The Operative by Andrew Britton

hung in the air, thicker at the bottom than at the top.
    “Better put your mask back on,” he said.
    Glancing back and forth, he saw separate signs for the administrative offices and the walkway to the center’s newer wing, the latter pointing around a bend in the corridor to his right. They moved in that direction at a full-tilt run.
    No sooner had they rounded the corner than they saw the dead man. He was sprawled on the floor, faceup, wearing the same uniform as the guards downstairs in the lobby.
    Allison stopped short an instant before she would have barreled over the corpse’s legs, horror dawning over her features, her eyes jumping from his grotesquely mutilated face to the overturned electric scooter beside him. It was splashed all over with blood.
    “My God,” she said, gasping.
    Even as Kealey moved between her and the dead man, his eyes snapped to where a second guard lay several feet to the right, also dead, his shirtfront soaked with blood. He’d fallen with his head propped against the wall, one knee upraised, the other leg extended, his arms spread loosely to either side. A long dripping red skid mark ran down on the wall where he must have fallen back against it before sliding to the floor.
    Kealey studied the body near the scooter. The head was tilted sideways to the left, a large puddle of blood under the cheek and blown-out skull; the eye on that side rolled lazily up in its socket so only its white was visible. The right eye socket was a swamp of red.
    “Shot at close range,” he said, noticing that the dead guard’s hand was wrapped around the butt of his half-drawn sidearm. “Executed.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He was beaten to the draw,” Kealey said. “It doesn’t look like they ordered him to surrender.”
    “They were probably making sure the offices were evacuated.”
    Kealey nodded. “And then someone came up the stairs, the same as we did.” He shook his head, looked up toward the juncture of the wall and the ceiling. A camera was mounted there, but the red light was dark. It hadn’t been shot out by the killers, because someone on their team was using it. Whoever it was, they were watching him now.
    The long black box reminded him of a vulture on a tree branch, patiently waiting for him to die.
    Allison was breathing rapidly. “Ryan, what kind of madness is this?”
    “I don’t know,” Kealey told her. “Let’s go.”
    Raising the barrel of his Sig, he grabbed her right hand with his left and continued toward the walkway.
     
    The gunfire erupted as they reached its entrance—a staccato burst from the far end of the span, then another overlapping volley.
    Kealey dropped to his belly, simultaneously pulling Allison down and gathering her against him with his left arm. He used his body to cushion her fall. The bullets rapped into the glass panels to their right and left, sending an explosion of jagged shards over their backs.
    He pushed her head closer to the floor, growled through the mask, “Stay low!”
    Kealey felt her stiffen against his side, heard her shallow, frightened breaths. The walkway represented the only access to the extension. It could also be a perfect place of ambush, closing them in, offering no cover from fire.
    Keeping his hand protectively on her head, Kealey raised his eyes to look across the walkway. He saw two gunmen through the thin, hovering veil of smoke. They were just beyond the entry, one on each side, using the outer walls for partial cover. Kealey noticed that they were clad entirely in black, wearing black bandannas over their mouths and grasping semiautomatic weapons. The firearms looked like sound-suppressed MP5K variants. Whoever they were, they didn’t want the authorities to hear them. Presumably, the dead bodies would be attributed to the bombers or accomplices.
    Whatever this part of the operation was—and whoever was running it—the plan had been orchestrated according to classic guerrilla techniques. The main objective