The man tsked. "Don't waste my time. Who did you tell?"
She looked at the ground. "No one. I didn't tell anybody."
"Turn around." She turned around, clutching the purse to her chest. It wasn't hard to act terrified. It wasn't an act.
The man wore blue jeans, a black turtleneck, black sneakers, and a black ski mask. She couldn't see anything that would help her identify him later. Well, at least he won't kill me now that I've seen his face. She cringed at the thought.
"Look me in the eyes and answer the question. Who did you send the information to?"
She licked her lips and looked him in the eyes. "Nobody. I tried to send it to my boss, but I didn't get the chance."
The man tensed. "I believe you."
The silenced gun snapped in the tiny apartment. Sam expected the shot and had half-turned when the man brought up the gun to fire. Her anticipation gave her an edge, but she wasn't fast enough to capitalize on it.
One bullet winged her in the left shoulder. It punched through muscle before exiting the other side. The other two punched into the wall behind her. She gasped in pain and fired her revolver. The clean double-tap blasted through the leather bag with a deafening roar. Both bullets hit their mark, the second higher than the first. Bloody chunks of the man's stomach and right kidney blew out of his back and all over the living room, and he dropped face-first onto the carpet. Ears ringing, she heard footsteps from the hall and a scream from the neighbor's apartment.
Her right hand numb from the tremendous recoil, Sam turned in place and pointed the gun toward the hallway with both hands, her feet spread wide for stability. Her shoulder hurt like hell, but she was pretty sure there was no serious damage. The apartment was dark, but the hall was well lit. It gave her a perfect view as the figure rounded the corner and jerked open the door. She saw the ski mask and machine pistol and fired another pair of shots. Blood splattered the wall as the man's body slammed into the doorframe and dropped to the floor.
Sobbing, Sam forced herself to silence and squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the neighbors, already on the phone with 911. She heard the people upstairs crashing around. She also heard the headset underneath her first assailant's ski mask.
She stumbled to the living room, dropped to her knees, and ripped off the mask. He was a young man, in his mid-twenties at most. He would have been handsome. The metallic tang of blood and fetid stench of shit filled her nostrils, mixed with some kind of cologne. With a sob she yanked off his headset and put it on. A voice flooded into her ear.
"—the target? Three? Two? Check in." She took a moment to load four more rounds into the revolver, and for good measure picked up the machine pistol and shoved it muzzle-first into her purse. The man had a pair of tear gas grenades on his belt. She took those, too. A quick frisk revealed no ID of any kind. "I say again. Three, two, do we have the target?"
Her legs shook so hard that she could barely stand, but she pushed herself up on the couch and looked around. She held her breath to listen for other intruders. Nothing so far. She breathed in. The voice in her ear continued on as she looked around for something to use as a bandage.
"Team Bravo, we do not have a confirmed kill." She grabbed a roll of duct tape and a washcloth from the tiny pantry. "Cover the rear entry. We'll take the front." She thought about turning on the gas, but the voices of her neighbors made her change her mind. "On my mark. Three. Two." Time to go! She stumbled into the hall and held the cloth to her shoulder with her left hand, aiming the pistol with her right. She'd tape it in place once she got away. If I get away. She heard boots tromping up the front stairwell.
The others didn't have gas masks. She fumbled with the grenades, dropping the washcloth as she struggled to pull the pins without letting go of the spoons. She'd never done this before, only seen it in movies. She pushed open the crash-bar and let the little oblong canisters tumble out of her hands. They clacked and clattered down the stairs as she cowered behind the metal fire door. Both from the stairwell and the headset she heard a man scream, "Grenade!"
The world erupted in twin explosions, impossibly loud. The door jumped on its hinges. She felt shrapnel ping off the metal, then all she could hear was the ringing in her ears. A man screamed in the stairwell. It took her a moment to realize that they must not have been tear gas. She ran down the stairs at what was, for her, breakneck speed.
The remains of two masked men lay on the stairway. One stopped his incoherent screaming and started panting as she passed by. Each breath was a watery hitch, fainter than the last. The other lay face down, smoke curling from his body. She ran past them to the parking level.