Caller unknown, p.34
Caller Unknown, page 34
He needed first aid. There was a red plastic case with a white cross on a housing over the workbench. He slowly got to his haunches and tentatively reached out to it.
The box exploded. Plastic fragments whistled past his face. Bandages, Band-Aids, Tylenol, tubes of Neosporin, scissors, and other first-aid material flew in all directions. He threw himself back down.
The gunman hadn’t moved from the hill. Maybe he’d sent someone else down here to finish Ed off. There was only one direction of escape: the lake. He had planned for this contingency ten years ago. Putting the plan into action was another thing altogether. The chances of success now seemed vanishingly unlikely.
A roll of bandage had fallen on to the floor beside him. As he tried to figure out what to do, he began, clumsily and laboriously, with teeth and one hand, to tie a rudimentary dressing around his wounded arm.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Up on the hill, the Sniper cursed softly. Never in his long career, which had spanned conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, had such a simple and easy killing shot been snatched away by such a stroke of bad luck. A man with his head in the Sniper’s scope was, by definition, a dead man.
He had lived a life without remorse, but he felt a judgment coming. Maybe the missed shot was something to do with that. His dreams had begun to trouble him. In them he couldn’t rid himself of the faces of the dead. There had once been a woman in Yemen, a young mother according to the agency report, and a terrorist to boot. He’d almost felt bad about that mission in Sana’a. The Sniper hadn’t been able to figure a word of the Arabic writing on the front pages of the papers next day, but there she was, lying on the sidewalk in her hijab, surrounded by a gawking crowd held back by a couple of policemen, the headscarf thrown over her face, a pool of blood three feet wide, or more, around her shattered head. A woman, probably her mother, was kneeling in the blood, her hands raised to the skies, her face creased in horror.
When he got back Stateside and was passing through Miami airport, he saw the same image had made it to the front pages of the liberal press: the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Herald—the mourning woman reproached him from half the world away.
The dead woman visited him in his dreams more and more often as the years passed. Perhaps God was in these fragmentary stabs of conscience. If so, he was an avenging God and the Sniper’s time had come.
Maybe Constance had some kind of deal with the Almighty. For sure, he’d had all the luck the previous dozen victims of the Sniper’s art had not. It was always more difficult hitting a moving target, of course, but that was why the Sniper got paid what he did. He could shoot a jumping squirrel out of the trees at a thousand yards, so Constance shouldn’t have been a problem.
But the car explosion had saved him. Then a smooth and efficient stream of bullets had been sent down on him, yet had only winged him at best.
The smoke and heat haze were still making a clear sight of the boathouse difficult, but he had been quite pleased with the shot that had nearly taken Constance’s hand off when he reached for the first-aid kit. It was also good to know he was wounded, albeit apparently not gravely.
He was annoyed Doc had seen the whole shit show up to now. He didn’t want a bad report to mar his chances of future employment. Anyway, the Sniper was confident of getting his man eventually. It was best to be patient, hold position, take your time for the shot to come to you. Constance couldn’t have set himself up better than coming to this deserted cabin, by this deserted lake, in the middle of the winter. Now he was holed up in that shed with nowhere to go. Doc and he could lay siege as long as no one spotted the pillar of smoke and called the cops.
His eyes flicked to the blackened figure on the drive. Wisps of smoke still came off his smoldering clothing. He thought he detected a faint stirring of one of the man’s arms. Judging from the build, or what was left of it, it was Woody and not the Hulk lying there. He’d seen a few instances like this in his time. Blackened figures crawling out of burning armored vehicles when they had no right to, taking their time to die. He might have to deal with Woody. Wouldn’t want him alive and able to talk if the cops did come.
His eyes went back to the scope and the reticulated image of the boathouse window. Nothing since the hand. Then something caught his eye in the periphery of his vision. He looked up. Two figures were heading down the driveway from the turnaround, keeping to the side of the road away from the knoll, practically in the shallow ditch that separated the drive from the forest. He glanced at Doc. He had seen them too.
