The young clerk, a cold steel point now pressed against the back of his neck, had no choice but to obey. He walked to the door of the intelligence center and knocked: three long, two short.
The door opened immediately. A bearded guard saw the familiar face of the clerk and was about to speak when a flash of red appeared at the clerk's throat—the tip of a rapier, bursting through from behind.
The guard's eyes widened in shock. Before he could even register what was happening, the blade vanished, and he felt a cold sting in his own throat, followed by an immense, tearing pain.
Henry caught the guard's body as it fell, lowered it silently to the ground, and slipped through the doorway, closing the door behind him.
He was in another short corridor. He charged through it and burst into the main room, activating his Super Reflexes.
Before him were eleven guards, laughing and drinking coffee, and two young clerks sitting behind desks. A rain of throwing knives filled the air, each one finding a home in a throat or an eye.
He leaped onto the counter of the partitioned-off section and, with a single pistol shot, killed the last man standing.
He used a grey pearl to restore his health, then picked the lock on the door to the inner archives and swept the room clean, storing every file, every notebook. He then looted the bodies, piled them in the now-empty archive room, stacked the wooden furniture on top, and doused the entire pyre with two fifty-liter barrels of kerosene.
He left the room, closed the door, and then checked the six private consultation rooms on the floor. They were all empty. He headed for the stairs to the fourth floor.
A heavy iron door blocked his path. He knocked: four short, two long.
The door slid open, just wide enough for one man to pass through. A bearded guard peered out.
A rapier appeared in Henry's hand and shot forward, piercing the man's throat and exiting through the back of his skull. Henry ripped the blade free, slammed his shoulder into the heavy iron door, and burst into the room.
He activated his Super Reflexes.
Eleven guards stood in a loose circle, their faces a mixture of shock and disbelief. Further back, another six guards and four clerks were just beginning to react.
In one second, twenty-four throwing knives flew from Henry's hands, a phantom of death with a thousand arms. Every man in the room now had a blade in his throat. A few had a second in their heart.
He didn't stop. Over the next three seconds, he threw another eighteen knives, making sure every man was finished.
He used another pearl to restore his health and began to walk toward the office at the far end of the room, stepping over the bodies of the dead.
Just as he was a few feet from the office door, the warning flared in his mind. He pulled the corpse of a gray wolf from his space and hurled it at the door.
CRASH!
The door burst open.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three shots tore through the wolf's carcass.
Henry activated his Super Reflexes again and charged in. A heavyset, scar-faced man was trying to bring his gun to bear, but he was moving in slow motion.
BANG! BANG!
Two shots. The first blew the gun from the man's hand. The second went through his brow.
BANG!
Another shot. A hawk-nosed man behind the desk screamed as a bullet tore through his wrist, sending his own pistol flying.
"Don't move," Henry said, his voice cold as the grave. "Don't scream. Or you die."
The man nodded, his face pale, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Open that safe," Henry said, gesturing to a massive, two-meter-high vault in the corner of the room.
"You have to promise to let me go," the man snarled through gritted teeth.
A throwing knife flew from Henry's hand, taking the man's right ear with it.
"Agh! It doesn't matter!" the man screamed, a crazed look in his eyes. "I've already sounded the alarm! Every guard on every floor knows! You'll never get out of here alive!"
BANG!
Henry put a bullet through his head. He looked under the desk and saw it: an alarm button, its wire running through the floor.
"Fuck," he muttered.
He walked over to the massive safe and stored it away. He then searched the rest of the office. Behind a tapestry of a beautiful woman, his enhanced senses and LV 3 Theft skill allowed him to find another hidden compartment.