And it went like that: I made the step, I did the pull up, and boosted myself over the edge of the balcony. There were four rustic chairs on the balcony, and a sliding glass door that led into the house. I waited, listened; tried to feel vibration, but felt nothing. Got the flash out of the backpack, and looked at the door. As far as I could see, it wasn't alarmed, but I would have to assume that the house was. So: inside, five minutes max. If the call went out instantly, it would be purely bad luck to have security arrive in five minutes. unless there was another man in the bunkhouse.

I sat thinking about it.

I looked through the window with the needle-beam again. Took a deep breath, used the butt of the flashlight to crush the glass near the door handle, flipped the lock, and went in.

There was no time. I turned on the needle flash and followed it through the top floor: bedroom, bathroom, bedroom, bathroom, bedroom, moving as quickly and quietly as I could. I suspected an intrusion alarm was already dialing out.

With three bedrooms and two bathrooms already down, I almost didn't push the fourth door. But I did, and behind the fourth door I found the control room, such as it was: a computer, what looked like a ham radio setupis there still such a thing as ham radio?and a couple of notebooks, all stuffed into a windowless cubicle that was more like a closet than a room.

I turned the computer on, looked at my watch. Almost a minute gone since I entered. I would be out in five. The computer was a standard IBM-compatible running the last generation Windows, but it was probably running nothing more complicated than a time-of-day and switch program, which would orient the receivers and turn them on and off. So Windows was a logical program; what drove me crazy was the time it took to load. As I shifted from foot to foot, waiting, I pulled the notebooks off the shelf and flipped them open.

They were empty. Well, not emptythey were filled with blank paper.

Oh, shit.

I'd been suckered. Pulled into a small room with exactly one exit. Forget the computer. Move.

I stuck the flashlight in my jacket pocket and pulled the revolver. The hallway was still dark, and I went into it hard and low, on my knees and elbows, the pistol in one hand, already pointed down the hall.

I saw movement and then the overwhelming, bone-shaking blast and brilliant muzzle flash of a fully automatic weapon. A long burst burned past two feet overhead. I was in an ocean of noise and light, without being much aware of it: aware only that I wasn't yet dead. I fired once, lurched forward to the bedroom door, and rolled through it.

A half-second later, another burst chewed up the carpet where I'd just been. I did a quick peek, then stuck my head around the corner and fired again.

Bedroom. I looked around, panicked. I didn't have a chance against the automatic weapon, if it came to a straight shootout. The bedroom had a glass door and a short balcony, but if I went over the side, I'd have to run across fifty yards of lighted, bald-as-a-pool-table lawn before there was any cover. I'd be cut in half before I made ten of them.

What to do? Who was that out there? Had to be Corbeil.

"Corbeil? Why are you killing us?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"We're just some guys, trying to stay away from the feds," I shouted back. "Why are you killing us?"

He said nothing for a moment, then: "Because I like it. I'm gonna cut you to pieces, dickhead."

No way for a CEO to talk, but he was right about one thing: if I moved, he'd cut me to pieces. I did an inventory I had the flashlight, the revolver, the night glasses, LuEllen's usual break-in kit.

Ten seconds later, I had the quilt off the bed behind me. A fat one, a nice traditional quilt filled with cotton batting. I balled it up, watching the door, snapped LuEllen's lighter under the blanket, and got it burning. When the fire was going hard, I threw it over across the hallway and over the railing onto the main floor.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Corbeil screamed, "What are you doing?"

"You burned Jack's house down," I shouted back I pulled the pack back on. "You burned it down: so suck on this."

Another row of gunfire and the edge of the door splintered. I risked a quick peek the instant it stopped, and sawfeltanother movement, on the stairs, going down. Had to risk it: crossed to the railing in the near dark, saw the blanket burning on a couch below. And in the glow of the small fire, movement.

I took a quick, unsteady shot, and missed. Corbeil turned and fired a burst along the railing, but by that time, I was further up the hall, crawling toward the bedroom where I came in. At the stairs, I paused.

Corbeil was screaming something unintelligible, and then a cloud exploded across the room below. He'd gotten a fire extinguisher from somewhere, CO2, and I fired another shot at what seemed to be the source of the cloud. He screamed again and the cloud suddenly went sideways. Had I hit him? I moved, fast and low as I could, scrambling, and nearly lost the gun.

He opened fire again, this time shooting at the railing further along the balcony, but not as far as I had gotten. The light was growing, the couch was now fully on fire.

Run, or wait? I could run fifty yards in maybe six or seven seconds, dressed as I was and carrying the pack But now, caught in the break-in without a chance to clean up behind myself, I really wouldn't mind seeing more of a fire. So I waited.

Corbeil, whether he was hit or not, was soon back with another extinguisher, this one firing some kind of spray. But the couch was burning too hard, the fire now running along what looked like a big Oriental carpet under a grand piano. He began shouting again, but I was concentrating on the gun. I had no wish to lose any shells, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how many times I'd pulled the trigger Four? Five? Was it empty?

I flipped the cylinder out, pulled the flashlight out of my jacket, looked at the primers. Four of them had firing-pin dents. Two shots left. I clicked the cylinder back into place, so a shell would come under the hammer with the next trigger pull.

Move or wait? The fire was growing and Corbeil had shouted something unintelligible again.

I shouted back "Satellites."

One loud word One word to get him thinking about what I was saying, get him looking up at the balcony I was out the window, over the edge, and running. Waiting for the impact at my back. Across the lighted lawn, running, running, thirty more steps, twenty, five, and down on the ground. Laying still. Then up and moving again, fast, running hard for fifty yards, dropping to the ground again. Listening.

I could hear Corbeil, still in the house, screaming, and I could see firelight in all the windows now.

A minute later, Corbeil ran out into the yard, running as I had, but at an opposite angle. He dropped to the ground, and I realized that from his angle, he could see most of the lighted yard around the housethat the only part that he couldn't see was the driveway. He must have thought that I was still inside, but if the fire was building, he knew I'd have to run for it. And I probably wouldn't run down the driveway. He waited, patiently, as the fire spread through his log palace, and began eating it alive.

Moving as slowly as I could, I shrugged off the pack and got out the night glasses. The yard lights were still burning, and the fire glowed from the windows of the house: I turned down the gain on the glasses, and looked toward the last place I'd seen Corbeil. He was still there, looking toward the house, then away, then back toward the house.

I studied him for another minute, then flattened into the ground cover. He had night glasses, just like mine, and was scanning the fields around him. I didn't dare move, except snakelike, pushing backward on my belly, watching him. Every time his face turned toward me, I flattened, frozen in place. I would wait fifteen seconds, then look: each time I expected a quick slap on the forehead and the final darkness.