Quietly, Wolf edged forward to the street, automatically noting that his men were doing the same. Several of the guards had turned, were running back toward the source of the excitement, and others were turned toward it. But those around Mayne Landing had not responded. They were keeping their eyes fixed on the crowd. They were too well trained to be drawn off, and Wolf cursed under his breath.
He stopped his forward motion and waited, rocking on the balls of his feet. This was the part he hadn't told his five about.
Suddenly there was a flurry in the crowd on the opposite side of the street. The nearest guard whirled, in time to draw his hand gun and fire. The first of the five sprawled in the street, a bloody stump where his head had been. But the guard's blast had not been in time to stop the long mowing knife that buried itself to the hilt in his throat. He lurched forward, dropping the hand gun. His momentum carried him almost into the edge of the crowd, and a woman screamed hysterically.
Wolf's other men had been only a fraction of a second behind the first, and the street was now a chaos of shouting and the sharp, flat reports of the guards' hand guns. The crowd milled frantically, adding to the confusion as the attackers leaped at the procession.
Wolf waited, waited, watching for the single split-second when the guards were fully engaged with the crowd.
Then it came, and their heads were momentarily turned away from Mayne Landing.
Wolf sprinted from the crowd, the short stiletto cradled in his hand. He leaped to the side of the ground car just as Mayne Landing turned toward him.
He saw the old man's face clearly in that moment. It held no fear, but only an unbelievable surprise, an astonishment beyond understanding. Then the stiletto slid gently into the throat, severing the jugular, and all surprise and emotion was lost in the implacable blank agony of death. The still-pumping heart forced a pulsing stream of bright arterial blood around the blade of the knife.
