Hardbingers

1

Jack awoke with a start and looked at the red LED on his father's clock radio: 3:15. Had he been dreaming? Or had something else pulled him out of a sound sleep?

And then he heard it: a faint scratching from the living room. He slipped out of bed and padded to the bedroom door. The sound came from his right—from the front door.

The top half of the door was glass, divided into nine panes. He saw the silhouette of a man crouched on the far side. The scratching sound continued.

Some son of a bitch was trying to pick the lock.

A slew of thoughts raced through Jack's brain. First off, what was he after? He was making no attempt at discretion, so obviously he expected the place to be empty. A little homework and he'd know that Gateways was a gated community with regular security patrols, and so only the most paranoid residents had alarm systems. But if he knew Dad's place was empty, why was he picking the lock? Much easier to cut a hole in one of the panes, reach through, and unlock the door. Jack kept a glass cutter and a suction cup in his bag of tricks for just that purpose.

The only benefit to picking the lock was to hide the fact that the place had been broken into.

And why would he want to do that?

Jack turned and started toward the night table for a pistol—then realized he wasn't home. No weapon.

No, wait. The MIC.

He stepped to the closet and pulled out the sniper rifle. He didn't know if it was loaded and didn't much care. The WWII-vintage piece had a walnut stock and a steel butt plate. Why wake up the neighborhood with a shot when you have a ten-pound club?

He padded back to the living room, positioned himself so he'd be behind the door when it opened, and raised the rifle.

He waited.

Took a while—the guy wasn't adept—but he finally turned the cylinder and pushed open the door. When he stepped inside, Jack rammed the rifle's butt plate against the back of his head. Not too hard—didn't want to crack his skull or put him into a coma—but hard enough to subtract a hand-to-hand confrontation from the equation. Wasn't in the mood for any rough and tumble.

The guy gave a soft uUhn!" as his legs gave out. He dropped his little gym bag—very much like Jack's—and went to his knees. He knelt, swaying, looking like a churchgoer with vertigo. Jack was pondering whether or not to administer another tap when the guy fell forward and landed face first on the carpet.

Okay. Next step?

Duct tape. Dad always had been a firm believer in the wonders of the stuff and Jack was sure he'd seen a roll of it somewhere during his last trip. The porch—that was where he kept his tools.

Jack slammed his hip against the kitchen counter on his way to the rear of the house. Wouldn't have happened if he'd had the lights on, but he didn't want the security patrol to wonder why a supposedly empty house was lit up at three in the morning.

The light in the parking area behind the house pushed enough illumination through the porch jalousies for him to locate his father's toolbox. In the bottom compartment he found a roll and hurried back to the living room.