Still, he couldn’t very well do nothing, especially when the cat stopped growling long enough for him to hear (or think he heard, such was the distance) the leader say, faintly, “Now ... kill that man.”
His finger sweated against the trigger. Or could he? Do nothing, that was. After all, the armed men (and one woman) and the prisoners were interspersed so densely that it would virtually ensure collateral damage once the shooting started; why not let them off the S.O.B.? Let them off him and then let the cat do the rest ...
A thin voice startled him: “Do you have a clear shot? Why don’t you fire?” It was Chairman Dean, weaponless, of course; he’d crawled upon his elbows to lay next to him on the Gingerbread House’s peaked roof. “Jesus, they’re going to kill Red.”
And it was at precisely
