But the footsteps he was more interested in at current were just 30-feet away. The guy who worked his way down the wall on the opposite side from the gent already dispatched to that great beyond came into the open exactly across from where Preacher knelt. He probably found it a little strange to find Preacher there, waiting for him, automatic rifle pointed at his chest.
In the muddling dark, the look on this fella's face was not vividly clear. But Preacher had to assume it was a look of surprise followed by at least a little terror. Too late.
He pulled the trigger on the automatic weapon and fired six rounds into the man's chest which then exited out his back. The flashes from the gun's muzzle lit up the space like a haunted derelict disco for the briefest of moments.
Then the dark again.
Preacher moved quickly to his downed prey. He knew the effects of the bullets fired into and through the soon to be deceased human. No need for a flashlight or surgical suites and multiple incisions. Preacher knew the etiology. The cause and effect. Bullets tore through skin, muscle, lung, major arteries, veins, bone and more skin. It's not the bullet that kills, it's the damage done. The loss of oxygen, blood, then decrease of blood pressure until the engine, the system, no longer functions.
He watched the last breath as he grabbed the dead man's small automatic rifle and slung it over his shoulder, around his neck. He spun on his heel and raced back over to the walkway on the other side and into the open space under the stairs he had dove into minutes earlier.
Here in this dark tunnel of sorts, with his eyes settled into the ambient dull grays and blacks and smudges of color, he powered forward silently. Photographic memory and internal GPS led his way. He ducked under girders when needed, stepped sideways, slithered between support poles, pivoted and rose when he could.
He kept his right arm down at his side holding the two automatic rifles pinned to his side. He held the radio in his left hand, right up next to his ear. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen seconds... finally.
"Report." The word works in both English and German. The accent of the man who spoke it, whispered it really, was definitely Herr German. Echolocation told him it was someone inside the building. He was waiting for something else, someone else.
Preacher moved along in the tight little space under the walkway above and wondered again why the rabbit he chased chose to dive under here 10 minutes ago. Maybe it was the simple fact that he had a seven-second lead on him and thought going under would provide a place to hide. Not the worst plan. It was just that he didn't know.
No one ever does. They can't know that life as they know it, as they knew it before the chase began will never be the same. Preacher, once on a trail, once the scent is in his coonhound nostrils and crazy messed up mind sets in, doesn't let go.
Can't let go.
The ends of these chases are actually rather consistent. They conclude with the rabbit, the one fleeing, meeting either eternal or psychological demise. Your choice. Death or co-opted and owned for the remainder of your life. Not really a slave, but never really free. Once in Preacher's cranial repository as an exploitable resource, this debt is never paid in full. Never relieved.
A killer kills. An exploiter exploits.
Nothing personal.
This evening's target followed this rather consistent pattern and met his untimely end. Only thing though, it wasn't by Preacher's hand. That's what he had to figure out.
He ducked under a girder he'd ducked under eight minutes earlier, pivoted right then left around a thick pole and moved forward with the radio held to his ear. Waiting. Eleven, twelve, thirteen seconds... then-
"Zwie, drie was is dein bericht?" That was it. This was the voice he was waiting for. No echolocation on this one. It came from outside the building.
The boss. It was in the voice. The succinct and concise tone. The guy in charge. He asked for a report from number 2 or number 3. Guess those are the two guys lying dead back there.
He moved forward. Twenty feet left until the end of his tunnel of sorts. He stopped and brought the radio to his mouth.
"Ich bin schlagen." He whispered. "Drie. Hilf mir." I'm hit. Number 3. Help me.
As he inched closer to the end of the space under the walkway, he brought one of the automatic rifles into firing position. Couldn't be sure, but it looked like someone was out there moving slowly along the wall. Just inside the end of the underbelly space, he dropped to a prone position. He brought the rifle up to his shoulder to take aim at the gent moving closer to him.
If method and model held true, this guy against the wall now 18-feet away was flanked over on the other side of the building by another guy hugging the wall as he moved into the structure. Solid stuff. Preacher liked the approach. They were skilled, which told him a mountain of information about the team.
