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As she reached for another azine, Rerand piano down the stairs It tipped, turned, and then slid with a crash and a dishars, then jammed in the stairwell But before it stopped, Re in past the broken front door As she reloaded, Saet more objects to block the stairs The first floor was lost

THE SECOND FLOOR

SAM AND PETE PUSHED A HEAVY CROSS-TRAINING MACHINE, and then a tread so it would be difficult for the intruders to hit anyone if they fired up the stairs, and the weight alone would probably keep the to stor and stepped back behind an overturned steel weight table and watched the stairway for any sign of activity All at once, from the floor below, there was a furious rattle of automatic-weapons fire, none of it directed at the stairwell “What are they doing?”

“Trying to fire upward at us through the floor,” said Sam “They won’t have much luck because all the floors are reinforced concrete Otherwise, we couldn’t have a pool up here”

There was an abrupt noise that sounded as though the firing had grown into a military battle andPete and Wendy looked out the front s “Look!” Wendy shouted

Outside, in the sky above the ocean, the air turned red, then blue, then white as flarelike pieces floated slowly down until they reached the black water, where they uished “Fireworks!”

As they watched, a streak of golden sparks shot upward from a raft tethered to a boat out in the cove When the projectile reached its apex, it blew up in a starburst, the fiery stars leaving behind burning trails like the drooping branches of atree

“They’re using fireworks to cover the noise!” Selma announced “Or to explain it People will think all the shots are part of a celebration”

“Right,” said Saos’”

Another shell was fired into the air and its explosion was green Another explosion replaced it with bright red, then yellow Each change was punctuated by an initial bang and then a staccato barrage of pops like the rattle of automatic weapons

Selma shouted, “The ! No you don’t!” There was another man on a ladder at the broken here Remi had pushed the first man off Selma held her pistol in both hands and fired four times before she hit him and he fell from thePete picked up the curtain rod Remi had used and pushed the ladder away from the house

“We’ve got to get the steel shutters deployed on this floor,” said Sa down the stairs that looks like part of a human, shoot it Pete, you watch the s If anybody shows up, do what Selma did Selma, watch my back”

Sam opened a small steel door in the wall by the front s He waited until the lights were off, then engaged the switch The electric roaned, but the shutters descended only another inch or two Sam took a small hand crank out of the box, knelt to stick it in a socket just above the sill, and turned it The shutter lowered slowly down to the sill He ain to crank it down But just as he did, a ladder appeared at the next one

A man scrambled up the ladder, punched the ith a ha a Škorpion automatic pistol Remi shot the arm before he could fire He dropped the weapon andlimp, and Pete pushed the

ladder over with the wooden pole