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"Got to get out Quick They’ll be colanced at the Uzi "Who will be coe Kill you, kill Chris Co Now"

At that moment there was no deliriuer slack but taut with terror

All her training with guns and in the er seemed like hysterical precautions "Okay," she said, "we’ll get out as soon as I’ve had a look at that wound, see if it needs to be dressed"

"No! Now Out now"

"But-"

"Now," he insisted In his eyes was such a haunted look, she could almost believe that the assassins of whom he spoke were not ordinary in, demons with the ruthlessness and relentlessness of the soulless

"Okay," she said "We’ll get out now"

His hand fell away froan to mumble thickly, senselessly

As she hurried across the kitchen, intending to go upstairs and wake Chris, she heard her guardian speak drea htened her nonetheless

PART II

Pursuit

The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying

-SIR THOMAS BROWNE

Five

IAN ARMY OF SHADOWS

Laura switched on a lamp and shook Chris awake "Get dressed, honey Quickly"

"What’s happening?" he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes with his set out of here before they arrive Now hurry"

Chris had spent a year not onlyfor the moment when the deceptively placid events of daily life would be disrupted by another unexpected explosion of the chaos that lay at the heart of human existence, the chaos that from time to tiht his father had been murdered Chris had watched his un, had seen her collect an arsenal, had taken self-defense classes with her, and through it all he had retained the point of view and attitudes of a child, had seemed pretty much like any other child, if understandably melancholy since the death of his father But now in a ht-year-old; he did not whine or ask unnecessary questions; he was not quarrelsoot out of bed at once, and hurried to the closet

"Meet me in the kitchen," Laura said

"Okay, Mom"

She was proud of his responsible reaction and relieved that he would not delay thee he understood enough about the brevity and harshness of life to respond to a crisis with the swiftness and equani jeans and a blue-plaid, flannel shirt When she went to her bedroom, she only had to slip into a wool sweater, pull off her Rockport walking shoes, and put on a pair of rubberized hiking boots with lace-up tops

She had gotten rid of Danny’s clothes, so she had no coat for the wounded man in the kitchen She had plenty of blankets, however, and she grabbed two of those froht, she went to her office, opened the safe, and reuardian had given her a year ago She jammed it in her satchel-like purse

Downstairs she stopped at the front foyer closet for a blue ski jacket and the Uzi carbine that hung on the back of the door As she ht beyond the house or the sound of a car engine-but all reun on the table with the other one, then knelt beside her guardian, as unconscious again She unbuttoned his snoet lab coat, then his shirt, and looked at the gunshot wound in his chest It was high in his left shoulder, well above the heart, which was good, but he had lost a lot of blood; his clothes were soaked with it

"Moht