Full Black - Brad Thor [11]
Salomon’s question was answered when the man passed back under the camera a moment later with a fireplace tool and disappeared from view once again.
The producer strained to see what the man was up to, but the monitor provided only a very limited field of view. The security system, like the panic room, had come with the house and had been installed by the previous owner. Salomon had never really thought about it much. It was only now that he realized that a pan-and-tilt camera would have been infinitely more useful than a static, fixed lens.
It was at that moment that all the power went out. With the phone line cut and his cell phone signal having somehow been jammed, Salomon wasn’t surprised when the emergency generator failed to kick in. Whoever had cut the power knew what he was doing. He was now effectively blind.
He wasn’t, however, deaf, and his heart soon choked his throat when he figured out where the intruder was and what he was doing with the fireplace poker.
The first thud had been somewhat displaced, but Salomon locked on to the second swing of the poker like a sonar operator.
The sounds had come from the far end of the closet. On the other side was the master bath. Using the poker, the intruder was clawing his way through the drywall and into what really wasn’t a true panic room, but rather just a closet with a very heavy door.
It was a poorly thought out feature that provided a false sense of security and would only slow, but not stop, a determined attacker. It dawned on Salomon how much trouble he was in. He was trapped.
Though he couldn’t see the intruder, he could hear huge pieces of drywall being ripped away on the bathroom side of the wall. Any moment now, he feared, the attacker was going to burst through into the closet. Salomon had one ace up his sleeve and he reached for it.
The Mossberg tactical shotgun had been a gift. A friend, moving to New York City, had been afraid to take it with him for fear of running afoul of antigun laws. With its pistol grip, short barrel, and crenelated muzzlebrake Salomon could understand why. He’d kept the weapon around “just in case,” figuring if he ever got in trouble for owning it, he could let his lawyers straighten it out. They could simply claim that it had been taken from one of his film sets as a souvenir and that he had no idea it was actually real.
Of course he’d also have to claim that he didn’t know it was loaded, but a courtroom appearance was the furthest thing from his mind at this point. All he cared about was staying alive.
Racking the slide, he made ready.
As Ralston charged into the bedroom, he heard the blast of a shotgun, and his heart stopped.
Rushing to the door of the master bath, he saw blood and bits of flesh everywhere. Risking a closer look, he stepped into the bathroom and saw a body on the floor and the distinctive door-breacher muzzlebrake of Salomon’s shotgun protruding from the far wall. He leaped out of the bathroom just as the weapon erupted with another roar. Twelve-gauge shot shattered the marble tiles right where he had been standing.
“Damn it, Larry!” Ralston yelled. “Cease fire! It’s me! Luke!”
His ears were ringing even harder now, and he wondered if his hearing would ever fully return. “I need to get into the bathroom and see if he’s dead. Don’t you fucking shoot me,” he ordered. “Okay?”
There was a muffled assent from Salomon. Whether it was muffled because his hearing was shot or because it was coming from behind a wall, Ralston couldn’t be sure. He peeked back into the bathroom and watched as the shotgun was retracted through the blown-out drywall.
Ralston grabbed two towels and threw them down so he didn’t have to walk across the bloody floor in his stocking feet.
The intruder must have been very close when the shotgun went off, as it had blown a huge hole in his chest. Ralston looked for any weapon he might have been carrying and saw another silenced pistol