The Killing Trap Collapses

He failed to control himself.

His knee struck the metal frame of the folding bed.

It made a dull thud.

The second man heard the noise and stopped outside the window.

He poked his head in—but he could see nothing in the darkness.

"What happened?" he asked in a very low voice.

There was no answer.

When the first man fell, the back of his head struck one of the folding bed's legs.

It was not a heavy blow, but combined with the momentum of his slip, it was enough to leave him temporarily unable to move.

He lay facedown on the floor, bracing himself with both hands as he tried to get up.

The second man climbed in.

His entry through the window was textbook—his feet touched down first as he shifted his center of gravity backward, one hand gripping the window frame.

But he landed at the edge of the paraffin powder.

He half-slipped, half-kept his balance.

He reacted quickly, grabbing the curtain rod with his left hand to steady himself.

Then a suture needle flew up from downstairs.

Lynn was at the first-floor stairwell.

His throwing distance was roughly six meters, passing through the vertical opening of the stairwell.

The needle traced an almost soundless arc through the air.

Its tip pierced precisely beside the radial artery on the inside of the second man's right wrist, at a carefully calculated point.

It was not meant to puncture the artery, but to strike the median nerve beside it.

The searing pain in his wrist made his fingers release the curtain rod instantly.

Deprived of support, his body pitched forward—landing right on top of the first man.

The two men piled together.

On the paraffin-powder-covered floor of the second floor, they struggled to get up, but their feet kept slipping.

Lynn did not go upstairs to finish them off.

For now, they posed no threat to him.

The rear door on the west side.

Two heartbeats had already reached the other side of it.

The sound of the lock being picked came next. This time, they were using a lock-core disassembly tool, far quieter than a pry bar.

The rear door opened.

The first man stepped over the threshold.

His left hand pushed the door while his right held a gun—a suppressed pistol, its muzzle held low below his waist.

A standard close-range indoor shooting stance.

His right foot stepped onto the silicone oil on the floor.

Unlike paraffin powder, silicone oil was even slicker.

His foot shot straight forward, instantly throwing his entire posture out of shape. As he lost balance, his gun hand instinctively swung upward, and the muzzle tilted toward the ceiling.

Lynn stepped out from the shadows beside the hallway.

A knife-hand strike with his right hand.

The target was the carotid sinus on the left side of the man's neck.

Angle: forty-seven degrees.

Contact area: a two-centimeter-wide section along the outer edge of his palm.

Force: a combined output of seventy percent Super Soldier Physique and fifty-five percent Superhuman Strength, though he used only twenty percent of it.

Any more would kill the man.

The strike landed precisely on target.

The impact to the carotid sinus sent a signal to the brain: "Blood pressure too high. Lower it immediately."

The brain responded by instantly dropping the heart rate and blood pressure.

Too sharply. Blood flow to the brain became insufficient, and consciousness cut out.

The killer's body went limp.

Lynn caught the back of his neck and gently lowered him to the floor.

The second killer was behind him.

He heard his companion hit the ground ahead, though Lynn had kept the sound to a minimum.

But in the silent pre-dawn hours, he still caught the sound of a person falling.

He did not panic.

He stepped back to open up distance, drawing a short blade from behind his waist with his right hand.

The blade had a matte coating and gave off no reflection.

He could not see Lynn in the darkness.

But he could hear breathing.

No, he could not.

Lynn had suppressed his breathing until it was almost nonexistent.

The stealth instinct within Super Agent Skills turned his body into a stone in the darkness.

No movement, no sound, no presence.

The killer began retreating slowly.

His back pressed against the wall as he inched toward the rear door.

He intended to withdraw.

Lynn did not let him.

The metal medicine rack in the hallway—the one whose angle had been adjusted earlier. Its base had four casters.

Lynn kicked one of the casters with his left foot.

The hundred-plus-pound metal rack shot past from the side.

The killer heard it and tried to dodge, but with his back against the wall, the only space he had was in front of him—and that was precisely where the rack was coming from.

The edge of the rack slammed into his right knee.

His knee buckled, and his body pitched forward.

Lynn stepped forward. His left hand clamped around the wrist holding the knife.

With the grip strength of Super Soldier Physique combined with Superhuman Strength, his fingers locked around the other man's wrist like steel bands.

The killer's face twisted in the darkness.

He strained to break free—but could not move it.

Lynn drove his right elbow into the man's temple.

The second one went down.

The rear entrance was clear.

He had done all of that with almost no sound.

From the first killer's fall to the second one being taken down, the entire rear-door engagement had taken nine seconds.

Two remained at the eastern front entrance.

They were still outside.

Lynn's Super Senses told him that the two men outside the front door had stopped approaching.

They had heard the disturbance from the rear through their communicators—though the sounds were faint, the devices were sensitive enough.

"Grey Falcon, no response from the rear. No response from the second floor either," a voice said over the comm channel.

Another voice answered, much steadier than the first.

This was probably Grey Falcon.

"Go in," Grey Falcon said.

The front-door lock was opened.

The two men pushed their way inside.

The one in front held a suppressed pistol in his right hand and pressed a monocular night-vision device to his eye with his left.

The one behind held a short blade in each hand.

Seven seconds earlier, Lynn had already taken his position at the doorway of the first-floor examination room.

He spoke.

"Your people are lying in the back."

The voice came from the darkness.

Neither loud nor soft.

Flat and calm.

A figure appeared in the night-vision device—wearing a dark top, gold-rimmed glasses, hands in his pockets as he leaned against the doorframe.

The gunman saw the figure clearly through the night-vision device.

Leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, wearing a pair of reflective gold-rimmed glasses.

As if he were waiting in his own living room for a late friend.

That calmness alone was an immense threat.

"Understood," Grey Falcon's cold, decisive voice came through the earpiece. "The target can fight back. Abandon stealth. Full assault!"

The order was the signal.

The two killers at the front entrance stopped hesitating and rammed their shoulders into the flimsy wooden door.

The door was kicked apart, splinters exploding inward.

What greeted them was not bullets, but a cloud of cold mist with a pungent odor.

Medical alcohol.

Using a modified small pressurized sprayer, Lynn had set up a simple pressure-triggered device above the doorframe.

The instant the door was forced open, a high-concentration alcohol mist sprayed directly into their faces.

Alcohol was not lethal, but it was enough to make anyone lose their ability to fight in an instant.

The intense irritation burned their eyes and nasal membranes. Tears and mucus poured out uncontrollably, their vision blurred completely, and violent coughing left them unable to hold their guns steady.

A black shadow flashed out from beside the medicine cabinet.