The Jaguar

Начало книги

The black van rolled across the barnyard in the rain and stopped beneath an enormous oak tree. It was a large vehicle but under the canopy it was poorly visible, a dark shape within greater darkness. From it the men spilled and advanced quietly to a stable where they paused, then to the flank of the barn, then in single file to the ranch house where they pooled in the overhang of the deck.

Upstairs a young man watched through a window as he buttoned on his jeans. He saw the dull glint of the van under the tree and men snaking through the night. He counted ten of them. He looked back across the bedroom at his security monitors but they told him that the gate had not been breached and none of the doors or windows of the outbuildings had been disturbed. No warning indicators, no audio alerts. Yet this. The dogs were kenneled for the storm. The rain belted the roof and he saw the silver lines of it slanting outside the windows and he understood that he might die here tonight but she did not have to. He was twenty-one years old.

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