The Apprentice

by Tess Gerritsen

  Slowly she took the phone from her purse. Flipped it open. In the dim tunnel, she strained to see the numbers so she could dial. Keep it casual, she thought. As though you’re just checking in with Frost, not shrieking out an S.O.S. But what would she say? “I think I’m in trouble, but I can’t be sure?” She hit the speed-dial for Frost. Heard ringing, then a faint “hello” followed by static.

  The tunnel. I’m in the goddamn tunnel.

  She disconnected. Looked ahead to see how close they were to emerging. At that instant her gaze flicked involuntarily to the driver’s rearview mirror. She made the mistake of meeting his eyes, of registering the fact that he was watching her. That’s when they both knew, they both understood.

  Get out. Get out of the car!

  She lunged for the door handle, but he had already triggered the locks. Scrambling to override it, she clawed in panic at the release button.

  It was all the time he needed to reach back over the seat, aim the Taser, and fire.

  The probe hit her in the shoulder. Fifty thousand volts pulsed into her torso, an electrical jolt that shot like lightning through her nervous system. Her vision went black. She dropped to the seat, her hands useless, all her muscles contracting in a storm of convulsions, her body out of control, quivering in submission.

  A drumming noise, pattering above, drew her from the darkness. A fog of gray light slowly brightened on her retinas. She tasted blood, warm and metallic, and her tongue throbbed where she had bitten it. The fog slowly melted, and she saw daylight. They were out of the tunnel, heading . . . where? Her vision was still blurred, but through the window she could make out the shapes of tall buildings against a background of gray sky. She tried to move her arm, but it was heavy and sluggish, the muscles spent from the convulsion. And the view of buildings and trees sliding past the window was so dizzying she had to close her eyes. She focused all her effort on making her limbs obey her commands. She felt muscles twitch, and her fingers closed into a fist. Tighter. Stronger.

  Open the door. Unlock the door.

  She opened her eyes, fighting vertigo, her stomach roiling as the world spun past the window. She forced her arm to straighten, every inch a small victory. Hand now reaching toward the door, toward the lock release button. She pressed it and heard the loud click as it snapped open.

  Suddenly there was pressure on her thigh. She saw his face glancing back over the seat as he shoved the Taser against her leg. Another burst of energy pulsed into her body.

  Her limbs spasmed. Darkness fell like a hood.

  A drop of cold water falling on her cheek. The screech of duct tape being peeled off a roll. She came awake as he bound her wrists behind her back, wrapping the tape several times around before he slit it off the roll. Next he pulled off her shoes, let them thud onto the floor. Peeled off both her trouser socks so the tape would adhere to bare skin. Her vision slowly cleared as he worked, and she saw the top of his head as he leaned into the car, his attention focused on binding her ankles. Behind him, through the open car door, was an expanse of green. Marsh and trees. No buildings. The fens? Had he pulled off in the Back Bay Fens?

  Another screech of duct tape, and then the smell of adhesive as it pressed to her mouth.

  He stared down at her, and she saw details that she had not bothered to register when the car window had first rolled down. Details that had then been irrelevant. Dark eyes, a face of sharp angles, an expression of feral alertness. And excitement about what came next. A face that no one would register from the backseat of a car. They are the faceless army dressed in uniforms, she thought. The people who clean our hotel rooms and haul our luggage and drive the limousines in which we ride. They move in a parallel world, seldom noticed until they are needed.

  Until they intrude into ours.

  He picked up her cell phone from the floor where it had fallen. Dropped it onto the road and slammed his heel down, smashing the phone into a bundle of crumpled plastic and wires, which he kicked into the bushes. No enhanced 911 would lead the police to her.

