Double Jeopardy

35

Stone went through the two security gates, one of them a heavy log. He found Ed Rawls seated on his front porch with Sally, his British girlfriend. Sally was shelling peas into a bowl on her lap, while Rawls guarded her with a scoped long gun across his. Sally finished her peas, brought them coffee, and went back inside.

“She doesn’t want to hear conversations like this one,” Rawls said.

“How does she know what they’re about?”

“She’s known since the beginning that this was going to happen, but she’s been waiting for it to become inevitable.”

“Do you think it’s inevitable, Ed?”

“I wouldn’t be wasting a nice evening on you, if I thought it wasn’t. Way I see it is, you’ve tried everything you could honorably do to resolve this situation, and now you’re left with the dishonorable alternative.”

“You think it’s dishonorable?”

“On paper, yes, but not really. They’ve backed us into a corner, so there’s nothing else left for it. Also, I think they’re coming for me next.”

“Why you?”

“Apparently, they don’t like having neighbors. They went after Primmy and failed. Now with the Jacksons, to my surprise, they succeeded. I knew the Jacksons well back when, and in those days this could never have happened.”

“I guess you can sneak up on anybody,” Stone said.

Ed looked straight at him. “We’re about to prove or disprove that theory,” he said.

“What are our chances?”

“Not good,” Rawls replied. “They’ve got that house wired up backward and forward. I’ve counted eighteen security cameras, and I probably missed a few.”

“They went ashore yesterday. I guess they’ll have to come back,” Stone said.

“They came back last night on the late ferry,” Rawls said. “Now they’re hunkered down in there, waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

“You think they want us to make the first move?”

“Not necessarily. I think they enjoy the prospect of what’s coming, and they don’t need a first move from us to make them happy about taking us out.”

“Can they see us now?”

“Not unless they’re out on the water,” Rawls said. “From my present position I can’t see a security camera, so they can’t see me, but they could just be sitting out there on the bay, waiting for us to twitch wrong. I’m happy to have Sally in the house, safe and sound.”

“How good are your defenses?” Stone asked.

“As good as one skilled man — me — can make them, but maybe not good enough.”

“Are you going to give them the first shot?”

“Sometimes, if you want somebody bad enough, it’s the only way. At least, I can control the circumstances, to some extent.”

“I think you ought to pull inside and wait for dark,” Stone said. “Loan me a weapon, and I’ll wait with you.”

“That’s not a bad thought,” Rawls said. “I think I’d prefer having you here than someplace else.”

“We’ve got Dino and Lance, if we need them.”

“Four is too many,” Ed said. “Just you and me are about the right number. Come on.” He led the way inside, where they found Sally shucking corn, while keeping an eye on the monitors connected to a dozen high-definition cameras, covering the house, the road, and the dock. “What’s your pleasure?” Ed asked, waving an arm at a weapons rack.

“Something with a silencer, but long enough to take them at a distance. I don’t relish close combat.”

“Not when the opposition is that young, that big, and that strong — and there’s two of them.” He handed Stone a rifle with a silencer and a banana magazine. “That holds thirty rounds,” Rawls said, “and you can set it for single fire, double, triple, or auto.”

“I think I’d like double,” Stone said, twisting the knob.

Rawls handed him an ammunition crate filled with loaded banana magazines. “If you run out of that, you’re a bad shot,” he said.

“Where do you want me?”

“There’s a firing slot cut into that wall behind you,” he said. “It will give you a wide field of fire that will overlap with mine.”

Stone found it and set up a chair, then put his rifle across it.

“Supper will be ready pretty soon,” Ed said. “I think we can rely on my security alarms until then to tell us they’re coming.”

“They managed to disarm my alarms through the computer system, to Lance’s chagrin. He thought the Agency’s system couldn’t be penetrated, but they managed it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ed said. “I don’t think my system is any better than Lance’s.”

“He’s got his people working on a way to get into their system,” Stone said. “Maybe that will be of some help to us.”

A few minutes later, Sally called them to supper. It was fried chicken, peas, sweet corn, and biscuits.

“Sally’s been working on cooking Southern,” Ed said. “She’s getting good at it.”

“I like it myself,” Sally said.

There was a tiny noise from somewhere. Ed stopped eating and listened for a moment. “Just the house settling a little,” he said.

“It does that sometimes,” Sally agreed.

“Ed, did you restock those rocket-launched grenades?” Stone asked. “I think we used them up the last time we were in a situation like this.”

“I’ve got three,” Ed replied. “That sort of materiel is hard to come by up here. I have to wait for out-of-town visitors.”

“Would one of those burn them out?”

“It would knock a corner off their house, but I don’t think an RPG would torch it, unless, of course, there was a propane tank involved.”

“Where is their propane tank?”

“Buried on the other side of the house.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”