Problem was, they didn't know what they were up against tonight. Probably shouldn't have taken this job.
Preacher pulled the trigger. The weapon was set to three-shot burst. Like the gent a few minutes earlier, he put six shots center mass and up. The rounds tore through clothing, skin, organ, bone. Their force lifted the man up and back into the metal wall. Before he slumped down to the concrete, Preacher rolled out from the opening under the set of stairs, rose to a knee aiming in the direction across the space.
Nothing. No one there. He was mid-pivot to the right when he saw it. Movement. No time. Drop, roll.
A burst of flash and fire from the doorway at the far end. He watched the light echo and shatter and splash, all within a second. Heard the collisions of pieces of metal hurtling at 3,200-feet-per-second. Flat on his stomach, he aimed and returned fire at the pinpoint where fire had exploded from a gun barrel a moment before. Three, then four, then five bursts of rounds. Fifteen shots total.
When finished firing, he rolled again. Pushing further out into the open area. No shots came. No return fire. He remained flat in the dark, ready to fire again. He turned his head away from the door to scan the dark to his left, then his right. Sight and sound told him no one was there. Hope not.
Six seconds gone by since his last rounds were fired at the doorway. He got to a knee, keeping his aim there. He brought the other rifle around so that he had both weapons ready to fire. Why wait? He let off two quick bursts from each gun. Some of the rounds sailed through the door out into the night. Others found purchase in and pierced the metal sheet of the wall around the door.
Preacher used the bursts as cover to move forward, keeping to the right, cutting down the angle should someone emerge and fire from the doorway. He eased across the concrete floor to the wall with the door at the northeast end near the corner. Static emanated from the radio he slipped into his pants pocket back under the walkway.
"Vier, funf, bericht." The voice in command for the team demanded a report from number 4 and number 5. No reply came. "Jeder, kommt herein." Sounding somewhat exasperated, the leader for the group ask for someone, anyone to respond. Anyone, come in.
Upon hearing no reply, Preacher moved forward to the door where he dropped back to his belly and inched his head around the corner to spy a view outside. Son of a gun. Right there, just four feet outside the door, lay number four of the team sent in after him. The dim light of the moon filtering through clouds on this crisp night shown down and pointed to a neat little hole just left of center on this deceased gent's forehead.
Hell of a lucky shot.
He closed his eyes and listened. There. Footsteps running away to the north.
Preacher rolled over then up to his knee and feet and was off, sprinting after the footsteps, all within a second. He dropped the rifles. Too much weight. He also liked how they provided the police, who'd eventually be called to the abandoned manufacturing facility, the weapons used to kill two of the men inside, and likely both of the men lying deceased outside the structure.
The original rabbit he'd been chasing was most likely cut down by one or both of the rifles. Nice little mass murder scene. And if he hadn't eased up and delay
ed his arrival at the doorway, he just might have joined that rabbit on that last trip into darkness. Maybe next time.
With the rifles jettisoned, Preacher was free to reach into his pocket while stretching out his legs in full sprint. Heartbeat accelerating, lungs expanding to retrieve more oxygen for the exchange in his blood. He reached the fence surrounding the building and eased quickly through a hole vandals and drug addicts found and expanded over the years.
Once outside the fence, Preacher brought the radio up to his mouth and depressed the button.
"Mein herr." He whispered as he reached full speed. No reply. He watched the figure up ahead dip behind the corner of a building. Preacher adjusted, swung to the right to open the mouth of the alley to his view. He pulled the Sig up into firing position as he advanced. He fought off the ever urge to drift, rise into the ether and travel via his satellite view of the spinning world below.
A slight turn of his head to catch the noises lurking in the night ahead in the alley. No telling, but something made him fade right, bend to a crouched stride as he dropped in full. The shots came in quick succession. He felt the heat, the miniature concussive explosions as air molecules collapsed into each other. He fired back at the pinpoint in the black left by the gunpowder blasts from the barrel of an automatic weapon. Three shots.