One of the new arrivals bore the distinctive Stetson and hi-vis rain slicker of a deputy. He had a shotgun at port arms. Behind him came an older man in camo carrying what looked to be a Winchester. Perhaps he was the guy from the bait store he had been told about. He, too, had made the mistake of wearing some conspicuous clothing: in his case a maroon fishing hat with a bright yellow badge. A black and white collie tracked the second man’s heels obediently, ears pinned back, adopting the low herding position ingrained into sheepdogs through the centuries.
It was inconceivable that these two hadn’t radioed in. Backup would be coming sooner than expected. Time had run out.
The two men had reached the curve of the road where the cabin finally came into view and here they stopped, taking in the blazing wreck of the house and Woody’s body. The deputy lifted up his poncho and pulled a handheld radio from his uniform jacket.
The Barrett tracked around to him without a conscious thought and there was the man’s white face right in the reticle of the sights.
“What are you doing?” the Doc asked.
But the Sniper’s finger had already closed on the trigger.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
The dread that Jim had lived with ever since he had seen the abandoned Suburban and then the explosion was intense now. It was sixteen years since Vietnam, but he’d not forgotten. Lights flashed behind his eyes and high-volt electricity was running in his veins; his skin felt as if it was on fire.
He was not sure whether Pollitt was alive to the danger. He regretted involving him. The deputy looked dogged, stolid, as he crunched down the gravel drive to the Constance place, but he also looked out of place in that yellow poncho, as if about to direct traffic rather than enter a combat zone. Jim was tempted to rein the guy in, tell him to exercise some caution, but since Pollitt had gotten the shotgun out of the trunk he’d looked like a man on a mission, not to be held back.
Jim was not entirely sure that Stan or any of the other deputies hereabouts had ever fired a gun in anger. He knew that there was a big difference between firing on the range and intent to use.
As he wondered about his own chance of blending in, he cursed his choice of headgear. The maroon fishing hat from the West Indies, threaded through with a dozen brightly feathered lures, had a loud yellow badge in a claret shield, showing palm trees and a desert island in a blue sea.
They had reached the curvature of the track. To the right were the granite boulders and fern- and heather-covered side of the hill that separated the Constance place from the Sproules’. Stan signaled for them to slow and they both crept forward, Max following at heel. Now the source of the heavy plume of smoke came into view down the gravel slope. The beechwood cabin was burning pretty much all over, the shingles and creosote making a blaze that raged with an orange flame at its core, the column of smoke soaring up into the frigid gray sky over the lake. A burning station wagon lay on its side next to the house and, beyond it, the side window of the boathouse was smashed. There was a fire-blackened figure lying a few feet away from the fringes of the cabin fire.
“Sweet Jesus,” Stan whispered. He let go of his two-handed grip on the carbine and with one hand reached under the slicker for the radio.
There was a wet thwacking noise, a sudden red mist hazed the air and Jim’s face was stabbed violently in a couple of places by flying debris. He had the vaguest sense of Pollitt’s yellow rain slicker falling to one side. There were still legs and arms sticking out of it, but no head. The Stetson was rolling up the ditch, a few yards away.
There was a part of Jim that had stayed in the jungle. Suddenly he was back there. There were two types of men in these situations: those who stood and gawked and died and those whose bodies did something and saved themselves.
He dived left, head first over the little drainage ditch into the conifers, and rolled on the wet bed of needles. He felt the tree next to him vibrate like a tuning fork as another round slammed home, leaving a fist-sized white pulpy wound in the bark and sending a shower of water from the sodden branches. He threw himself behind the cover.
No sound of a shot either time. Was he deaf? Sometimes in combat it was like this—the adrenaline blocking off sound, everything happening in a soundless bubble. But he wasn’t deaf—he could hear the undergrowth crash under his feet as he rose and stumbled further into the trees and the furious burr as another invisible round passed near his head. A suppressor, then. And a suppressor meant someone intent on killing silently and efficiently.
