Two hours after Jack departed for his interview with Kathy Grayson at the Ritz, Peter Brandon was resting comfortably in his library and wondering if Jack would want to hire the woman Frank had so highly recommended. A quiet winter rain began with the onset of darkness. The fireplace threw a pleasant warm glow. He loved to sit by a fire. He knew his time was short, but he was pleased with the way his son was responding to his past. Jack seemed to have a natural feeling for this kind of work. Yes, he had done right to give Jack this opportunity.

Musing over Jack’s possible reaction to Miss Grayson, he heard Shadow barking and remembered he was outside. As he moved toward the back door, he heard Shadow’s barking change to a roaring growl followed by several gunshots. Peter yelled an alarm to Le Dinh and stepped quickly back into the library and took his Browning 9mm and an extra magazine out of his chair side table. He chambered a round and went to find Le Dinh. He heard breaking glass followed by several shotgun blasts and automatic weapons firing. He was moving down the hall to the living room, when he saw two dark figures coming toward him. Peter fired and kept firing. The first figure was hit and dropped. He shifted his fire to the second figure who had taken cover behind a seventeenth century American chest of drawers on the left side of the hallway. Peter emptied his thirteen round magazine and was reaching for another one when submachine gun fire from the hallway entrance struck him in the legs and chest. He felt himself falling. His last thought was he had cheated the doctors. He would die his way.

Since Shadow’s alarm at the back door, only thirty seconds had passed. The last assailant and the only person alive in the house took time to spread an accelerant and start a fire before he went out the back door and through the wooded park to his car. Peter had killed one of the attackers, Shadow another at the back door. Le Dinh’s shotgun had cut down a third at the front door before he and his wife died under a hail of bullets. Le Dinh was not unaccustomed to violence. He had been a decorated leader of one of the CIA’s Provincial Reconnaissance Units in Vietnam. Le Dinh and his wife were more than just servants who cooked and cleaned for Peter Brandon. Three of the armed attackers with surprise on their side had died in the attack. Before the remaining attacker reached his waiting car, sirens from the police and fire departments were entering the area.