Dryden pushed off from the tree he rested against and got his hands around one just below and to its left. Through the boughs of the forest, he could see the switchback road fifty yards downhill.

The road wasn’t an option: the gunman could already be in his car, coasting down to some vantage point from which to lie in wait.

Dryden looked sideways along the face of the slope. In that direction the screen of trees went on for at least a hundred yards—probably farther. At some point the grove would end at one of the other estates perched along the road. With luck there would be someone home who could call the police. If there wasn’t, he could break a window and trigger an alarm, and the authorities would be there just as quickly. Cops tended to show up fast in neighborhoods like this.

Dryden moved to the next tree. Then the next. He’d just braced himself to move again when the gunman landed sprawling on the open slope above, exactly where he himself had dropped fifteen seconds before.

The man tucked and rolled, then tumbled out of control just as Dryden had done, though in this case the plunge seemed involuntary. The guy was trying to stop, but failing.

Dryden saw why: the man still held the gun, which left him only one hand with which to check his momentum. As Dryden watched, the gunman rolled into the shade of the pines, passing within twenty feet of where he himself now crouched, without stopping.

Thirty feet farther down, the guy’s leg snagged a trunk that spun him out flat, all four limbs thrown outward like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man, but facedown.

The pistol got away from him. It skated five feet out of his reach, coming to rest under a bushy sapling.

The guy slid to a stop, and was up in a crouch half a second later, head turning fast, eyes going everywhere.

The tree Dryden was braced against had dense boughs all the way down to ground level. Their visual cover should be fine if he held still.

The man below swept his gaze upward, right past the spot where Dryden half knelt. No reaction. Not so much as a flicker of the eyelids.

A moment later, finished with his initial scan, the man dropped his focus to the space immediately around him. His head jerked left and right, his eyes darting over the carpet of needles.

Looking for the gun.

It was clear he would spot it in a matter of seconds. At the moment he was facing the wrong way—the sapling that partially concealed it was directly behind him—but he was already turning, ten degrees at a time, being methodical.

He was halfway there now. Three-quarters—

Dryden vaulted upright from his crouch, threw himself sideways from the pine trunk, and screamed.