Caller unknown, p.35
Caller Unknown, page 35
“What the… ?” the Sniper whispered. The tail-wagging increased in frenzy and it let out a half-joyous, half-nervous bark, not over Woody’s corpse but at something hidden within the treeline.
The Sniper lifted the scope. The trees zoomed into focus. It was dark as sin in there, but he found what he was looking for. That old Bahamian fishing hat with its feathered lures pinned through its crown, and beneath it, harder to see, a camouflage jacket. He braced the rifle on a rock, pushed the select button to auto and squeezed the trigger. All five bullets in the chamber released silently in under two seconds, the tree and branches around the jacket exploded, and the hat went whirling.
The dog appeared confused by the riot of splintered wood and needles caused by the rounds and went scampering down the drive toward the fire.
Nothing else moved. He must have hit. Time to check his work. He slammed another magazine home, broke cover and went running across the gravel.
Jim hadn’t forgotten Max, but he hoped the dog, confused by the sudden turn of events on the drive, had hightailed it back to the turnaround and would stay there. Max was well trained. But he was also loyal. This last troubled him. He had just taken up position a few yards to the left of where he had left the decoy by the burned man’s corpse and was glancing from right to left and back again, trying to get a bead on the flanking parties, when Max appeared in the curve of the road and came slinking down the drive. Jim let out a soft curse. Max was sure to pick up his scent even with the blood stink and smoke in this particular corner of hell. Sure enough, the dog paused, sniffing at the blood and brain splatter on the ground by the corpse, then let out one nervous bark, as if fearful of reprimand, and stepped toward where Jim had hung his hat and jacket.
There was a sudden commotion of cracking branches and the dull thud of rounds impacting wood. Max turned on his heels and went scampering down the drive, past Jim’s position.
At that moment, a figure appeared from cover at the edge of the drive and began to cross it in a crouching run. It was a man in a black forensic-style suit, holding the scoped rifle in one hand. Jim brought the Winchester up in one motion: eighty yards, no windage, a level shot and the guy not crossing his sights laterally but actually running almost directly toward his position. He aimed just a little ahead of the mass for deflection…
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The Sniper was in mid-stride when the bullet came out of the woods. It was as if a baseball bat hit his chest as the .308 round smashed his right fifth rib, sectioned his right lung and nicked the right pulmonary artery. The shot turned him around, the gun falling from his suddenly nerveless hands. He rolled twice, staring up at the gray sky. He tasted blood in his mouth.
Christ, he thought. Everything was slipping away… But it was OK, the gradual blackening of his vision somehow numbed the pain, like a kindly nurse drawing the curtains against the harsh light of the sky. Yes, it was getting darker, but there was a white dot growing bigger and bigger in the darkness, filling his vision. Something was emerging from the coming night, taking shape, displacing the darkness.
It was the newspaper picture—that long ago picture of the old woman screaming over her headless daughter… and then even that was gone…
One shot. One goddam fine shot, Jim thought. The guy was lying on his back, both arms splayed out to his sides, the rifle by his feet. He had come to rest only a few feet from the burned corpse. Jim was sure the guy was dead. He had seen his chest heave a few times, but now it was still.
Jim remained motionless, staring at the distant hilltop through the trees. No movement. The second man had vanished in the direction of the cabin. Had he heard the shot?
Now Max reappeared from that direction, tail going sideways.
“Still, boy,” Jim ordered and the dog went prone, cocking his head to one side inquisitively.
Jim didn’t know how the other guy was armed. Another sniper? The smoke and heat haze made the hillside near the boathouse difficult to discern. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as the sniper and cross the driveway. He was going to have to work his way through the dense undergrowth. He removed his belt and looped it through Max’s collar.
