Page 14 of The Medici Return

Doors opened and three uniformed officers emerged.

Through the open bedroom door he heard them enter the house. There’d been no door forced. Which meant they had a key. One of the explicit conditions of his assignment was that no one know that he’d been here, and he’d assured the Swiss Guard that this would not be a problem.

But it had just become one.

He stepped to the open bedroom door and peered out. Footsteps bounded upward. The officers came to the second-floor landing and turned up toward the third. They were definitely coming his way.

Had he triggered some sort of alarm?

Hard to say.

He shut the door and locked it.

One thing he’d never done was romanticize his work. As an intelligence officer he’d learned that the job was a constant struggle with three emotions. Uncertainty, fear, and, the worst, panic. Master those and your odds for success increased exponentially. Skills could be taught. But desire was innate. You were either born with it or not. And he was definitely born with it. He missed being a full-time Magellan Billet agent. Retirement, though welcomed,came with its limitations. Most of them were good. Some not so much. Thankfully, his usefulness remained and his actions generally met with success.

So be successful.

He rushed over to the window and opened it, easing himself out onto the narrow sill he’d noticed a few moments ago, wondering if his nearly fifty-year-old muscles could stand the strain. He kept his spine ruler-straight against the outer wall and fought hard not to tip forward. Thankfully, the sill was about ten inches wide and heights were never a problem for him. He reached the corner and stared down at the high-pitched roof of a wing that extended out from the main house ten to fifteen feet down. Steep. But an iron exhaust pipe protruded about halfway down. Could he snag it?

One way to find out.

He jumped, arms swinging to add momentum to the leap, hands reaching out for support that wasn’t there. He hit the slate feetfirst and his knees collapsed, fingers probing for a hold as his body slid downward. He threw all of his weight up through his hips and shoulders, swinging his legs in a scissors motion, arms stretched out, trying to slow the skid. His hands found the iron pipe and he grabbed hold, stopping his slide.

He faced downward toward the slate and lay still, allowing the blood to flow back to his extremities. Then rolled over. The sun moved in and out of clouds, casting harsh moving shadows. All he had to do was get off the roof. The window he’d escaped from was around the corner, out of sight. Four more windows faced him from the main wing, looking down.

One of them opened.

A policeman appeared, poking his upper body out.

And aimed a gun.

CHAPTER 7

COTTON RELEASED HIS GRIP ON THE STEEL PIPE EXTENDING FROM THEroof and rolled his body across the slate.

Just as the cop fired.

The bullet ricocheted off the roof.

He kept rolling until he came to a valley, which allowed him to get to his feet, balancing a foot on either side. Before the man could readjust his aim and zero in on the new target, he leaped over the top edge to the other side of the roof. But the pitch was so steep that he had no choice but to hang on to the peak with his hands. At least he was out of the line of fire, except for his fingers.

Another round found the roof on the other side of the gable.

He let go and started a slide down the steep slate finishing with his feet catching in the copper gutters. How far a drop from there to the ground? Only one way to find out. He wiggled to the left and swung himself around on his belly until he faced the tarnished gutter. A quick glance over the leading edge and he saw the drop down was about ten feet.

But he could minimize that.

He gripped the gutter and swung his body off the roof, holding on and hoping the copper could handle his weight.

It couldn’t.

The gutter broke free from its attachments.

He straightened out his arms and cut about eight feet off the ten. An easy matter to drop from there to the ground.

Here he was again.

Right in the middle of the fray.