The report was muffled somewhat by her headset and the adrenaline coursing through her, but she didn’t notice. What she did notice was that the muzzle flash had overwhelmed her goggles. Blind, she pumped the slide and fired again toward where she thought the running man might be. Did it again and again, then dropped down and began shoving shells into the bottom of the gun. She paused and keyed her mike, Tommy?
She heard a thumping from the staircase.
With two more shells in the gun, all she had, she flipped the goggles to ambient light and ran to the bottom of the stairwell. She saw something moving at the top of the stairs, so pointed the gun and fired upward.
After she worked the slide she saw no more movement.
I heard Robin’s voice in my ears. That’s when I realized that I had also heard her shotgun hammering.
I tore off the goggles and tried to rise. Later I found out that a bullet had hit the goggles, a bullet that would have killed me if I hadn’t been wearing them. I fell again. Worked at it and got up. I still had the shotgun.
I found the flashlight, fumbled with the switch, got it on and headed back inside, shouting Robin’s name.
I saw her in the light at the bottom of the stairs, saw her shoot once up the stairwell. She lowered the gun and started up, but I grabbed her arm.
“No.” I gave her my shotgun and pulled out the Colt.45.
With the flashlight in my left hand and the pistol in my right, I went up the stairs. Saw the blood all over the carpet. So she got lead into the son of a bitch. Good!
At the top of the stairs, I paused and used the light to scan the hallway, which was to my right. Empty. No, a door was opening. A head came out, looking toward the flashlight. I recognized the face: Jerry Hay Smith.
“Get back in there, you son of a bitch,” I roared.
The head disappeared.
The second door was open. A blood trail led that way.
I trotted toward it, looked in, using the flashlight.
A figure in black was standing there. He was holding Callie Grafton with his left arm and had a pistol against the side of her head. Even with the flashlight I could see the blood on his leg. And the ghastly white of her face.
“Drop the weapon or I’ll kill her,” he said roughly.
The distance between us was maybe twelve feet. He couldn’t see me, I knew, because the flashlight must be blinding him — that wasn’t a conscious thought, just something I knew. I don’t even remember thumbing off the safety. I lifted the Colt and aimed as best I could and shot him. He went over backward. Callie fell away to his left, my right, pulled down by his grasp.
I walked over, watching his right hand, which still held the pistol.
Blood was pumping out his neck below the black balaclava. He had taken the bullet in the jugular vein and was bleeding to death.
I didn’t wait. I could see the whites of his eyes through the opening in the black cloth when I emptied the pistol into him. When the gun wouldn’t shoot anymore, I reached down and jerked the black hood off his head.
Someone was there beside me. Marisa.
“It’s Khadr,” she said.
I shoved her out of the way and shined the light on Callie. She was conscious, with no bullet wounds. Relief flooded over me. I helped her up. She sat on the bed, didn’t even look at the corpse.
I popped the magazine out of the Colt and replaced it with the one in my pocket, then started out of the room. I met Jake Grafton coming in.
“Check on your wife,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. “I’m going to see if there’re any more of them.”
In the hallway I met Smith and Winchester. “Who was it?” Winchester asked.
“A man who came to kill you,” I said as I shouldered past.
Robin gave me my shotgun, and I headed for the barn, using every bit of cover there was. The sleet had turned to snow. I hid, ran, hid, and ran again.
Harry Longworth’s feet were visible just inside the entrance to the barn. The howling wind was whipping the big doors open and shut, causing impacts that rocked the building. I dashed between the swinging doors and, after I had swept the flashlight around, briefly examined Harry. He was obviously dead.
I’m going to end up like that one of these days.
Taking my time, I inspected the whole place. I found the two dead men upstairs, and had just finished giving the bad news to Grafton on the radio when I heard the wail of the first police siren.
I sat down beside the dead men in the loft and cried. Maybe I was crying for them or maybe I was crying for me — I couldn’t tell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When Abu Qasim heard the moan of the police siren over the wind, he put the car in gear and got it rolling along the road, heading away from Winchester’s estate. The siren told him that Khadr was in trouble; even now he might be running for the highway, trying to make the pickup point. Or he might be trapped, wounded or dead.
In any event, what Khadr wasn’t doing was calling Qasim, and that was telling.
So Abu Qasim left Khadr to his fate, whatever it might be. He felt no remorse, no loyalty or sorrow, nor, he knew, would Khadr feel any if he were here and Qasim were there. Khadr fought for money and Qasim fought for Allah, whose will would be done in the case of both men, regardless.
Qasim had the windshield defrosters and wipers going, and between them, they were staying ahead of the snow. He drove westward carefully, taking every precaution. He didn’t plan on stopping for the night, just driving out of the storm. If it got too bad to drive, he would find a place to sit it out.
As he drove he went over the preparations for the week ahead. In the past month he had won some battles and lost some. He didn’t waste energy savoring the triumphs or rehashing the losses. He had one last great battle before him, and he intended to do everything in his power to win it. Still, the only thing that really mattered was winning the war. That was the only victory that would please Allah.
“You saved my life,” Callie Grafton said in the wee hours of the morning after the ambulance crews had carried out the bodies and the police had departed.
“We were just lucky he didn’t squeeze that trigger when the bullet hit him,” I said. “Pure luck.”
“You saved my life,” she said again. Then she hugged her husband, and together they went up the stairs, holding tightly to each other.
The truth, as I was keenly aware, was that if Khadr had killed her, I would have had to live with it. Not that I had a lot of choice, but still… No one can say that I don’t have my share of shithouse luck.
I got into Winchester’s liquor pretty hard. Four cops stayed behind, sitting in patrol cars in the parking area, just in case. I looked out a window at the cars being covered with snow and thought savagely that Khadr could have killed them all in fifteen seconds.
Blood, murder, butchery. For the greater glory of Allah.
After three drinks I lay down on the couch and went to sleep. When I awoke the power was back on, the sun was somewhere above the overcast, the wind had died, six inches of snow covered the ground and I had a raging headache. I felt as if I had been scalped. The police cars were still in the parking area.
I had a Bloody Mary for breakfast.
Sooner or later, I was going to have to get a real life.
Sooner or later.
Three uneventful days later we flew to New York on a government executive jet. Police escorted us to the airport for the short flight. Since the attack on Winchester’s estate, I had avoided Marisa and she had avoided me, but somehow we ended up side by side on the jet. At one point she murmured, “I’m sorry, Tommy.”
I pretended I didn’t hear.
From outward appearances, Callie had recovered from her ordeal. I knew that getting that close to the abyss at the hands of an assassin or maniac leaves wounds that only time can heal, but I didn’t speak to her about it. I figured she had Jake Grafton, and who better? What could I possibly say other than a few meaningless, trite
