A series of low-pitched blasts told Janson that the cartridges on the rangetop skillet had been heated to the point of detonation. It would tell the gunmen that their quarry had retreated into the kitchen. Through the gap between the slats of the barn wall, he saw that a solitary gunman with a cradled automatic weapon remained behind; his partners had raced to the other side of the compound to join the others in their assault.

Janson withdrew his small Beretta and, through the same gap, aimed it at the burly, olive-clad man. Yet he could not fire yet—could not risk the gunshot being heard by others and exposing the subterfuge. He heard the footfalls of heavy boots drifting in from the main house: the other gunmen were splintering the house with their gunfire as they tried to discover Janson’s hiding place. Janson waited until he heard the immense boomroar of fifty shotgun cartridges exploding in the oven before he squeezed the trigger. The sound would be utterly lost amid the blast and the attendant confusion.

He fired at the exact instant.

Slowly, the burly man toppled over, face forward. His body made little sound as it hit the leafy ground cover.

The position was now unguarded: Janson unlatched a door and strode over to the fallen man, knowing that he would not be seen. For a moment, he contemplated disappearing into the dark thickets of the hillside; he could do so, had disappeared into similar terrains on other occasions. He was confident he could elude his pursuers and emerge safe, a day or two later, in one of the other hillside villages.

Then he remembered the slain woman, her savagely brutalized body, and any thought of flight vanished from his mind. His heart beat hard, and even the shadows of the evening seemed to be glimpsed through a curtain of red. He saw that his bullet had struck the gunman just above his hairline; only a rivulet of blood that made its way down his scalp to the top of his forehead revealed its lethal impact. He removed the dead man’s submachine gun and bandolier, and adjusted its sling around his own shoulders.

There was no time to lose.

The team of assailants was now gathered in the house, tramping around heavily, firing their weapons. He knew that their bullets were flying into armoires and closets and every other conceivable hiding place, steel-jacketed projectiles splintering into wood, seeking human flesh.

But they were the trapped ones now.