He stayed there, prone, aiming the barrel of his 9mm into the alley 80-feet away. Preacher glanced up. Between the passing vapor clouds, a sparse sea of stars waited. He'd been hearing their siren song more and more recently. Didn't need a diagnosis. It was back. The madness, the calling of that serpent with radiant black eyes.
See there it is. That's crazy. Serpent with radiant black eyes.
How the hell could black eyes be radiant?
He'd been doing an excellent job keeping this hidden from Abbie.
Huh.
Back on earth, he peered into the alley again. He needed the guy with the gun in there to move along. So why not ask?
"Hey Heinrich, you really should come out of there and chat in person." He smiled into the radio microphone. Very pleasant and inviting. "Komm raus mein freund." He whispered. Come out my friend.
Preacher shot up to one knee. Sig Sauer aimed in his right hand resting on his raised left forearm with radio in that hand. He made a purposeful target. The beat count in his head started before he was set. Just as quickly as he rose, he dropped back to the ground.
No shots came his way.
He rolled to the right, then again and again. Up on his feet, he burst and raced forward still to the right, closing off the angle from the alley. When he reached the brick wall of the building creating one side of the alleyway. He decided not to do the expected, which was to peek around the corner or maybe take a running jump into the space firing his pistol in a haphazard manner.
No, Preacher did the opposite, literally. He turned the opposite direction and took off, bat out of hell style. He glanced up again. Wanted to go up there with the satellites and continue his bird's-eye research of the world. That could wait.
What couldn't, obviously was a song. As soon as he kicked up his heels and began sprinting to the east and the eastern corner of the building, a song chosen by the random DJ in his head started playing. He recognized it right away. A classic. Judas Priest.
He could see the video on MTV as the tune kicked off and the guitars picked their aggressive beat. The song about having another thing coming brought a smile to his face. He recalled banging his head to the tune along with thousands of other concertgoers 15 years ago. He reached and rounded the corner, planted his right shoe in gravel and burst forward, running beside the brick wall and occasional window of another derelict building in this sad abandoned district of what used to be.
At the south end of the building, he saw life as he peeked around. Up ahead on the next block over, vehicles moved. He looked down the block several streets over and watched a group of humans cross the street. The lights of the buildings looked like they lit up taverns, bars, maybe even clubs. The former warehouses in the district were being gentrified ever to slightly. He stepped back and hugged the front of the building, dropping to a knee.
He looked left. Watched for any movement, anything.
It was just an instant. A dark object crossed the street backlit by a distant smattering of streetlights. It was a human. He shot back up to his feet and raced across the street and then left, toward the movement he'd just seen. He wished for more cover, but had to settle for a chain link fence. So he stayed low as he sprinted.
Preacher stopped at the end of the fence line and dropped to his belly and snaked around the corner with the 9 mm aimed up the street. No shots came at him. But shots were fired at the end of the block; three of them. Up on his feet, he burst across the lane. Working streetlights shown down on brick and mortar establishments. Looked like a variety of businesses, from industrial to service, lined the street.
As he reached the end of the block and leaned around a building's corner with gun extended, he quickly surmised what happened here 25 seconds earlier. Preacher stepped over to the mess. Lying on the ground was a man. The poor fella had a couple of new holes in his head and chest. Not quite dead but not far from it. Next to the dying man were two bundles of newspapers quickly getting soaked with spreading blood.
The guy had obviously been delivering newspapers to the establishment when the dude fleeing Preacher shot him. He peered down the street and thought he could see a van in the distance. Looked like it was white. Van made sense for newspaper deliveries.
He needed to move and fast. Preacher bolted across the wide street to the other side and then went right. Humans were gathered several blocks over. Took him 33 seconds to reach the gathering. Luck would have it. The men gathered there were taxi drivers. Seven guys stood around smoking and waiting for a call from dispatch. Preacher looked at the cars and saw one of them was an old Mercedes. Beat up, but looked trusty.
"Gentlemen, I need a ride."
