As Malone ran, his labored breathing echoed. He and Sienna threw their towels into a laundry area. A door banged open behind them. They raced harder.
The corridor turned sharply to the left, bringing them to an unlit segment of the tunnel. It was cool, damp, and smelled of mold. The instant Malone rushed around the corner, he took cover in the shadows and aimed back along the corridor.
At the far end, footsteps clattered down the stairs. Four men rushed into view. They held assault rifles, one of them shouting, “Check every room!”
As the men split up, Malone held his fire. There were too many men. They were too far away. He glanced toward Jeb, whose strained eyes seemed to be reading his thoughts. Jeb cocked his head toward the continuation of the tunnel, as if to say, Our best chance is to get the hell out of here.
Hoping that the sounds the men made would prevent them from hearing other sounds, Malone, Sienna, and Jeb hurried on. But the farther they went from the lights at the other end of the tunnel, the more darkness gathered around them. They had to slow, feeling ahead of themselves to make sure they didn’t bump into something.
The steps caught Malone by surprise, his right shoe striking one. He felt a metal rail to his left and started up, only to stiffen as a furious voice in the other corridor shouted, “I heard something!”
Malone worked higher up the stairs. Sienna rushed next to him. Ahead, Jeb attempted to free something, making a noise as what sounded like a lock was released.
“That way!” the angry voice shouted.
Jesus, Malone thought. As the men’s footsteps raced closer, Jeb yanked open a door. Gray light spilled in. The door’s hinges grated.
“Around that corner!” one of the men yelled.
Silhouetted against the light in the tunnel behind them, the men rounded the bend and raised their rifles.
Malone fired, hit one of them, and fired again, absorbing the pistol’s recoil while the remaining three men scrambled back around the corner. One of them cursed, but Malone barely heard it – his ears rang painfully, as if someone had slammed hands against them.
He whirled and ran the rest of the way up the steps, entering a utility room, where Sienna shifted a table toward him while Jeb slammed the door. Dusky light through an opposite doorway revealed the pump, filter, and water heater for the swimming pool, but Malone paid little attention. Without a key, they couldn’t lock this door from the outside. Rushing, he helped Sienna move the table, jamming it against the door a moment before a bullet walloped against it from the other side. The door was metal. The bullet didn’t pierce it. But the table wasn’t heavy enough to keep three men from forcing the door open.
Jeb hefted a large plastic container marked CHLORINE TABLETS and set it on the table. Malone did the same with a second container. It was heavy, but not enough. Any moment, the men would ram their shoulders against the door.
Malone hurried with Jeb and Sienna to a canopied area next to the pool. In the dimming light, rain pelted a cover stretched over the pool. His pistol ready, Malone scanned the lawn, stable, tennis court, and misted hills. Turning to the left, he saw the house in flames, figures in confusion around it. The roar of the fire must have prevented them from hearing his shots. There was no way to tell whether they were Laster’s men or Bellasar’s. If the latter, Malone couldn’t risk attempting to ambush the men behind him when they charged from the pool house. In the open, the shots would bring more pursuers. The only choice was to keep running.
The stable, Malone thought. He motioned for Jeb and Sienna to run to the right toward a gate that led to a lane. After the heat of his exertions, the rain felt welcomely cool. But as his wet clothes clung to his legs, back, and chest, a shiver swept through him.
His shoes slipped on mud. He fought for traction and ran harder. The rain made the dusk gray enough that he prayed they couldn’t be seen from the burning house or from the pool area. The stable loomed closer. They splashed through puddles, reaching a door.
The rectangular building hadn’t been used in quite a while. A horse trailer was covered with cobwebs. The ten stalls along each side were empty except for dusty straw and more cobwebs.
Straining to catch his breath, Malone peered out the open door toward the pool area. While he had time, he ejected the magazine from the grip of his pistol and checked to see how many rounds were left. He couldn’t assume that it had been full when he picked it up – the man from whom he had taken it might have fired several times before he was shot. He was right. The weapon, a 9-mm Beretta, the same type of pistol Malone had used in the military, could hold as many as sixteen rounds, but only nine were left.
“Do you see anybody?” Jeb asked.
“There.” Sienna pointed toward the rain-shrouded lane, where a man with a rifle hurried in their direction.
“But I don’t see the others.” Malone immediately understood. “Jesus, they’ve split up. They’ll be coming at us from three sides.”
Jeb pulled out a pistol. “There aren’t any doors along each side. I’ll watch the one at the far end.”
“How can I help?” Sienna asked.
“We don’t have another gun. Take cover.”
“I see one of them,” Jeb said from the other end. “He’s still too far away. I can’t get a shot at him.”
Malone stared at the man hurrying toward them along the lane. Abruptly the man sank behind the fence that flanked it. “This one’s taking cover, sneaking up.”
“But where’s the third one?” Jeb asked.
Straining for a glimpse of a target, Malone told Sienna, “Better get behind those hay bales.”
But when he glanced in her direction, he didn’t see her. He looked in another direction and saw a ladder that led to a platform above him. She was halfway up.
“What are you -” Immediately he quit talking, his attention totally focused on the gunman in the lane, who suddenly appeared at an open gate and dashed through the rain to the cover of a shed.
Malone aimed, ready for him to emerge on the right or the left.
Above, amid the rain drumming on the corrugated metal roof, Malone heard Sienna on the platform.
“There’s a window,” she said.
“For God sake, be careful.” He kept aiming.
“I’m high enough that I can see him behind the shed. He’s -”
Her abrupt silence made Malone tense.
“He’s motioning to someone on your right,” she said. “He’s pointing toward the side of the building. The third man must be heading toward it. He’s going to sneak along it on your blind side.”
Several rapid thunks at Jeb’s end of the building sounded like bullets slamming into wood.
“Jesus, are you okay?” Malone asked. “I didn’t hear the shots.”
“He’s using a silencer,” Jeb said.
A thought nagged at Malone, but before he could analyze the implications, the man behind the shed fired three rapid shots toward the open door. As Malone pressed himself against the wall next to the door, bullets splintered the slats of a stall behind him. But he didn’t hear the shots, and not because of the ringing in his ears. This gunman, too, was using a sound suppressor. Why?
“The one behind the shed is looking to your right again,” Sienna said from above. “Toward the side of the building. I get the sense that the third man’s farther along it.”
Malone understood. The gunman behind the shed would keep firing to distract Malone while the third man crept next to the door and waited for Malone to return fire. The moment Malone revealed his position, the third man would make his move.
“The man behind the shed just nodded,” Sienna said. “They’re ready.” Prepared for the gunman behind the shed to show himself, Malone pulled the trigger the instant he saw motion, shooting one, two, three times, the pistol bucking in his hands. As the gunman pitched backward, Malone dove forward through the doorway, landing in mud, firing to his right, toward where Sienna had predicted the third gunman would be. The man’s face twisted in surprise, unable to redirect his aim before Malone’s bullets struck him in the chest, knocking him down.