clothes in it and leave yours in the men’s room.”
Khadr nodded his understanding.
Jake Grafton went outside after dark to check on his troops. He found Harry Longworth beside the barn sitting in a foxhole with a rifle wearing a nightscope cradled on his lap. Only the top of his head was aboveground. On the edge of the hole lay a handheld night vision device. He was wearing gloves, camouflage pants, coat and hat, and lined rubber boots. A slender boom mike ran from an ear to the vicinity of his mouth.
Grafton squatted beside the hole. “Comfortable?”
“Oh, you bet. Thirty or forty degrees warmer here than the Hindu Kush. This is like a vacation.”
“I hope so. So tell me where your people are.”
“Two sleeping. Nick and I are on watch. All four of us are on in the two hours after dawn and after dark. That’s about the best we can do.”
“You got food and water and all that?”
“Bottled water and MREs, sir. Poop in a hole. We can’t risk a run to town or over to the main house.”
“Isn’t there a kitchen in that chauffeur’s apartment over the garage?”
“Maybe. We don’t want to be seen going in or out. Even at night.”
“This should be my last time coming out.”
“Okay.”
“Those big windows in the other side of the house — someone with a rifle or grenade launcher could have a field day.”
“Nick’s over there in a hole in a big thicket, and we have some remote, wireless infrared sensors in the trees.” He showed Grafton the vibrator in his pocket that would be activated by the sensors. “Last night some neighborhood dogs set it off twice. They run through here occasionally when the guy up the road lets them out for their evening constitutional. Watch where you walk on the grass. There are also a couple of cats in the barn, and they prowl at night, too, although they haven’t yet set off a sensor.”
“How about people moving around?”
“The guy who takes care of the horses comes every morning and works in the barn and corrals and piddles with the nags until he gets tired of it and goes home. Yesterday he was here for four hours, the day before five. The gardener won’t be coming, Winchester said. And Winchester walks his collie on a leash morning and night.”
“How about the meter man?”
“Here last week. Won’t be back for a month, I’m told. Although Winchester gets his mail at the post office, the FedEx man has come every morning.”
“Okay.”
“I pulled the circuit breakers for the outside lights before I left the house. We’ve done everything that I can think of to do.”
Jake thought about that for a moment. He couldn’t think of any other precautions that these few men could take, either. Moving the people in the house to another location would present two sets of problems: guarding them wherever he moved them and keeping an ambush team here. Keeping them here was the low-manpower option.
“What freq are you guys on?” Jake asked.
Harry told him. Jake turned his radio to that frequency, donned his headset, adjusted the volume and squelch and said a couple of words.
“Loud and clear,” Harry said. “Nick?”
“Got him.”
“We’ll only use these if something goes down,” Harry cautioned, not using his radio. “The less we transmit, the better. If the assholes got their shit together, they got a scanner.”
“You can figure that they do.”
“I suspect so.”
Jake looked around, listened to the night. He could hear distant traffic, and once, from a long way off, the moan of a train whistle. After a bit he said, “If you hear shots inside the house, it’ll be me shooting the protectees.”
“It’s that bad, huh?”
“They’re at each other’s throats. Already. They may bolt, and unless I lash them to a bed or lock them in the basement, there isn’t much I can do about it. We’ll sit tight even if they run off. The villains may not know that they left, so something might happen anyway.”
“What about telephone communication?”
“We’re monitoring the landline. If they call someone they shouldn’t, like the police to come and rescue them, we’ll kill the circuit. We’re also monitoring their cell phone calls, but I can’t turn those off.”
“Okay.”
“Good luck, Harry.”
“Thank you, sir,” Longworth said. He watched Jake Grafton walk back to the house.
By a few minutes after 5:00 p.m. the light had faded from the sky. Normally, of course, the grounds of the estate would be lit by decorator and security lights, but thanks to Longworth, those were off. The high, thin overcast blocked out the stars, leaving the night beyond the windows totally black. In the distance the glow of a town could be seen on the horizon, but that was about it. The big black windows in the main room looked ominous, so immediately after dinner, which Grafton and Isolde Petrou prepared, the male protectees scurried off to their bedrooms, where they all drew the blinds and drapes.
Marisa stayed to help with the dishes. When Jake had the dishwasher humming, she lingered, looking at the kitchen utensils, examining the hanging pots, scrutinizing the paintings on the wall. Grafton leaned back against the dishwasher and crossed his arms. When she again looked his way, a startled look crossed her face.
“Want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“About what?”
“I don’t know. You look as if you might have something to tell me.”
“No.” Marisa shook her head. “No,” she said, more definitely.
Grafton nodded, and she wandered out of the room.
He called his home, talked to Callie for a moment and asked to speak to Tommy.
When Carmellini got on the line, Grafton listed all the precautions that had been taken. “In light of all that, how would you get in?” he asked.
“If I suspected infrared detectors, I’d enter the grounds at night wearing a black thermal suit and take out the guards. Once they were out of the way, you people would be toast. Are the guys outside wearing thermal suits?”
“No. But they’re in holes.”
“Well… Your worst threat may already be in the house.”
“Marisa? I gathered the impression last night that you thought she was a nice package.”
“I meet the nicest people in my work,” Carmellini said. “That’s why I’m never going to retire.”
Jake went to the door of the kitchen, looked to ensure no one was eavesdropping, then said, “Did you search her luggage last night while she was asleep, like I asked you?”
“Yeah. Found that cell phone the customs people told you about. She had it stuffed inside a shoe in your closet.”
“You called in the number?”
“Right after you left.”
Jake grunted, then forced himself to say good-bye.
He wandered through the hallways, listening to the muffled television audio coming from each room.
And he waited.
Dinner at the Graftons’ was a somber affair. Good food, but the conversation dragged. Everyone was waiting for the bomb to blow or the gun to fire.
After dinner, I insisted on cleaning the kitchen. I was bored silly with sitting. Callie retired to her bedroom to read. As I packed the dishwasher and washed the pots and pans, I got to listen to Amy tell Robin Cloyd all about her boyfriend.
I couldn’t find a clean dish towel and was wiping my hands on my trousers when Robin spoke up. “What on