They all just looked at him. He guessed his appearance out of the dark on this street corner did not impress them.
"Who drives the Mercedes?" He stepped over close to it and reached into his pocket to pull out some bills. "I have $100 US and I'm ready to go, now."
A black-haired man with deep olive skin hurriedly stepped away from the group and skittered over to the Mercedes. Preacher was at the back passenger door and hopped in as the driver jumped into his seat.
"Where to sir?" Preacher heard it in the voice. Turkish accent. The man's facial bone structure momentarily lit up by the car's interior dome light told the history of his familial lineage. No time for further examination.
"Drive forward and fast. Turn where I tell you. Go." Preacher threw several bills into the front seat. The driver looked down at the money while turning the ignition then turned and floored it. The Mercedes' tires ripped at the pavement.
"Turn right at the next intersection." He had the driver turn where the white van turned 53 seconds earlier. An eternity. But maybe.
The Turkish taxi driver did as told and accelerated nicely around the corner.
"Left up ahead." Preacher was leaning forward. The driver looked in the rear view mirror at him. No telling what the driver was thinking looking at the strange passenger with his eyes closed. He could never know what was going on in there. No one could.
They can't see inside. See how he was off, up there looking down on the city at night. Streets spreading out like arteries from a broken but beating heart, synopses within the brain. Here's where the real guessing begins. Which street did the killer in the white newspaper delivery van take? Which turns was he making onto other streets.
"Turn left here," he told the driver. With eyes still closed, he watched the taxi from overhead. Watched as the vehicle turned onto a wider avenue. This was it. Up ahead, that's the answer to this little riddle. He opened his eyes and sat forward to drop another bill over the seat into the driver's lap. "Faster. Get us to the bridge."
"Which one s
ir?"
"Rakoczi."
"Ok."
The driver jammed the gas pedal to the floor and ripped the car to the left, sending Preacher back into his seat. This guy knew the way. The additional bills inspired him to push the Mercedes well above the legal speed limit.
Two turns later, they were on the major thoroughfare Preacher looked down on 35 seconds earlier. Few cars on the road this early in the morning. But it sure looked like one of them a few hundred yards ahead was a white van.
"There," Preacher leaned forward. "That white van just about to the bridge. Catch him and you get another $500."
No delay. No hesitation as the inspiration of additional cash powered through the Turkish man's body from brain to toe inside a shoe pushing gas pedal as far down as the mechanism allowed. They shot forward. This was the reason Preacher chose the Mercedes from the arrangement of taxis and drivers a few minutes earlier.
He glanced over the driver's shoulder at the speedometer. Somewhere down in the recesses, neurons fired and synopses relayed electrical explosions. The result was a microsecond of calculation converting kilometers per hour to miles per hour. As the needle powered left-to-right around the face past 180 then 190 and over 200 kph, Preacher knew that the Mercedes' eight cylinders were blasting. A red needle excitedly vibrating just above 200 kph meant the Mercedes was basically a rocket ship shooting across the Rackoczi Bridge at 125 miles per hour.
The white van, a quarter-mile up and racing towards the bridge moments earlier, looked like it was parked up ahead on the span across the Danube. Preacher sat back in the bench seat, slid over to the right and pulled the little lever in the door's armrest to bring the right rear passenger window down. Wind blowing at 125 mph blasted into the vehicle. Downright exhilarating.
Fighting the forces created by the rush of air through the window and outside the racing vehicle, Preacher brought his 9mm up and stuck it out the window.
"Slow down when we get right beside the van." He yelled to the driver over the tornado inside the car.
And like an arcade car race video game, they closed the gap on the other vehicle in the next few seconds. The Mercedes flew up beside the white van and would have blown right past if the driver hadn't allowed his gastrocnemus muscle to release, allowing his right foot to flex back up off the gas pedal. In the next moment, he brought that same right foot over from the gas pedal to the brake pedal to apply pressure. The result was the Mercedes slowing down rapidly as it came up beside the van just as the two vehicles reached the western end of the bridge.
The Perfect Teacher Page 17