There was a wide trunk ahead and he flung himself behind it. He yanked off the maroon hat and stuffed it into a pocket, then quickly doubled around to the other side of the tree and glanced back. The hill from which he judged the killing shot had come was now invisible. He could just make out the yellow glow of Stan’s slicker twenty yards away on the gravel drive.
Max had disappeared. Panicked, no doubt. He sure as hell wasn’t going to call to the dog. The Winchester, of course, was still in his hand. The drill instructor had made that clear: if you didn’t have your gun in the jungle, why weren’t you dead already?
He worked the bolt and clicked off the safety. There were few choices and no good ones available to him. The undergrowth was unlogged virgin forest and it would take some time to fight his way through it, an hour or more to get back to the cruiser and warn MacDonald and the others. The shooter might anticipate that move and could be heading back to the cars now to lie up and wait for Jim to break cover. He assumed the guy had telescopic sights, unlike the Winchester, and there would not be much of a contest when shooting at range. The one advantage was his army surplus camo: now he had gotten rid of the maroon hat, this deep in the woods he deemed himself invisible. Furthermore, he was used to stalking and moving silently in pursuit of prey.
His heart was quietening down, his breathing catching up. However much this guy had fought, Jim had fought too. Two tours and the worst that humanity could serve up in explosions and screams and blood. He had survived it all, as he would now.
He would take range out of the duel. He was going to go back to the driveway and surprise the sumbitch. Now that was a move the shooter wouldn’t anticipate.
He wiped at his face. It was sticky with blood. His cheek stung like hell and he pulled something white out of it. A skull fragment, he realized. There was another in his forehead.
He stooped down to a muddy pool between some exposed tree roots and smeared the foul-smelling liquid on his face and hands. Then he began working to his left, toward the cabin.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
“You just killed a deputy,” Doc said to the Sniper as he stared at Pollitt’s body.
“I done worse,” the Sniper answered. “The mission is compromised. Best we can do is shoot Constance and get the hell out.”
“Did you at least get the second guy?” Doc asked.
The Sniper’s patience, which was usually very long, was now getting short.
“Goddam reactions like a snake,” he said. “He was in the trees in a second.”
Doc looked at him coldly.
The Sniper gave him a similar look back. “So what now?”
Doc said, “If he has any sense, the second guy’ll be heading back to the road.”
“So, we follow?”
“Correction, you follow. I’m going down to fix Constance. He’s a busted flush.”
The Sniper jerked his head at the carnage below. “That deputy is bound to have called for backup before he came down here.”
“You just worry about the other guy. I’ll do the rest.”
“Vermeulen is going to be pissed.”
Doc’s stare was glacial. “On the contrary. Constance is wanted for rape and murder. Woody and Hulk are former servicemen. They, the deputy and the bait store owner all died trying to bring him in. What a tragedy. The press will love it. After we shoot him, we can throw Constance in the fire. He’ll be crisped. It’ll look like he died in there, shooting the others. At least, that’s what our tame forensics guy will conclude. And we’ll be nowhere in sight. Case closed.”
“One thing—I’m not sure Woody’s dead,” the Sniper said.
The Doc peered through the heat shimmer. His face set. “Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?” he said.
The Sniper didn’t like it. He’d never shot one of his own before. He zeroed in on the fallen man. Luckily Woody was looking away and he could only see the side of his ruined face. The skin oozed. Red, yellow, and black.
He squeezed the trigger. The body jerked and a shower of black and red splattered over the gravel behind Woody like some obscene diarrhea.
“You got him at least,” Doc said dispassionately.
The Sniper had been promised $50,000 for the trip, but he was tempted to swing the Barrett around and shoot Doc in the gut and see him die slowly. But if he did that, as the Sniper well knew, getting out of here would be next to impossible, and should he escape, Vermeulen would want an explanation as to why he alone of this bunch of highly experienced killers had escaped Tranquility.
Doc unlatched the attaché case, revealing the rows of small serum bottles and hypodermics packed in foam, a walkie-talkie, and a Glock handgun. Doc pulled out the radio, switched the set on, extended the antenna, and keyed the mic. “Deep Harbor, do you read me, over?”
