Read Online Home Invasion by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page A

followed him, rushing past a fat, middle-aged man who looked terrified to have a couple of armed strangers running through his room.
    Parker threw the glass door aside and lunged out onto the balcony. Ford was right behind him.
    “You know this is crazy, don’t you?” Parker flung over his shoulder.
    “Fastest way in there,” Ford replied.
    As a matter of fact, adrenaline was thundering through his veins and he felt great. For a lot of his career with the Company, he had been a handler, not a field agent. That aspect of the job had its rewards, but it was nothing like being on the ground and feeling like you were actually accomplishing something.
    The gap between balconies was about eight feet, plenty wide enough to discourage anybody who might be crazy enough to try to jump from one to another.
    Parker barely slowed down, though, as he rested his free hand on the railing, vaulted up, slapped a foot down onto the top of the rail, and pushed off.
    With six stories worth of empty air beneath him, he sailed across the gap, clearing the railing on the other balcony by perhaps a foot. He went down to hands and knees when he landed but managed to hang on to the gun.
    Ford was right behind him, and as the bigger agent made the leap, reason overwhelmed adrenaline and reminded him of what a big, bloody mess he would make down there by the pool if he failed to reach the other balcony.
    It would ruin the rest of the afternoon for the beautiful people around the pool, that was for sure.
    Ford didn’t completely clear the railing, but he got a foot on it and leaned forward desperately, letting his weight and momentum carry him onto the balcony of 627, where he landed in an awkward heap and rolled across the cement floor, scraping and bruising himself in the process.
    He came up on a knee in time to see Parker charging into the room where a struggle was going on. The little blond guy who was their target appeared to be trying to fight off a couple of ugly bruisers who had hired killer written all over them. They must not have been all that good at their job, though, or else the kid would already be dead by now.
    Instead, the target had backed into a corner between the bed and the wall and was flailing away at one of the intruders with what was left of a broken chair. He wasn’t big enough to have broken it himself, so he must have grabbed it during the fight.
    “Get away from him!” Parker yelled as he leveled his gun at the two attackers. The one closest to him wheeled around suddenly and launched a spinning high kick that caught Parker on the wrist and knocked the weapon out of his hand.
    Parker didn’t let that stop him. He stepped forward swiftly while the guy was still off-balance and grabbed his leg, wrapping his right arm around it. He used his left fist to hammer a blow into the side of the man’s head and then heaved on the leg. The man wound up on his butt.
    Meanwhile, Ford had made it into the room, too. He pointed his gun at the second would-be assassin as that man grabbed the broken chair leg away from the kid and tried to jab the jagged end of it into his throat. The young man twisted away just in time to avoid the thrust.
    Ford wasn’t going to give the guy a second chance. He fired across the bed, putting a round through the man’s forearm.
    The man howled in pain and dropped the chair leg. He whirled toward Ford, leaped onto the bed, and bounced off it like it was a trampoline, using it to send him into the air in a diving tackle. Ford pulled the trigger again but didn’t know if the shot hit the man. It certainly didn’t slow him down if it did. He crashed into Ford with the impact of a freight train.
    Ford went over backwards and the man landed on top of him, driving the air out of his lungs. Gasping for breath, Ford slapped around on the floor for the gun he had just dropped but failed to locate it. He grabbed the phone, though, which had been knocked off the table where it usually sat, and smashed it on