The Mercedes sat high off the ground, but the snow was deep. It got into Ben’s eyes and nose and mouth and for a few moments he was thrashing blindly to crawl out from under the other side of the car. Knees and elbows, his back raking against the car’s underbelly. He rolled out from underneath and dragged his bag with him. Grace was three feet away, cringing under cover. The shooter had paused firing and was moving around the front of the car with the pistol in both hands, hunting for his targets. In about two seconds he was going to have a clear shot at them. Grace first, because she would be the closest. Then Ben.

No way. Not going to happen.

Because now Ben’s hand was inside his bag. Fingers closing on the butt of the sawn-off shotgun within. Two twelve-gauge buckshot rounds loaded in the chambers, strikers already cocked and ready. No time to take it out. No time to hesitate. No time to take aim either, but with a sawn-off hand cannon at short range no aim was necessary.

He didn’t want to do it. Hated it with all his heart and soul. But the shooter was leaving him no choice. The guy was coming on another step around the front of the car. The gun tightly clasped in his black-gloved hands. His eyes burning with the heat of battle and his cheeks flushed red and steam billowing from his open mouth like dragon’s breath. Fresh from the last kill and ready for more. Seeing his targets hunkered down in the snow. Raising his pistol to open fire on them.

Ben’s thumb found the safety catch. A simple sliding button on the tang, backward for safe, forward for fire. He felt the click. Forefinger on the trigger, the whole bag raised in the air with the gun still inside it, pointing at the shooter’s chest. Then the resistance of the trigger broke and the weapon went off like a grenade and kicked back hard against the palm of Ben’s hand as it blasted its devastating payload out of the bottom of the bag.

The heavy thump of the gunshot echoed over the field, far louder than the snappy reports of the pistol. The shooter caught the full blast of the twelve-gauge buckshot round square in the chest and went straight down, arms outflung. He crashed backwards into the snow, and it was over.

Chapter 32

The exchange had lasted less than five seconds. Ben ejected the smoking shell from his weapon. He wouldn’t be needing the second one. The guy was lying on his back as limp as a boned duck, the white snow turning pink all around him, eyes staring straight up at the clouds.