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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?”