  He was all efficiency now. The seasoned professional, doing what he does best. He leaned into the car, dragged her toward the door, then lifted her into his arms without even a grunt of effort. A special ops soldier who can march for miles with a hundred-pound pack strapped to his back would find little challenge in the transfer of a 115-pound woman. Rain splattered her face as she was carried to the rear of the car. She caught a glimpse of trees, silvery in the mist, and a dense tangle of undergrowth. But no other cars, even though she could hear them beyond the trees, the whish-whish of traffic, like the sound of the ocean when you hold a seashell to your ear. Close enough to raise a muffled howl of despair in her throat.

  The trunk was already open, the drab-green parachute laid out and waiting to receive her body. He dropped her inside, went back to the car for her shoes, and threw those in with her as well. Then he closed the trunk, and she heard him turn the key in the lock. Even if she got her hands free, she would not be able to escape this black coffin.

  She heard his door slam shut; then the car was moving again. Heading toward a meeting with a man she knew would be waiting for her.

  She thought of Warren Hoyt. Thought of his bland smile, his long fingers encased in latex gloves. She thought of what he would be holding in those gloved hands, and terror engulfed her. Her breaths quickened and she felt she was suffocating and could not suck in air deeply enough, quickly enough, to keep from smothering. She twisted in panic, thrashing like a crazed animal, desperate to live. Her face slammed against her suitcase, and the blow momentarily stunned her. She lay exhausted, cheek throbbing.

  The car slowed down and stopped.

  She went rigid, heart punching at her chest, as she waited for what came next. She heard a man say, “Have a nice day.” The car was rolling again, picking up speed.

  A tollbooth. They were on the Turnpike.

  She thought of all the small towns that lay to the west of Boston, all the empty fields and tracts of forest, the places where no one else would think to stop. Places where a body might never be found. She remembered Gail Yeager’s corpse, bloated and veined with black, and Marla Jean Waite’s scattered bones, lying in the stillness of woods. So goes the way of all flesh.

  She closed her eyes, focusing on the rumble of the road beneath the tires. Going very fast. By now, well beyond the Boston city limits. And what would Frost be thinking as he waited for her call? How long before he realized something had gone wrong?

  It makes no difference. He won’t know where to look. No one will.

  Her left arm was growing numb from her weight, the tingling now unbearable. She rolled onto her belly, and her face pressed against the silky parachute fabric. The same fabric that had shrouded the corpses of Gail Yeager and Karenna Ghent. She imagined she could smell death in its folds. The odor of putrescence. Repulsed, she tried to rise to a kneeling position and hit her head against the roof of the trunk. Pain bit her scalp. The suitcase, small as it was, left little room in which to maneuver, and claustrophia was making her panic again.

  Control. Goddamn it, Rizzoli. Take control.

  But she could not shut out images of the Surgeon. She remembered his face looming above her as she’d lain immobilized on the cellar floor. Remembered waiting for the slash of his scalpel, and knowing that she could not escape it. That the best she could hope for was a swift death.

  And that the alternative was infinitely worse.

  She forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply. A drop of warmth slid down her cheek, and the back of her head stung. She had cut her scalp and now it was bleeding in a steady trickle, dripping onto the parachute. Evidence, she thought. My passage marked by blood.

  I’m bleeding. What did I hit my head against?

  She raised her arms behind her, fingers skimming the trunk roof, seeking whatever it was that had pierced her scalp. She felt molded plastic, a smooth expanse of metal. Then, suddenly, a sharp edge of a protruding screw pricked her skin.

/>   She paused to ease her aching arm muscles, to blink blood from her eyes. She listened to the steady thrum of the tires over the road.

  Still moving fast, Boston far behind them.

  It is lovely, here in the woods. I stand surrounded by a ring of trees, whose tops pierce the sky like the spires of a cathedral. All morning it has rained, but now a shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds and spills onto the ground where I have hammered four iron stakes, to which I have looped four lengths of rope. Except for the steady drip from the leaves, it is silent.

  Then I hear the rustle of wings and I look up to see three crows perched on the branches overhead. They watch with strange eagerness, as though anticipating what comes next. Already they know what this place is, and now they wait, flicking their black wings, drawn here by the promise of carrion.

