Like him, they also had night-vision aids, but they were better equipped. Both of them wore goggles, and carried binoculars as well. With these goggles it was like walking in green daylight. They watched, for a brief moment, an owl swoop into a field and then rise with a wriggling mouse dangling from its beak.
Shielded by a hedgerow, just in case he should turn round, they continued to observe him as he lowered his binoculars then, a couple of minutes later, raised them to his eyes again. They wondered what he was waiting for and communicated this via an exchange of puzzled glances. Neither of them spoke; he was downwind of them. Despite the covering noises of the raging gale, the faintest whisper was too dangerous to risk.
*
The condensation had almost gone! The Disciple felt calmer now; his heart was no longer crashing around out of control inside his chest, but was beating at a steady, strong level, circulating the adrenaline that was keeping him alert and sharp, pumping around those endorphins that were making him feel good now. He checked his watch.
12.22
Time!
For a glorious few moments, clambering over the fence into the field that bordered the Infidels’ property, he felt invincible. Then, crouching low to minimize the chance of being seen from the house, and treading carefully, wary of damaging an ankle in a rabbit hole, he made his way as swiftly as he dared across the boggy, rain-sodden field.
Now his heart was really pounding again as he reached the boundary fencing, which was as close as he dared go for the moment. The house, just fifty feet away, loomed high and shadowy above him. All the lights were off and the windows closed. Good. He stared at the Infidels’ cars on the gravel drive. Just the Saab and the Subaru. No overnight visitors. Good. Then he fixed his gaze up at the wall where he had seen the sensor when he had paid his visit.
He knelt, took the air rifle and, cushioning it on his hand, rested it on a wooden fence post. He pulled off the night-sight covers, crammed them into his anorak, then squinted through it. It took him only a moment to pick up the sensor for the intruder lights, a tiny, convex strip of glass or Perspex set in white plastic, about ten feet above the ground, and directly beneath one of the battery of floodlights it would trigger.
But his damned hands were shaking; they had never shaken before like this. Taking a deep breath, trying to calm down, he lined the cross hairs up, but the instant he did, they had moved off the target. He shifted his position a fraction, making an even better wedge against the post, and aimed again. Better. Steadier, but nowhere near as steady as when he had been practising, nor anything like as steady as at the previous house in Iowa, where he had done exactly this same thing.
Curling his finger over the trigger, he took up the slack, allowed the cross hairs to move off the target, then slowly, concentrating desperately to try to stop the gun jigging from his damned nerves, jigging from the ferociously gusting wind, he brought the cross hairs dead centre over the target and increased his pressure on the trigger.
There was a sharp phuttt! as the gas cylinder expelled the first of the ten pellets in the magazine and almost simultaneously a hideously loud thwakkk! as the pellet embedded itself in the stained wooden cladding of the barn wall, several inches to the left of the sensor.
The Disciple held his breath, stared up at anxiously at the master bedroom window, shaking even more now. To his relief, there was no sign of any movement. How could he have missed so badly? Yesterday, he’d driven to a lonely spot in the countryside and set the sight up for this distance. He had ripped out the bullseyes in the targets with ninety-seven out of one hundred slugs.
He took a second shot now, and again hit the cladding, this time directly below his target. And now the perspiration was starting to run down his body again, and his head felt too hot inside his hat and his fingers sticky inside his gloves. He watched the master bedroom window for a light to come on, or a twitch of the curtains. But again, to his relief, nothing. So many noises from the wind right now, one tiny. 22 pellet was probably insignificant; except it didn’t sound that way from down here.
He fired his third shot.
Even wider. ‘No!’ the cry came out before he could stop it.
Now his eyes were beginning to blur with tears, from the savage, icy wind, and even more from frustration. Seven pellets left. Seven. Just needed one.
He opened his eyes, blinked away the tears, wiped them with the back of his leather glove, took careful aim, felt confident now, had the target absolutely square on as he pulled the trigger. The pellet went well to the left and must have struck metal because it made a hard ping, so damned loud. He ducked right down and waited, staring up at the master bedroom window, and at the other windows, really afraid he must have woken someone this time.
Only fifty feet! How can I miss from fifty feet? How? It isn’t possible?
Please, God, don’t desert me now.
He let a couple of minutes pass, until he was satisfied all was quiet inside the house. Then he took aim again. Squeezed the trigger. And almost shouted out for joy as the glass exploded and the shards tumbled down onto the gravel with a few barely audible tinkles. The white plastic sensor, split in two, dangled limply from its wires. He raised his binoculars and focused on the sensor, just to double check that it wasn’t merely the outer casing that had gone. But the damage looked thorough. It was destroyed.
His mouth felt dry with anxiety. He laid down the rifle, then patted the handgun in his pocket. From his left pocket he pulled the leather pouch containing the tungsten lock-pick tools. His insides were jangling, the red mist of panic he’d experienced earlier was returning and he was having to make an effort to stay calm, to remember his plan.
He should make it look like an accident, like a fire, that was his brief. But that carried too many risks, the thought of being caught, of being incarcerated. No. Not an option. These scum sewer Infidels weren’t worthy of such a risk. He would gun them down like the vermin they were, them and their Spawn. Then he would burn the place. His Master might not be happy with him, but he would never be able to send him out into the field again. There were times in life where you had to make your own decisions.
He climbed over the fence and onto the narrow grass verge on the other side. Stared anxiously up at the house. Put one cautious foot forward on to the gravel as if he were testing water. Then another.
Scccrrunncccccchhhhh.
He froze. Took another step, then another, praying for silent footfalls and each time scrunching just as loudly as the last. They won’t hear it, not in this storm. Stop worrying.
He reached the porch. He already knew what kind of lock it was, from his previous visit, a sturdy, mortise deadlock, and he had the right pick selected for the task, a full diamond. He had practised a thousand times on an identical lock he had bought earlier in the week.
From his breast pocket he pulled out his tiny torch, twisted it on, and held it in his left hand, pointing the beam on the lock. With his right hand, he inserted the tip of the tungsten diamond pick into the keyway. Navigating the wards, he pushed it firmly through the plug, feeling for the first pin. Then it came to a halt. He tried again. And then he realized, to his dismay, what the problem was.
Someone had left the key in on the other side of the door.
Even as he was registering this, he heard a metallic sound right in front of him. The ratchety clank of brass pins lifting clear of a sheer line. The dull, leaden, unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock.
Dropping the pick, his hand lunged for his Beretta. It was jammed in his pocket! As he tugged at the weapon in wild panic the door opened. It was so dark inside the house he could barely see the two small figures, in boots and in their winter coats.