I can die in peace.”
The narcotics were kicking in, and Will felt himself wanting to sleep. “I need to get online.”
“There’s a wireless network,” Spence said. “It’s called HenryNet.”
Will clicked on it. “It’s looking for a password.”
“Can you guess it?” Spence asked with a twinkle.
“No, I can’t.” He didn’t feel up for games.
“I’ll bet you can.”
Glass shattered.
A mass of hot air rolled off the hillside and blasted through the broken sliding doors.
There were two more men in the room.
Then, from the hall, a third.
Will was looking at a couple of Heckler &Koch machine pistols resting in the hands of heavily breathing, fit young men. Frazier was sporting something lighter, a Glock, like his.
Will didn’t have the strength or the speed to pull his gun from his waistband. One of the watchers plucked it away from him and threw it through the broken glass, splashing it into the swimming pool.
Frazier ordered his man, “Get the computer.”
It was pulled from Will’s weak grasp.
“Where’s the memory stick?”
Will reached into his pants pocket and tossed it onto the floor. There was no point being cute. He’d lost.
“You could’ve knocked, Frazier,” Spence said.
“Yeah, next time. You don’t look so good, Henry.”
“Emphysema.”
“I’m not surprised. You were always a big smoker. You used to break the rules and smoke in the lab, remember?”
“I remember.”
“You’re still breaking the rules.”
“I’m just a retiree who runs a little social club. You might want to join one day. We don’t charge dues.”
Frazier sat down wearily on a chair across from them. “You need to give me the 1527 book and all the materials you recovered from Cantwell Hall. Every piece of it.”
“Why don’t you just leave us alone?” Kenyon protested. “We’re just a couple of old men, and he’s hurt. He needs medical attention.”
“I’m not surprised you’re involved with this, Kenyon. Always palling around with Henry.” He waved his gun toward Will. “He killed two of my men,” Frazier said evenly. “You think I’m going to get him to a doctor? Who do you think you’re talking to? You think I’m going to turn the other cheek?”
“Greater men than you have done it.”
Frazier laughed. “Save it, Alf. You were always one of the weak ones. At least Henry had balls.” He turned his attention back to Spence and Will. “Give me the book and tell me what you found in England. I’ll get it one way or the other.”
“Don’t give him anything, Henry,” Kenyon said indignantly.
Frazier raised an eyebrow, and one of his men swatted the side of Kenyon’s face with the back of his hand. He fell to the floor onto his knees.
“Leave him alone!” Will shouted.
“What are you going to do about it?” Frazier spat. “Squirt blood at me?”
“Go to hell.”
Frazier ignored him and spoke to Spence. “You know what’s gone into keeping the Library a secret all these years, Henry. Do you think we’re not going to pull out all the stops to find out everything there is to know about the missing book? This is more important than any of us. We’re just little pawns. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Spence said defiantly.
Frazier shook his head and turned his gun toward Kenyon, who was still on the floor, kneeling in pain and shock, or maybe in prayer. He fired once into his knee.
Blood sprayed into the air, and the man shrieked in agony. Will tried to rise, but the watcher closest to him shoved him back down with a hand to his chest. Will swung his arms wildly, but the man subdued him with a sharp, cruel punch to his thigh, right over the bullet wound. He howled in pain.
“Alf!” Spence screamed.
“Put a tourniquet on it,” Frazier told the other man. “Don’t let him bleed out.”
The young man looked around, then hurried over to Spence to pull his tie from around his neck. He rushed back to Kenyon and began to cinch it tight, just above the knee.
“Now, listen to me, Henry,” Frazier said. “If you don’t give me what I need, I’m going to take that tourniquet off, and he’ll be gone in a minute. Your call.”
Spence was purple with rage and gasping for air. “You bastard!” he shouted.
Then he full-throttled his scooter, aiming it straight for Frazier.
It wasn’t much of a ramming wagon, a red three-wheeled scooter, barreling down at six miles per hour. Frazier probably could have just lifted up his legs to avoid contact, but he was tired, and he wasn’t wired to underrespond. Instead, he put two rounds into Spence’s face, one in the mouth, one through the left eye.
The forward momentum carried the scooter into Frazier’s shin, and Spence’s body dropped heavily off onto the carpet. Frazier sprang up hurt and swearing, and in anger put another two rounds into Spence’s lifeless side.
Kenyon began to wail, and Will bit his lip in anger. He looked around for something he could use as a weapon.
Frazier was standing over Will, pointing his gun at his head. “Alf, tell me where he’s got the material, or I’ll shoot Piper too.”
“I’m not dying today,” Will seethed.
“I can’t argue with that,” Frazier growled. “But I’m going to give you the next best thing.” He changed his aim to Will’s groin.
“Don’t tell him anything,” Will shouted to Kenyon.
Frazier countered, “Don’t be stupid.”
Will saw something. Frazier was unnerved by his sudden smile.
“I’m not dying today,” Will repeated.
“You already said that.”
“You are.”
As Frazier opened his mouth in a sneer, his head exploded in an eruption of red-and-gray foam.
By the time his body hit the floor, Nancy had already gotten off a second shot, narrowly missing the watcher closest to Kenyon. She was firing through the shattered sliders, flanked by John Mueller and Sue Sanchez, all of them fighting to get a handle on the chaos in the room.
Will rolled off the sofa and locked his arms around the lower legs of the closest watcher. As the man struggled to free himself, he released a burst of automatic fire, which streaked across Mueller’s abdomen like the tail of a comet. Staggering backward, Mueller managed to fire a half dozen rounds before collapsing into the pool. The watcher fell back onto Will, gasping, with a sucking lung wound.
The other watcher spun around to help his partner and when he saw he was down, he pointed his machine pistol at Will, ready to squeeze the trigger.
Sue and Nancy fired simultaneously.
The watcher crashed through the coffee table, a dead-weight.
Nancy ran to Will while Sanchez made sure the scene was secure, kicking away weapons, prodding each man with her shoe.
“Will! Are you okay?” Nancy cried.
“Jesus, Nancy. You came!”
Sanchez was calling her. She needed help getting Mueller out of the bloodstained water. The two women struggled to pull him onto the pool deck, but it was too late.
