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compound that no one in their right mind would come after Sid this evening.
    As Court hung on, flying through the sky toward the roof, he allowed for the possibility that anyone who thought this might well be correct.
    He was not in his right mind.
    But now all his attention was focused on his immediate objective. The roof was steeply angled and just darker than the snow-covered forest beyond, and in the center of the mansion, a round clear dome bulged out like a blister. Court had seen the dome on overhead photos; it was an odd architectural feature for a forest dacha in Russia, even one as monstrous as this.
    Court scanned the length of the roof as he neared, looking for stationary guards or lookouts positioned there, but he saw no one.
    When he was less than fifty yards from contact, he realized he was veering to the left and dropping too low. He knew that by descending the ladder he would lower the center of gravity under the wings and cause the craft to lose altitude, and he’d allotted for this, but it seemed now he’d underestimated just how much effect hanging below the cockpit had on his flight path. As he watched the building rush up closer, he realized he now ran the risk of passing wide to the left, missing the roof altogether and tumbling to a landing on the lawn surrounded by drunk and armed goons or—and this could conceivably be worse—slamming into the flat wall of the mansion below the roof. If that happened, he knew the Russians would wake up in the morning to find a battered and frozen dead man on the ground next to the wall, surrounded by bloodred snow. He would be ID’d as Sid’s nemesis, the microlight would be discovered, and everyone would have a good laugh about the world’s greatest assassin dying while executing the world’s most asinine plan.
    But Court wasn’t going to let that happen. He race-climbed the ladder, putting himself back in line with the lower portion of the ceramic-tiled roof. At the same time he pulled on the right toggle cord of the delta wing, wrenching the microlight back to the correct flight path.
    He made it just in time. Eight feet from impact he let go of the ladder and made a controlled collision with the snow-covered ceramic tiles on the southwest corner of the building. He ran up the pitched roof several feet to slow himself, hands and feet scampering up to bleed off energy, and then he dropped down, his gloved hands and his soft padded kneepads absorbing most of the shock and the noise, and he found purchase with the rubber soles of his shoes.
    The rope ladder dragged across the snow on the roof, but silently, sliding behind the empty microlight, which missed the apex of the building by no more than twenty feet. Court steadied himself as he looked up and saw the rear of the vehicle in his NOD’s as it disappeared over the dome, sailing on toward the dense forest on the other side of the compound’s northern wall.
    The aircraft was lower than he’d envisioned, much lower. He could only hope now that it made it over the northern wall, and he hoped when it crashed there in the impenetrable forest it wouldn’t make too much noise.
    Court turned back around to face the property, and he scanned the grounds four stories below with his NOD’s, seeing all the men on the ground either stationary or moving idly in the distance.
    There were no shouts of alarm, no cracks of gunfire, and no movement that seemed out of place.
    Court took off his backpack, unzipped an outer pocket, and removed a second, smaller, snaking fuse full of fireworks, also attached to a wireless igniter. This string was a battery of Yanisars, a dozen four-inch cardboard tubes filled with a lift charge of black powder under a paper shell filled with more powder designed to create a bright flash and a loud report. He took off the rubber band, uncoiled the strand, and threw it over the south side of the mansion. It fell the four stories, landing in the snow.
    He re-donned his pack and moved up the