concern was moving away from the flames, and the too-familiar dull thudding of silenced gunfire.
Up the stairs was more of the sodium glow from the streetlights outside. The light came in three directions through glassless windows. Light also leaked in through the unfinished rafters where old fire damage had eaten holes through the roof. Gideon ducked instinctively as he rounded the top of the stairs. There was a nasty feeling of exposure up here that sank home when he saw the floor near the front side of the house.
Sprawled beneath the street-facing window was a body. Ruth must have seen it about the same time he did, he heard her gasp behind him. The corpse's head was a misshapen shadow, and on the ground nearby lay a broken pair of expensive binoculars.
"Stay down," Gideon whispered. "That guy must have been keeping an eye on the street for them." Must have been the first one to be taken out.
Gideon crawled out into the attic. The floor was rough, unfinished plywood that hadn't even been nailed down. As he inched from the stairwell, he saw two video surveillance cameras looking out the other two attic windows. Cables snaked around to a card table where a trio of dead monitors faced the front of the building, and where the dead guard had been sitting.
Gideon crawled up to the side of the dead man. Ruth whispered at him, "What are you doing?"
From below came the sounds of staccato thumping, more gunfire, punctuated by the sound of another explosion. The smell of smoke was drifting up from the stairwell.
"Getting a weapon—I hope." Gideon looked at the corpse and grimaced. The man had taken a round—probably from a rifle—in the right eye. The shot had gone through the lenses of his binoculars, and obscure pieces of shrapnel were sticking out of what was left of the man's face. He had been wearing a throat mike, but he hadn't lived to get a warning off to his fellows.
Gideon patted him down and found a shoulder holster. He pulled out what appeared to be an automatic pistol with a silencer. In hunting for the safety, he discovered that he was handling a Micro-Uzi that wasn't any larger than his own gun.
"Gideon! There're people coming."
Gideon turned toward Ruth and had the ominous realization that the gunfire below had ceased.
He switched the safety off of the Micro-Uzi. "Get over here, and keep down."
Ruth started moving uncertainly toward him. She had barely made it a quarter of the way to him when a shadowy form turned the corner of the stairwell. Gideon fired one burst from the Uzi that at his awkward angle missed, but the shadow froze. "Don't shoot!"
Gideon recognized the voice of their anonymous driver.
"What's happening down there?"
"IUF," he said. "They've covered all the exits, killed Sal, Nev . . ."
"Where are they?" Gideon asked.
"Outside, surrounding the building. Trying to burn us out."
"Great," Gideon said through clenched teeth. "Any of your friends left down there?"
"I don't know."
"The old guy?" Gideon asked.
The driver coughed a few times. "He left to make a briefing." There was a hint of irony in his voice. "About getting you two to a more secure location."
Gideon noticed the coughing and looked up. The roof above them had become hazy with smoke. At most they had a few moments to get out of here.
The driver started up the stairs, and Gideon leveled the Uzi at him. "Where are you going?"
"This place is on fire—the first floor's a death trap already."
Ruth looked back and forth between them. "How're we getting out of here?"
Gideon started sliding back toward the center of the floor, keeping his gun trained in the driver's direction. "Where were you planning to go from here?"
He pointed off to Gideon's left, where fire had damaged the roof enough to let outside light in. Gideon scrambled over to that wall. The plywood floor ended short of his destination, and he put his foot through a section of dry-rotted lathe. He cursed, but kept moving along the framing. He got as close as he could, and from where he was, it was obvious that there was little wood left on this corner of the roof. What separated him from the outside was little more than a layer of chaotically peeling asphalt shingles.
The smoke was getting worse, and Gideon could feel the temperature rising.
Gideon looked back at the driver. The driver said, "They'll be watching the windows, but they might miss that."
Great, but where to from there? Gideon turned around carefully and kicked some of the shingles out
of the way. Smoke began blowing in from outside. Even if the attackers had this portion of the roof covered, the thick smoke roiling up from the lower floors reduced visibility down to a few feet.
Gideon looked back at the others. The stairwell was flickering orange and the smoke in here was nearly as bad as the smoke outside. He heard sirens in the distance. He hoped that they were headed here, the arrival of the fire department might cause the IUF to scatter before they shot them.
"Come on," Gideon waved at the other two.
Ruth hesitated—but she could hear cracking wood and breaking glass coming from downstairs as well as Gideon did. The sound of fire tearing through the building below them. She went first, pushing through the remains of the shingles. Gideon followed, letting the driver take up the rear.
Outside, the air was too warm. The heat radiated from below, through the choking smoke. Every few seconds the wind would tear away some of the smoke cover and Gideon could see a neighboring house with a second-floor porch to their left. He could also see two Dodge Ram pickup trucks on the lawn. With them he saw a hint of movement.
The three of them were hugging the side of the roof, a forty-degree slope into a gutter that was half-peeled off the building.
"The porch next door," said the driver.
It was the only route left open to them, but it wasn't something Gideon wanted to hear. His leg was already throbbing in anticipation.
Ruth looked over at the two of them, then across the driveway, through the smoke, at where the neighboring porch should be. Her eyes glistened—it might have been fear, or it might have been the biting smoke. She shook her head and got to her feet, unsteadily balanced on the edge of the roof.
"Let me go—" Gideon began to say. But Ruth had already taken the leap. It was as if she silently vanished into the smoke. "—first," he said into the choking wind. His heart throbbed in his neck as he pulled himself toward the front of the building, where he could make the jump himself.
Behind him the building groaned, and he could feel it shake beneath him. Something below gave way, and black smoke belched around him and the driver. He pushed himself upright, his half-working leg vibrating with the effort, and he strained to see something of Ruth through the smoke.
"Come on," he whispered.
"There's no time! Jump." The house made creaking noises behind him.
Gideon turned toward the driver, "What's your name?"
"Alexander—Now go!"
Gideon couldn't even see where the neighboring roof was, he couldn't even see if Ruth had made it. Fifteen feet across, ten feet down. Simple . . .
Simple if his leg still worked, or if he could see where he was going.
Gideon crouched and launched himself into the roiling blackness. He kept his eyes closed, and held his breath against the choking smoke. It burned against his skin as if he were falling through the fire itself. It felt as if he were suspended in the air there for an hour or two—
Then his shoulder plowed into asphalt shingles with enough force to ignite a starburst rainbow across the inside of his eyelids. He felt his legs roll off the edge of the porch. For a terrifying, disorienting moment his lower body was suspended in midair—then a hand grabbed his belt and dragged him up over the edge.