear rather than simply penetrate human viscera. Janson’s SEAL comrades had cruelly nicknamed this weapon, which had a firing rate of nine hundred rounds per minute, the “room broom.” What could not be silenced was the clamor of its victims. But the massive hallway door would provide substantial acoustic isolation, and several feet of stone separated the grotto from the floor above it.

Janson took six steps down, then swung himself onto the four-foot-deep concrete ledge. It was, as expected, draped with PVC pipes and insulated electrical wires, but he landed without a sound. So far, so good. The soldiers were studying their cards; no one was scanning the ceiling.

Now he flattened himself against the wall and inched along the ledge carefully; the farther he was from the stairway, the less expected his firing position would be—and the sooner he would be able to reach Peter Novak in his cell. At the same time, Janson’s sight-line position was far from ideal; soldiers at one end of the larger table would still be able to see him if they looked up and into the shadowed ledge. Yet, as he reminded himself, there was no reason for them to do so.