Both bedrooms downstairs have easy access windows, and the footprints I’d seen had led to both of those windows, so I couldn’t be sure which bedroom he’d decided to enter. If my second-guessing of the intruder’s strategy was right, he’d have come in the window of the spare bedroom, the one that seemed not to be in use; but he may have been second-guessing me, and might have figured I’d use the spare bedroom to throw him off.

Whichever way he’d used to come in, he was by now surely finding out that the lumpish shape under the covers in the master bedroom’s bed was three pillows and not a body. In fact, if I listened real close, I might be able to pinpoint the exact moment when…

And I heard the thud.

I smiled.

There are a number of sounds in the world that can be described by the word “thud,” but there is only one sound like the thud that comes from a silenced automatic. And that thud had just sounded in the bedroom downstairs, right below me.

I had him. He was dead: Technically alive, yes, breathing. But dead.

The trick was, since another guy was outside, I probably should kill the one downstairs with his own gun. My. 38 was not silenced (as no silencer made can truly silence a revolver, with its exposed chamber) and if I fired it at him; the noise would probably, scare away his friend outside.

And I didn’t want him scared away.

I wanted him curious.

I wanted him to come in and say hello.

I wondered what the best way would be to get the silenced automatic away from the guy below. I don’t like to kill people with my hands; I’m not into that. Strangling people, breaking necks, snapping spines, you can have it.

But it looked like any way I figured it, some sort of struggle was going to be inevitable. Now, I’m not exactly a bruiser; I’m a couple inches under six foot, and at one hundred sixty pounds I was heavier than I’d been in a long time. I’m also no expert in karate or any of that; the only belt I wear holds my pants up. I know the basics of hand-to-hand, from Army training; but from practical experience I’ve found that whenever I’m in a kill-or-be-killed situation, pulling a trigger is all the exercise I crave.