Immediately, through the front entrance, Mathew signaled for the remainder of Team Bravo to secure the elevator lift hidden behind the imperial staircase directly to the front.
The men affirmed the order, extended their shock tamers, and cautiously advanced over creaking floors and hazardous debris, and were too distracted to detect the lurkers in the foyer’s dark peripheries.
Once the Black Coats reached the open doorframe to the elevator, a panicky young man burst from obscurity on a clumsy trajectory toward the opposite door. He wielded a rusty pipe for defense but did not appear to anticipate other officers would obstruct his escape. With absolute conviction and no hint of hesitation, he flailed his weapon wildly at the largest lawman in sight.
With one hand firmly securing his shock tamer, Agent Branson used the rest of his body, along with finely tuned disarmament techniques, to quickly subdue the weapon wielder before he could cause harm.
His Black Coat subordinates looked on, barely controlling their amazement, while the weapon wielder was abruptly incapacitated.
The clanking of hollow metal falling against a hard surface aroused action from a second assailant, who darted out from the same dark corner but took a sharp turn toward the nearest flight of stairs.
Mathew suspected some manually primed alarm was installed at the top of the steps, but he wasn’t about to challenge the conjecture and risk it being triggered. He lifted the pipe from the ground and nodded approvingly to its sturdiness and weight. With a deep breath, he hurled the rusty rod at the staircase climber, intending to interrupt his ascension.