At the entrance of the hotel.
Just like the waves before…
Sixty enforcers of the High Table stepped off the buses,
and quickly formed up into squads.
From the second floor,
sporadic gunfire rang out,
telling them one thing—
the previous squads that had gone ahead…
were still locked in brutal combat inside the building.
Passing the charred skeletons of burned-out buses,
they too saw the square…
and the horrifying mountain of corpses piled high with rivers of blood!
A chill weighed heavily on their hearts.
The battle ahead was cloaked in shadow.
Still, compared to the very first wave of sixty,
their burden felt lighter.
So many enforcement squads had already gone in first,
clearing the path.
The strong enemies inside—
even if not dead,
should already be exhausted…
Perhaps this cleansing operation…
would finally be completed in their hands.
Every one of these killers in black armor
told themselves that in the silence of their hearts.
Inside the building.
The newly arrived ten squads didn't pause.
They rushed into the stairwell,
charging upward toward the second floor.
The squad leader at the front raised a clenched fist.
The team halted.
He glanced at the corpses littering the ground.
Hesitated a moment.
Then gave a string of hand signals—
simple and direct:
[Advance. The last three squads will stay behind to assist the second-floor units in finishing the fight!]
Orders were passed down the line.
Moments later, another enforcer patted him on the shoulder,
and the leader signaled the push forward again.
They moved on,
but when they reached the stairwell between the second and third floors,
their pace slowed.
The stairs had been half-destroyed in the earlier battles—
a gaping break split the steps.
The enforcers had to hug the wall
and inch their way across.
Finally, the first six-man squad crossed.
The second squad started to climb over.
But the first squad didn't wait.
They pressed onward,
approaching the third-floor landing.
What they didn't know…
was what awaited them next.
At that very moment.
On the third floor—
in the corridor facing the stairwell—
all cover had been removed.
The hallway stood bare,
both sides lined with shut doors.
No one could guess what hid behind them.
At the far end,
the door to the supply station yawned wide open.
Margarita had already withdrawn with two killers,
carrying weapon crates up to the sixth floor.
Inside the supply station—
where tables should have been stacked with arms—
one weapon waited in silence:
an MG3 general-purpose heavy machine gun.
It was mounted with ballistic shields on both sides.
Behind it,
a blue-tier killer,
helmet on, vest strapped tight,
gripped the MG3's handles.
The barrel pointed squarely at the stairwell doors.
Bolt pulled back.
Safety off.
From the frosted glass of the stairwell door,
the glow of tactical flashlights flickered.
Step.
Footsteps echoed.
A silhouette appeared, faintly projected onto the glass.
Soon, it vanished upward, toward the fourth floor.
The killer at the MG3 didn't fire.
As Alex Cross had ordered,
he began to count each shadow that passed.
"One!"
"Two!"
…
"Nineteen!"
"Twenty!"
When the twentieth figure flashed across the glass,
his eyes sharpened like blades.
He tightened his grip.
And slammed the trigger down!
Ratatatatatatata!
Seven hundred rounds per minute—
the MG3's storm of lead shredded everything in its path!
The stairwell doors exploded into splinters.
The two enforcers just stepping onto the third-floor landing
were instantly turned into sieves.
The force of the rounds
hurled their corpses into the railing—
then over it,
tumbling all the way down to the first floor.
The ambush was devastating.
The squads froze in shock.
Seven squads in the stairwell were split apart.
Three and a half squads had already crossed,
nearing the fourth floor.
The rest—three and a half squads—
were trapped between the second and third floors.
Now, these trapped squads
were caught in a nightmare.
Behind them,
the broken stair gap blocked the way,
crammed with more enforcers unable to move forward.
Ahead of them,
the third-floor landing was a bloody maw of death.
Anyone who showed their head
would meet the same fate as those two corpses—
slaughtered on the spot.
And Alex Cross…
gave them no time to think.
At the very moment the MG3 opened up,
a dozen killers in identical body armor
appeared on the first-floor landing below.
They carried the hotel's signature Kohari CA-415 assault rifles.
And they leveled their barrels upward—
toward the six enforcers trapped on the broken stair ledge,
pinned tight to the wall, unable to raise their weapons.
"FUCK!"
The enforcers roared in despair.
The killers squeezed their triggers.
Ratatatatata!
Ratatatatata!
A storm of bullets ripped through them,
shredding all six where they clung.
Their bodies dropped,
one after another,
slamming onto the stairs below,
spitting blood, eyes wide with disbelief.
Now—
wolves in front.
Tigers behind.
The three and a half squads that had crossed ahead
couldn't turn back to help.
Because the MG3…
was still waiting,
its barrel aimed like the fangs of hell itself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you're interested, you can read advanced chapters:
pat reon .com / Samorash