Beatrix swivelled and took aim at the second man. The rattle of the MP5 had startled him into turning, and he was halfway around as Beatrix fired again. Her stance was solid enough that she was able to hold the machine pistol with no muzzle rise, and that ensured that her accuracy was good. She fired a second three-round burst: he was side-on, showing a narrow profile, and two of the shots found their mark. The third missed, blasting through a window, the glass falling down into the yard below.

Beatrix heard the baby’s cry again and advanced toward it, moving carefully into the room where she had just shot the second man. It wasn’t a bedroom, she realized: it was a nursery. A crib sat beneath a mobile of fluffy miniature animals that turned in the breeze that was blowing in from the shattered window.

The woman was there, in the corner. She had a baby in her arms. Her pistol was in a shoulder holster and her grasp of the baby to her chest meant that she was unable to reach for it.

“Don’t move,” Beatrix said.

The woman stepped back until she was against the wall, with nowhere else to go.

“Who are you?” Beatrix asked.

The woman didn’t answer.

Beatrix glanced at the man on the floor. One of the two bullets that had struck him had caught him in the side of the head; he would have been dead before he hit the floor. Beatrix couldn’t hear anything from the second bedroom. That man, too, could be safely assumed to be incapacitated.

Three down.

One left.

It was just her and this woman now.

“Put the baby down.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” the woman said. She spoke in a clear, uninflected voice. No accent that Beatrix could place.

Beatrix’s mouth was dry and she felt a moment of weakness that was unfamiliar to her. She swallowed, trying to get moisture into her mouth, but it was no good. The baby gazed at her.

“Put the baby down.”

The woman stared at her. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Last chance. Three.”

“Who sent you?” the woman asked.

Beatrix ignored the question. “Two.”

“Speak to them,” the woman urged.

“One—”

“Okay, okay,” the woman said

She started to lower the baby to the crib, but, before she reached it, she dropped the infant the rest of the way and reached for her pistol.

Beatrix pulled the trigger for a third time. The room was small, and Beatrix was too close to miss. All three bullets peppered the woman in a diagonal from the right shoulder down to the left hip. The impacts staggered her. She fell against the wall and then slumped down to a sitting position.

Beatrix approached, the muzzle of the machine pistol aimed at her head.