now because her crew was sending up fireworks from a raft they had spent the afternoon loading.
Through powerful binoculars, Bako watched the distant house above Goldfish Point. “This must be what it was like watching a conqueror like Attila take an ancient city—scaling ladders against defenders with poles, storming the lowest levels of the fortress, and forcing the defenders higher until they surrender and die.”
Poliakoff glared at his watch. “Our side had better step up the pace or the distraction of the fireworks will wear thin and someone who lives near them will figure out what’s happening.”
Le Clerc shrugged. “We cut the power and the telephone in the boxes at the end of the street, and the jammers will keep any sort of phone or Wi-Fi useless for some distance.”
Bako said, “There are also men at the intersections to warn our forces if the police come. If necessary, they can close down the roads for a few minutes.”
“I just hope Sam Fargo is beginning to feel my hand,” said Poliakoff. “What he did to my house in Nizhny Novgorod is exactly what I’m doing to his. And when it’s over, if they’re not both dead, I’ll bring them back with me and make Fargo start where he left off—reclaiming the treasures from the museums and bringing them to me and laying them at my feet to keep his wife alive.”
“Don’t forget this isn’t just you,” said Le Clerc. “You’re just one of the partners.”
“I was going to say that,” said Bako. “The treasures were mine to begin with. I just shared them with my partners.”
Poliakoff smiled and took a puff on his cigar. “You called me in only after you had failed and been defeated,” he said. “I took over when you had done everything you could and lost.”
Bako chuckled nervously. “Well, we’ve all committed ourselves and we’ll have them in a few minutes.”
There was another volley of shots from the house and then another rocket shot up from the raft in the cove and burst in a ball of blue streaks and gold stars. Each of the little gold stars popped loudly and sent a spray of exploding sparks into the sky above the ocean. Bako said, “Who would believe that the gunshots were not part of the show?”
* * *
SAM AND REMI pushed a weight-training machine over into the stairwell as Selma, Wendy, and Pete carefully carried the big pots of boiling water to the railing above.
They waited until the attackers had dragged most of the furniture away and the first men had dashed up the stairs from the first floor to clamber over the weight machine.
Sam made a single downward motion of his arm and Selma, Pete, and Wendy poured the big pots of boiling water down on them. The men shouted, turned and bumped into the men coming up the stairs behind them. The momentum of the others pushed them ahead and some went down on their bellies rather than go under the scorching cascade. As the attackers tussled on the steps, Sam fired his rifle above them, making the retreaters stronger than the chargers. “Go!” he shouted.
Remi, Pete, Selma, and Wendy rushed up the stairs to the third floor. At the top of the stairs, Remi lay on the floor and waited. While Sam backed his way up the stairs, she fired rounds into the second-floor stairwell to make the invaders keep their heads down.
As soon as Sam had cleared the last step up to the third floor, the others pushed over a big wooden sideboard that fell heavily across the stairway like a trap door. They were out of the line of fire for the next few moments, but they could hear the heavy footsteps of the enemy below them rushing up to occupy the second floor.
SAM TURNED TO PETE. “WE CAN’T KEEP FIGHTING THEM on these stairs. We’ve got to sabotage the one that leads from here to the fourth floor and then make our stand up there. It’s held to the steel I beam by bolts—six of them, I think, but you can check. Before you do anything to the stairs, get a climbing rope and tie it to something solid up there and run it down here.”
“I understand,” Pete said. They were on the third floor where Pete’s and Wendy’s bedrooms were. He hurried into his room and then the kitchen, collecting tools and equipment, and then climbed the staircase.
Remi walked past Sam and he reached out and held her. “Where’s Zoltan?”
“I closed him in our bedroom upstairs. He would have gotten killed down there. He doesn’t understand strategic withdrawal. Up there, he thinks he’s guarding something important.”
“He is,” he said. He turned to Selma. “Let’s see if the boiling water works again. Get some started in the fourth-floor kitchen.”
To Wendy he said, “Wendy, go up and bring more ammunition down. Load all the empty magazines one more time. Load the shotguns too.”
Remi was close to Sam’s shoulder as they stared hard at the big sideboard covering the stairway, waiting for it to move. “What are they doing?” she whispered.
“We hurt them badly on the last staircase. I think they’re tending to the ones who got burned and any who might have been shot. Probably evacuating them.”
“What’s our strategy now?” she asked.
“We’re buying time,” he said. “We couldn’t call the police or e-mail anyone, but somebody must be figuring out that this isn’t just the sound of those fireworks. Probably the ones closest to us don’t have phone service either, but farther away they must.”
Remi picked up one of the .308 Match rifles and went to the south-side windows. She looked out at the Valencia Hotel backed up to the hillside. She adjusted the mil-dot scope for a thousand yards, adjusted the windage to account for a left-to-right offshore breeze of five miles an hour, unlatched the window, and pushed it open a few inches. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and aimed at the big lighted rectangle of the dining room window of the Valencia. She waited, making sure that there were no people behind it, then squeezed the trigger.
She didn’t move, just watched the window through the powerful scope. Two diners who had been hidden by the wall to the left ran across the window toward the doorway. She could see the woman’s mouth open in a silent scream. A waiter and a hostess in a cocktail dress appeared, looking up at the broken window with great concern, and retreated out of sight.
“What did you see?” asked Sam.
“The Valencia. I’m pretty sure they’re calling the cops about us as fast as they can hit the numbers.”
“I should have thought of that.”
“We couldn’t see the hotels from the windows on the lower floors. The trees were in the way. Now they’re not.” She picked out a restaurant that was a bit closer but was also brightly lit. After a few seconds, she fired again. “Make that two callers. That makes it more believable.”
“Remi,” Sam whispered. “I’m hearing movement.”
She turned and saw him staring down at the big sideboard over the stairwell with the rifle to his shoulder. She came closer and picked a spot to aim at. “Shouldn’t we shoot through it?”
He shook his head. “We’re buying time, so any delay helps us. Besides, we don’t have enough ammo to shoot people just because they deserve it.”
“Just in case we can’t buy enough time, I hope I remembered to thank you for rescuing me in Russia.”
“You did. Your thank-you was more than adequate.”
“And for Zoltan.”
“Him too. If anything, you’re ahead of me on thanking. Thank you for anything I forgot to thank you for. I’ve been kind of preoccupied with people trying to kill us.”
“Understandable. I just think that Russia thing was really romantic, and if we die tonight, I don’t want to have been at all cavalier about it. You should know it was sort of a world-class turn-on.”
“If we die, I won’t hold it against you. Getting you back was pretty nice too.”
“Thanks.”
