"bill" aka pasquale acosta, hitting a walkie-talkie against his leg, checking for a signal-- faking the whole affair.
the tremor brothers, waiting arrival on the penthouse, armed to the teeth, each one tethered with an array of pistols, rifles, knives, hatchets, hacksaws; the tools of their trade; to be implemented in the most godless manner imaginable.
choked with generator and road flare smoke, lit like hell itself. the tremors stand at arms, shrouded in a miasmic mung of horribly toxic fumes, filling their lungs with it.
messner, having commandeered an elevator-- his ifb earpiece picking up interference-- distorted crosstalk, some sync of some kind, voices, clipped, delineating, spiked with static:
sykes, having heard the elevator arrive, leans against the wall, gun up, listening--
sykes, hearing that last transmission simultaneously.
with sykes attention diverted, acosta begins slowly moving his hand toward his pant leg, reaching for a hidden ankle- holster as we--