“Still, now, very still,” he whispered to him. The dog whined, then hunkered down. Jim’s camo pants were slipping slightly down his narrow hips and even the heat of the fire could not keep off the December chill. He went into the trees and unhooked his camouflage jacket from the branch. Four ragged holes had pierced it, but it would have to do. He left the maroon fishing hat where it had spun away after being hit by the first shot. He took a deep breath. One more guy, then find Ed.
Ed had found a blister pack of Tylenol lying on the ground and dry-swallowed a couple. Despite the chill, he was thirsty. His tongue felt like a dead snake.
He glanced to his left—boat doors and the concrete slipway and the dinghy bobbing there. One last chance. He wondered if the outboard would work, despite the years of disuse. Why hadn’t he checked the spark? He imagined the contact: corroded, inert…
There was a new sound: the report of a rifle. He knew that sound. Had heard it a thousand times in his youth. A Winchester. Jim was here.
His arrival might distract the guy who had him pinned down. He got to his knees, praying that the sniper no longer had the boathouse under his scope, and scuttle-ran to the slipway and the dinghy and pulled on the outboard’s start cord. He cursed himself for not checking the outboard earlier; the cord felt slack, but halfway through this pull he felt the telltale resistance, a sudden roar, blue-gray fumes erupting from the exhaust. He clamped the throttle grip, quickly wound the duct tape he had left hanging next to it around it three times, pushed the inflatable further out into the lake and dropped the outboard into the water. It set off in an almost straight line as Ed ducked back inside the double doors.
Doc started gingerly down the steep slope, cursing his choice of footwear. His loafers were office use, with slick soles. He was careful to place them so he didn’t trip over the rocks and fir saplings, but he was finding it hard to balance with the case in one hand and the gun in the other.
It took about five minutes to climb down the hill. Ahead, the fire had reached the front porch of the cabin. The wood was being eaten in a frenzy of orange and red flames that cast a hellish glow over the surrounding area. As he approached the boathouse, the trees began to thin. He took a deep breath and ran forward from tree trunk to tree trunk, then squatted behind a thick pine on the edge of the drive and risked a peek around it. The air at this lower level was thick with smoke. The boathouse doors were now masked by the corner of the cabin. The only visible point of egress was the shattered side window overlooking the parking lot. No movement there.
Had one of the Sniper’s rounds actually done for Constance? There was the sudden sound of a dog barking and then a shot off to his left. He immediately crouched lower. It must be the older guy engaging with the Sniper. Because of the suppressor on the Barrett, Doc had no idea whether the Sniper had returned fire. The single audible shot could be a good thing, or a very bad thing…
Another sound. The roar of an outboard from the lakeside of the boathouse. So Ed had had an escape plan all along. Doc broke cover and ran across the gravel drive and along the side of the boathouse. Ahead, the lake lapped against the gravel shore and slipway. There was a dinghy gamely nosing its way through the short, choppy waves, heading to the mist-hazed northern shore. There was something in the stern by the outboard. He lifted the Glock. But something was wrong about the picture. The lump looked more like a sail bag than a person and there was a painter lifting up from the water at the rear of the dinghy. It snaked back to the boathouse.
He turned in that direction and there, standing in the boathouse entrance behind him, was Ed Constance, looking like a grime- and blood-covered ghost. He was wearing town clothes, a burned and torn tan suit, cut to shreds and bloody at the thighs. There was a bullet score in the top left of his suit arm. His eyes and teeth were white in the bloodied, fire-sooted face. These observations were all incidental to the one that otherwise totally occupied his vision: the black hole of a Magnum barrel pointing at him.
Doc squeezed the trigger of the Glock just as the revolver kicked back in Ed’s hand.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Their eyes locked for a millisecond, then the Magnum kicked in Ed’s hand. The shot struck the point of the other man’s elbow, shattering it. The man’s gun fired high and wide before falling on the gravel six feet away. The deflected bullet lodged just above his hip and he was in the process of staggering from the twin impact when Ed fired again. The next bullet hit his center mass just below the ribcage on the right side. It ripped through stomach lining, liver, and spleen. The man fell backward, the attaché case falling from his left hand. It landed on its edge and the latches sprang open, spilling some small glass vials, hypodermics, and a stethoscope from their yellow Styrofoam housing.
