on him. If so, she’d worked out a pretty good plan. She was hidden, and he was exposed. The darkness helped him, but not a lot. Even if he hugged the wall, she would probably see his silhouette when he got close to the open door.
He would have to go in quick. When inside, he could take cover, and if she fired, he would identify her position by the muzzle flash. His own shots would be harder to pinpoint; the suppressor module eliminated the muzzle flare.
Once in the room, he would have the edge.
Abby peered into the dimness and saw a hint of movement. The man was creeping up to the bedroom’s open door. Though he had pressed himself tight against the wall, he was partially exposed to her angle of view. He appeared to be in a low combat crouch, his gun held across his chest.
This was the one moment in the encounter when she had an unequivocal advantage. She could see him. He didn’t know where she was. As the mobile party, he was more vulnerable to begin with, and the hall was a free-fire zone-no cover, no concealment.
She pinned him behind the revolver’s front sight. A fancy shooter would try for a head shot, but the smart money was on a hit to the body. She aimed for his torso.
He was at the door frame. In a second he would pivot inside. He would do it fast, because that was the way the pros did it. She would have only a second to fire. If she missed, he would empty his magazine in the direction of her muzzle flare. The bed might absorb some of the shots, but she wouldn’t wager her life on it.
Her heart, beating fast, counted off three seconds, four.
He made his move, spinning into the doorway.
Abby fired.
She took only one shot. Either she hit the target or she didn’t. If she hit him, one shot should be enough. If she didn’t, she would need the other five rounds to repel his attack.
The gunshot set her ears ringing and drowned out any sound of impact. The muzzle flash, close to her face, erased her night vision. For a moment she was deaf and blind. But she knew she’d hit him because he wasn’t shooting back.
“You got him,” Andrea breathed into Abby’s ear.
“Did you see him go down?”
“I didn’t see him at all, but I heard him cry out. You got him. I know you did.”
“There are two others.” Abby drew a breath and smelled gunpowder. “Don’t celebrate yet.”
17
Bitch had fired before he could enter, the shot forcing him back. For a bad moment Dylan thought she’d nailed him in the chest, and all he could think of was he should’ve worn Kevlar.
Then Tupelo was pulling him back, away from the open door, whispering, “You hit, man? You hit?”
“Dunno.” His gloved hands searched the front of his shirt for blood, finding none. “Maybe not.”
He’d felt the impact, but there was no blood and no pain. Sometimes a bullet wound didn’t hurt, though. It just went numb. Shock or something.
“Sounded like you was hit,” Tupes said.
“Yeah. Felt like it, too.” Dylan stripped off one glove and felt himself with his bare hand until he was sure he was intact.
She’d missed. Somehow she’d missed. He checked his gun, and then he understood.
He’d been holding the H amp; K at chest level, and the bullet had struck the goddamn gun. Shit, what were the odds on that? He could feel the nick in the silencer where the shot had been deflected.
“She didn’t get me,” he whispered, amazed. “Banged my silencer, is all.”
“Fuck, that’s lucky.” Tupelo was shivering with fury and fear. “Fuck.”
Dylan unscrewed the suppressor module and stuck in his pocket. He couldn’t risk firing the gun if the silencer tube had been cramped or bent. A round could get stuck in there and blow up the damn gun in his hand.
He put his glove back on and took stock.
“We take up position there.” He nodded at the midpoint of the hall. “Angle some shots into her hidey-hole. And get Bran in on the game, too.” He keyed his walkie-talkie. “She’s in the last room on the southwest side. Couple windows with curtains. You know the one?”
A burst of static, and Bran’s voice. “I see it.”
“Take a shot or two at them windows. Bitch is armed, so watch out.”
“Old lady’s packing? Cool.”
“Yeah.” Dylan switched off the radio with a sigh. “Cool.”
“Two others?” Andrea whispered, her voice cracking. “You said two others?”
Abby nodded. “We’ll get out of this. I’ve been in worse jams.”
This was probably true, but right now she couldn’t think of any.
“Who are they? What do they want?” Andrea’s questions tailed into a helpless moan. “Oh God, this is bad, this is so bad…”
“Don’t lose control. Just sit tight and keep your head down.”
The advice was punctuated with a crash of glass from behind them. One of the windows had been shot out.
Andrea screamed. Abby silenced her with a hand to her mouth. A cry would only pinpoint their position.
She knew that the man in the backyard had fired through the window. He wouldn’t have done so unless he was in communication with the men inside. They’d told him their quarry was hiding in the bedroom. The outside man was trying to flush out the prey.
And she’d been right about the silencer. She’d heard no report from his gun.
The flying glass, absorbed by the heavy curtain, hadn’t hit them, but the bullet and the glass had left gashes in the curtain that let in more light. If the curtain opened up too much, she and Andrea would be exposed to view. The only saving grace was that the shooter was unlikely to risk coming right up to the window, where he would be vulnerable to her return fire. Most likely he would keep shooting from a distance in an effort to panic them into flight or score a lucky hit.
A second noiseless shot punched through the curtain and thudded into drywall across the room.
“Keep your head down,” Abby whispered.
Beside her, Andrea was shaking all over. Abby had once cradled an injured rabbit in her hands. It shook the same way.
There was one good thing about the sniper fire from the yard. As long as it continued, the two men in the house couldn’t mount another assault on the bedroom.
They could fire from the hall, though, if they chose a position that was safely out of the sniper’s range.
In time with that thought, a muzzle flash lit up the hallway, and chunks of plaster flew off the wall near the bed. She heard that report. No silencer on that gun.
Hell. She was taking fire from two directions. She had five rounds left, and no clear target. Her options were limited. She could sit tight until a ricochet caught her or Andrea, or she could empty the gun and then wait for the enemy to close in for an easy kill.
There was a chance that a report of shots fired had already been called in to the police by a neighbor, but response time would be measured in minutes, which might as well be hours. Anyway, the house next door had looked empty, and the people on the other side might not even be home during the day.
Two quick shots from the hall. One shot was silenced; the other was not. That was bad. It meant there were two guns, which meant both men were still in the fight. Either she hadn’t hit the first one, or the wound hadn’t incapacitated him. It was still three against one. She was outmanned and outgunned, and all out of countermoves. She needed to regain the advantage, and she wasn’t going to do it by crouching behind a mattress with bullets cracking overhead.
