They sat on the couch to sip their drinks. They kissed gently and then drank some more. After a few minutes together Stahl said, “Does that outfit mean I won’t be tearing your clothes off tonight after all?”
“I hope you’re not disappointed. But I’ve had that pistol belt strapped to me all day, and heavy shoes and all. You’re welcome to take this off me if you want. It doesn’t take as long, so you won’t get bored.”
“Bored? I’m confident that I won’t.”
They moved into the bedroom and made love in the faint light from the skylight streaming in from the living room. This was the first time since the bombing in her apartment, and so it was like coming together after years apart. At first there was a tentative, cautious quality to their movements. They were like people learning all over again to trust their instincts about what the other would want, and to give the other permission to take chances. But soon they were comfortable again, each of them wanting, taking, and giving at the same time. When it was over, the hour was late.
He leaned over her. “Are you okay?”
“Except for the broken bones.”
“Come on.”
They moved together and kissed, a long, quiet moment while their lips touched, they closed their eyes, and they breathed the same breath.
Hines woke up lying on top of the sheets, still touching Stahl. His larger body was giving off heat so she hadn’t noticed there were no covers. She moved her foot to try to hook the sheet and pull it up without waking Dick.
The movement seemed to bring her out of a dream, and she realized she had not just awakened spontaneously. As she saw her phone across the room light up, swung her legs off the bed, and stepped toward the phone, she saw Stahl turn toward his nightstand, where his phone was lit too.
They both read the message at once. “SECURITY,” it said. “Breakin detected. Lock all doors and shelter in place.”
“This is for real,” he said. “Get dressed.”
He stepped into the pants he had taken off at bedtime. She went to the closet and pulled on a black pullover and a pair of black jeans, and stepped into a pair of black flats. She went low, ran to the purse she had left on the table in the living room, and plucked out her Glock pistol and the spare magazine.
In a moment she saw Stahl emerge from the bedroom and step along the wall pushing the .45 pistol he kept in the nightstand into his waistband. He stopped. “Where are you?” he said softly.
“On the floor by the couch. Who sent the message?”
“The building security system. The security guys can send it by pushing a signal on their phones. But if a door or window breaks it comes automatically.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you gave me the new phone?”
“I bought it when you were in the hospital and forgot.”
She said, “What do you want to do now?”
“Stay put. It’s most likely nothing.”
“That suits me.”
“I’m going into the spare bedroom for a minute.”
“To the gun safe?”
“Yes.”
She heard the faint sounds of Stahl moving across the room to the hall, and then imagined she could hear the gun safe swing open, a slight rub of the hinges. She did hear it close and lock. She heard some clicks and metallic slides. In a moment his dark silhouette materialized beside her.
She reached for him, but felt the cold barrel of a rifle. She recognized the distinctive shape. “An M4. Thanks. Is the magazine full?”
“Yes. I got one out for each of us.”
“You’re so thoughtful.”
“I’ve lived here for four years, and I never got an alert message before.”
There was a noise, a faint crunching sound above them. In the dim glow coming from the skylight, Hines and Stahl turned to glance at each other. Stahl pointed at the island with the marble top that separated the kitchen from the living room.
Hines nodded, stayed low, and skittered around the counter to take up a firing position on the other side. She charged the M4 and aimed at the skylight.
Stahl moved back toward the spare bedroom, knelt in the doorway with the muzzle of his rifle up, and began to scan the windows.
The sound of crunching gravel came again, then a similar sound from the other end of the roof, and a third trail following that one. He looked toward Hines. He couldn’t see her behind the marble-topped counter, but he could see her rifle barrel aiming up at the skylight. He looked at the kitchen. There were no windows in there, only a skylight. The outer wall held a wide stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator, a stainless steel eight-burner Wolf stove, a vertical pair of ovens. There was nothing but brick and reinforced concrete on the outer walls.
Stahl stayed motionless and listened. The sounds of footsteps on the roof had stopped.
43
There was the sound of footsteps moving away, and Stahl felt relieved. They must have tested the steel bars over the skylight and realized they couldn’t enter through it. Then there was a flare of light from above the skylight like a slow, silent explosion that lasted a few seconds and went out. The intruders had only been stepping back and turning away to protect their eyes. Stahl just had time to whisper to Hines, “Thermite!” Hines understood that the mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide was cutting through the steel. Hines heard the sound of a steel bar clattering onto the safety glass above them. She moved her finger to the trigger.
The glass of the skylight showered the floor, and the living room was illuminated by the rapid muzzle flashes of an automatic weapon firing down into the room. The bright, continuous flashes looked like the flame of a blowtorch as the shooter moved his weapon back and forth, sweeping the room below.
Stahl and Hines held their fire and waited for a shot. Then a man dropped from the empty frame of the skylight. He landed on his feet near the couch. Stahl fired three rounds that hit the man squarely in the chest and pounded him off his feet to the carpet. There was more wild automatic fire from the skylight, probably intended to keep the defenders’ heads down.
Instead, both Hines and Stahl fired their M4 rifles at the skylight as rapidly as they could pull the triggers. The automatic fire from above stopped. They both watched the skylight, hoping the man still up there would be visible for a second as he moved to get a better firing angle.
While they watched, the man they had shot popped up from beside the couch and aimed a burst of automatic fire at Stahl where he crouched in the doorway. Stahl dived back into the spare bedroom and saw a line of bullet holes appear in the bedroom wall as the man fired through it.
Stahl heard a single shot from Hines’s M4 near the kitchen and the automatic fire stopped again.
Stahl dashed from the bedroom and nearly overran the man. He could see that the man was wearing body armor under his shirt, but Hines had shot him through the skull while he was firing at Stahl.
He found Hines resting her left elbow on the marble counter at the edge of the kitchen. When a rifle muzzle poked down into the room at the edge of the skylight, she fired four shots at the spot where the shooter must be.
Stahl came close to the counter and beckoned. She moved around it after him and then out the steel door into the underground garage. Stahl let her through, then closed the door quietly so the intruders wouldn’t be sure he and Diane had retreated.
Stahl went past the parked cars and along the rear wall of the garage until he reached a door with a pair of surveillance cameras mounted on the ceiling about ten feet to either side. He looked up at the camera to his left, making sure his face was visible to anyone watching the monitor. Then he knocked, waited, and knocked again, but there was no response. He said, “The security guys aren’t in there, or they would have opened up for us.”
“Where could they be?”
“There’s a hallway on this level that runs the length of the building, and a couple of short alcoves off it that go to outer doors.”
“Can we get access to them anywhere?” Hines asked.