Читать книгу Quantum - Tom Grace - Страница 12

South Bend, Indiana

Kilkenny carefully worked his way back into Nieuwland Hall and up the building’s center staircase. He encountered no one during his ascent to the second floor. On the landing, he cautiously peered through the slit window of wiremesh glass in the fire door. The hallway on the other side was empty, but the window was too narrow to provide a view of Sandstrom’s lab farther down the hall.

Slowly Kilkenny pulled open the fire door until a quarter-inch gap appeared. Sandstrom’s lab was on the same side of the corridor as the stairwell, so he studied the reflection in the glass doors of a display case on the opposite wall. There he saw one of the movers standing watch beside the lab door.

He had to assume that Kelsey, Sandstrom, and Paramo were in the lab with four armed men. For the sake of the two physicists and the woman he loved, Kilkenny focused on the situation at hand rather than trying to fathom the motive behind it.

The faint hiss of static filled his right ear, as it had for the past several minutes. Unable to raise their man on the loading dock, the Russians had gone off the air completely.

The reflected image in the glass moved as the man in the doorway stepped back into the lab. Another man appeared and moved out into the corridor. He moved cautiously. Visually sweeping the entire length of the corridor, he held a suppressed semi-automatic pistol pointed low in a two-handed grip.

Kilkenny flattened himself against the painted cinder-block wall and slowly closed the fire door. It slid quietly into its frame. As he released the handle, the mortised latch bolts in the head and toe of the door slid home with a metallic click.

Pavel had just raised his hand to motion the rest of the unit forward when he heard the sound of the closing door. He signaled for Dmitri and the others to remain in place while he investigated.

‘Damn!’ Kilkenny cursed under his breath, knowing that the errant sound had exposed his position. He quickly moved against the wall, out of view through the slit window.

A shadow flickered in the thin strip of light beneath the stairwell door, catching Pavel’s trained eye. He moved along the wall, approaching the door from the side. With his back against the wall, Pavel inched forward until his shoulder reached the edge of the door.

He adjusted his grip on the Glock and folded his arms close to his chest as he filled his lungs with air. Exhaling with a low, throaty growl, he stepped forward, spun around, and struck the door with a vicious kick. The panic bar slammed into the hollow metal skin of the door, releasing the latch bolts. The door sprang open, and Pavel lunged into the stairwell.

As the Russian leveled his weapon, Kilkenny swung his left arm down in a sharp block that drove Pavel’s forearms toward the floor. He then wrapped his hand tightly around the barrel of the Glock. Pavel squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Kilkenny smothered the action of the Glock with his grip. He then brought the muzzle of his own pistol against the side of Pavel’s head and fired twice. Blood and bone exploded against the gray metal door.

Pavel shuddered and collapsed to the floor. Kilkenny quickly scanned the hallway for more threats, then retreated down the stairwell.