Because he expected to be entering directly into the loft apartment, Beck had his head up ready to see what was inside.

It took him less than two seconds to see everything:

The tall bald guy Beck had thought was a personal trainer, pointing a gun at him.

Behind the gunman, two others.

To his left, a large open kitchen, granite counters, gleaming appliances, bright white overhead accent lighting.

To his right, a living room/dining area. A man whose left arm was taped to the dining table, and the fat guy from the Mercedes splayed on a couch.

Beck saw all of it, but didn’t process any of it. Didn’t analyze. Maybe somewhere in the back of his mind he realized the tall guy had positioned himself near the elevator so the gun would be pointed right at his face, terrorizing him, intimidating him. But the man had made two mistakes. First, Beck wasn’t at all intimidated. And second, he was way too close to Beck.

Beck went for the gun, fast. Springing forward, both hands rising up, left hand slapping the inside of the gunman’s right wrist, right hand grabbing the barrel of the automatic, lifting it, twisting it out of the shooter’s hand. Then he pivoted, slammed the back of his head into the gunman’s face, stunning him, pulling away, taking the gun with him.

Beck never stopped moving. He turned spinning into a crouch, bringing the gun up in a two-hand grip, finger on the trigger, pulling the trigger back past the safety pull, firing at the first body closing in on him.

Two shots. Fast. Deafening. The body coming at him flew back away from Beck.

Beck continued turning to find the third attacker, but he was too late. He slammed into Beck’s left side, knocking Beck off his feet, getting his arms around Beck, locking onto him.

Beck held onto the gun, a Glock, managed to twist to his right in midair, just before he landed. He hit the floor sideways, crashing down on the arm of his attacker. Beck heard a grunt, but the grip around him didn’t break.

The bald one was already back on his feet, his nose bleeding, a small cut just over his right eye. He had a weird grin on his face, as if he were both pleased and surprised that this had turned into a fight.

He ran three steps to where Beck was trapped on the floor and launched a fast sweeping sidekick at Beck’s hands.

The instep of his foot caught Beck’s wrist. The Glock flew across the floor, skidding and spinning toward the living room area of the loft.

Christ, thought Beck. He came right at the gun. Never hesitated.

The tall one reversed the circle of his kick and aimed his heel at Beck’s solar plexus.

Beck managed to twist right, pulling the left elbow of the attacker over to block the bald guy’s stomp kick—which hit the elbow of the man holding Beck—a blow so hard that Beck felt the impact. The man under him grunted in pain. The bear hug around him loosened, but he still held on.

Beck’s legs were free, so he pistoned a kick at the bald attacker’s shins, grabbed the middle finger of the man holding on to him, pulled it back until the finger broke with a crack. The man under him finally let go.

Beck rolled to his feet, turned toward the tall one, shaking his right hand, trying to dispel the stinging pain from the kick that had sent the Glock flying.

He crouched over and backed away.

Gregor Stepanovich, nodding and grinning even more now, spread his long arms wide as if to both welcome Beck and corral him.

Stepanovich slid one step toward Beck, forcing Beck to step back, herding him toward the wall behind him.

Stepanovich was patient. No rush. He pictured his first move once he had Beck positioned. Fist to his face, hard so that the head would bang into the wall, stunning him enough so that he could grab the head and slam it into the wall, hard and fast, again and again until he heard the sound of the skull cracking. He pictured the blood on the wall, the feel of the back of a human head turning to pulp.

Beck kept his eye on the bald one, but also on the man who had grabbed him in the bear hug. He’d managed to get up and began closing in on Beck’s left. He held his right hand open, unable to close it into a fist because of the finger Beck had broken. He also bent his left arm back and forth, still numb from Stepanovich’s heel kick landing on his elbow.

The two of them worked together, forcing Beck backward.

The taller one smiled at Beck, as if to say, checkmate. Two against one. It’s over.

Beck took a long, slow breath. Off to his right, he could hear the man he’d shot struggling for breaths in painful gasps, but he didn’t dare look over at him.

Everything had slowed down. Nobody in a hurry now. Gregor and his partner would get this done, but carefully.

As Beck stepped back another pace, the man he’d shot came into view, lying in a fetal position, a pool of blood forming underneath him. Nobody paid him any attention. They were intent on finishing this.

Another step back. On his left, Beck’s peripheral vision caught sight of an open space, desk, expensive exercise equipment. To his right, he saw the man with his arm duct-taped to a large rectangular dining room table. A ball peen hammer on the table. Was that Crane? Had to be. What the hell was going on?

“Come on, Gregor,” the man on the couch snarled. “End it.”

Gregor didn’t respond to Markov, but the command reminded him that he had to take this one down alive. He watched Beck carefully. He saw that there was no fear in his face. He had survived this far. Clearly this required caution. Maim him first, thought Gregor. Get him down on the floor. Beat him. Break his radius bone or the ulna, or both, grind them together, then he will talk. He will beg.

They had Beck backed up almost to the wall. Stepanovich reached behind his back and pulled out an expandable steel baton from his rear pocket. He extended it with a quick snap, giving himself sixteen more inches of reach. At the same time, his partner pulled out a combat switchblade knife, razor sharp with a serrated edge on top.

Beck had to constantly look right and left to keep them both in sight. No wonder they were taking their time. Not just two against one. Two with weapons against one without. Or at least that’s what they thought.

Beck knew when they moved, they would move at the same time. He had to choose one, the moment he ran out of room. The choice was easy. The steel snap baton would be brutal. But the knife could be deadly. Beck had seen too many knife wounds in prison. It only took a second to stab a hole into a liver or heart, or slash through a tendon or major artery.

Another slow step back. He could sense the wall looming behind him. He reached behind him, touching a shelf or a windowsill, his hand felt something. A book. Too light to do any major damage, but enough. Without hesitating he whipped it into the face of the one with the knife. At the same time, he pulled the sap out of his back pocket, took three fast steps and slid on the polished wood floor toward the knife wielder.

Beck nearly skidded past the man, but at the last second, just after the knife blade passed inches over his head, Beck jackknifed into a sitting position and whipped the Bucheimer into the side of the knife man’s left knee.

The collateral ligament ruptured, the right side of his femur shattered, and the fibula cracked three inches from its top. The knife wielder fell to the side as his leg collapsed. He toppled across Beck’s torso, blocking the first baton blow coming from Gregor, but still managed to stab his knife down, slicing through the outside of Beck’s left thigh and burying the point an inch into the wood floor.

The wound stung and burned deep. Beck slapped the Bucheimer into the knife wielder’s face, causing an explosion of pain. The lead weight cracked the supraorbital bone above his right eye, crushed the lacrimal bone, and split the nasal bone, knocking the man out cold.