A muzzle flash.
A deafening shot rang out in the most unexpected of places. Jay Grayer's body arched. He fell back against the kitchen counter, knocking over a row of tall wooden stools.
Jeanne Sterling had shot him point-blank. She had a gun hidden in her robe. She'd fired right- through the pocket. Maybe she had seen us approaching the house. Or maybe she always had a gun nearby. She was Jill, after all.
Jeanne shifted her feet and turned the gun on me. I was already diving down behind the kitchen counter.
She fired the semiautomatic anyway.
Another deafening blast in the kitchen. A flash of light. Then another shot.
She kept firing as she backed from the kitchen. Then she ran.
Her robe flew behind her like a cape.
I quickly moved to where Jay Grayer had gone down. He was wounded high in the chest, near the collarbone. His face was drained of color. Jay was conscious, though. 'Just get her, Alex.
Get her alive,“ he gasped. ”Get them. They know everything.'
I moved carefully but quickly inside the Sterling house. Don't kill her. She knows the truth. We need to hear it from her just this once. She knows why the President was killed, and who ordered it.
She knows!
Suddenly, a Secret Service agent came rushing inside the front door. Another agent was close behind him.
Two more agents appeared from the direction of the kitchen.
All of them had their guns drawn. Looks of shocked concern were on their faces.
“What the hell happened in here?” one of the agents shouted.
“Jeanne Sterling has a gun. We take her alive, anyway We have to take her alive!”
I heard a noise in the direction of the front hallway Actually, two noises. I understood what was happening, and my heart sank.
A car engine was being started.
An electric garage door was being raised.
Jill was getting away.
MY CHEST was thundering, ready to explode, but my heart had gone icy cold.
Take her alive, no matter what! She's even more important than Jack.
The door to the garage was down a narrow hallway that led past a large sun room. The sun room was awash in blinding morning light. I sucked in a breath. Then I opened the garage door carefully, as if it might explode. It just might, I knew. Anything could happen now. This was the house of dirty tricks.
There was a dark, narrow corridor between the house and the garage. The passageway was about four feet long. I moved down it in a low crouch.
Another closed door was at the end.
Take her alive. That the one imperative.
I yanled open the second door and jumped out into what I figured had to be the garage. It was.
Instantly, I heard three loud pops. I hit the concrete floor hard.
Gunshots!
Thunderous, scary noise in the confined space. No thud of a bullet to my chest or head, thank God.
I saw Jeanne Sterling leaning out of the window of her station wagon. She had a semiautomatic clutched in one hand. I pushed myself up again.
Take her alive! my brain screamed as I ducked out of sight.
I had seen something else in the car. She had her youngest daughter with her. Her three-year-old, Karon. She was using Karon as a shield. She knew we wouldn't shoot with the girl in the way The little girl was screaming loudly. She was terrified.
How could Jeanne Sterling do this to a child?
I crouched behind the oil tank in the darkened, cramped space.
I was trying to think straight.
I shut my eyes for a beat. Half a second at most.
I drank in a huge breath of cold air and gasoline fumes. Tried to think in absolutely straight lines. I made a decision and hoped it was the right one.
When I came up again, I fired. I carefully aimed away from the little girl. But I fired.
I went down in the crouch again, hidden behind the dark tank.
I knew I hadn't hit anybody My shot had only been a warning, a final one. Andrew Klauk had been right when we'd talked in the Sterlings' backyard. The CIA “ghost” was the one who told me all I needed to know right now -- the game is played with no rules.
