Smoke and Mirrors

123

Back in the dark kitchen, Styer reached into the valise to retrieve his night vision goggles, which he slipped on. He snapped on the power switch and the room came alive. He grinned and looked through the window over the sink to admire his handiwork. Barnett’s body was on its back in the grass, the rifle off to one side.

Seconds later, a deputy made the mistake of running to check on his boss. Styer aimed his Glock at the side of the cop’s head and squeezed the trigger twice. Thirty feet away, the young man collapsed into the icy grass like a cardboard cutout hit by a sudden wind. His right boot quaked as his neurons figured out they had been disconnected from their command center.

Styer dropped the mostly spent magazines one at a time, replacing one before going to the next gun in case Massey used the pause to attack. Styer went into the eerie green interior of the service hall, aiming the Glocks before him.

Massey was no longer in the doorway to the den, and Styer looked down to see his abandoned shoes and the dark pool of blood. He followed the large wet drops across the floor and onto the stairs where there was more blood smeared on the handrail. He decided Massey would be moving down the hallway upstairs, in an attempt to flank him. When he found the bound-up Keen and the children, it would slow him. Styer could go upstairs and deal with him there, but he would probably get Keen and the kids outside on the roof. Being the valiant idiot he was, Winter would stay inside and keep moving down the hall using the front stairs to flank his adversary.

He had expected more from Massey, and was disappointed in him. Wounded or not, the flanking maneuver was too obvious. Civilian life and a family had slowed his instincts. Styer almost felt sorry for him.

Styer turned and moved slowly down the main hall to wait for Massey to come sneaking along in the dark so he could kill him. Time was getting short. Backup would be coming from town. He would get away, even if an army was surrounding the house, because he had planned for that possibility.