It was a simple matter to find the trigger mechanism. He found a small lever hidden under the carpet beneath the sofa, and when he pulled it, the wall behind the tapestry slid open, revealing a hidden room.
Inside was another small safe, similar in size to the one in Denver, as well as a Sharps rifle and three boxes of custom ammunition: .50 caliber, with a 170-grain black powder charge and a massive 700-grain bullet. This was a custom-built buffalo gun, a cannon powerful enough to take down a grizzly bear with a single shot.
Henry stored everything, then doused the office and the study with two fifty-liter barrels of kerosene.
He went to the window and looked down. The courtyard below was swarming with men, all of them rushing toward the front of the building.
He lit a few books and tossed them onto the kerosene-soaked furniture. The flames erupted with a hungry roar.
From the moment he had entered the fourth floor, less than three minutes had passed. He grabbed a dozen more kerosene-soaked books and ran, down to the third floor. He threw the burning books into the intelligence center, which he had already prepped with a hundred liters of fuel.
He waited a few seconds to ensure the fire had caught, then ran down to the second floor. He set another fire in one of the empty consultation rooms.
The entire building was now an inferno.
He opened a window that looked out over the rear courtyard. He took a grappling hook and rope from his space, secured it to a heavy iron rack, and then rappelled down the side of the building.
The guards in the rear courtyard, who had been rushing toward the front of the building, saw him descending. But in the two or three seconds it took them to react, he had already dropped to the ground.
He activated his Super Reflexes and, in a single, silent second, a rain of twenty-four throwing knives filled the air.
He didn't wait to see them fall. He used a grey pearl to reset his health and then charged, a dagger appearing in each of his hands. He was a blur of motion, his enhanced speed carrying him through the ranks of the guards faster than a galloping horse. He moved among them like a phantom, a flick of his wrist here, a thrust there, each movement leaving a dead man in his wake.
By the time he burst out into the front courtyard, another twenty-six guards lay dead behind him.
He stored the daggers, and two double-action revolvers appeared in his hands. He opened fire on the men who were still outside the main entrance.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
The sound of his pistols was a continuous, deafening roar, like a machine gun, but with a precision and a killing efficiency that no machine gun could match. At this range, under thirty meters, he didn't have to aim for the head. He couldn't miss.
In six seconds, he emptied six pairs of revolvers, seventy-two rounds in total. All sixty-six of the guards in the front courtyard were cut down. He had caught them from behind, and by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late. Eight of his grey pearl husks had shattered in the brief, one-sided exchange.
He charged toward the main entrance. As he neared it, he activated his Super Reflexes. He saw four more guards, their guns rising in slow motion.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
All four went down, a bullet through each of their brows.
From this moment on, no one would escape the burning building.
These men had to die. If he was to protect himself, to protect Linda and her family, he could not allow a single one of them to walk away and report what they had seen.
He stood his ground at the entrance, a lone sentinel against the tide of chaos pouring out of the burning clubhouse. The building was now fully engulfed, flames leaping from the windows of the upper floors. The men inside, who had been trapped by the initial assault, now streamed toward the exit, a panicked mob of guards, clerks, and low-level black market members.
These were the men who knew his latest whereabouts, the men who had been selling his life for a few dollars.
He opened fire.
The main entrance was a chokepoint, a five-man funnel that led directly into the kill zone. The path out of the clubhouse had become a highway to hell.
In a dozen seconds of continuous, methodical slaughter, another 122 men fell.
Then, a new wave of fifty-six gunmen charged in from the street, trying to break his position. After another dozen seconds and the cost of ten more grey pearl husks, they too were all dead.
From the first throwing knife to the last dead enemy, nine seconds had passed.
It was a true thunderous assault.
He didn't stop to finish the wounded. He moved through the nineteen rooms, one by one, hunting for any cowards or schemers who might be hiding. He found three. Another pearl husk shattered as he dealt with them.
Then, silence.