After about half an hour, he got out of bed as quietly as possible, picked up the assault rifle and slipped out of the room. He closed the door behind him and made his way to the end of the hallway, which was lit with small night-lights at ankle height. There was a little straight-back chair there, along with a tiny table containing a dried flower arrangement, so he sat and tilted the chair back slightly against the wall. The rifle he kept on his lap.
From this vantage point he could see all the bedroom doors except Winchester’s, which was on the ground floor. Over his head was a small window. He sat listening to the rain/sleet mix patter against it and the rising sound of the wind. The gusts were worse now as the heart of the storm came down upon them.
I was watching the snow line march toward us on the television when the power went out. The picture dimmed, brightened, then went black. I glanced at the stairs and saw that the glow of the night-lights was gone. It was a few minutes after twelve.
“Uh-oh,” I said to Robin.
I put on my night vision goggles and fired them up. When I looked at Robin, I saw that she already had hers on.
I switched to infrared and went to a window to look out. Between the rain-smeared glass and all the water in the air outside, I couldn’t see much. I tried the ambient light setting and saw even less. Terrific!
I opened the door to the cabana and went out there. The pool was a sheet of black. The howl of the wind was breathtaking here in this unprotected area. Everything was wet; I could feel the water soaking into my shoes. It was miserably cold, too, whipping through my clothes. I didn’t stay out there long. I went back inside and locked the door.
Then I went downstairs and checked all the windows and doors.
The place was gloomy, even with the flashlight. The basement door was locked tight, but… I leaned a rake and shovel against it so they would fall over if the door was opened. Who knows, I might even hear one of them fall. I left the door at the top of the stairs open, on the off chance.
After I checked the main-floor windows, the front door, the main rear entrance and the kitchen door, I strolled around, waiting.
Seems that waiting is the way I spend half my life. One of these days I need to get a real job.
The wind was shaking the main barn doors and blowing through tiny openings here and there. Khadr waited for about thirty minutes after the power failure to give everyone a chance to settle down, then made his way by feel to the ladder and descended to the main floor of the barn.
The horses were restless. He opened their stall doors and let them wander out into the walkway of the barn. They immediately bunched up. The noise he and they made was lost in the storm.
Then he went to the door that led to the area between the barn and the house and unlatched the door. The doors quivered. They would blow open any second.
He walked back behind the horses, trying not to spook them.
Sure enough, within half a minute one of the now unlatched doors blew open and crashed against the barn with a bang. The startled horses whinnied and pranced. Khadr slapped the nearest one on the rump. That was enough to set them off. They charged for the open door and galloped through it.
He followed them to the doorway and molded his body to the wall, his pistol in his hand.
“What was that noise?” A male voice on my headset. “Harry?”
“The barn door blew open and the damn horses are out milling around. Uh-oh, they’re coming around the house toward’you.” “Oh, man, the main gate is open. They’ll go out into the road.” “Let them go, Nick. I’ll check out the barn.”
I heard someone coming down the stairs. Saw him in infrared, carrying a rifle. Grafton!
“Tommy?” he said aloud.
“I’m over here by the cabana door.”
“Robin?”
“Behind the bar.”
“Stay there.”
“Admiral, the best place for you is the basement,” I said. “If it’s Khadr, that’s probably the most likely entrance.”
“Okay,” he said. His penlight flashed on, and he headed for the kitchen and the stairs down.
“Stay where you are,” I told Robin.
“I can’t shoot with these damn goggles on,” she said disgustedly. “I can’t see the sights.”
“Just point the thing and pull the trigger.”
The lenses on Harry Longworth’s goggles were wet, which reduced their effectiveness by a large percentage. He wiped at the water with his fingers, then adjusted the gain and contrast. Standing outside the barn looking through the doorway — one door was open and the other was waving back and forth — he couldn’t see anything. A wet door, wet lens …
“Shit,” he said softly. He took off the goggles and let them dangle on his chest. He pulled his flashlight from his hip pocket and, shielding his body against the door, held the light in his left hand at arm’s length and shined it around the interior. The stall doors were open. He saw nothing.
He pulled the light back and used his left hand to key the mike button on the belt-mounted transceiver. “Hey, upstairs!”
Don’t tell me they slept through that bang when the door blew open!
Caution shrieked at him.
Well, he was going to have to go in there, one way or another.
He threw himself through the door and did a belly flop on the floor, his rifle out in front of him.
Khadr’s first bullet caught him in the neck. Before he could react, he felt rather than saw movement on his right. As he tried to swing his weapon to his right, another bullet hit him, this time ricocheting off his forehead, laying open a two-inch gash clear to the bone and stunning him. The third slug hit him above the ear and penetrated into his brain. He never felt the fourth and fifth bullets, both of which were fired point-blank into his skull.
Khadr took the time to change magazines in his pistol, then ran as fast as he could go toward the dark, silent house.
“Harry, the horses are going out the gate into the road.” I recognized Nick’s voice. He was in front of the house.
Harry didn’t answer, which was ominous.
Squatting, I opened the door to the cabana area and scanned it with the night vision goggles in infrared, then switched to ambient light. The sleet was forming a crust on everything. Even though I was crouched in the door, the wind buffeted me.
Something was happening over at the barn — that much seemed obvious. A distraction? I thought so, so I didn’t move. If Harry and the two guys asleep in the barn couldn’t handle it, one more guy wouldn’t help. My best choice was to stay put.
Yet I couldn’t really see much here in the doorway. I steadied myself with my left hand and moved outside, staying low, alongside the outside bar. From here I could see the pool, the outdoor sauna and toilet building and the hedge that surrounded the whole area. The hedge and trees were waving madly in the wind. I tried to ignore them and searched with the goggles for human movement.
I slipped down to the end of the outdoor bar so I could see around it.
One step, two … and something walloped me in the head and I went out cold.
Khadr didn’t look again at Carmellini, who lay sprawled on his face where he had been shot.
He used his infrared scanner to examine the interior of the house, then moved to the door and looked in.
He saw no one. But he did see the stairs leading up to the bedrooms above. That was where Grafton and Winchester would be.
Pistol in hand, he rose and trotted across the room toward the stairs.
Robin Cloyd poked her head above the bar in time to see the man running for the stairs. In infrared, he was quite plain.
“Tommy?” she asked loudly, above the noise coming though the open door.
The answer was a bullet that slammed into the bar with an audible whack, just inches from her shoulder. She didn’t hesitate. Robin pointed the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
