CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—THUNDER ON THE HORIZON

Kyle stalked directly toward the back door, his silenced ballistic pistol in his grip. He pointed it left, then right.

There were no guards patrolling outside.

Turning, he glanced at John, then tried the door handle. It was not locked. He motioned to John that he would take the left and John the right.

John nodded.

Kyle opened the door, pointed his pistol, went in and broke left. None of the guards were in sight. Kyle stalked across the huge kitchen space and down the corridor. He came to the corner and peeked ahead.

There was a guard at the end of the hall that opened up into a raised loft with a cascade of windows on the left and a view of the living room below on the right.

Turning around, he went back, met John in the middle. “Got one guy patrolling the hall,” he said. “He’s probably going to be coming this way in a minute or two. How about you?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s take my guy out then.”

John nodded. “All right, lead the way.”

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They went back to the corner and waited with their backs against the wall. The guard’s footsteps sounded across the runner and as soon as he broke the corner, Kyle reached out and grabbed him by the collar, pulled him forward into the barrel of his pistol and put to rounds through his chest.

“Five to go,” John said.

“It’s quiet,” Kyle said.

“We need to be careful.”

“Know where Styne’s at?”

John shook his head.

Leading the way, Kyle went down the hall and stopped in front of the windows. The clouds were even darker than they had been before and the sea below not even visible

Thunder rumbled across the sky.

Peeking down into the living room area, Kyle spotted a guard below him, walking toward the kitchen entrance they had come from.

Instead of letting the guy get away, he skirted past John and went down the stairs. At the sound of his footsteps across the floor, the guard turned around.

“Hey, do you think—“

“No,” Kyle said, and snapped a shot through his forehead.

The guard’s head jerked back as blood shot out of the back of his head, slamming into the wall behind him.

Glancing about for any indication of other guards, Kyle slung the nose of his pistol about, but there was no sign whatsoever.

This is way too easy.

If he went left, that would take him back to the backdoor on ground level. There was the living room here, and an open dining room on the other side with the front lawn visible through the windows.

Kyle motioned with two fingers that he was heading into the next room adjoining the living room. John followed him in, but they found no guards, only a pool table and some expensive leather furniture made from the skins of off world animals.

“All right,” Kyle said. “I think this level is clear.”

“Let’s split up,” John said. “I’ll take the lower levels, you the upper ones.”

“Why do I have to take the upper levels?”

“Why not?”

Kyle sighed. “Fine. Ping our wristlets in five.”

John nodded.