Deep Trek

“Get yourself a gun, Dad,” he said, voice as calm as if he was suggesting putting more catsup on a toasted bun.

John was at the top of the stairs, his muscular body a pale blur in the darkness. “Don’t anyone touch the lights,” he called. “Little ones stay put. You all know what to do.”

Now both of the women were out of their rooms, with seventeen-year-old Pamela at their heels. All of them held identical .32-caliber automatics, SIG-Sauer P-230s, each with eight rounds. They ignored Mac, who was still standing on the stairs. Jeanne pushed past him and crouched at the bottom, while Angel went beyond her, stopping at the end of the hallway to kneel by the door through to the kitchen. Both of them kept silent. Pamela followed John toward the stairs to the third floor, where the attic windows would give a good field of fire out around the house on all sides.

Paul was still on the landing, checking that everyone was doing what they should be doing, going where they should be going. The noise from below and out in the watery moonlight was louder—more glass and breaking wood.

“Dad?” he said quietly.

“Yeah. Shit, these bastards, son.”

“Just go get a scattergun from our bedroom. They’re all loaded and ready to use.” His voice became sharper. “Don’t freeze on me, Dad. Either do it right now or go with the little ones. You’re in the fucking way, standing there.”

The snap of anger got through to Henderson McGill, and he nodded. “Sure, I hear you.”

He was up the stairs and into his sons’ room, seeing the gun cabinet against the wall. He’d built the shelves himself, over there, opposite the window, to accommodate Helen’s extensive and hideous collection of Gerty the Goat models, in all of the clattering shades of fluorescent purples and pinks. Now it was just wall-to-wall weaponry.

Above him there was the vibrating boom of guns opening fire on their attackers and a choking scream from the garden.

There was enough light for him to make out a row of Winchester pump-action shotguns, 12-gauge, 8-round, Defender 1700 models.

But the first weapon that came to his hand was his own scattergun. Mac had bought it in Boston around the time, seven or eight years ago, when he’d first started taking the two oldest boys duck shooting up in the Adirondacks.

It was an imported shotgun, from Italy. As he took it down, the blued-steel weapon felt just right, like using a familiar razor to shave. A 16-gauge pump action, it held only five rounds.

It was made by Luco Brazzi & Sons of Genoa. His fingers brushed over their engraved trademark on the receiver—a man’s head, with curly hair, eyes closed, surrounded by a number of lethal, elegant pike.

Mac had promised himself a second-hand English Purdey for his fiftieth birthday and had even got a separate account in the First National. He’d been halfway to the fifty-five thousand dollars it was likely to cost him. Maybe more with inflation.

“Not now,” he whispered to himself. “Not now and not ever.”

Clutching the weapon to his chest, Mac realized with a start that he’d been letting his mind wander. All around him there was a chaos of shooting and yelling. The harsh smell of cordite drifted into his nostrils.

The house was suffering a serious attack, and the family was in danger.

His house and his family.

“Right,” he said, levering one under the hammer. “Right.”

FOR ONE HEART-STOPPING, hideous moment, Mac nearly pulled the trigger on his children. His nerves were stretched so tight that the unexpected flurry of movement as he ran into the small dark bedroom made him jump.

Helen sat on the bed in a dressing gown, holding Sukie on her lap. Jocelyn and Jack were on either side of her. Helen had a chromed .22-caliber revolver on the blanket by her leg and she grabbed at it as her father appeared.

“Wow, sorry, Dad,” she hissed, giggling with tension. “Not used to having you around again.”

“Sure, munchkin, sure.” He steadied his own breathing as he flattened himself against the wall and squinted down into the narrow strip of side garden.

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