He came closer until he stood over her, touching her skin.
Then there was clarity. She could see him as clear as day, as bright as the sun. His height. His weight. His eyes. She saw his homeland, a tranquil countryside on the banks of a river that cut through rugged cliffs and steep hillsides. It reminded her of a brochure she’d once picked up about a romantic getaway in the heart of Europe, a place surrounded by medieval castles. Somewhere between the grandeur of the Swiss Alps and the peace of the Vosges in Alsace, she saw the Black Forest. It formed a triangle, made up of Switzerland, France, and Germany. Somewhere out there was a quaint village steeped in tradition, his town, his homeland. Basel. She could see the signs, the markings, the villages’ art museums, and sculptures. But it wasn’t all picturesque there. A busy commercial hub produced a good proportion of the chemicals and pharmaceuticals exported to other parts of Europe.
She came to in a blur of activity around her. Josh’s face appeared, finally emerging into focus. She latched onto his shirt. “I know who he is. I know who we’re looking for now. He’s six-two or three, has blond hair and blue eyes, a man with a discernable Nordic look about him. Peter Jurgen. That’s his name, his real name.”
“Easy, Skye. You took a bad fall when the mine went off, hit the back of your head on the ground. Zoe’s behind you holding a compress on it.”
“Thanks, Zoe.’
“No problem. You scared us half to death. Don’t do that again.”
“I’ll try. Do I still have my foot?”
“Yep. You have all of your appendages intact.”
“Harry? How’s Harry?”
“He’s fine. The blast knocked him down, but he didn’t lose consciousness like you did.”
“And the rest of the team? Nobody else got hurt, right? What about the cabin?”
“Everybody else is fine. Leo and Reggie adjusted the guy’s surveillance cameras to point upward, but not before he probably got an eyeful of what was going on here. Reggie and Leo did get some nice pictures of the inside of the cabin taken with a telephoto lens. It looks like there are multiple passports scattered on a table. He’s obviously getting ready to run. Harry called the detective in charge. Foley’s sending the bomb squad in and a forensic team to do the rest. They should be here shortly. In the meantime, they’ve ordered us to fall back and wait for them to get here.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Skye shoved at her hair that was now falling out of its ponytail. “How long was I out?”
“About twenty minutes. Longest damn twenty minutes of my life.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Ambulance is on its way. But we’re pretty far out, rural-wise from emergency services.”
“I’m okay. I don’t need an ambulance. It’s a waste of time.” She started to get to her feet and felt woozy.
“Maybe you should just sit there until they get here. We need the EMTs to look at your head.”
Winston saw that she was awake and came running up, bent down to where she was on one knee. “I’m sorry, Skye. My bot didn’t see that last IED. I knew I should’ve used another camera. I’m sorry, Skye.”
“It’s not your fault. I forgot where I was. I forgot to watch my step. That’s on me, not you.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course not. You’re not responsible for where I stepped. I’m just glad Harry’s okay, and I didn’t take him with me.”
“I’m a tough old bird,” Harry said from above, looking down at her. “You scared the crap out of me, though. I saw it right before you got close to it. You didn’t step on it, thank God. Something scuttled out from underneath the cabin. That’s what triggered it.”
“Not my foot?”
“Nope. Not your foot. Maybe a rat or whatever is living underneath.”
“Peter Jurgen. He’s from Basel, Switzerland. Born there. He speaks German fluently, as well as French.”
Harry traded looks with Josh. “If you say so. You saw all that while you were out?”
“Yeah. And it doesn’t matter what those passports say, or what name he’s using now. Peter Jurgen is the name he was born with back in Basel.”
****
After the paramedics cleared Skye to go home and rest, she’d invited everyone over to the house to brainstorm. Over Josh’s objections, they ordered lunch and gathered again to sort through all the data they’d collected.
Foley had shared the bounty of what law enforcement had found in the cabin, shared it with Harry, who was happy to pass it along to the others.
