“I never had any need for a gunsmith,” Rawls said. “Tech Services supplied what we needed. It didn’t have pearl grips, but it always worked good.” He handed back Stone’s gun.

Stone picked up the ejected round, reloaded the pistol, cocked and locked it and returned it to its holster.

“I had a call from Lance a minute ago,” Rawls said. “He tried you first, but I guess you’d already left the house.”

“What news?”

“Bad news: The two Russians Dick’s source overheard at the poker game are very bad actors named Gorky and Rastropov, former KGB. Like a lot of their colleagues they discovered that there was money to be made when the Soviet Union crumbled, and their training and experience, combined with their sociopathic tendencies, make them very dangerous. The Berlin station is looking for them now, but they’ve gone to ground, and it won’t be easy to find them. The word’s out, though, and you never know. If they buy a pack of cigarettes in the wrong shop, they’re toast.”

“So what do we do?”

“Use the burglar alarm and sleep lightly,” Rawls replied.

“Will do.”

“You’ve got a very secure house, you know. Did you ever take a close look at the front door?”

“No. I’ve noticed it’s heavy.”

“Take a look at mine,” Rawls said, beckoning him to the front door. He opened the door and showed Stone the edge. “It’s two one-inch-thick sheets of mahogany with a half-inch of steel plate sandwiched between. The door frame is steel, too, and it’s bolted to eight-by-eight posts set in concrete. It’s hanging on eight hinges.” He turned the thumb bolt on the inside, and three extra-large bolts slid out of the door, one each at the top and bottom of the door and the third in the traditional spot.

“That’s very impressive,” Stone said. “What about the rest of the house? The windows, for instance?”

“They’re all steel-framed, and the glass is armored and an inch thick. Dick’s house has the same.”

“None of it seemed to work for Dick.”

“He made a mistake; everybody does it sooner or later. If he’d had the Kirov call promptly, nobody would ever have gotten into the house alive. I’m surprised you didn’t find any weapons in the house.”

“I looked in all the cupboards,” Stone said. “I couldn’t find anything. I figure Dick kept the Keltec at his bedside. He heard something in the night, put on his pants and went downstairs. Somebody disarmed him, sat him down at the desk and shot him with his own gun, then went upstairs and shot his wife and daughter. He was wearing only trousers when they found him.”