Nothing.
He waited.
Something. Or was it? Yes, there it was again. A rasping sound. Not loud. Like a plastic credit card or some more sophisticated tool working between a door-jamb and a lock. It stopped. Silence. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Were they inside? No, too quiet. Twenty… And then more rasping, very soft and distant… They were good, but they weren't good enough. A fairly loud click! Silence again. Half a minute of dead air: just the rain hissing on the roof, hissing like background static when the radio dial moves off a channel. Then a creak. The kitchen door opening…
Canning went to the bedroom closet, stepped inside, and quietly slid the door shut in front of him. He held the Colt at his side, aimed at the door, gut level.
He didn't want to kill anyone, not even one of these fanatical bastards who called themselves Committee-men. He hoped they'd take one look through the apartment and decide he wasn't there. They hadn't come to get anything but him; therefore, if they thought he was gone, they would have no reason to search through drawers, cupboards, and closets. No reason. No reason whatsoever. If they knew enough to come after him, they also knew he was scheduled to leave Washington within the hour. They couldn't know which airport or airline he was using, for if they had known, they would have made the hit at the terminal or would have planted a bomb aboard his flight. Just as McAlister had said. So they must have come here out of desperation. Because they had tumbled to his identity so late in the game, this was their only chance to nail him. They would half expect him to be gone. When they found the rooms dark and deserted, they'd shrug and walk out and—
The closet door slid open.
Shit! Canning thought.
He fired two silenced shots.
The Committeeman grunted softly, one word, a name: “Damon!” He must have been calling his partner. But he spoke so softly that even Canning could barely hear him. Then he doubled over, clutching at his stomach, and began to fall into the closet.
Moving quickly, stealthily, Canning caught the dead man and eased him to the floor. He let go of the corpse, stepped over it, and went out into the bedroom.
The other agent wasn't there.
Canning listened and heard nothing.
He went into the living room and, when he saw that the front door was standing wide open just twenty-five feet away, faded into the shadows by the bookcases. He hesitated for a moment and was about to move toward the door — then held his breath as the second agent came back in from the landing. The man — Damon? — closed and locked the door.
“Freeze,” Canning said.
Because he already had his gun drawn, Damon evidently decided that he could regain the advantage. His decision was made with the rapid thought and fluid reaction that identified a first-rate agent. He turned and got off three silenced shots in a smooth ballet-style movement.
But he was shooting blind. The bullets were all high and wide of their mark. They ripped — with dull reports — into the spines of the hardbound books which lined the wall shelves.
Also at a disadvantage because of the extremely poor light, Canning fired twice, even as the other man was finishing his turn and getting off his third shot.
Damon cried out, fell to his right, and rolled clumsily behind the sofa. He was hit, probably high in the left arm or in that shoulder.
Canning went down on one knee. He heard Damon curse. Softly. But with pain. Then: deep breathing, a scuffling noise…
“I don't want to have to kill you,” Canning said.
Damon rose up and fired again.
It was close — but not nearly close enough.
Canning held the Colt out in front of him and moved silently through the shadows. He crouched behind an easy chair and braced the barrel of the pistol along the chair's padded arm. He watched the sofa.
Overhead, thunder cracked and the rain battered the roof with great fervor.
Ten seconds passed.
Ten more.
A minute.
Suddenly the agent scuttled out from behind the sofa and waddled toward the gray light that spilled in from the kitchen. At the doorway he was perfectly silhouetted.
Canning shot him.
Damon's right leg buckled under him, and he collapsed onto the kitchen floor, failing to choke back a scream.
Cautiously but swiftly, Canning got up from behind the easy chair and went after him.
Damon rolled onto his back and fired through the living-room doorway.
As he reached the kitchen Canning saw the gun coming up at him, and he threw himself to the left. When he heard the whoosh! of the silencer an instant later, he pitched himself back to the right and fired twice, at point-blank range, straight down into the man who lay before him.
When he finally let out his breath, Canning sounded like a bellows.
Lightning flashed again, revealing the bloodied body and the open, sightless eyes.
Canning took the magazine out of the Colt and replaced it with a fresh one. He slipped the pistol back into its holster.
“Dad, have you ever killed anyone?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Well, you work for the CIA.”
“Not everyone at the agency wears a cloak and carries a dagger, Mike. Most of us just sit at desks and page through foreign technical journals, looking for bits and pieces of data, clues that someone else can work into a puzzle.”
“You're not a desk man.”
“I'm not?”
“You aren't the type.”
“Well, it isn't easy to—”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Suppose I have.”
“Suppose.”
“And I'm not saying I have.”
“Just suppose.”
“Do you think it would have been in self-defense — or do you think your father's a hired assassin?”
“Oh, it would be in self-defense.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Technically.”
“Technically?”
“Well, Dad, if you'd chosen to work for someone besides the CIA, if you were a civilian, then foreign undercover agents wouldn't have any reason to kill you. Right? If you were a lawyer or a teacher, your job wouldn't require you to kill anyone in self-defense. So even if you did kill only in self-defense — well, you chose the job that made it necessary … So you must have enjoyed it.”
“You think I could enjoy killing a man?”
“That's what I'm asking.”
“Jesus!”
“I'm not saying it was a conscious enjoyment. It's more subtle than that.”
“I've never enjoyed it!”
“Then you admit to murder?”
“No such thing.”
“Wrong term, I guess. You admit to killing.”
“We agreed this was a purely theoretical discussion.”
“Sure.”
“Mike, you try to see everything as black and white. The agency isn't like that. Neither is life. There are shades of gray, shadows. I don't see any point discussing this with you. You don't seem mature enough to think about those grays and shadows.”