“He had passports using seven different aliases. Porter Finch and Peter Sprecher are just two. The forensic team did locate an authentic passport locked away in a floor safe in the name of Peter Dietrich Jurgen.” Harry angled toward Skye. “I don’t know how you knew that ahead of everybody else, but you were right on everything. Birthplace listed as Basel, Switzerland. Born in 1966. Interpol has him pegged as six-three, knows him as a former member of the Swiss Guard, and elite-trained special forces turned soldier of fortune.”
Leo’s eyes bugged out. “Wait a minute. You’re talking about that private army that guards the pope, right? The Italian Guardia Svizzera, the guys who wear those funny clown outfits and take care of security for the pope? For real?”
Harry lifted a shoulder. “Interpol says it’s real. At one time, Jurgen was considered a stellar commanding officer, a brilliant man with noble lineage. But something went wrong fifteen years ago. Nobody seems to know what made Jurgen snap. One day, he just up and left the guard. That’s when the guy became a gun for hire, a mercenary. Interpol considers him a deadly enemy of the state as early as 2009, especially when Jurgen disappeared in 2010 after heading up a massacre in the Congo. Now we know that sometime after that, he ended up here in the Pacific Northwest.”
“So that makes him what, fifty-four years old now?” Brayden concluded. “Not exactly a spring chicken.”
“Maybe not,” Harry said. “But I wouldn’t want to try to take him in hand to hand combat.”
Brayden nodded. “Point taken.”
Reggie let out a loud sigh. “Listening to all this, I’m sure Jurgen won’t be happy that we invaded his space.”
“That’s right,” Josh tossed out, beginning to pace and rub the back of his neck. “There’s bound to be retaliation, and that’s putting it mildly. We need a proactive plan in place when he comes calling.”
“And he will,” Harry added. “No doubt about it. Jurgen isn’t the kind of man to give up until he’s made his point.”
“Sit down,” Skye asserted. “Both of you. You’re both making me dizzy with your pacing back and forth.” She patted the cushion next to her on the sofa. “Josh, you sit here. Harry, take a seat in that chair over there like a normal person.”
Both men looked at each other, hesitated, but then acquiesced and took a seat.
“Now,” Skye began. “I suppose we can dismiss any traditional serial killer traits this guy might have had as a boy. Bedwetting, arson, and your typical controlling behavior seem moot at this point.”
“How can you be so calm about all this?” Josh charged. “This guy is out there, pissed off, and gunning for a confrontation now that we’ve found his cabin.”
“Leo?” Skye asked. “From that chatroom, did you get this guy’s email address?”
Leo gave her a quizzical look like maybe the bump on the head had caused an addled brain and confusion. “Sure. And I used the IP address to track down his cabin. Remember?”
Skye smiled. “Let’s send Mr. Jurgen an email.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Josh barked.
“I don’t think so. Send Jurgen an email saying we’re on to him. We know who he is, and we’ll be seeing him sooner rather than later.”
Skye held up a hand. “Think of it like this. It’s better to go on the offensive than sit around like this and think about playing defense. We want to draw him to us on our terms. We don’t want him hunting us down. No, we’re the hunters, not
him. We want him to come to us. What do we know about this guy? We saw him in action when he took Emelia. This guy has to have a place near Seattle, in town, to use as his staging area.”
“That’s why he wasn’t at the cabin,” Josh stated, the strategy of it finally sinking in. “He lives somewhere else part of the time.”
“Exactly. Jurgen needs a home base here in Seattle.”
“Ah, I get it now,” Leo said. “The email. If he responds, which he will, I’ll be able to get his IP address here locally.”
“There you go. We just have to keep stringing him along until Jurgen makes a mistake, like he did with Cassie Arnett. Replying to our email would be a good start.”
“Okay. I’ll send it out now. Then we wait.”
A ringing cell phone interrupted the discussion.
