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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 He peeked back into the bathroom and watched as the shotgun was retracted through the blown-out drywall.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 sitting on the edge of the vanity near where the man had been tearing through the wall to get at Salomon.
    A good portion of the man’s suit coat and the shirt beneath were shredded. Once Ralston had ascertained that he had no pulse, he began peeling the strips of cloth away around his right armpit. He heard the closet door unlock, and seconds later Salomon was behind him.
    “Who the hell are they?” he asked.
    “Spetsnaz,” replied Ralston. “Russian Special Forces, I think.”
    “How can you tell?”
    Ralston lifted the dead man’s arm and pointed to the blue-black Cyrillic tattoo. “That’s how they mark their blood type.”
    “What the hell are they doing here? Why would Russian Special Forces soldiers want to kill me?”
    “You’re not the only one they came for.”
    “Oh, my God,” said Salomon. “Chip and Jeremy. They were downstairs. I heard two shots.” His voice trailed off.
    “They’re both dead. What were they doing here? And what the hell happened to your office?”
    “We were working on a film; a documentary,” Salomon said, and then changed the subject. “We need to call the police.”
    “No. We need to get someplace safe,” said Ralston. “We’ve got to think.”
    “Think?” replied Salomon. “This guy killed Chip and Jeremy and was trying to make me the third. He could be some homicidal maniac, for all we know. We need to call the cops.”
    Ralston stood up. “This is a professional wet work