“What did you see?” asked Sam.
“The Valencia. I’m pretty sure they’re calling the cops about us as fast as they can hit the numbers.”
“I should have thought of that.”
“We couldn’t see the hotels from the windows on the lower floors. The trees were in the way. Now they’re not.” She picked out a restaurant that was a bit closer but was also brightly lit. After a few seconds, she fired again. “Make that two callers. That makes it more believable.”
“Remi,” Sam whispered. “I’m hearing movement.”
She turned and saw him staring down at the big sideboard over the stairwell with the rifle to his shoulder. She came closer and picked a spot to aim at. “Shouldn’t we shoot through it?”
He shook his head. “We’re buying time, so any delay helps us. Besides, we don’t have enough ammo to shoot people just because they deserve it.”
“Just in case we can’t buy enough time, I hope I remembered to thank you for rescuing me in Russia.”
“You did. Your thank-you was more than adequate.”
“And for Zoltán.”
“Him too. If anything, you’re ahead of me on thanking. Thank you for anything I forgot to thank you for. I’ve been kind of preoccupied with people trying to kill us.”
“Understandable. I just think that Russia thing was really romantic, and if we die tonight, I don’t want to have been at all cavalier about it. You should know it was sort of a world-class turn-on.”
“If we die, I won’t hold it against you. Getting you back was pretty nice too.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course, I don’t plan to die tonight.”
“Me neither.” She leaned close and kissed him.
Wendy and Selma came down the stairs, carrying loaded magazines for the pistols and the two rifles. “Keep your eyes on the people you don’t like, you two,” said Selma. “And, by the way, everything is loaded, but this is the last of the ammunition.”
Pete came down the stairs, holding the railing and walking lightly. “If we do have to retreat to the fourth floor, be careful and hold the rope. It’s nearly ready to go. Just one turn per bolt.” Wendy handed him a reloaded shotgun and a full magazine for his pistol. “Thanks.”
“Use it wisely. This is all there is.”
Selma went to the wall of windows on the south side of the house. “Do you hear something?” She listened. “It sounds like cars.” She looked out, then quickly pulled her head back. “Oh, no,” she said. “They’ve got those lift things the power company uses.”
“What?” said Wendy.
Sam turned to look in Selma’s direction. As he did, there was a loud, rapid barrage of fireworks soaring into the sky and exploding into popping starbursts. “Something’s coming,” he said. “Remember—make your shots count.”
The fireworks had certainly been set off to cover this fresh attack. The sideboard began to rise up and Sam fired into the opening the men on the stairs had created by raising it. The sideboard fell back down with a thud.
Two seconds later, Selma fired three pistol shots at something outside the open window.
Wendy and Pete ran toward her just as she ducked to the floor and two windows were blown inward by automatic-weapons fire. Pete crouched behind the stairway and raised the shotgun.
Just outside the window, a shooter was standing in the bucket at the end of the hydraulic arm of a cherry picker. Pete fired, the shooter slumped over and dropped his weapon, and someone below took over the controls of the cherry picker, and lowered it out of sight.
Pete pumped his shotgun and ran to the window. He aimed it downward at the yard and fired, then pumped it again. He jerked back inside and crouched. A burst of automatic fire peppered the ceiling above his head.
Selma was running to the other side of the house. She looked out. “They’ve got another one!” She and Wendy opened windows along the north side and fired pistols at the man who was in the bucket being raised up to the third-floor window. They couldn’t see whether he was hit, but the hydraulic arm lowered rapidly.
At the staircase, the intruders were trying a new tactic. One of them fired a tight burst of bullets through the back of the wooden sideboard to make a splintered hole and then another pushed a Škorpion auto pistol up through the hole and fired wild bursts at floor level, hoping to hit anyone standing near the stairs. Sam was closer to the hand than the pistol, so he hit the hand with the butt of his rifle. The hand quickly withdrew, leaving the Škorpion behind on the sideboard. Another Škorpion appeared a few feet away and Sam kicked the hand that held it hard enough to make the pistol fly across the room. He then stepped away from the sideboard just as a dozen shots punched upward through it.
The third time, Sam and Remi were ready. Three Škorpions appeared at once. Sam and Remi were widely separated, both on their bellies, aiming rifles from behind steel pillars. They each fired at a hand, and then Remi hit the final one.
Sam said to Remi, “Pick up the Škorpions from the floor and go upstairs.” He fired a shot at the sideboard, then another at a spot where he suspected men were lurking below.
He turned to look for Selma and Wendy, saw another man rise up to the window on the cherry picker, fired, and saw him collapse into the bucket. “Selma, Wendy!” he called. “Upstairs, one at a time. Remember the steps are loose.”
They ran for the stairs, and first Selma, then Wendy, held the climbing rope and climbed to the fourth floor on the rickety steps.
Sam continued putting an occasional shot through the sideboard to keep the men below away from it, and then he heard Pete fire the shotgun again. Sam turned toward him and saw him fire out the window. “Pete!” he called. “Up the steps, and get ready to drop the staircase.”
He sensed motion and turned to the stairs from the floor below him. The leading edge of the sideboard popped up and two hands extended from beneath it, holding Škorpions, and began to fire wild bursts onto the third floor.
