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She said, “I’m here, but I’ve only got a pistol. I’m shooting but they don’t even seem to know.”

I realized her long gun was still on my back. I said, “Are you fucking hitting anything?”

“Pike, it’s a seventy-meter shot.”

Knuckles said, “Fuck this shit. I’m moving.”

He rolled out and took off running to the balcony. The shooting shifted from me to his moving figure, and I rotated around. I started squeezing the trigger like I was at a carnival midway shooting at rotating ducks, hitting man after man until someone recognized I was a threat.

I saw Jaiden for the first time, standing one row back and screaming. He looked behind him, then at the stairs, and I realized that the Black Cats were coming down, but I was preventing him from fleeing.

Knuckles took a knee outside on the veranda and started suppressing the mezzanine, shouting, “Move!”

I ran to him, threading the needle of fire and making it outside without getting hit. I took a knee next to him and he said, “I found Annaka.”

I saw her behind him cowering in fear. I said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you out of here.”

She didn’t look like she believed it.

Knuckles said, “How the fuck are we going to do that? The Black Cats are clearing each floor, and from the gunfire, they’re one floor above us. It sounds like their clearing technique involves hand grenades and plenty of firepower. They aren’t discriminating.”

I looked into the den, seeing the explosives still daisy chained together, and said, “If they do that down here, they’re going to bring the entire floor down.”

Knuckles said, “We need to get down, now.”

I called Brett, saying, “Blood, Blood, what is the ground force doing?”

“About a platoon went in. I assume they’re clearing from the bottom to the top.”

So trying to get to the bottom using stairs isn’t going to work.I called Veep on my cell and said, “Did you get the Black Cats? Can you tell them I have the hostages? Tell them to back off?”

“We got through, but I don’t know what good it will do. They aren’t that good at flexing. They have their plan, and they’re executing.”

I hung up and said, “I guess our best bet is to stay out here on the balcony.”

Knuckles said, “If they hit those explosives with a grenade, it won’t matter. We’re all going down.”

I muttered, “What I wouldn’t give for a good holocaust cloak.”

Knuckles chuckled at thePrincess Bridereference and said, “I’d rather have an armored room at this point.”

The shoot-out on the mezzanine was growing more intense, Jaiden’s men now firing at oncoming Black Cats, grenades going off and men screaming.

Annaka said, “I have an armored room. A safe room.”

I looked at her in amazement and said, “Where? Where is it?”

“One level up, down a hallway from the mezzanine.”

Deflated, I said, “Where everyone’s shooting?”

“No. The other side.”

I saw Jaiden crawl over the mezzanine railing and hang, dropping to the floor. He hit awkwardly and began limping to the elevator. He saw it and just stood for a moment, shocked. He turned to the left and hobbled out of sight.

I called Jennifer, saying, “Koko, Koko, you still on the second-floor mezzanine off the den?”

“Yeah, but we backed off down a hallway. What’s the plan?”