I’m not the first to arrive. That would be Mrs. Beasley, arrayed this evening in an ankle-length dressing gown. She says not a word, but her expression communicates a sense of disgust, that such an inconvenience could be allowed to occur two nights in a row.

“Teddy!” Naomi shouts behind me. “To the safe room. Follow the drill, please. The alarms have already sounded.”

“It was Jack’s room again,” Teddy says, clearly terrified. “But he’s here this time.”

“I’ll check on Jack. Alice, you get Ming-Mei.”

Our Chinese visitor has been given the largest of the guest accommodations. I pound on the door and call her name but there is no reply, so I have to use the pass key and let myself in. It’s way less than a minute since the glass shattered and the alarms went off, but it seems much, much longer.

As I wake Ming-Mei in her bed she sits up befuddled—apparently she does not share my reluctance for sleeping pills—and she has to remove the foam earplugs from her ears before I can make myself understood.

“We may be under attack. Follow me, please.”

She has the good sense not to ask questions and follows, wearing only a light T-shirt that seems to emphasize her diminutive size. Approaching the safe room at a run—our international guest is fleet of foot—I’m greatly relieved to see Jack Delancey standing there, big as life.

“Hit the ceiling, just like last time,” he’s telling Naomi. “Had to be fired from ground level. Lucky for me I wasn’t looking out the window.”

“Indeed,” says Naomi. “Everybody in, quickly!”

But when the door to the safe room is shut, bolts engaged, and I finally have time to take a breath and count heads, Jack is not among us. And when I insist that the door be opened and he be admitted, Naomi insists otherwise. “Jack will take care of Jack. He’s very competent when it comes to self-defense. He’s very competent, period, as you must know.”

“What’s going on?” I demand. “Why did we violate protocol?”

Naomi holds up her hand, calling for silence. “Leave it for now,” she says softly. “When the all clear comes, as it soon will, it is crucial that none of us mention that Jack remained outside this room after the alarm sounded.”

So we wait. A minute or two passes. I can’t help noticing Teddy noticing Ming-Mei in her little thin T-shirt. Noticing the astonishingly beautiful woman the way a starving man notices a T-bone steak grilling on the other side of a restaurant window. Because poor Teddy knows he’s on the other side of the glass, at least I hope he does.

After five minutes or so a green light blinks, indicating the all clear from Beacon Security. At a nod from boss lady I release the magnetic bolts on the heavy steel door and swing it open. The Beacon Security chief nods politely, then makes his report. No surprise, it’s a repeat of last night’s incident. No one broke in; the alarms were tripped by a heavy-caliber lead slug shattering a window in Jack’s room. “I don’t know what to tell you,” the security guy says. “Someone is using you for target practice. Obviously, stay away from the windows. And I’m going to suggest that we post armed guards in the vicinity. Maybe we can catch the perp in the act, if he tries again.”

Naomi is dubious about the efficacy of that. “We’re already under surveillance by at least two law enforcement entities. If they didn’t see anything, your men are not likely to.”

He shrugs. “Up to you.”

The Beacon Security men dutifully file out, and each is logged exiting the residence. In the resulting silence I decide it’s time to escort Ming-Mei, who is visibly trembling, back to her guest suite.

“A moment, please,” Naomi cautions.

The delay is explained, at least partially, when Jack appears in the hallway, finger to his lips. He says something to Teddy, too quietly for me to pick up, and our young hacker looks hopeful. Why that should be I can’t imagine until it becomes clear that he’s been instructed to take Ming-Mei back to his room instead. “Lock the door and stay in there,” Jack whispers. “Come out for no one but me, okay?”

When they’re gone Jack turns to me with a grin and says, “Can you sound like her? Like Ming-Mei?”

“Are you serious?”

“Just fake it, that may be good enough.”

“What are you talking about?” I hiss.

“Pretend you’re her. Just for five minutes.”

“But I can’t—”

“Sure you can,” he says, taking my arm and guiding me in the direction of the guest suite.

He reaches behind his back and removes a handgun from his belt. Again with the finger to his lips. I don’t necessarily trust Jack Delancey with all things, but as it so happens I do trust him with my life. So I stop resisting and follow his lead.

Naomi is trailing behind us, and damned if she isn’t armed as well, with a .38 Smith & Wesson Airweight, small and light enough for her slender hands. She’s not exactly a gun enthusiast, but a while back we all received a few hours of training at the firing range, under Jack’s tutelage, so my first thought is, what about me? What about a weapon for me? How about sharing with your friends? My next thought is how to avoid getting caught in a cross fire. What the hell is going on? And if it’s going to get dangerous, how come we’re not donning body armor? Not that we have any body armor, but still, the thought occurs.

We’re outside the guest room where Ming-Mei has been staying.

“Say something,” Jack whispers, his lips so close to my ear that I can feel the warm pulse of his breath. “Try to sound like her.”

This is more embarrassing than having to stand up in front of everybody at speech class in ninth grade—did I mention I had a slight lisp at the time, since corrected?—but with a sense of here-goes-nothing, I attempt to speak in a very slight but very cultured Chinese accent, with British overtones. The best I can do is drop r’s and pitch my voice slightly higher. I end up sounding vaguely Polish.

“Thank you ve’y ve’y much. You’re a big strong man, Mistah Jack.”

Jack scowls—obviously he thinks my impression sucks—and gestures for me to open the door. “You’ll be fine, Ming-Mei. It was just a false alarm,” he says, a little too loudly. “If you need anything, ring the buzzer.”

I open the door. Nice digs, nearly as nice as mine, but with a trace of perfume that isn’t my thing, not at all. The bed is rumpled from when I roused her, and her clothing is strewn about. Hadn’t noticed that, either, what with all the excitement. Nor do I have any idea what Jack has in mind—he and Naomi have slipped into the room behind me, and taken up positions in opposite corners. Jack gestures for me to shut the door. Actually, if there’s going to be gunplay I’d just as soon leave, but that doesn’t seem to be part of the plan.

Very carefully Jack gets down on his knees and looks under the bed. He shakes his head. Naomi has moved to get an angle on the open bathroom door. She silently slips inside and quickly returns with a shake of her head.

Jack gestures at me, making a yawn. He wants me to yawn? Am I supposed to yawn in Chinese or what? Follow-up gestures indicate that I’m supposed to be preparing for bed. We’ll never win at pantomime if we can’t do better than this.

The pair of them, Jack and Naomi, raise their weapons in unison and point at the closet door. Jack edges closer, keeping to an angle, and presses the latch, swinging the door open. As befits a proper guest suite, it’s a sizable walk-in closet. And standing there with a creepy grin on his face is a man I’ve never seen before.

A big, rangy guy with a wool cap snugged down over his ears, rapper-style, and crazy dare-me eyes, and a great big gun in his hand.

“What do you know,” he says. “Mexican standoff. Or is it Chinese?”