The night sights on the Glock were neon green-two dots on the rear sight and one dot front and center. Rapp had done this so many times he didn't even have to think about it-it was pure instinct. The front sight fell on the first target, the glowing green dot covering half the man's head. Rapp squeezed the trigger with a steady, even pull-the dot remained perfectly still and in focus, the target's head a slight blur. The trigger tripped the hammer and a hollow-tipped bullet spat from the end of the weapon. The front sight instantly fell on the next target, and Rapp repeated the process three more times in rapid succession. In less than two seconds all four men were down on the brick patio, limbs askew, weapons nearby, bullet holes in the center of their heads, and very much dead.

Rapp closed the window, left the room, and crossed the hall into another bedroom. An explosion rocked the house just as he was approaching the window and he heard something crash to the ground on the first floor. He quickly stepped off to the side and peered around the heavy drapes. He counted eight men, all dressed like the four he had just dispatched in the backyard. There were three black Suburbans parked in the driveway with emergency lights flashing.

Rapp again noted the poor tactics and discipline, and asked himself, "Who in the hell are these clowns?"

A second later Rapp noticed Vince Delgado, the head of Kennedy's security detail, lying on the ground. Rapp assumed he was dead. His jaw momentarily clenched in anger, and then he noticed one of the men barking orders at the others. He was holding an Uzi submachine gun in his right hand and looked really pissed off. The guy pointed his gun toward the west side of the house and yelled something at two of the men. Rapp started to move before they did. He backed away from the window and out of the room. As he moved quickly down the hallway, he caught a whiff of cordite that must have been coming from downstairs. If they got inside the house with all those guns, things might get a bit hairy. Rapp reached the small study at the end of the hall and went straight for the window. He twisted the lock and opened it. He heard voices almost immediately. A second later two men appeared beneath him, moving at a fast walk and talking to each other in Spanish.

Rapp frowned. Absolutely none of this was making sense. He let the men pass beneath him, leaned out the window, and shot each one through the top of the head from about fifteen feet. Rapp took a quick look around. No one else was in sight. He closed the window and wondered just what in the hell a couple of guys speaking Spanish were doing coming after him.

He hustled back to the bedroom at the front of the house and looked down to find only two men in sight. They were standing in front of the closest Suburban. One held a gun against his hip like some bored prison guard and the other an RPG. There had been eight before, minus the two that he had just killed. That meant there were at least four more men that he couldn't see. Rapp decided to thin the herd a little more and slowly opened the window. He heard a voice come from almost directly beneath him and assumed that the other four men were on the front porch trying to get the door open. The guys by the Suburban were at least eighty feet from the house, and the angle of the shot required him to kneel down. Rapp leveled the silenced pistol and squeezed off two quick rounds. Both men dropped to the ground, one of them propped up against the front tire of the nearest Suburban.

Rapp closed the window and did a quick magazine change, placing the partially used one in his back left pocket. The smell of cordite was growing stronger, and Rapp wondered if a fire had started on the first floor. He left the room and went for the center staircase. The explosions had knocked out the lights in the front entryway and the living room. A faint stream of light spilled down the hall from the kitchen, and Rapp thought he caught the glow of a small fire coming from somewhere in the living room. The smoke was definitely getting worse. A fresh volley of gunfire erupted, and Rapp heard rounds thudding into the bulletproof glass in the living room.

He was about to start for the back staircase when he noticed the holes that had been punched in the front door-undoubtedly from armor-piercing rounds. Rapp had an idea and moved down the main staircase as quickly as his injured legs would carry him. He eased his way up to a hole in the center of the doorway just as they started banging on the window in the living room. He peeked through a soda can-size opening, and sure enough there was a man standing no more than eight feet away with his back to him. Rapp figured they'd given up on the door and were trying their luck with the windows. He placed the silencer in the hole and nestled his head in behind the rear sight. The man's head looked as big as a beach ball at this distance. Rapp squeezed the trigger and sent a round straight through the guy's ear. The guy went limp as a noodle and right as he fell another guy came into view. The man watched his friend fall to the ground; the why hadn't yet registered with him. He was starting to open his mouth to sound the warning when Rapp sent a shot straight through his right eye.

The guy took a tumble off the porch into the bushes and someone started yelling in heavily accented English. Rapp decided two things at that moment. It was time to move to a new spot before these guys pumped another RPG through the front door, and he needed to take one of these morons alive so he could find out who in the hell they were and who had hired them. Staying in a crouch he hightailed it down the center hall to the kitchen. By his count there were at least two guys left on the porch and maybe more. He took a left through the kitchen and crossed the dining room. Straight ahead he saw a small fire in the corner of the living room and decided to scrap his plan. He went back to the patio door in the kitchen. The backyard was still flooded with security lights and he stopped to make sure no one was waiting for him. Rapp undid the lock and stepped onto the back patio, closing the door behind him. He decided to go left since that was the side of the house where he'd killed the two men who'd walked under the window. The other direction was the garage, and he had no idea what the situation was like over there. He stayed low and worked his way between the bushes and the house.

58

Castillo stood near the edge of the porch with a man on each side. He was getting more frustrated by the second. This was supposed to be easy. Slam a couple of RPGs through the front door, rush the house, and let loose with the machine guns. Just like Scarface. That's what he'd told his posse. There wasn't a guy in the gang who hadn't seen the movie at least ten times. "Shoot anything that moves," he'd told them, "other than each other." That had been his only real worry-that and getting back to the city without the cops stopping them. The tricked-up Suburbans would take care of that, though. They'd already deceived the stupid guards. The one dumb son of a bitch was so fooled he hadn't even drawn his weapon. Castillo realized that was about all that had gone right so far. They were supposed to have been inside the house almost five minutes ago. The boys had been pumped. He'd told them they'd all get $10,000 cash for a night's work, and get to kill a bunch of feds in the process.

One minute into the operation Castillo had been counting his money, and now things weren't looking so easy. Having given up on the door after four shots, he fired his last RPG round through the window. It created a nice clean hole, but other than that the window was still intact.

Castillo pointed his Uzi at the window and asked, "Are you guys ready?"