umbrella stand beside the front door. He picked out the biggest one and hefted it in his hand. That, he thought, would do nicely. Then he walked over to the living-room door, which was fortunately ajar, and pushed it open just far enough to allow him to slide into the room.
The open shutters were obvious—every other window was black—and Bronson moved across the room to his left, keeping low. Their unwelcome visitors were not visible through the window but that simply meant that they hadn’t yet broken one of the panes of glass to get in.
The window was wood-framed with twelve small single-glazed panes of glass, and Rogan had come prepared. He hadn’t anticipated that they wouldn’t be able to use the back door again, but whenever he was tasked with a burglary he always had a backup plan. And for an old house like this, with very basic security, breaking a window and getting inside that way was the most obvious option.
He took a roll of adhesive tape from his pocket and tore off several strips, handing each to Alberti, who stuck them on the glass in a star pattern, leaving a protruding
“handle” in the middle, formed from the central sections of the tape. Then Alberti held the tape in his left hand, reversed the jimmy and rapped the rounded end sharply against the taped window. The glass broke instantly, but stuck to the tape, and he easily pulled out the broken pane. He handed the glass to Rogan, who placed it carefully on the ground, then reached inside and lifted the catch to open the window.
Although he’d been as quiet as he could, there was obviously a possibility that the noise had been heard inside the house. So, before he climbed in, Alberti took the pistol from his shoulder holster, checked the magazine and chambered a round by pulling back the slide. He set the safety catch, then grasped the left side of the window frame, rested his right foot on a protruding stone in the wall and pulled himself up and into the open window to lower himself into the room.
At that moment, Bronson acted. He’d seen and heard the glass break, and guessed what the intruders’ next move would be, and he also knew that if the two men managed to get inside the house, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
So as Alberti leaned forward, his right arm extended, ready to jump down inside the room, Bronson stepped away from the wall and smashed the walking stick down with all his force, instantly breaking the Italian’s right arm a few inches below the shoulder. The intruder screamed with pain and shock, dropped the automatic and in a reflex action threw himself backward, landing heavily on the ground outside.
For the barest of instants Rogan had no clue what had happened. He’d stepped back to give Alberti room to hoist himself up through the window, and just a split second later his companion had tumbled backward, yelling in agony. Then, in the moonlight, he saw Alberti’s arm and realized it had been broken. That could mean only one thing. He stepped forward to the window and lifted his own pistol.
An indistinct shape moved inside the darkness of the house. Rogan immediately swung the weapon toward his target, took rapid aim and pulled the trigger. The bullet shattered one of the unbroken panes of glass and slammed into a wall somewhere inside the room.
The report of the pistol was deafening at such close range, the sound of breaking glass following moments later. Bronson’s military training took over and he dropped flat on the floor. But if the intruder hoisted himself up and looked down into the room, Bronson knew he’d be clearly visible. He had to get out of sight, and quickly.
The base of the ground-floor window was higher than usual and the second man would have to be standing almost on tiptoe—not the ideal shooting stance by a long way. If he moved quickly, he might be able to make it to safety.
Bronson jumped to his feet and ran across the room, ducking and weaving. Two more gunshots rang out, their reports a thunderous assault on the silence of the night. He heard the bullets smashing into the solid stone walls of the room, but neither hit him.
Before the builders had arrived, the living room had contained a large wood-framed three-piece suite, a couple of coffee tables and about half a dozen smaller chairs, all of which were now stacked in a heap more or less in the middle of the floor.
Bronson had no illusions that a collection of furniture, no matter how solid, would be sufficient to stop a bullet, but if the intruder couldn’t see him, he’d have nothing to aim at. So he dived behind the sheet-covered mound and flattened himself against the wooden floorboards.
Then he waited.
Alberti had staggered to his feet, clutching his broken arm and howling with pain.
Rogan knew there was now no chance of getting inside the house that night. Even if Hampton, or whoever it was inside the property, hadn’t called the
“Come on,” he snapped, holstering his pistol and bending down to help his companion to his feet. “Let’s get back to the car.”
Within a couple of minutes the two men had vanished into the night.
Bronson was still crouching behind the stack of furniture when he heard the sound of footsteps above him. Moments later, the hall lights flared on. Bronson knew he had to stop his friend from walking into a gunfight, so he risked a quick glance toward the open window, then jumped up and ran across to the door, wrenched it open and stepped out into the hall.
“What the hell’s going on, Chris?” Mark demanded, rubbing his eyes. “Those noises sounded like gunshots.”
“Spot on. We’ve just had visitors.”
“What?”
“Just give me a minute. Stay here in the hall—don’t go into the living room. Where’s the switch for the security lights?”
Mark pointed at a group of switches at the end of the hall, next to the corridor leading to the kitchen. “Bottom right.”
Bronson stepped over to the panel and flicked the switch.
“Don’t go into the living room, Mark,” he warned again, then ran up the stairs. On the first floor, he opened each window in turn and peered outside, checking the area around the house. The security lights the Hamptons had installed were fitted directly below the bedroom windows, mainly to make changing the high-power halogen bulbs as easy as possible. This had the accidental benefit of permitting anyone on the first floor to observe the perimeter of the property without being visible from below.
Bronson checked twice but the men, whoever they were, had gone. The only sound he could hear—apart from the animals of the night—was the noise of a car engine receding rapidly, probably the two burglars making their getaway. He checked all the windows once more, then walked back down the staircase to the hall, where Mark was obediently waiting.
“I think those guys were probably the same ones who broke in here before,” Bronson explained. “They decided to come in through the window because I’d jammed the back door with a chair.”
“And they shot at you?”
“At least three shots, maybe four. Wait here while I close the shutters in the living room.”
Bronson opened the door carefully and peered inside, then strode into the room. He walked across to the open window, looked out to check that there was nobody in sight and reached out to pull the shutters closed. He shut and locked the window itself, then switched on the main lights. As Mark followed him into the room, Bronson noticed something lying on the floor close to the broken window, and in a moment realized it was a semiautomatic pistol.
Bronson picked it up, removed the magazine and ejected the cartridge from the breech. The pistol was a well-used nine-millimeter Browning Hi-Power, one of the commonest and most reliable semiautomatics. He replaced the ejected cartridge in the magazine, reloaded the weapon but didn’t chamber a round, and tucked it in the waistband of his trousers.
“Is that yours?” Mark asked.
Bronson shook his head. “The only people in Britain who own handguns these days are criminals, thanks to the coterie of idiots and spin doctors who allegedly govern the country. No, this was dropped by the guy who tried to climb in through the window. These people are serious, Mark.”
“We’d better call the police.”