There came a crackling voice, “Deep Harbor, please identify, over.”
“Salt Cracker here.”
“Copy, Salt Cracker. Please confirm status.”
“We require pickup at…” Doc checked his Rolex “…zero nine thirty hours at the north depot.”
“Copy that. What is your load?”
Doc eyed the Sniper. “Just two cases.”
“Two cases? Do you have the premium product?”
“Negative. We are about to destroy it. It passed its sell-by date, over.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Understood, Salt Cracker. Please tidy up the warehouse before you get to the depot. Over and out.”
Doc grimaced, replaced the set and removed the handgun. He racked the slide to put a round in the chamber. Despite his words to the Sniper, he wasn’t sure about Vermeulen’s reaction to the day’s events. But at least Krige sounded pleased that Constance was about to die.
“OK,” he said. “See you at the boathouse for the clear-up.”
The Sniper slid back from the shooting position. He rose to a crouch, keeping his head low so it wasn’t silhouetted by the skyline, and moved off to his left.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Ten yards from the forest margin, Jim had gotten down on his knees and elbows and started crawling, the Winchester cradled between his forearms. Brutal on the elbows, good for having a weapon ready in a second if he needed it. The orange glow of the burning cabin came through the latticed branches of the pines to his left.
Directly ahead, he could see the body on the drive that he’d noticed on the approach. It looked like he was coming out directly opposite it. He stopped and studied it. Just then, the thing raised its head. It was a horror of red and black peeling skin without a blade of hair remaining; a white, poached eye stared out of the ruin. The burned man seemed to look directly at him for a moment. Then there came a thwap in the air and the head disappeared in a shambles of white, red, and gray. A splattered arc of matter showered the gravel in front of Jim.
His heart, which had calmed for the few minutes of his crawl, now fought to burst his chest again. He rolled and aimed the Winchester at the hill. There was no further incoming.
On the skyline he briefly saw something bob into sight, a head, he realized, but it was obscured by a mask and what looked like the hood of a forensic suit except it was not white but black. He also glimpsed the tip of a scoped rifle. The sniper. He braced the gun. The man’s head was briefly aligned with the open sights, then vanished under the brow. Jim cursed.
The sniper looked to be making his way down the hill to the right, back toward the turnaround. He must think Jim was heading back to the vehicles. As he had this thought, another head bobbed briefly into view on the hillcrest, and then it, too, was gone. Same weird hood. This one was heading sideways down the hill toward the Constance cabin. Jim was in the middle of the two assailants, about to be outflanked. On a whim, he took the maroon fishing hat from his pocket, shrugged off his combat jacket, hooked the hat over a low-lying branch and the jacket on a branch next to it, then cut off to the left toward the blaze.
There were fewer trees on the hillside and after the Sniper had looped around the slope he advanced in short bursts, taking cover behind scrub and boulders. There was no logical reason why the other guy with his old-fashioned rifle would have stuck around; anyone in their right mind would have hightailed it back to their vehicle. It was likely that he’d circle around, get to the drive out of sight of the cabin and head to the turnaround as fast as his legs could carry him.
Part of the Sniper’s DNA told him that this was right, he should abandon his cautious skirmishing and just hurry up the drive and catch the guy in plain sight as he fled. But the other part told him that the remarkable reflexes of the man spoke of an opponent to be wary of.
He was perhaps only fifty feet from the curve of the drive, the dead deputy with his yellow poncho in front, the blaze off to his right, and the upward slope to the turnaround on his left, when he saw not the old man on the drive but a white and black blob: the bait store man’s dog. He took cover as it approached in the crouched herding position common to all collies, its belly close to the ground. It paused briefly at the corpse and snuffled around. The Sniper expected it to follow its owner’s trail into the trees, but instead it scented the air and then, in a sway-shaped advance, its haunches down on the ground and its tail working furiously, as if in fear of being chastised by its master, it advanced down the drive toward Woody’s corpse.
