Some idiot was spraying AK rounds through the wall above him, causing shattered plaster to rain down into his face. Sokolov verified that his rifle was ready to fire, then rolled into the doorway and discharged three rounds at a man—not the black man, but a Central Asian type with a beard—who was doing the spraying. The man went stiff and just as quickly went floppy, and Sokolov hit him with one additional shot, more carefully aimed at his center of mass. The Central Asian went down. There was no doubt in Sokolov’s mind that he had been stationed at that position by the black man with orders to cover Sokolov. This implied that the Negro was, (a) in charge, and (b) trying to make his way out of the apartment. A very deeply buried instinct, the lust for the hunt, made Sokolov want to go after him. Then some higher part of his brain weighed in. Thirty seconds ago he had been in the hallway getting ready to scare the hell out of a Chinese hacker and now he wanted to pursue a black Islamic militant through the middle of a pitched AK-47 duel in a bomb factory?