Cut and Run

Now, for the time being, he assumed the role of the circling deputy, picking up where the man had left off. He came around the front of the old farmhouse, ears alert for any sounds whatsoever inside. He heard only the yap-yap-yap, pause, of the baying dog.

Charged with exhilaration, Paolo headed straight for the tree behind which he hoped to find and kill the second agent. Only at the last moment did he realize he’d chosen wrong as the agent stepped out from behind the tree to Paolo’s right… not where he expected him.

“What’s up?” this deputy asked in a whisper. In the thick black of night, both figures were silhouettes.

Paolo said nothing, having no idea what voice to mimic.

“Hey! What’s up?” the deputy tried again, his voice clear and tight, more strained than before, perhaps sensing, as some animals can, his own demise, even before taking precautions against it.

Paolo took two last strides, suddenly much longer strides than he’d used in his approach, so as to throw off the deputy’s timing. One moment he was a smudge in the ground fog, the next a blur of arms and limbs, a slicing blade behind extraordinary leverage and strength. The deputy managed two defensive blocks, both of which cost him long gashes down the palms and wrists of both hands. As he opened his mouth to scream, Paolo’s hand flashed before his face, slicing his tongue and lower lip. Containing him in a choke hold, Paolo spun the man, drove his right knee into the man’s lower back, bending him backward, and in that moment of pas de deux, drew a hot, angry opening across the man’s jowls and larynx, issuing a sound like a steam pipe bursting behind a crimson spray that joined the fog and painted the tree bark scarlet.

He dropped the man like a bushel of apples, not looking down to see if the job was complete. He knew his work. Instead, his back to the bark, he opened his senses like a flower to the sun. Every sound, every swaying branch and rattling leaf was a part of him. He waited for the backup, for the threatening glow of an infrared rifle sight tracking the tree and trying to find a kill spot on his body. He anticipated surprise, braced himself for the unexpected.

He kneeled, glanced once at the dead man, and pulled open his windbreaker. He found the man’s weapon, chambered a round, and shoved the gun into the small of his own back. This for inside, if needed.

The dog stopped barking, as if somehow silenced by the scent of fresh blood on the wind-Paolo pissing on his territory; the dog wisely unwilling to challenge. Well off in the distance, he could make out the low, insect hum of interstate traffic. A jet rumbled. Fallen leaves tumbled and rolled and swirled at his feet, offering faint applause.

Paolo sensed there was no backup coming. He would face one more inside the house, and beyond him the prize. At any second, any minute, the deputy inside would attempt his scheduled contact with those on perimeter duty. Never longer than ten- or fifteen-minute intervals.

Paolo moved through angular shadows, dodging across the lawn toward the farmhouse.

The dog started up again, his nose revealing the truth. Only the dog, far off in the distance, stood witness to what had been done.

Larson drove all but the last mile with the retrofitted light system in play, his parking lights, taillights, and headlights alternating right to left and left to right in a dazzling display that identified him as an emergency vehicle. From inside the car’s front grill, bright blue and white bursts of warning marked him as law enforcement-not fire or medical.

He’d called for backup-federal, not local-not knowing how traffic would affect his ride. As it happened, he reached Orchard House first.

He pulled off the road a quarter mile short of the farm and set out on foot.

Paolo ducked and crossed below the window, intent on reaching the front porch as quickly as possible. The ground floor would not only be highly secured, but would be where the remaining agent would keep himself. Herself was more likely, he thought, since they were protecting a female witness. This gave him more confidence.

The second story looked best. Even if it came down to breaking glass to gain entry, the time it would take a deputy to respond would be in his favor-he’d be inside and at the ready before anyone could make it upstairs.

Once onto the porch, he climbed atop the railing and pulled himself up a column, leprous white paint flakes peeling away and floating to the autumnal vegetation like moths that had ventured too close to the light. He climbed with all the sound of a snake, slipping up onto the porch roof, and from there the steeper main roof, to the first of several dormered windows, all pitch-black. He moved carefully and slowly, one window to the next, feeling vulnerable. The construction was old. Rope-and-weight double-hung windows. A barrier had been hung just on the other side of the glass-some kind of blackout material. He hoped this fabric might mute the sound of breaking glass. When the windows proved impossible to jimmy open, he drove his elbow just above the lock. Pieces of glass tumbled down, caught by the blackout curtain.

The window opened. His razor led the way through the rubbery vinyl covering, and he squeezed through the slit, into the interior.

The room was dark. A simple bed, made. A corner sink from a hundred years ago. A mirrored dresser. No suitcase. No clothes. He crossed to the door, soundlessly, ears alert for the sound of a guard rushing up the stairs.

Nothing.

For a moment-only a moment-he allowed himself to believe the woman was not here, that this accounted for the informal patrolling of the perimeter, that these two had not been protecting someone but defending a structure. Another possible explanation for this complete silence was so tantalizing that he barely allowed himself to consider it. Were there only the two guards, not three? Had they adopted the format of one moving, one stationary because of these minimal numbers? Was the witness here, armed perhaps, but all alone?

It seemed plausible. The Service could be in chaos. How many deputies could they spare for a single witness when thousands of witnesses were at stake? But this optimism got interrupted by a second thought: The remaining deputy could be more clever than he’d given him credit for. Perhaps he was not the type to charge upstairs and force an encounter. What if he/she was lurking somewhere inside, ready to spring a trap and gain the element of surprise? Added to his sudden uncertainty was the idea of timing. Payment for his killing the two deputies outside would come due. With communication lost, the Service would respond, either by helicopter, car, or both. He might have five to ten minutes. After that, he couldn’t be sure. It was a big house.

He went to work.

Through the whine in her ears that whistled like a teakettle, Hope thought she heard something. Larson’s warning had tightened the screws at her temples, fixing her jaw to where she ground her teeth, her prickling skin feverish with fear. She’d worked so hard all these years to control such reactions, but this time, isolated in a strangely familiar place, without Pe

Outside. Close by. On the roof?

A location. She’d thought of little else since his call. In her various residences over the years she’d always created clever hiding spots for herself and Pe