  Sunshine warms the ground and steam curls from the wet leaves. I have hung my knapsack on a branch to keep it dry, and it droops there like heavy fruit, weighed down by the instruments inside. I do not need to inventory the contents; I have assembled them with care, fondling their cold steel as I placed them into the knapsack. Even a year of confinement has not dulled my familiarity, and when my fingers close around a scalpel, it feels as comfortable as a handshake with an old friend.

  Now I am about to greet another old friend.

  I walk out to the road to wait.

  The clouds have thinned to wisps, and the afternoon has grown close and warm. The road is little more than two dirt ruts, and a few tall weeds poke up, their fragile seed heads undisturbed by the recent passage of any car. I hear cawing, and look up to see that the three crows have followed me, and are waiting for the show.

  Everyone likes to watch.

  A thin curl of dust rises beyond the trees. A car is coming. I wait, my heart beating faster, my hands sweating with anticipation. At last it swings into view, a gleaming black behemoth moving slowly up the dirt road, taking its dignified time. Bringing my friend to see me.

  It will be a long visit, I think. Glancing up, I see that the sun is still high, leaving us hours of daylight. Hours of summer fun.

  I move to the center of the road and the limousine rolls to a stop in front of me. The driver steps out. We don’t need to exchange a word; we merely look at each other and smile. The smile of two brothers, united not by family bonds, but by shared desires, shared cravings. Words on a page brought us together. In long letters did we spin our fantasies and forge our alliance, the words flowing from our pens like the silky strands of a spiderweb binding us together. Bringing us to these woods where crows watch with eager eyes.

  Together we walk to the rear of the car. He is excited about fucking her. I can see the bulge in his pants, and I hear the sharp rattle of the car keys in his hands. His pupils are dilated, and his upper lip gleams with sweat. We stand beside the trunk, both of us hungry for the first look at our guest. For the first delicious whiff of her terror.

  He thrusts the key in the lock and turns it. The trunk hood rises.

  She lies curled on her side, blinking up at us, her eyes dazed by the sudden light. I am so focused on her, I do not immediately register the significance of the white bra, trailing from one corner of the small suitcase. Only as my partner leans forward to haul her from the trunk do I understand what it means.

  I shout, “No!”

  But already she has brought both her hands forward. Already she is pulling the trigger.

  His head explodes in a mist of blood.

  It is a strangely graceful ballet, the way his body arches as it falls backward. The way her arms swing toward me with unerring precision. I have time only to twist sideways, and then the second bullet bursts from her gun.

  I do not feel it pierce the back of my neck.

  The strange ballet continues, only now it is my own body that performs the dance, arms flinging a circle as I hurtle through the air in a swan’s dive. I land on my side, but there is no pain on impact, only the sound of my torso slamming against dirt. I lie waiting for the ache, the throb, but there is nothing. Only a sense of surprise.

  I hear her struggle out of the car. She has been lying cramped in there for over an hour, and it takes her several minutes to make her legs obey.

  She approaches me. Shoves her foot against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. I am fully conscious, and I look up at her with full comprehension of what is about to happen. She points the weapon at my face, her hands shaking, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Smeared blood has dried on her left cheek like war paint. Every muscle in her body is primed to kill. Every instinct screams at her to squeeze the trigger. I stare back, unafraid, watching the battle play out in her eyes. Wondering which form of defeat she will choose. In her hands she holds the weapon of her own destruction; I am merely the catalyst.

  Kill me, and the consequences will destroy you.

  Let me live, and I will forever inhabit your nightmares.

  She releases a soft sob. Slowly she lowers the weapon. “No,” she whispers. And again, louder. Defiantly: “No.” Then she straightens, takes a deep breath.

