The Grecian Manifesto by Ernest Dempsey Page B

elevators
probably shut down automatically when there was an alarm. A door closed thirty
feet away, and Sean spun around with the barrel of his Sig aimed into the empty
space. It was the door into the stairwell. No one was there, which likely meant
one of the other guests was trying to get out of the building.
    Yarbrough and Tommy reached the elevator a second later.
“What are you waiting for?” Tommy asked incredulously. As soon as he’d spoken,
he had the same epiphany Sean had experienced a moment before. “Oh, right.
Stairs.”
    Sean darted over to the stairwell door where the
passageway came to a head and split off in two directions. He checked down both
ways, again making sure there were no threats. Satisfied, he took a big step to
the door and barged it open. His weapon aimed up the stairs first, then down.
“Clear,” he shouted back at the other two.
    He held the door open while Tommy and Yarbrough slogged
their way quickly to the stairwell. “Go ahead,” Sean said. Once the other two
were headed down the stairs, he let the door ease shut.
    Sean was glad they didn’t have far to go, only four floors
to reach the bottom. Tommy and their wounded companion were already on the
landing of the second floor when Sean arrived on the platform just above them.
The third floor door suddenly swung open, and a Glock barrel stuck through the
opening. Sean ducked to the side just in the nick of time as the weapon fired a
round into the stairwell. Instinctively, Sean took a quick side step, grabbed
the man’s arm, and pulled him into the stairwell.
    The attacker’s body flung against the railing, jarring him
momentarily, just long enough for Sean to wrest the gun from his hand. The respite
didn’t last but for a second. The man’s knee swung around and planted firmly
into Sean’s abdomen.
    Sean gasped at the sudden jolt, dropping his own weapon
between the rails. The gun clattered down the steps below, evening the playing
field for both combatants. Sean didn’t have time to hurt; he jerked backward,
narrowly dodging a roundhouse kick from the stranger. He instantly squared up,
ready for another attack, and got his first look at the face of the man who was
trying to kill him. The assassin’s graying hair was trimmed close to his skull,
masking the fact that he’d gone bald several years before. His angular nose and
narrow face made him appear like a bird of prey. His black turtleneck seemed a
little clichéd for mercenary work, but Sean didn’t think the man cared what he
thought of his ensemble.
    “You don’t have to do this,” Sean said in an almost
sympathetic tone. “You can walk back through that door and go on about your
business.”
    The man’s mouth contorted in a sickly grin. “You don’t
have to be afraid of dying, American. I’ll make it quick for you.” His accent
was distinctly western European. Sean was fairly certain from Czech Republic.
    “I wasn’t begging,” Sean corrected. “I was offering you a
chance to live.”
    The mercenary snorted and lurched forward. His fists swung
hard at Sean’s face, first left then right. Sean easily dodged the first and
blocked the subsequent attacks. The assassin swung his knee up in an attempt to
catch Sean in the midsection again, but this time the target stepped to the
side and grabbed the man by the calf. In a swift move, Sean used the man’s
weight against him and lifted hard with the leg before the attacker could get
loose. The maneuver sent the man flipping backward over the railing. Sean
watched as the body plummeted down the chute between the stairs, hitting his
head violently against one of the lower railings before coming to a sudden stop
at the bottom.
    Tommy and Agent Yarbrough’s heads poked out from one of
the lower platforms and stared down at the motionless body. A little pool of
blood was already starting to form around the head of the prostrate form. Tommy
looked back up at Sean. “Where’d he come from?”
    “Third floor. Better