Now the men heard the sound of running water coming from the kitchen, and it seemed to puzzle and distract them. They turned and stepped toward the kitchen, their weapons raised.
Caldwell picked that moment to emerge from the hallway and stop behind them. “Stand still and drop the guns.” He squatted and aimed at the man on the right.
The two turned in unison and fired, spraying sparks from the muzzles of their weapons. Both shots went high, and Caldwell squeezed his trigger. He had chosen the man on his right because he knew he could fire and move his aim to the left faster than to the right. The man went down, and before the man’s partner could lower his aim Caldwell fired at his chest.
The second man was hit, but he was still on his feet. Before he could slip into the kitchen for cover, Caldwell fired again and the man dropped.
Caldwell checked the two men and found neither had a pulse. He picked up their pistols and set them on the coffee table. The barrels were elongated by the addition of silencers, and it occurred to him that the only shots he had heard were his own. He frisked the bodies and found wallets and passports, but it was too dark to look at them, so he pocketed them and hurried to the bathroom door. “Zoe. It’s me, Peter. Come out.”
There was a click of the lock and Zoe peered out. “Are you okay? That sounded like gunfire.”
“That’s why I wanted you in the tub, where you wouldn’t get hit with a wild shot. Those two were the shooting team, but there will be other men outside. We’ve got to get out of here before they realize we’re alive.”
“Have you called the police? We can wait right here for them.”
“We can’t wait,” he said. “Please. Just do what I ask, without any questions. Our lives depend on it right now.”
“What should I do?”
“We’ve got no more than five minutes. Throw anything with your kids’ pictures or addresses into a bag. Don’t call anybody, or turn on any lights. If they see you, they’ll kill you.”
“Why would they kill me?”
“Because it’s their job. I’ve got to go out there for a minute, but I’ll be back for you. Don’t let the dogs out of the bedroom.” He held up the small Beretta he had fired. “The safety is off. If anybody but me comes in the door, aim and fire.” He set the gun on the bed and hurried out.
He stopped at the coffee table, picked up one of the pistols he’d taken from the two dead men, and hurried down the stairs to the ground floor landing. He had seen a third man on the security monitor, and knew there might be others. He went to the windows at the sides of the house. There was nobody visible out there. He picked a window, opened the sash slowly, then unlatched the screen, slipped out, and crouched beside the shrubs that grew there.
Caldwell remained motionless for a few seconds and then a few more as he stared into the night in one direction then another, waiting to identify the shape of a man or for a shadow to move. He made his way along the side of the house, crouched again, and looked around the corner. He could see a man in the shadows, leaning against the garage and facing the back stairway of the house. As Caldwell watched, the man took out his phone and checked its screen, apparently expecting a text message from the men inside. In the glow Caldwell could see the man’s face. He was the young man who had tried to rob him, James Harriman.
Caldwell thought about trying to go back around the house to get behind him, but the young man had taken a position with his back to the garage, facing the stairs to the kitchen door. Caldwell took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stepped away from the corner of the house aiming the pistol with its silencer at the man’s head. “Hello again,” he said.
The young man spun his head to look. “Hey!” he said. It was simply an expression of shock, with no other meaning.
Caldwell could see him lean away from the garage, shifting his weight forward, bending his knees a little as he began to raise his hands. The young man was preparing to make a move. He ducked and lunged toward Caldwell, trying to take him down in a quick tackle.
He was fast and powerful, but Caldwell had been prepared. He sidestepped and batted the young man’s arm down with his free hand, so he could keep the pistol aimed at the man’s upper body. When the young man’s momentum brought him up against the house, Caldwell was still with him, the silenced pistol still between them.
Caldwell said, “Put your gun down and step away from it.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
“Then when I search your body I’ll find nothing?”
“Okay, okay,” the young man said. He took a pistol out of a shoulder holster and set it down, then stepped back with his hands up. “What happened upstairs?”
“They weren’t good enough for this,” Caldwell said. “Now I’m going to ask you a few questions. You’ll live as long as you answer and don’t move. Who were they?”
“They’re foreign. I was told to bring them to where you lived and then get them away when they were done.”
“You work for the government?”
“Yes.”
“Show me an ID.”
“I don’t carry one.”
“Why?”