Harry looked down to see Foley’s number in the digital readout. He swiped his phone to take the call. “Hello? Yeah. Wow. Okay. How many? I’ll pass it along. Yeah. Thanks.”
Harry looked up from his phone. “That was Dr. Giles. Police found his third dumpsite just north of Jurgen’s property. Five bodies so far. They’re still digging. Seattle PD helicoptered Giles in, but they’ve only been on the ground about an hour and a half. She says this will likely delay any IDing from the first two for a while.”
“Duly noted. They have their hands full,” Judy assessed. “What a mess. How can one person be responsible for so many deaths?”
“He’s a monster,” Skye said. “He may look like an ordinary man on the outside. But inside, there’s no soul. There’s something wrong with a guy who kills for money.”
Twenty-Two
Peter Jurgen’s staging area was a rental house he referred to as Mission Control. It was located on an unassuming tree-lined street in one of the safest neighborhoods in the Seattle area, Madrona Park.
From the outside, the bungalow-style home looked like any other. The frame and brick Tudor carriage house situated near Lake Washington was on the small side. But he hadn’t leased it— paying a year in advance—because of its size. It offered the excellent opportunity to blend in, to forge a “living in plain sight” persona in a community that never asked too many questions.
The location was perfect. It allowed him to get across town in any direction within an hour, even using traffic-clogged streets, especially on his motorcycle.
He’d already seen what they had done to his cabin, his sanctuary. It wasn’t that surprising. Skye Cree and her band of hackers were turning out to be a worthy adversary. Something he hadn’t encountered in a long while. She was a clever woman. It was a shame she would have to die.
After fixing himself a sandwich and twisting off the cap on his favorite bottled beer, he sat down at his laptop to go through his emails. He noticed he had four. But when his eyes landed on the one from the Artemis Foundation, his temper flared. He felt the spike in his blood pressure.
Reading it in its entirety—with each word—he felt his anger build like an impending eruption. They dared to challenge him. Him.
Who were they to give him an ultimatum? They were nothing. Nobodies. Nobodies who’d never done anything or been anywhere. They had no right to treat him like a common criminal. They said they knew who he was. But if that were true, they would know what he’d accomplished. He’d been all over the world, had once been revered, feared. He’d killed men, women, and children without blinking an eye. They had no idea who they were dealing with or pissing off.
He began to type his reply, a two-word line that read, “Challenge accepted.” After hitting send, he stood up, prepared to go to war.
His fists clenched. He felt like hitting something. But he had a better idea. He’d kill them all, one by one, in their sleep. Or maybe he’d hunt them down like the puny things they were. Or perhaps he’d take his revenge some other way, a way that would define his exit, a plan where everyone would remember Peter Dietrich Jurgen for all time. He’d make the news this time for sure.
And he knew just where to start.
Twenty-Three
“We got a response,” Leo muttered, before shouting it out again. “Hey, guys. He replied. I triangulated the IP to a Madrona Park address. That’s forty minutes cross-town, longer if there’s traffic.”
“This is one of those days I wish we had a chopper. Let’s go,” Josh urged, pointing an index finger at Skye. “You stay put.”
She got to her feet, still shaky. “No way you’re keeping me on this sofa now. I’m going.”
Harry looked her up and down. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit this one out?”
“We don’t have time to argue about this. I’ll sit in the minivan if I have to. Let’s just…go.”
The caravan fought rush-hour traffic, making the trip take longer than expected. Even with shortcuts, cut-throughs, and detours, it took almost an hour and fifteen minutes to reach Madrona Park.
By the time Josh made the turn onto the quiet, tree-lined street, Skye could smell the water from Lake Washington.
She stared at the bungalow. It seemed too cute for a soldier of fortune to make his home. No, the cabin was much more his style, more rugged, more outdoorsy.
But living here meant he had a place to hide in plain sight, a refuge where he could take shelter if need be.
