Larison was always quiet, but there was something especially still about him now. He was looking at the far end of the room. There was a fireplace, on either side of which was a set of thick floor-to-ceiling curtains. Drawn curtains. In the rooms they had passed, the curtains had all been open.
Livia pointed to Diaz, then swung her finger over to the end of the huge desk. Diaz must have seen the concern in her eyes because she nodded and immediately took cover. Schrader looked at Diaz, then at Livia, obviously not getting it. Livia pointed to the desk as she had for Diaz, shaking her finger for emphasis. But the idiot just kept staring at her. “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
Carl picked up on the problem, too. Unlike Larison and Livia, though, he kept talking. “Not that I don’t have concerns,” he said, “Frankly, I’m not sure this property is adequate for my current needs. Is it equipped with a separate gymnasium, for example?”
Schrader looked at him, his expression perplexed. “Yes, but I don’t really use it.”
Livia and Larison eased deeper into the room, toward the windows, using the massive chairs and the edges of bookshelves for cover whenever possible, glancing up at the walkway, then back to the curtains as they moved. Livia heard Schrader call out to them, “It’s okay, there’s no one here.”
Livia kept moving. Carl, shut him up—
“That’s what concerns me,” Carl said. “The absence of adequate staff. I mean, how do you keep it clean? Do you have one of those Roombas, or what? Been thinking about getting one for my folks for Christmas.”
“Roombas?” Schrader said. “No, there’s a whole staff. I mean, a Roomba would—”
“Above you!” she heard Carl bellow, followed immediately by a solid Bambambam! from the Wilson.
She glanced up just in time to see a man crumple behind the railing of the walkway. Then Carl was shooting again. She spun toward the curtains. Two men were racing forward, firing pistols, trying to reach a pair of chairs for cover—
A round sizzled past her, and something slammed into her chest with a thud she felt through her entire body. She was hit. No time to wonder if the vest had stopped it. She returned fire. Larison was shooting from her right. One of the men ahead of them cried out and blood erupted from his head. He went down. Livia saw movement from above her on the walkway to her right. She swung the Glock up and fired. Carl was shooting from behind her. The man got off two wild shots and twitched as she and Carl hit him. He fell back, out of her range of vision.
The last man reached one of the chairs and dove behind it. She and Larison hugged opposite walls and kept moving in.
The room was suddenly silent. The man must have realized his comrades were done and his position hopeless. A second went by, probably while he was screwing up his courage, or maybe swapping magazines. Then he burst up with a scream—
Livia and Larison put a dozen rounds in him before he’d even gotten his sights on them. He flailed, fired three wild shots, and went down.
Larison pointed to the curtains. Livia nodded and swapped in a fresh magazine. Larison did the same. They aimed and opened up with a wide pattern of shots—reconnaissance by fire. The material fluttered as the rounds tore through. She heard glass shatter.
They raced forward and raked back the curtains—nothing. Livia spun. Carl was in the doorway, sweeping the corridor. He turned back, saw her, and pointed up to the walkway. She nodded. She and Larison moved back halfway toward the door and covered the walkway while Carl headed silently up the spiral staircase.
He padded along one side of the walkway, then disappeared from her view as he crossed overhead. A moment later, he called down. “Both dead. We’re good.”
Diaz was scrunched up on her butt along one end of the desk, her knees drawn to her chin. Livia ran over and squatted next to her. “Are you all right?” she said.