Four black-clad sewer troopers crashed through the library’s tall windows boots first, glass spraying down like hail as they swung in on ropes.

Rip jumped off the couch and pulled a Tommy gun out of his wallet, smattering the windows with gunfire in one smooth motion.

The troopers landed on their feet and fired back, bullets pummeling into books and shelves.

Rip dove and rolled behind a bookshelf. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the far end. Just as a trooper rounded the corner and sprayed bullets down the aisle, he rounded the corner and surprised the one on the far side, still standing by the window he crashed through.

Two quick shots to the face, and the trooper went down.

The other three proved harder to subdue. They shifted as he shot down the length of the wall. Their broomhandles returned fire, bullets popping into his left arm and leg.

The door to the hallway flung open and Nancy ran into the library, wearing a long one-piece flannel nightgown and carrying a candlestick lamp.

“What’s going . . . AHHH!”

She turned and ran back out the door, bullets peppering the wall behind her.

Rip advanced, firing repeatedly at the closet man’s head until he dropped. The third gunman shot him from a distance, and he felt two more slugs burrow into his chest.

Rip unloaded a long string of bullets into his face, not even aiming for the eyeholes on the man’s mask, just firing indiscriminately as he walked forward.

The trooper flopped over, dead as Rip walked up.

He locked eyes with the last gunman, raised his gun and squeezed the trigger.

Click!

Rip could have sworn the man smiled under his gasmask. He pulled a knapsack off his back and brought out a huge mass of dynamite, three dozen sticks tied together into one large bundle, their fuses strung together.

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of matches, dropping several as he grasped one.

Rip reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the enhanced wrench. He activated [Vampiric Speed] and jumped forward, crossing the remaining distance in a blur.

With a final burst of adrenalin, he shoved the wrench into the man’s eye, breaking the glass of the mask with a little pop. The metal plunged deep into the man’s head.

He pulled it out and wiped the wrench off on the man’s clothes. Then he stopped and listened.

Outside he could hear night birds and crickets . . . and the soft thrum of overhead propellers.

He grabbed the dynamite bundle and stored it in his wallet, then picked up a fistful of matches. These he put in his pocket.

He looked at the ropes dangling from the broken windows and took a running jump at the closest one. Pulling himself hand over hand, he headed up to the townhome’s roof.

Outside, a dark mass hovered overhead, blocking out the stars. A few dim lights shined from the cabin, casting an eerie glow about a hundred feet above the house.

He wondered how the ground team was supposed to signal the airship. Or, were they going by preset times?

Either way, the objective obviously was to destroy the townhouse.

If no explosion occurs, he thought, at some point the boys upstairs are going to realize the jig is up.

As if in answer to his thoughts, he heard the faint whine of winches overhead. Four ropes dangling from the cabin down to the roof started retracting.

He watched as they lifted up, reeled back into the trap door they came from . . . and he had an idea.

“I’m going to pull a Bobby Chance.”

He opened his wallet and took out the dynamite bundle, then quickly headed over to the ropes. Grabbing one before it rose too high, he quickly looped it around the dynamite and tied it off.

He stared up at the dim lights and used [Mechanical Discernment] to gauge how fast the winches retracted the ropes. Then he pulled out the length of fuse he had purchased at the marketplace, and cut a couple feet off the spool. He tied this onto the bundles’ fuses as they ascended.

At last he reached down and struck a match, cupping his hand over the end of the levitating fuse. It caught just before rising out of reach.

The engines picked up as the pilot opened the throttle, and Rip watched the airship gain altitude, stately sailing away with the ropes retracting.

His [Night Vision] ticked up a point as he watched the sputtering fuse burn, the winch reeling in the rope. He stared for another long minute as the little flickering light slowly rose up to the cabin.

Finally, in the distance and high above, he saw the fuse’s light disappear inside the ship’s greater darkness.

He smiled and said, “Boom.”

A huge explosion tore through the night sky. In the enhanced cabin it seemed to be restricted, the force expending itself horizontally, with a portion blowing out the open trap door.

Rip thought it must have obliterated everything inside the airship.

Thick smoke spewed out, splotching out the stars like spilled ink.

Rip noticed the engines were no longer thrumming.

“I wonder if we burst the gas envelopes?”

The airship’s nose tilted down, imperceptibly at first then slowly dropping at an even steeper angle.

“Yup. It’s losing helium.”

The giant ship headed down faster now.

In the distance, Rip heard a policeman desperately blowing his whistle.