Sam sprang to his feet, ran and jumped on the sideboard. The sudden impact of his weight brought the heavy piece of furniture down on the two arms and made the hands unable to hold their pistols. Sam used his momentum to make a second jump to the far side of the sideboard, fired three shots into it randomly, scooped up the two automatic pistols by their slings and backed up to the stairs.
He could feel the stairs shaking and wobbling with each footstep and knew the bolts must be working their way out of the nuts that held them to the I beam, but he knew he had to keep firing now and then to hold the attackers off and keep them from charging.
When he reached the top, Remi knelt beside him and fired once, twice, to keep the men below at bay. Sam set his rifle aside on the floor and pulled out his pistol. “Pete!”
Pete, lying flat on the fourth floor, reached down under the narrow staircase with a socket wrench and began to loosen bolts. As each one came loose, he let it fall, then moved to the next one. Sam reached down from the other side and began to unscrew bolts with his hand.
The sideboard below them on the second floor popped upward abruptly and slid aside. Men slipped out from under it and ran to both sides, where they couldn’t be seen from above. Just as one of them got his foot on the lowest step to the fourth floor, Pete turned the final bolt and the staircase fell with a horrific crash. The third floor belonged to the enemy.
THE FOURTH FLOOR
SAM GRASPED PETE’S ANKLES AND TUGGED HIM BACK from the edge of the opening just as the men below began firing wildly upward through the rectangular hole in the floor that once had held the staircase.
The opening was much narrower than the stairwells on the lower floors because the stairs were narrower up to Sam and Remi’s floor. Sam said, “They’ll be bringing the aluminum ladders up next. What have we got that will seal that opening?”
Remi said
, “How about the safes?”
“Brilliant,” said Sam. “Pete? You okay?”
“I’m still alive.”
“Then help me with the safes. They’re bolted into the wall from the inside. Everybody else, stay back from the opening, but don’t take your eyes off it. Fire a shot now and then to remind them we’re still here.”
Sam went to the wall, pressed the spot to reveal the hidden corridor, stepped in, and opened the safes. He and Pete unbolted the two now-empty gun safes and Sam opened the third one, which held papers. Pete removed the bolts from this last one and then he and Sam pushed all three, one at a time, across the hardwood floor to the edge of the stairwell. As they pushed the last and biggest one, a deep scratch appeared on the floor. Sam said to Remi, “Oops. Sorry.”
“It’s too late to make Architectural Digest, Sam,” she said. “The whole place is decorated in vintage Kalashnikov.” They pushed the safes over, one by one, across the stairwell. They had sealed the opening completely.
Wendy said, “What do we do now?”
Sam said, “We seem to have just about run out of floors to make them fight for. For the moment, you sit on this safe. They don’t have anything with them that can make a dent in it, but the second it moves I want to hear you yell your head off and fire down into any space that appears.”
“Okay,” she said.
He looked around. “Selma, are you familiar with the way a Czech Škorpion automatic pistol works?”
Selma said, “I did look up the manual online after Remi’s problem in Russia.”
“Good. We seem to have five of them. Check the magazines and see how much ammunition is left, then consolidate it. We need to have a couple with full magazines. They might buy us some extra time.”
“What about the boiling water?”
“Turn down the burners for now so the pots stay hot but the water isn’t boiling. We’ll get it boiling again if they start moving the safes.”
He turned to Pete. “Take my rifle and guard the windows. Those cherry pickers might reach this high.”
“Where will you be?”
“Remi and I are going up to the roof. Selma? Are there any matches around?”
“In the kitchen downstairs.”
“Great,” he said.
Remi said, “I’ve got some in my backpack.” She went to her closet and came out with a small waterproof container of stick matches, two bottles of champagne from the small refrigerator in the closet, and two of her cotton halter tops.
Sam saw her and said, “You figured it out.”
“Of course I did. We’ll have to pour out the Dom Perignon champagne.” She handed him the two bottles.
He went to the sink in his bathroom, popped the two corks, and poured the champagne into the bathroom sink. “I hate to see this go.”
“If we make it, there are still five bottles in the refrigerator, and I think three of Cristal.”
They went to the back of Sam’s walk-in closet. There was a set of flat rungs like the steps of a stepladder running up the back wall and, above them, a round hatch that locked with a lever.
He climbed up, opened the hatch, and looked around on the roof. “All clear.”
Remi handed him the matches, the two champagne bottles, and the two cotton tops. He set them on the roof and climbed out after them. He stayed low as he ducked under the awning over the gas generator that had been running since the invaders had cut the outside electric power.
Sam picked up the funnel that he used when filling the generator’s gas tank, stuck it in the neck of the first champagne bottle, and used one of the red five-gallon cans he kept there to fill the bottle with gasoline. Then he filled the other.
Remi appeared at his side carrying the second .308 rifle. “Need cover?”
“I might,” he said. “Just hold on a minute while I see.”
