Seth fought back the panic and let the old police survival instincts take over. He grabbed the front of Smith’s coat, brought the man to cover behind the cedars, then squatted down beside him as more rifle shots flailed the woods.

Where were they? He wondered, as he pulled the .357 Magnum from his coat pocket. With high-powered rifles and laser scopes, they could be far away, anywhere, even outside the range of the Magnum. The woods were silent again. Seth strained to hear his enemies, but all he heard was Smith’s laborious breathing. Seth bent his head low to hear what the man was trying to tell him.

“Brow … brun …” Smith’s voice faded.

Ridgeway bent low over the dying man, trying to snare his last words. But he was too late. Ridgeway felt Smith’s body go limp in his arms.

Brow, brun. Ridgeway turned the ragged syllables over in his mind a few times, finally deciding that the word Smith had been trying to say was “brown.” Brown? What could it mean?

But Seth had no time to ponder the priest’s last words. He heard a gunshot and then, a split second later, saw splinters explode in front of his eyes as a slug embedded itself in the tree trunk just inches from his face.

Seth dropped Smith’s body and rolled away from the tree as a volley of slugs smashed into the tree. Rolling to his feet, Seth raised the Magnum and whirled frantically, trying to spot the gunman. Where was he? How could you strike back at an invisible enemy? Before he could answer his own question, two more shots raised the leaves at his feet. Then he saw them: first two red dots and then three. Swarming about him, dancing about the ground and across his clothing like a flight of lethal stinging insects. There was more than one gunman. Seth’s breath came fast and heavy now. He lunged away from the spots, and as he did slugs following the paths of the laser sniper sights plowed into the ground and tossed wet earth and leaves into the air.

It was then that he heard them. From behind. No. In front. They were all around him, closing in. The red dots had returned and again Seth lunged out of their paths. But the gunmen were more methodical, more deliberate, this time. Seth pointed the Magnum in the direction of the first sound and fired. But there was no sound of pain, no cry of surprise. Just the crack of another rifle shot and the searing burning pain across his right side.

Christ! Seth thought, as his left hand touched the wound and came away red and sticky. A quick probe with his fingers assured him that the damage was slight. It was close, though. Too close. He tried to pray, to ask for help. But the words, even the thoughts would not come.

Instead, he cursed under his breath, then jammed the Magnum into his coat pocket and scrambled up the short embankment in the direction from which he had come.