Both men got instant owl eyes as he kicked the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside, the Luger up and at arm's length in both hands in front of his face.
"Don't make a sound or a move or it's your last."
There was a two-second stunned pause, and then the one on the right moved. His hand flew to his belt, and then the arm came up in an arc.
He was incredibly fast. The Fairbairn in his hand was just like the one in Carter's belt, and from the way the arm was cocked, Carter knew he was accurate.
The throwing arm was just cocked, a millisecond before release, when the Killmaster pumped two slugs into his chest from the Luger. Crimson spots appeared two inches apart on his T-shirt, and his body flew backward from the impact of the 9mm slugs.
Number two was just as brave and just as quick.
He started coming in on the front side, his hamlike hands curled for a kill, and then sidestepped to Carter's right.
Carter got off one shot that bloodied his ear before impact. He felt one of the big hands chop his wrist, sending the Luger flying from his grasp to land on the floor in the comer.
A chop came up with sledgehammer power toward Carter's head. It glanced off his temple without claiming full force as the Killmaster rolled with the swing to duck away. Carter made a full swinging turn away and then brought the back of his forearm around in a wide arc, completing the circle and connecting with a thudding sound against the man's face and head.
Bone snapped in the man's cheek, and his eyes popped wide in sudden surprise. He fell back, smashing hard against the wall, his splintered jaw moving but no sound coming from his throat.
"Quit now," Carter rasped, "and you'll still be breathing tomorrow."
No way.
He came back like a bull. Carter ducked under the rush and brought a knee hard up into the other's groin. The blow was met with a gagging groan of pain, and the body bent forward to stumble in a tight circle.
Carter stepped away and chopped the side of his hand down across the back of the man's neck.
He went down like wheat under a scythe.
Carter checked the first one. He was dead, and the other one would be out for hours. Even if he did wake up sooner than that, he would have a hard time navigating. And it would be too late anyway.
Outside, Carter dropped from the pier to the beach and moved up to the low stone breaker wall. He vaulted it and, shunning the path, moved up the hill through the formal gardens that vied evenly with lawn from the rear of the house to the water.
Fifty yards up, Marko came in from his right.
"Two in the boathouse," Carter said. "You?"
"I got mine."
"Let's go."
Another twenty-five yards brought them to a small steel shed. The door was unlocked. Carter darted in, the other agent at his heels already fanning a penlight around the interior.
Carter explained in quick, staccato sentences.
"This is the main-line power box. Kill this switch, jam your shorter here, then turn the power back on. After the blackout comes, the emergency generator will kick on in about thirty seconds."
"Got it."
"You kill the emergency here. You'd better jam it, too, just in case someone gets by us."
"Roger."
Carter moved out and started the rest of the way up the hill toward the house.
By now, Hadley and Chris would be through the gate and ready in front. Marko had got the inside perimeter guard on the right and was in the power shed. Ted would hopefully have cleared the inside of the fence on the left and, like Carter, would be moving toward the house.
With any luck, Barzoni and Hal would have dropped the outside sentries, and were already setting up with sniper rifles on the high ground commanding the rear all the way to the water.
Their orders: If anybody breaks free from the house, drop them.
Carter skirted the pool with a quick glance. He saw the two dark heads bobbing on the surface near the shallow end and grinned to himself.
Good girl. Carlotta was sticking close to Kashmir.
Idly, he wondered how close.
Across from the service entrance, he dropped into a crouch and pulled a pair of night goggles over his eyes.
With any luck, it would all be over in another fifteen minutes.
The back of her neck and shoulders were out of the water. Carlotta could feel perspiration beading that part of her body.
How much longer? she wondered.
She knew she couldn't deny Kashmir's lust much more. She could feel the evidence of it straining on her thigh.
He was like an octopus, all hands and fingers, clutching at her breasts and buttocks, groping between her thighs.
"Do you tease me for pleasure, Carlotta?"
"Of course not," she replied, managing a coy smile. "I do it to heighten the anticipation."
"My anticipation is heightened enough," he hissed, pushing her hard against the edge of the pool.
He used his own knees to pry hers apart. Carlotta found his hips with her hands and managed to tug him toward her yet push him away at the last second.
"You are a bitch."
"Of course I am. It adds to the excitement."
"Damn you," he growled, then lunged forward, breaking her grip.
She tightened her muscles as she felt his attempted entrance, but she knew that it was only a matter of seconds.
And then everything went dark.
Kashmir's body tensed. For a second Carlotta thought he would leave her and climb from the pool. She curled one hand around his neck and brought the other to the light coil of her hair, just in case.
"What happened"
"A power failure," he replied.
Suddenly the lights came back on, but for only a flicker, and again the pool was plunged into darkness.
Above her, Carlotta could see Kashmir's eyes narrow in the moonlight and a tense expectation enter his features.
For the moment, he had forgotten his lust.
"The emergency generator should come on soon."
The words had barely left his lips when once again illumination filtered up through the water.
His lips curved in a leering smile. "Now, you beautiful bitch, I'll have you."
Carter watched the sweep-second hand of his watch. When fifty seconds had elapsed since the emergency generator's kick-in. he started toward the house in a crouching sprint.
Halfway there, the lights went off again for the last time.
Carter hit the door at a dead run. Just beyond it was a small alcove, and then the kitchen. A big, broad-shouldered ape in a tuxedo was standing in the middle of the room by a butcher block. He had managed to get one camp lantern lit and was working on a second one.
Carter's knee scraped a chair, and the ape whirled at the sound.
The Killmaster didn't pause a step in his run. He lowered a shoulder into the tuxedoed gut and jammed the man up against a big double-door refrigerator.
Foul breath wheezed by Carter's ear as the other man fell back toward him, his hands instinctively groping beneath his dark jacket.
Carter sliced him once across the neck with the barrel and silencer of the Luger, and then gave him another chop on the way down.
Off the kitchen was a small dining room, and off that the great room. Carter hit that door just as Hadley and Chris came through the front door, dragging the unconscious body of the chauffeur between them.
"I got one in the kitchen," Carter rasped.
"And this is two. Two to go."
Hadley and his partner dropped the man between them and moved on into the pitch-black room. Just as they passed into a stream of moonlight coming through one of the room's tall, cathedral-type windows, Carter spotted movement to his left at the top of the stairs.