He stuffed a halter top into the neck of the bottle, then tipped the bottle a little so the gasoline soaked it, then repeated the process with the other. He carried one of the bottles to the south side of the house near the front door, glanced over the edge at the scene below, and ducked back where he couldn’t be seen. He brought back with him a clear image of what was down there. A man had climbed into the bucket of the cherry picker and he was using the controls to raise himself upward.
Sam struck a match and lit the soaked fabric, leaned over the wall at the edge of the roof, and threw his Molotov cocktail. The flame on the wick elongated and brightened as the bottle fell. It landed on the roof of the truck that supported the cherry picker and broke, splashing a pool of flame on the roof that immediately spread to the sides of the cab and engulfed it.
Sam ran to the opposite side of the roof, stopping to pick up the second bottle on the way. At the other side, he struck a match to light the wick, then threw the bottle at the second truck. This bottle smashed on the truck’s hood and the flames rose high. Much of the burning gasoline ran down the sides to engulf the front tires and pool on the ground beneath the engine.
From both sides of the house there were loud bursts from automatic weapons fired at the upper edge of the roof. It was all just noise and wasted ammunition because Sam and Remi were now sitting near the middle of the roof, where they couldn’t be hit. After a minute, the firing stopped, replaced by the sound of more fireworks in the cove.
“Is there anything else we can do?” asked Remi.
“Do you know where the gas tank is on one of those trucks?”
“No.”
“It’s a big cylinder just under the driver’s seat.”
“You’re kidding. That’s the dumbest thing I—”
“I didn’t design them. If we put a bullet through the gas tank so the gas starts pouring out onto the ground, we might cause them some anxiety at least.”
“Starting our house on fire would cause me some anxiety.”
“I know,” he said. “Just a thought.”
She sighed, picked up the rifle, and moved cautiously to the back end of the roof, where the men below would be least likely to anticipate her appearance. She stood, shouldered the rifle, and sidestepped to the edge. As soon as she could see downward she fired and then instantly stepped back out of sight. Within a second or two, there were loud shouts and bursts of gunfire into the sky.
“You must have hit it.”
“I should hope so. It’s the size of a beer barrel.” She walked to the opposite side of the roof, took a stance like the one she had used a moment ago, sidestepped into sight, fired, and sidestepped back. The air filled with more shouts of dismay and random shots.
Then, coming from the opposite side, the evening air seemed to fill with bright gasoline flames as the truck’s gas tank emptied into the fire. There was a loud boom as it exploded.
* * *
“NO!” On the deck of the Ibiza, Arpad Bako leapt up from his chair, knocked his drink over, causing the glass to roll toward the scuppers. “No!” he shouted. “What are they doing? What can they be thinking?”
Le Clerc looked at Goldfish Point calmly. “They could be burning the Fargos out. It’s crude, but it usually works. I can’t quite tell what’s burning.”
“There could be treasure in that house!” Bako shouted. “Priceless artifacts could be melting into a puddle of gold while we sit here. Ancient jewels the Caesars wore could be destroyed.”
Poliakoff sat calmly. “Everything we know says that the treasures are in museums for now. The only way we’ll ever get any of it is if we take Remi Fargo back to trade for it. This time, I’ll send Fargo a gift-wrapped box with one of her fingers. Sam Fargo made me burn down my own house, did you know that? Once I knew the police and firefighters were on their way, I couldn’t let them find a cellar full of smuggled drugs. Two days later my wife drove into the courtyard with my children, saw the pile of wreckage
, and told the driver to turn around and head back to Moscow. Just for making me live through that moment, Fargo should be spared no form of pain. I hope they are burning his house down.”
Le Clerc smiled slyly. “She’s still not talking to you, Sergei? Sleeping alone doesn’t agree with you.”
“That’s none of your business,” said Poliakoff. He puffed hard on his cigar, then said, “They’re speeding this up. If they don’t get the Fargos out of that house soon, we’ll have police and firemen rushing there and patrol boats out here.”
Bako was at the rail, holding the powerful binoculars on the house. “The flames are coming from the two cherry pickers. The bodies of the trucks are on fire and one of them blew up.” As he watched, the second truck’s gas tank flared and knocked over the truck, leaving it in flames. The boom of the explosion reached the boat a second later. “Both of them blew up.”
Le Clerc said, “You were perceptive, Arpad. It’s just like Attila attacking a castle. This time, the defenders set fire to the siege engines.”
“It’s crazy!” Bako shouted. “What are people like them doing with an arsenal in their house?”
“I suppose if a person finds lots of treasures, other people get jealous and try to kidnap them.”
Poliakoff stood too, picked up the radio that sat on the table beside his drink, pressed a button, and said something in Russian over the static.
Bako whirled and reached for the radio. “No!” he shouted. “Don’t tell our own men to run away. We’re so close! The Fargos and their servants are huddled on the top floor, cowering in fear.”
Poliakoff stiff-armed Bako, who stopped and bent over, trying to recover from the hand that had compressed his chest and deprived him of breath. “I’m just checking with my headman to account for all the delay. This should have taken five minutes.”
A staticky voice blurted something on the other end. And Poliakoff said in Russian, “Kotzov! What’s causing the delay?”
The voice said, “They’re on the fourth floor, but it’s been a gun battle for every inch. We’ve got dead men here and quite a few hurt.”