can’t do that.” McCray shook his head. “I’m ordering you to stand down, mister!”
“Such arrogance,” Thawan said. “It does not surprise me. Do you, American, have any idea what you have walked into this day?”
“I’ve got an idea,” McCray said. “Now put down those guns!”
“No,” Thawan said. He chewed on the cigarillo, switching it from one side of his mouth to the other. “You are about to die, American. It can be quick and clean. It can also be very, very messy.”
“Sir…” Agent Bonarski said.
“Silence!” Thawan hissed. He pressed the .45 more tightly against Agent Bonarski’s head. “American,” he said to McCray, “think carefully about the choice I give you.”
“Drop your weapons!” McCray ordered again. “I am an authorized representative of the federal government and I will not tell you again!”
“You poor, sad little man.” Thawan’s smile broadened. “Messy, then.”
The .45 went off, and Agent Bonarski’s suddenly lifeless body fell from the catwalk.
Hell erupted.
The agents on the warehouse floor began firing their weapons as the men above held back the triggers on their Kalashnikovs. Full-auto weapons fire echoed through the cavernous space, drowning out all other sound.
The wave of heat and light and pressure broke over Agent Carrol as the gunfire surrounded her. Time slowed. As she moved, raising her Glock and firing round after round, she felt as if she were trying to move through water, her every action encountering impossible resistance. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched blood blossom on Mike McCray’s chest. He staggered under the onslaught of dozens of rounds, dropping his weapon and falling to the floor.
Carrol acted on instinct. She emptied her Glock in the direction of the catwalk as she ran for the cover of the nearest benches, diving beneath one and colliding with the cardboard cartons of drugs and DVD cases. She grunted as her shoulder hit the stack of boxes, then rolled, bullets tearing up the table above. Several rounds struck the cartons, scattering fine white mist in every direction as the bags of heroin were punctured.
From her position, Carrol could see the exit, the very door whose lock the team had broken so casually just minutes before. It was so close and yet so impossibly far. With bullets striking the table, the floor, and burning through the air all around her, she pushed herself to her feet and ran for the door, her Glock useless and locked open, no thought of reloading or fighting back. Blind flight instinct kicked in as the chaos around her became total. She saw another of the armed agents die scant feet away as she ran.
If only she could make the car. If only she could get to the radio. If only she could call for backup. There was still a chance.
The hammer blow to her chest felt like a cinder block against her ribs. Her knees buckled. She felt herself falling, the floor taking a thousand years to come up, everything happening so slowly…
She saw stars in her vision as the floor hit her face. The pain was a distant sensation, hardly significant. Some part of her was able to process that she had been shot. How many times and how badly she didn’t know. She felt warm blood on her cheek; she tasted it in her mouth. She thought, as she floated, disconnected from her body, that she had broken her nose in the fall. She tried to push herself to her feet and could not. She couldn’t feel her legs.
The agent who had gone down in front of her stared back at her, eyes glassy in death. Carrol tried desperately to think, to act, as her mind clouded over with pain and then numbness. Her hand struggled to find the inner pocket of her suit jacket.
The gunfire died away. Thawan’s men filed down from the catwalk and began moving from body to body. A single shot rang out, and then another, from opposite sides of the warehouse. The shooters were killing the survivors. Those workers unharmed in the gunfight were being herded to one side of the workspace. The wounded workers were shot dead with the same casual disregard the gunmen had shown the FBI agents.
“Now, move, move,” Thawan was ordering the remaining workers, who looked at him with wide-eyed terror. “Collect the boxes. Collect the drugs. Everything must be packed and made ready for shipment. Gig!”
One of the gunmen, an even smaller, misshapen man with a scar across his face, hurried forward, cradling his Kalashnikov.
“Yes, boss.”
“Call for the trucks. We must move up the timetable.”
“That will take time, boss. The schedule is complicated. We will have to rearrange the drops.”
“Gig Tranh,” Thawan said with an exaggerated sigh, “did I ask for your opinion?”
“No, boss.”
“Then do as I tell you!” Thawan shouted, waving his .45 to punctuate the point.
“Yes, boss.” The small man scuttled off, pulling a wireless phone from his BDU jacket as he did so.
“You and you,” Thawan pointed to the nearest frightened workers. “Come here. You will help me search the bodies. We will take everything of value. Guns, ammunition. Their wallets. Their watches. Also, I want their badges. One never knows when such things will be of value.”
Agent Carrol, against the increasing, crushing weight of her limbs, managed to drag her own wireless phone from her jacket. Thawan was moving back and forth across the hazy field of her vision. She had one chance. She could feel her life slipping away; could feel her hold on consciousness ebbing. From what little she could see from the floor, it did not appear that any of the other FBI agents had survived. If they had, they would be killed. It was only luck that nobody had gotten to her yet.
She had to live long enough to let someone know, to get out word of what had happened. If only Thawan would move back into view…
Thawan stopped, turned and looked straight at her.
She snapped the picture with her phone’s camera option.
“Well, well,” Thawan said. He walked to her deliberately, not hurrying, seemingly not at all concerned. “What do you think you are doing?”
Carrol could feel her vision turning gray at the edges. The sound of Thawan’s voice was hollow in her ears, as if he spoke through a metal pipe.
She hit Send, transmitting the MMS message to the first contact in her phone’s address book.
Thawan reached down and snatched the phone from her. He took notice of the empty Glock still clutched in her other hand. Contemptuously, he kicked her pistol aside. Then he examined the phone.
“Well,” he said, shaking his head, “it appears you will not be calling for help. Even if you had, pretty lady—” he smiled, showing rotted, uneven teeth “—it would do no good. We will be gone before anyone arrives. You have died for nothing.” He dropped the phone to the floor and stomped it with one booted foot. It took several tries, but he was finally able to crush the phone, snapping it into several pieces.
“You…” Carrol managed to say, her breath coming in short rasps now. “You…won’t…”
“Won’t