  And walks back to the car.

  twenty-five

  Rizzoli stood in the clearing, looking down at the four iron stakes that had been pounded into the earth. Two for the arms, two for the legs. Knotted cord, already looped and waiting to be tightened around wrists and ankles, had been found nearby. She avoided lingering over the obvious purpose of those stakes. Instead she moved around the site with the businesslike demeanor of any cop looking over a crime scene. That it would have been her limbs restrained to the stakes, her flesh rent by the instruments contained in Hoyt’s knapsack, was a detail she kept at a distance. She could feel her colleagues watching her, could hear the way their voices grew hushed when she came near. The bandage over her sutured scalp conspicuously labeled her as the walking wounded, and they were all dealing with her as though she were glass, easily shattered. She could not abide that, not now, when she needed, more than ever, to believe she was not a victim. That she was in full control of her emotions.

  And so she walked the site, as she would have any other crime scene. The site had already been photographed and picked over by the State Police the evening before and the scene was officially released, but this morning Rizzoli and her team felt compelled to examine it as well. She tramped with Frost into the woods, tape measure whicking in and out of the canister as they measured the distance from the road to the small clearing where the State Police had discovered Warren Hoyt’s knapsack. Despite the personal significance of this circle of trees, she viewed the clearing with detachment. Recorded in her notebook was a catalog of what had been found inside the knapsack: scalpels and clamps, retractor and gloves. She’d studied the photos of Hoyt’s footwear impressions, now cast in plaster, and had stared at evidence bags holding knotted cords, without stopping to think about whose wrists those cords were intended for. She glanced up to check the changing weather, without acknowledging to herself that this same view of treetops and sky would have been her last. Jane Rizzoli the victim was not here today. Although her colleagues might watch her, waiting for a glimpse, they would not see her. No one would.

  She closed her notebook and glanced up to see Gabriel Dean walking toward her through the trees. Although her heart lifted at the sight of him, she greeted him with merely a nod, a look that said, Let’s keep it business.

  He understood, and they faced each other as two professionals, careful not to betray any hint of the intimacies they had shared only two days before.

  “The driver was hired six months ago by VIP Limousines,” she said. “The Yeagers, the Ghents, the Waites—he drove them all. And he had access to VIP’s pickup schedule. He must have seen my name on it. Canceled my scheduled pickup so that he could take the place of the driver who should have been there.”

  “And VIP checked out his job references?”

  “His references were a few years old, but they were excellent.” She paused. “There was no mention of any mili
tary service on his résumé.”

  “That’s because John Stark wasn’t his real name.”

  She frowned at him. “Identity theft?”

  Dean gestured toward the trees. They moved out of the clearing and started walking through the woods, where they could speak in private.

  “The real John Stark died September 1999 in Kosovo,” said Dean. “U.N. relief worker, killed when his Jeep hit a land mine. He’s buried in Corpus Christi, Texas.”

  “Then we don’t even know our man’s real name.”

  Dean shook his head. “Fingerprints, dental X rays, and tissue samples will be sent to both the Pentagon and Central Intelligence.”

  “We won’t get any answers from them. Will we?”

  “Not if the Dominator was one of theirs. As far as they’re concerned, you’ve taken care of their problem. Nothing more needs to be said or done.”

  “I may have resolved their problem,” she said bitterly. “But mine is still alive.”

  “Hoyt? He’ll never be a concern to you.”

  “God, I should have squeezed off one more shot—”

  “He’s probably quadriplegic, Jane. I can’t imagine any worse punishment.”

  They emerged from the woods, onto the dirt road. The limousine had been towed away last night, but the evidence of what had transpired here still remained. She looked down at the dried blood where the man known as John Stark had died. A few yards away was the smaller stain where Hoyt had fallen, his limbs senseless, his spinal cord turned to pulp.

  I could have finished it, but I let him live. And I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do.

  “How are you, Jane?”

  She heard the note of intimacy in his question, an unspoken acknowledgment that they were more than merely colleagues. She looked at him and was suddenly self-conscious about her battered face and the lump of bandage on her scalp. This was not the way she’d wanted him to see her, but now that she stood facing him there was no point hiding her bruises, nothing to do but stand straight and meet his gaze.