A vaunting, ugly triumph mainlined in Ed’s racing heart. He’d gotten the bastard good. Now to finish him. But then he remembered: he was out of ammo. He better get the guy’s pistol. He moved out quickly toward the fallen gun. The wounded man was trying to raise himself on his one good elbow. Blood pooled under his arced back. Bone showed through the elbow of the Tyvek suit where Ed’s first round had struck. He looked behind, trying to stretch the obscenely shattered arm in the direction of the fallen pistol, but his forearm and hand flopped limply like a broken puppet’s. The mask was drawn in sharply as he inhaled, outlining the contours of the man’s face. He sank onto his back, panting for breath, staring at the sky.
Ed approached, the empty Magnum aimed at the man’s chest, but it looked like his attempts to pick up the fallen weapon were over. Ed glanced up. They were hidden from the ridgeline by the end of the boathouse. Maybe the sniper was waiting for a signal before coming down. Or maybe he was still locked in the shootout back down the drive.
Ed leaned down and picked up the pistol, discarding the Magnum. The man’s face mask was pulsing with his labored breath: blood was seeping through it from his mouth.
Ed looked upon him as dispassionately as he would at a wounded fly. Then stood on the man’s right arm just below where the bone showed through. A high-pitched scream issued from behind the mask. Ed leaned down and ripped the covering off the man’s face.
“OK, motherfucker,” he said. “You better tell me where my wife is or I’m gonna put another round in you.”
“Shoot then.” The man’s breath was asthmatic and rasping.
“Maybe you prefer this?” Ed spat. He applied more weight on the shattered arm.
The man gasped. “Fuck. No. I’ll talk.”
Ed took his foot off the arm, keeping the pistol steady on the man’s face.
“Where is Sarah?”
But now the agony in his arm was gone, the guy’s eyes drifted. “Where did you learn to kill, kid?”
“I had good teachers. Typhon, for starters. Now tell me about my wife, asshole.”
But the man’s mind was clearly wandering. “It had to be you. David warned me.” The guy was semi-coherent now. “There’s nothing—nothing…” he said with futile emphasis. He sucked air again, taking in the gray sky. He faded, then rallied a bit. “Nothing you can do about her. She’s… insurance. Make you do your stuff… even if the psych shit didn’t work.”
Psych shit. Yes, that was what all this was. Just psych shit. The face of Typhon. The severed finger in Lenox. It was as far as he allowed himself to go. He could not go back into that silent darkness. His sanity could be gone with one word, one image. Did this man know the triggers? Cold sweat beaded his forehead.
Enough. He savagely reapplied his foot and twisted. The bones worked back and forth through the rent at the elbow.
“Stop!” the guy screamed. “Fuck, stop!”
“Tell me where she is.”
“OK! She’s at the old gas station near the Lot.”
And there was that memory, any small missing details filled in. The Fromes, the yellow bus, the kids chanting… It was all back.
“The Texaco station? Why?” Ed asked.
“Krige and the rest thought you were more likely to go along with them if you saw she was alive.”
“That station’s two hundred miles away. How were you going to get me there?”
“A chopper. It’s already inbound.”
Ed looked around at the tree-fringed shoreline and the dense wood behind. “There’s nowhere to land here.”
“Up at the hotel.” The guy’s eyes rolled and he lost consciousness for a moment. Ed thought he was gone until they flickered back open. “I need something for the pain,” he whispered.
“Where do you think you’ll get that?”
“In my medical case,” the guy said, grimacing toward the open silver attaché case and its scattered contents.
Ed reached out a foot and kicked the case over to Doc’s side. “Knock yourself out,” he said.
