Janson shook his head disgustedly. Holmes was not his enemy, even if he thought he was. He craned around and, peering through a loophole in the elaborate semicircular pediment, was able to glimpse the brunette diagonally opposite. Would she take him out with one of her trademark double taps? She had seen what had happened, knew that her colleague was out of commission and that she would have to assume responsibility for a larger field. Would she wait until he moved from the protection of the second gable? The slotlike loophole was too narrow and deep to permit a clean shot from a diagonal perch. She would have to wait. Time was a sniper’s best friend—and his mortal foe.

He squinted and brought her face into focus. She was no longer in shooting position—had broken from her spot-weld with the rifle and was staring at her colleague with a look filled with uncertainty. A moment later, Janson saw a flicker of movement behind her, and then something more dramatic: an attic door burst open and a giant of a man loomed suddenly behind the slight brunette. He smashed something over her head—Janson could not quite make it out; it could have been the butt of a long firearm. The brown-haired woman slumped limply to the parapet, evidently unconscious. Now the giant seized her bolt-action rifle and squeezed off one, two, three shots to his right. The strangled cry from the adjoining roof told him that at least one had hit its target: Stephen Holmes.

Janson hazarded a quick look, and what he saw sickened him: the shots seemed casual, but were well aimed. The large-caliber bullets had blown off Holmes’s jaw. From the destroyed lower half of his face, blood drenched down his tunic; a final breath was expelled like noisy gargle, half cough, half feckless scream. Then Holmes toppled off his roof perch and tumbled down the tiled roof until he slammed into the parapet. Through the ornamental stonework, his lifeless brown eyes stared at Janson.

All that Janson knew was that the giant was no savior. He sprayed a long fusillade toward the hulking man who stood where the Cons Op sniper had been—it would force him into a defensive crouch, at least momentarily—then, using the various stone ornaments as handholds, quickly clambered down the side of the mansion, which was safely out of range. He hit the paved surface of the shadowed alley with as little noise as he could manage and, positioning himself behind two metal trash cans, studied the street scene in front of him.

The giant was fast, his agility astonishing for someone of his size. Already he was charging out the front door of the building, dragging the unconscious brunette with him like a sack. The man had a hideous, puckered scar running down his cheek, a grotesque memento of a violent past. His blue eyes were small, piggish but alert.