Epstein led them into the house, SMG up and ready. Apparently the targeting laser could operate in the infrared band, visible only in the night vision goggles. He was a fan. Landry followed, sweeping left when Epstein went right. Rebecca peeled off behind him while Sam flanked Landry. Thank god, the ground floor looked like it was still clear. The noise of the idling vehicles downslope must have covered any giveaways.

They carefully picked their way around through the kitchen, dining, and sitting areas to the base of the steps, just inside the front door. Rebecca spotted the body of the one recalcitrant holdout in a puddle of shadow darker than the floor around it and stepped over his legs warily, remembering a time a bound foe knocked her feet out from under her. There was no repeat occasion, but she still was forced to split her attention between scanning the room and controlling her breathing, tamping down the uneasy tingle the mass of adrenaline was driving through her limbs. Ronnie's lessons came back to her again — one breath, one sweep. Watch your doors n' corners, Bex. Don't get tunnel vision.

They reached the stairs without incident, and she swallowed hard as Epstein and Landry set their feet on the first step. Dylan swore none of them squeaked, and Rebecca was praying hard on an open wideband that she was right. The guys kept their guns forward, she and Sam aimed at an angle, across the stairs and landing, at the doors on the opposite side. Their luck was holding, all three doors at the top were open, nobody in the bathroom ahead.

Almost at the top, Epstein lifted a hand away from his borrowed SMG and gestured at the doors. Rebecca reached for her radio, clicked the transmit button three times, then lowered her weapon to pull a flash grenade from her pouches. Sam did the same. Just as they pulled the pins, a voice upstairs called out.

"Hey Mickey..." The lights illuminating the house from outside doused. "Shit!"

The women lobbed their grenades through the two side doors and shut their eyes, waiting for the bang muffled by their ear protection. Both were already raising their weapons again by feel before the grenades went off, and they surged up the stairs immediately after the detonations, mere steps behind their pointmen. Then all hell broke loose.

Rebecca followed Epstein right, into another sitting room of some kind. He fired once, twice as she entered the room and flicked the light and laser on her Tavor on. She spotted movement in a far door while Epstein was checking behind a large wardrobe and fired a quick burst. The shotgun boomed across the hall repeatedly. Epstein snapped his weapon left, firing into someone rising from behind a couch... and Rebecca heard the slide on the SMG lock back, empty. Shit, he must not have been used to its dramatically higher rate of fire. He was hurrying to reload when another man popped up from behind the same large sofa and got two shots off, at least one of them clipping Epstein and knocking him into the wall with the grunt.

Rebecca's lips pulled back, baring her teeth as she locked onto her target and fired, hitting him at least once above the couch and intentionally marching the rest of her burst down into it in a zig-zag pattern. Always be aware of overpenetration. The risks, the benefits.

She put three rounds into the last guy Epstein hit, the first one to pop up from behind the couch, just in case his gun ran dry before it could finish the guy. Don't fixate. Engage, neutralize, scan. Sam's M4 cracked repeatedly in the next room, three at a time.

The room was clear for the moment, so she spared Epstein a glance. He was leaning against the wall, groaning and hissing as he wrestled the next long stick magazine into the Vector and pressed the bolt release. He had a loaded weapon again, but Rebecca saw blood staining his uniform, at least in his shoulder. He nodded her forward with a grimace and struggled to push himself off the wall and upright. He could watch her back, but she had to take point.

She pushed forward into the next room, shooting someone looking out the window in the back, pitching them out of it. Just as she registered the hit and started to scan again, two forms materialized from the shadows, one tackling her, the other charging Epstein. Gunfire continued to echo in the other side of the house.

Her foe slammed her against the wall, but the armor spared her from the impact. The man she grappled with was larger than her, certainly worse-smelling. He pinned her Tavor between them, but she was able to hook her right foot behind his leg and lever off of the wall with her shoulder, sending him toppling — but he was entangled in her weapon sling and started to pull her over with him.

Rebecca gasped in exertion as she fought against his weight, frantically grabbing for her knife, and slashed the strap on her sling so the gun fell freely away. She followed it down and plunged the knife into him, leaving it there, and pushing herself away. Her hand found her familiar pistol grip immediately, pulled it free, and she shot him twice from where she knelt. She caught a single desperate breath as she felt for her flashlight and rose, holding the light beneath her gun hand like she'd seen cops do on TV.

The room she was in now filled the front right corner of the house, with another between her and the front left corner. As she swept her flashlight beam across it, she saw Epstein had the upper hand, his good arm around the man's neck and his legs wrapped around his opponent's. The other man was thrashing and trying to reach Epstein, but seemed to be slowing, so Rebecca aimed into the other room and advanced, using furniture as cover. She heard Sam's voice, snarling ferociously.

One hostile was in that room, and she flinched away from a near miss and put the laser and three rounds center mass. She still had those fancy hollow points she first purchased with the handgun.

She caught a glimpse of Sam in the far room. A man's corpse fell away from her, and Rebecca saw her transfer her knife to her left hand and pick up her M4, holding the blade under it much the same way she was holding her own flashlight. Sam fired twice towards the rear of the house, then started to pivot. As the headlights in the vehicles outside blazed back to life, she saw that Sam was squinting one eye closed, blinded on that side by a trickle of blood from her forehead, and couldn't see the person rising on her flank.

Rebecca shouted a warning and sprinted for the room.