There was no car in the driveway, no motorcycle, either.
Something felt off.
“Don’t go up there,” Skye cautioned. “You won’t find him at home. We missed him by minutes. He’s already gone. And he didn’t leave without wanting to send us another message.”
Josh glanced in the rearview mirror and saw everyone else piling out of their cars. “Are you sure? Because I need to stop the team from going up to the door.”
“I’m certain. This thing could blow at any moment. Don’t take any chances. Don’t let anyone get any closer. Get Harry to call Foley. Let him get his bomb squad out here to go over this place with a magnifying glass.”
Josh hopped out and waved his arms. “Over here, guys.”
He’d just gotten the words out when the ground shook beneath the concrete street. There was a roaring sound. It rumbled like you were standing too close to a freight train as it sped past.
Skye felt the minivan lift as the blast shattered the windows. Ducking down on the floorboard, she felt the vehicle tilt with another shockwave before rocking back down on all four wheels. For several long seconds, she stayed there like that. When she did manage to pop her head up, she saw people had been thrown to the ground like matchsticks in the wind, debris raining down around them.
Then there was an eerie silence.
A quiet slipped past the damage.
Skye looked out and saw the people she cared about on the ground, dazed and confused. She shouted, but no one seemed to hear over the ringing in their ears. She jumped out of the car and ran to the first person.
“Are you okay?” she asked Zoe.
Zoe blinked through the dust. “I think I’m fine. Where’s Brayden?”
Skye glanced around and spotted him five yards away, lying next to the curb. “There he is.”
Zoe picked herself up and went to help Brayden.
Skye began to count off the members of her team. One by one, she helped them get to their feet.
“Where’s Josh?” she hollered.
“On the other side of the van,” Reggie choked out and pointed to where Josh sat upright in the middle of the street.
Sirens began to go off behind her as she rushed over to where he was. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. How did you know?”
She laid her head on his. “I’m not sure, I just did. There’s nothing left of the house. It’s in pieces.”
Skye clasped hands with Josh and helped him stand up. With one hand still in his, they surveyed the damage. The cute carriage house was now in bits and pieces. Where once had stood a gentrified cottage, it was now nothing more than a gaping black crater in the ground.
Busted water pipes spewed a fountai
n of liquid onto the mess and into the street. The smell of gas prevailed, filling the air with the noxious odor. Small fires broke out here and there where the stove and furnace had been.
Neighbors were beginning to gather to gawk at the ugly hole that was left. The questions and talk buzzed around Skye’s ears.
“Was anyone inside?” one of them asked.
Skye shook her head, but then realized the fire trucks couldn’t get down the street with all the cars parked along the curb. She tugged Josh back toward the van. “We need to move our cars out of here. Forget about the smashed windows. When the police and fire department show up, they won’t be able to get close enough.”
Everyone scrambled to get their vehicles out of the way, driving them to the end of the street where they could still see what was going on.
But as Skye reached the end of the lane, reality dawned. Sitting behind the wheel, she twisted in her seat to look at Josh. “Oh, my God. He’s not here.”
“I think we established that. Jurgen must’ve set it to blow knowing we’d be coming here.”
“Exactly. We need to get out of here. Now. I think I know where Jurgen is headed.”
“Where?”
She gunned the engine, rounded the corner, and shot out of the neighborhood. “He’s going after Sierra, Lena, and Travis. And he has a thirty-minute head start.”
Twenty-Four
Bypassing the Pacific Highway, Peter Jurgen’s journey to Everett covered the same ground as it had before—lots of backroads, lots of weaving in and out of traffic.
He approached from the rear, pulling his motorcycle into the same spot where he’d parked before. Coming in from behind gave him an advantage—he could see the outbuildings and the house and beyond to the cliffs.
He turned the key to shut off the engine, took off his helmet, then gathered up his weapons from his saddlebags—two Glocks with extra clips and a Berretta.
Down Among The Bones Page 25