Merrill changed direction when he reached a driveway lined with young trees. He tried to pick up speed. The gate had been left open, but now someone activated the motor that began to close it. So much for advantage. Merrill had to run harder as the gate seemed to pick up speed. Beyond the gate he could see a half a dozen vehicles or more. The gate slammed him painfully into the masonry post. He had to pull himself the rest of the way as the gate pressed against him, heavy as a trolley car. It held his leg even after he got his torso inside, and finally claimed the shoe from his foot as he pulled that through. The gate clanged shut, the shoe bouncing on the blacktop out of Merrill’s reach. Merrill ran for the building as the forecourt filled with light.

He was bleeding from the ankle. With his back to the wall, he began moving toward the shadow. A voice sounded from a pair of speakers mounted on one of the light poles.

“Merrill!” It was Gregory. “Come out from behind that automobile! Do not put yourself and your wife at any further risk! Come out from behind that automobile now!”

Silence. Overhead, a window opened and a gun barrel protruded. Merrill kept moving, staying silent. The gun fired. A hole appeared in the windshield of a Bentley on the far side of the courtyard.

“This is no joke, Commander Merrill! Put down your weapons and come out with your hands in the air!”

Another pause, and more shooting. The windshield splintered. The hood jumped up like a startled hare. Merrill moved into the shadow and began to run. The shooting continued. An orange light made him look back. The car burst into flames and then exploded, the back end lifting a foot in the air. Merrill kept running.

The explosion made Amy scream in spite of herself. On one large color television screen up on the wall she could see that Sam was safe, running away in the darkness. Next to that image, another large color screen showed the Bentley being consumed by flames. Under the large screens — four in all, of which two now were blank — were three long rows of smaller black-and-white picture tubes, showing the house and grounds from every angle. Those smaller images leaped up onto the large screens in response to motion detectors built into the system, Chino had told her.

The sensors also activated video recording equipment, which he had demonstrated, replaying Sam squeezing from the closing gate forwards and backwards, fast and slow, poor Sam bouncing between the gate and the post again and again, protecting some kind of leather bundle, a gun in his hand like a TV private eye.