Unslinging the rifle, I work the bolt and chamber a round. Then, with a last glance at the main house, I start running.

Eight seconds of sprinting carries us to the door of the dependency.

Snake didn’t bother to lock the door; it opens almost soundlessly. The interior barely qualifies as spartan. Moth-eaten sofa, a Formica table, a couple of chairs. One sink with rusting fittings. The stink of mildew permeates the air, and I’d bet my last dollar termites have eaten 80 percent of the wood in the walls. The back room contains two cots and a scarred end table. There’s no toilet I can see. Probably an outhouse in the back.

“How you want to play it?” I ask, gripping the rifle tight.

Lincoln looks around. “Stand to each side of the door, so we’re behind them as they come in. Put ’em together on that sofa, too low to jump up and make a move.”

“You’re not planning to shoot them as they come in?”

Lincoln shrugs. “That’s fine with me. I thought you wanted to talk to them. I saw you put your tape recorder in your pocket.”

“I’d prefer it.”

“I’ll give you two minutes. But if they even think about shooting, they’re dead.”

I nod.

“If we have to open up,” he says, “I’ll shoot Snake, and you take whichever one of the others looks likely to fire first. That way we don’t throw away our lives shooting the same person.”

“Maybe you are thinking after all.”

Lincoln starts to move toward a window, but I hiss at him, and he freezes.

“You hear something?” he asks.

“No. But don’t go near a window. Your night vision will suck, being in this light, and they’ll see you long before you see them. Let’s sit with our backs against the front wall. They shouldn’t see us as they come in, and we’ll be behind them. They’ll also be walking in out of the dark, which should give us a slight edge.”

Lincoln nods slowly. “Thinking about it like that . . . it seems best to shoot right away. At least take out the woman and the blond kid.”

“Alois.”

“Whatever. If we shoot them outright, Snake will realize it’s suicide to keep fighting.”

“Been in a lot of gunfights, have you?”

Lincoln glares at me. “More than you.”

“Not as many as Snake, though. Whatever that old bastard does, the one thing he won’t do is lose his nerve. Don’t think of him as an old man. He’s a wily old crop duster who never refused a dare in his life. He’s walked away from two plane crashes that I know about, and he was a sniper in Korea. He’s killed a lot of people, both legally and otherwise. So don’t count on being able to predict what he’ll do.”