He grinned again, put the disk back into the case, and slipped it into
his inside windbreaker pocket. He looked at the stairs.
No sounds drifted down from the sleeping widow.
Good. Always good to avoid complications when possible.
He retraced his steps to the back door. He keyed in the alarm code,
cracked the door open a hair, and set the button lock on the door. He
had thirty seconds to close the door behind him before the alarm kicked
on. It only took one of those seconds for him to draw his pistol and
slip the safety off. If somebody had been watching him, it made more
sense for them to wait until he left with whatever he had come for
before they took him down;
otherwise they might never find it. If somebody was watching.
He held the pistol down by his leg. He took a deep breath, released
half of it, and stepped outside.
Wednesday, June 15th Port Townsend, Washington
Michaels was watching the house when the whole situation suddenly
changed. Whatever Ventura had gone into the house for, either he knew
where it was, or he'd changed his mind, Michaels thought. He was in
and out in maybe two minutes. And the cavalry was still at least three
minutes away.
Michaels watched as the man did something one-handed with the dead bolt
lock. Save for a quick glance, he did it without looking at the
door--instead he scanned the yard, his gaze sweeping back and forth,
seeking. His other hand was hidden behind his leg.
Even though he knew he was pretty much invisible on the ground under
the bushes across the street, Michaels froze. His pucker factor went
right off the scale.
Ventura finished his manipulation with the door's lock,
glanced around again, and started across the backyard.
Michaels gathered himself to get up. He was going to follow Ventura,
come hell or high water, but he was going to be real careful doing it.
His hand hovered over the call button on his virgil, but he didn't
press it. Hitting the distress signal now would bring the cavalry with
full lights and sirens, and he still couldn't risk alerting Ventura.
He was on his hands and knees about to crawl out from under the
evergreen when two men stepped out from behind the shed and pointed
guns at Ventura.
'Hold it right--!' one of them began.
He never finished the sentence. There were several bright flashes and
terrific explosions, and all three men went down. But Ventura rolled
up, hardly even slowing, ran to the two fallen men, and fired his
pistol twice more.
It all happened so fast and unexpectedly Michaels wasn't sure what he
had seen, but his brain raced to fill it in: Two men with guns braced
Ventura, who was either the fastest draw who ever lived or already had
his own gun out. One, two, three shots, yes, three, two from Ventura,
one from one of the dead guys--and they were surely dead because
Ventura sprinted over and put one more round into each one, looked like
the heads, but it was hard to be sure about that, the after-images from
