He turned the corner and knew that the peace would not last. In the otherwise deserted streets, a heavily jacketed man sat across from the firehouse on a public bench in the tiny Veteran’s Park among last summer’s flower carcasses. The newspaper he held spread above his lap could not possibly be legible in the yellow glow of the single streetlight across the street.

“Hello,” Dom said with his most priestly smile.

The man looked startled at first, then grunted a quick, “Good evening, Father,” before he returned to his paper.

Dom noted the formality and ct least a Catholic.

There are no coincidences.

It all felt very wrong. Over the span of a second or two, he inventoried the status quo, beginning with the fact that Digger was in the middle of an uncontrolled shit storm. Add to that the fact that Venice didn’t answer her phone-Venice always answered her phone-and cap it with a stranger sitting in a place where no reasonable man would be, reading in light that allowed him to see virtually nothing.

Something bad was about to happen.

No coincidences.

Maybe something bad was already happening.

Dom said nothing more to the man. He just kept walking. He turned left at the corner of Gibbon Creek Road, at the far end of the firehouse, and fought the urge to quicken his pace as he turned left again and entered the alley formed by the portion of Jonathan’s brick wall that separated his parking lot from St. Kate’s. The night felt suddenly colder, and Dom found himself wishing that he’d grabbed a heavier jacket.

At the height of the workday, there would be as many as fifteen cars parked in the lot on the back side of the firehouse; at this time of night, it was usually barren. Tonight, however, the lot hosted a single vehicle, parked as far from the security light as possible. He thought he could see a silhouette behind the steering wheel, as if someone was watching the back door. He paused there in the mouth of the alley before continuing his stroll back up the hill toward the church.

Dom glanced up at the third floor as he strolled, hoping to see some sign of activity, but the blinds were all pulled, as they so often were when Venice worked alone at night.

Maybe he was overreacting. Jonathan was paranoid as hell that his friends and his staff might be victimized as a result of his work, and he’d years ago insisted that Venice and Dom both have sensors implanted under the skin near their armpits that would allow for easy tracking if the worst happened. He also insisted that they both carry panic buttons-Dom’s in the form of a crucifix, and Venice’s in the form of a gold pendant-that would kick emergency procedures into gear if needed. Venice had a panic button in her desk that would accomplish the same thing. If she were in the kind of trouble that Dom suspected, wouldn’t she have activated the system?

He decided he didn’t care. His father had once bestowed upon him some great advice: sometimes, if there is doubt, then there really is no doubt at all.

Dom took a deep breath and found a shadow where he felt most invisible. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number for the police department. He briefly thought about calling 9-1-1, but decided against bringing too much attention to what was fundamentally a gut feeling.

The smoky voice that answered the phone could have been male or female. “Fisherman’s Cove Police Department. Is this an emergency?”

“No emergency,” Dom said. “Is Chief Kramer in his office?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“This is Father D’Angelo with St. Katherine’s Parish. I’d like to speak with the chief if I could.”

“Good evening, Father. I’m sorry, sir, but the chief is not available at the moment. It’s a little late.”

Of course it was a little late. After ten-thirty, for hese the mines!”

“No!” Thomas and Stephenson answered together.

“Scorpion might be out there,” Thomas added.

He realized they were losing. Throwing Scorpion’s instructions to the wind, he’d changed the selector on his rifle from single-shot to three-round burst. The improved volume of fire slowed the attackers down, but as the breech on his weapon locked open for the third time and he inserted his fourth and final magazine, he realized that he was thirty rounds away from being in real trouble. Even as the thought passed through his mind, he fired another two bursts. Make that twenty-four rounds from a world of hurt.

He slid the empty mags across the floor to his mother. “Hurry, Mom!” he shouted. She moved in slow motion, as if in a trance.

There were no targets, per se, to shoot at. Instead, he found himself targeting the sparkles of muzzle flashes along the tree line and in the grass. His father had repositioned to the rear of the house again, where he apparently had all kinds of targets to shoot at, emptying clip after clip of automatic weapons fire through the two windows he commanded.

Out front, the man Thomas had shot would not shut up. He screamed like a wounded animal, begging for someone to help him. If it hadn’t been so unnerving, it would have been sad. Twice, as Thomas stuck his weapon through the open widow to take another shot at the tree line, he’d considered helping the poor bastard to a bullet to his head, but both times he stopped himself. What was the point of wasting a bullet on someone who was already hit?

He fired two more bursts. “Mom! Hurry on the reload! I’m almost out! You’ve got to work faster!”

But she’d either gone deaf or was ignoring him, because she just kept her head down and continued to fumble with the rifle he’d already slid to her. “Jesus, Mom! Hurry.” She was unmoved. It was as if she’d set a pace for herself, and was by God going to stick to it.

A two-man team charged forward, and he cut them down.

His breech locked again. Unarmed now, and facing a yardful of attackers, just what the hell was he supposed to do? As the wounded man continued to scream, Thomas heard his father fire another six or seven shots through the back window.

“This is fucking crazy,” he mumbled, and he scrambled on hands and knees across the wooden floor to his mother, who was crying as she struggled with the bullets.

“I’m sorry,” she snuffled. “I’m trying, I’m really trying.”

He snatched the magazine from her, along with the box of bullets, and scooted back toward the window. It felt about half-full. There had to be a better way.

Wait. There was a better way.

No, it was crazy.

No, it was the only answer.

Spinning like a propeller on the smooth pine floor, he scrambled back to his mother and grabbed her arm. “Mom, come with me,” he said.

She looked horrified. “I can’t.”

“You have to.” He tightened his grip and dragged her toward his window.

“Ow!” she hollered. “Thomas, you’re hurting me!”

He ignored her, even as he heard his father boom his name from the other room.

Once again at the window, he peeked up long enough to fire again into the night, and then he ducked down again. He was hined. “Someone has to reload. I have to reload. I promise I’ll do it faster.”

“Mom, goddammit, shut up and listen to me. All you have to do is fire out the window. Just for a few seconds.”

“I can’t.”

“And try not to hit me.”

That last part flew right by her, unnoticed. “I can’t do it, Thomas. Please don’t make me.”

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Then don’t,” he said.

He snapped his night vision back into place, and hefted himself up and over the sill into the night.

The rate of fire outside doubled.