The wounded man’s teeth were chattering together. He reached out his only working hand and pulled the case closer to him. Amongst the other stuff, there were three preloaded syringes in the Styrofoam, all labelled: Sodium Thiopental, Pancurium Bromide, Potassium Chloride.
With trembling fingers the guy took the last syringe and pressed the plunger. A little liquid squirted out the end. Another shudder of pain passed through him. He looked up at the sky as if steeling himself, then plunged the needle into his thigh, pressing down on the plunger. Then he lay back. He smiled strangely at Ed. His stentorian breathing eased, the smile fixed, and he was still. His eyes were suddenly sightless, reflecting the passing gray clouds.
“What the fuck?” said Ed. He kicked the wounded arm again. No reaction. He leaned down and touched the guy’s neck. There was no pulse.
He stood, cursing. Then he sensed movement coming from his left, through the smoke. He whipped around in that direction. He’d forgotten all about the sniper.
Then he saw it was Jim Dove coming through the murk, face blacked with mud, wearing the same old camos as always. His friend looked older than he remembered. Shrunken physically, peering almost timidly forward through the smoke, as if his eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be. But he held his Winchester steady. A collie came at his heel, but it wasn’t Laramie. No black patch over the right eye. The dog carried its tail low to the ground, spooked by the roaring flames and the scent of blood.
As he came nearer, Ed saw Jim’s camo jacket had several bullet holes in it. But there was no blood. Ed was still puzzling over this when Dove came to a stop a few feet away and squinted at him.
“Ed?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Jim.”
“Well, ain’t you a sight?”
“I guess I could say the same about you.”
Ed jerked his head back down the drive. “What about the other guy?”
“Dead. Got him good. Bastard shot my friend Pollitt,” Jim said. He looked down at Doc. “What happened here?”
“Killed himself with that needle. Claimed it was a painkiller. I guess he didn’t want to be around when the cops arrived.”
“I guess not.”
“Anyone else out there?”
“No. But Pollitt called for backup.”
“Listen, Jim, I can’t be here when the cops arrive.”
“Understood. I heard about that woman in Boston. That something to do with you?”
“They framed me.”
“I hear you, kid. But I don’t see any way out of this mess but giving yourself up. Too many dead.”
“If it was just me, Jim, I’d do that. But they took my wife.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, she’s collateral. But our friend here told me where she was before he killed himself: the old gas station.”
“The place I went last week? Why?”
“I told you: I have to go there. She’s insurance that I’ll turn up.” He looked his old friend in the eye. Jim stared back. “Did you do as I asked?” Ed asked.
“I did, God forgive me.”
“I can’t risk being put under again, Jim. They can take my mind, any minute of any day. I bet this fella’s needles have some drugs in them that would make you forget your own name. Just like that. Lights out. I barely escaped this time. And after? They’ve got a hold over me every way you look: drugs, terrorism, murder. If I carry off their job the stories will be bad—really bad.”
“We beat them here.”
“There’ll be more. But first I have to get Sarah.”
“How do you figure on doing that?”
He nodded at the dead man at his feet. “A chopper’s going to land at the hotel to take me and him out. We’ll take the dinghy and surprise them.”
Before Jim could answer, they were interrupted by a noise, at first distant, then stronger; a sinister, throbbing beat over the hills to the east. A dark shape loomed out of the cloud. A helicopter painted in drab gray camouflage labored through the sky like a flying dinosaur out of the Jurassic. It seemed for a moment to be heading directly for them, and they both ducked into the shadow of the boathouse, but then it banked, its rotor blades churning the clouds, and veered north toward the lakehead and the old hotel.
“What the hell—a Huey,” Jim muttered. Just then, the radio in the Styrofoam pocket in the attaché case burst into life with a buzz of static, startling them both.
A distorted voice. “Salt Cracker, this is Deep Harbor. Do you read me? Over.”
Jim looked down at the radio. “What should we do?” he asked Ed.
