The Devil's Code

exactly one exit. Forget the computer. Move.
    I stuck the flashlight in my jacket pocket and pulled the revolver. The hallway was still dark, and I went into it hard and low, on my knees and elbows, the pistol in one hand, already pointed down the hall.
    I saw movement and then the overwhelming, bone-shaking blast and brilliant muzzle flash of a fully automatic weapon. A long burst burned past two feet overhead. I was in an ocean of noise and light, without being much aware of it: aware only that I wasn’t yet dead. I fired once, lurched forward to the bedroom door, and rolled through it.
    A half-second later, another burst chewed up thecarpet where I’d just been. I did a quick peek, then stuck my head around the corner and fired again.
    Bedroom. I looked around, panicked. I didn’t have a chance against the automatic weapon, if it came to a straight shootout. The bedroom had a glass door and a short balcony, but if I went over the side, I’d have to run across fifty yards of lighted, bald-as-a-pool-table lawn before there was any cover. I’d be cut in half before I made ten of them.
    What to do? Who was that out there? Had to be Corbeil.
    “Corbeil! Why are you killing us?”
    “Who the fuck are you?”
    “We’re just some guys, trying to stay away from the feds,” I shouted back. “Why are you killing us?”
    He said nothing for a moment, then: “Because I like it. I’m gonna cut you to pieces, dickhead.”
    No way for a CEO to talk, but he was right about one thing: if I moved, he’d cut me to pieces. I did an inventory. I had the flashlight, the revolver, the night glasses, LuEllen’s usual break-in kit . . .
    Ten seconds later, I had the quilt off the bed behind me. A fat one, a nice traditional quilt filled with cotton batting. I balled it up, watching the door, snapped LuEllen’s lighter under the blanket, and got it burning. When the fire was going hard, I threw it over across the hallway and over the railing onto the main floor.
    “What the fuck are you doing?” Corbeil screamed, “What are you doing?”
    “You burned Jack’s house down,” I shouted back. Ipulled the pack back on. “You burned it down: so suck on this.”
    Another row of gunfire and the edge of the door splintered. I risked a quick peek the instant it stopped, and saw—felt—another movement, on the stairs, going down. Had to risk it: crossed to the railing in the near dark, saw the blanket burning on a couch below. And in the glow of the small fire, movement.
    I took a quick, unsteady shot, and missed. Corbeil turned and fired a burst along the railing, but by that time, I was farther up the hall, crawling toward the bedroom where I came in. At the stairs, I paused.
    Corbeil was screaming something unintelligible, and then a cloud exploded across the room below. He’d gotten a fire extinguisher from somewhere, CO 2 , and I fired another shot at what seemed to be the source of the cloud. He screamed again and the cloud suddenly went sideways. Had I hit him? I moved, fast and low as I could, scrambling, and nearly lost the gun.
    He opened fire again, this time shooting at the railing farther along the balcony, but not as far as I had gotten. The light was growing: the couch was now fully on fire.
    Run, or wait? I could run fifty yards in maybe six or seven seconds, dressed as I was and carrying the pack. But now, caught in the break-in without a chance to clean up behind myself, I really wouldn’t mind seeing more of a fire. So I waited.
    Corbeil, whether he was hit or not, was soon back with another extinguisher, this one firing some kind of spray. But the couch was burning too hard, the fire nowrunning along what looked like a big Oriental carpet under a grand piano. He began shouting again, but I was concentrating on the gun. I had no wish to lose any shells, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember how many times I’d pulled the trigger. Four? Five? Was it empty?
    I flipped the cylinder out, pulled the flashlight out of my jacket, looked at the primers. Four of them had firing-pin dents. Two shots left. I clicked the cylinder back into place, so a shell would come under the hammer with the next trigger pull.
    Move or wait? The fire was growing and Corbeil had shouted something unintelligible again.
    I shouted back: “Satellites.”
    One loud word. One word to get him thinking about what I was saying, get him looking up at the balcony. I was out the window, over the edge, and running. Waiting for the