THE THIRD 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 Zoltán?”
“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. Pow!
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 Zoltán.”
“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.”
“Of course, I don’t plan to die tonight.”
“Me neither.” She leaned close and kissed him.
Wendy and Selma came down the stairs, carrying loaded magazines for the pistols and the two rifles. “Keep your eyes on the people you don’tlike, you two,” said Selma. “And, by the way, everything is loaded, but this is the last of the ammunition.”
Pete came down the stairs, holding the railing and walking lightly. “If we do have to retreat to the fourth floor, be careful and hold the rope. It’s nearly ready to go. Just one turn per bolt.” Wendy handed him a reloaded shotgun and a full magazine for his pistol. “Thanks.”
“Use it wisely. This is all there is.”
Selma went to the wall of windows on the south side of the house. “Do you hear something?” She listened. “It sounds like cars.” She looked out, then quickly pulled her head back. “Oh, no,” she said. “They’ve got those lift things the power company uses.”
“What?” said Wendy.
Sam turned to look in Selma’s direction. As he did, there was a loud, rapid barrage of fireworks soaring into the sky and exploding into popping starbursts. “Something’s coming,” he said. “Remember—make your shots count.”
The fireworks had certainly been set off to cover this fresh attack. The sideboard began to rise up and Sam fired into the opening the men on the stairs had created by raising it. The sideboard fell back down with a thud.
Two seconds later, Selma fired three pistol shots at something outside the open window.
Wendy and Pete ran toward her just as she ducked to the floor and two windows were blown inward by automatic-weapons fire. Pete crouched behind the stairway and raised the shotgun.
Just outside the window, a shooter was standing in the bucket at the end of the hydraulic arm of a cherry picker. Pete fired, the shooter slumped over and dropped his weapon, and someone below took over the controls of the cherry picker, and lowered it out of sight.
Pete pumped his shotgun and ran to the window. He aimed it downward at the yard and fired, then pumped it again. He jerked back inside and crouched. A burst of automatic fire peppered the ceiling above his head.
Selma was running to the other side of the house. She looked out. “They’ve got another one!” She and Wendy opened windows along the north side and fired pistols at the man who was in the bucket being raised up to the third-floor window. They couldn’t see whether he was hit, but the hydraulic arm lowered rapidly.
At the staircase, the intruders were trying a new tactic. One of them fired a tight burst of bullets through the back of the wooden sideboard to make a splintered hole and then another pushed a Škorpion auto pistol up through the hole and fired wild bursts at floor level, hoping to hit anyone standing near the stairs. Sam was closer to the hand than the pistol, so he hit the hand with the butt of his rifle. The hand quickly withdrew, leaving the Škorpion behind on the sideboard. Another Škorpion appeared a few feet away and Sam kicked the hand that held it hard enough to make the pistol fly across the room. He then stepped away from the sideboard just as a dozen shots punched upward through it.
The third time, Sam and Remi were ready. Three Škorpions appeared at once. Sam and Remi were widely separated, both on their bellies, aiming rifles from behind steel pillars. They each fired at a hand, and then Remi hit the final one.
Sam said to Remi, “Pick up the Škorpions from the floor and go upstairs.” He fired a shot at the sideboard, then another at a spot where he suspected men were lurking below.