Audrey’s. She was looking to the bar. Finster followed her gaze as he slowed his dance pace. And that’s when he saw Busch. Looking way too obvious among this retro Aryan crowd.
The spell broke within the club, the connection shattered, all went back to their own little worlds. Finster turned to Audrey, who trembled as if she was about to face death, a cold sweat of terror beading upon her beautiful face. He had been tricked, lulled into a false sense of security. Finster needed no introduction to know that the stranger was Paul Busch. What the cop from America was doing here he didn’t know, but he certainly wasn’t dead and if he wasn’t dead, then neither was Michael or that fucking priest.
He would deal with Thal’s failure later.
He had to get to his keys.
Audrey flinched as if preparing for a blow, waiting for death. Zoe and Joy continued to dance, not realizing Audrey’s terror; their hands were still upon Finster, trying to pull him back into the mood. Cursing, he pushed them away and raced for the exit, shoving any and all from his path. This time there was no parting of the sea as he pushed the dancing throng aside. The wall of people seemed to grow at his approach. His eyes were ablaze; his anger the match that lit a fire of rage. He would pummel anyone in his tracks who obstructed him. He had to get out and get home no matter the cost.
Busch was caught, panic welled within him. He stood frozen at the bar watching his quarry successfully fight his way through the crowd. The music that assaulted his ears only seconds earlier seemed to vanish into deadly silence as he watched his plan unravel before his eyes. If Finster got out the door, there was no possible way Michael and Simon could finish.
They emerged into the English gardens south of the mansion, the periphery lit up with floodlights. Michael hadn’t realized the enormity of the home on his first visit. It was truly vast, stretching out like a primordial beast on the land. The stone facade was etched with the distorted shadows of the manicured topiary. Suddenly he understood the allure of the place to a thing like Finster: not only was it a statement of power, but it was a dare to those who might be foolish enough to attempt to penetrate her.
Simon flipped down the pair of V-shaped legs from the Galil rifle, setting them on a shadowed stone wall. The area seemed deserted. The priest turned on his frequency jammer, cutting all radio signals between the remaining eighteen mercenaries. It would only be a matter of time before they fell into isolation panic, one of those afflictions experienced by soldiers. They needed to be in constant touch with command and, to achieve military precision, they acted only upon direct orders. But when the command fell silent and was thought lost, they became like rudderless ships, spinning in helpless circles, always on the brink of sinking.
Simon swept the scope back and forth, examining the front of the mansion, studying its detail, its windows and doors. His surveillance moved to the second and then the third floor. Something caught his eye. Up on the blue slate roof. Multiple movements. There were three of them. Tucked behind the decorative frieze and low parapets. Snipers. Each tapping their ear, murmuring to one another, probably concerned about the abrupt loss of communication.
Simon set his sight on the one farthest away, the foolish man wearing a white painter’s cap, its brim facing backward. It flew off in what could have been mistaken for a breeze if not for the hat’s sudden change in color. The bullet had ripped clear through the man’s head.
Simon swung the rifle onto the middle sniper, who had turned to see what the noise was. The sniper’s eyes registered the death of his comrade just before he joined him. Fortune turned with the third. He was onto the assault, hunkering down behind the stone facade, swinging his rifle back and forth, looking for a target.
It was at that point the other guards began to congregate in front of the mansion. Milling about like cattle, confusion in their movements as they tapped their earpieces and spoke in hushed tones. The sniper saw the men below and leaned over the edge to alert his fellow guards, but he never got a word out. The priest pulled the trigger. The man teetered on the parapet and then fell, his rifle clutched in his hand as he silently spun end over end. The guards below recoiled in shock, scattering and cursing as the body splattered in a broken heap at their feet.
Simon wasted no time. It was total confusion as the routed guards ran for cover, Simon’s bullets ripping into the ground and walls. Bodies fell and blood flew.
Word traveled fast, and some obviously had experience in keeping their wits about them. They pinpointed Simon’s position from the flame licking out of his barrel. Taking up positions behind cars and walls, they returned fire.
Michael huddled behind the wall as the bullets whizzed overhead, shattering rock, embedding in trees. He understood now the fear of the soldier, the one who became paralyzed, unable to move, unable to return fire. No matter how much basic training a soldier received, you could never tell a man’s mettle in battle until he was under fire. Michael glanced over: Simon hadn’t flinched, his lethal assault continued. The priest was brutally efficient, like a pitcher in touch with his perfect game. Firing off round after round with deadly precision, his hand sweeping in a new cartridge in perfect rhythm as the spent case ejected to the ground.
Michael’s mind kept running to the Knights Templar, warriors for God, the first to attack and the last to retreat during the Crusades. But hadn’t it been so all through history—Moses killing Ramses’s men with the Red Sea, the knights crusading for Christianity, the Spanish Inquisition? Throughout history hadn’t the Church in practice and the Church in preaching seemed diametrically opposed? Yet it was always in the name of God. Always for a perceived greater good. And those who fought for the Church all believed with every fiber of their souls that they were fighting the good fight. Michael saw that fervor in Simon as he slew the men before him. No remorse, no hesitancy. Simon had one objective and one objective only: to regain the keys of his Church.
It was the red dot that caught Michael’s eye, unnaturally sweeping back and forth looking for a target in the darkness, like an errant, bright fly seeking a perch. The dot landed on Simon’s back, creeping up his neck. Simon was oblivious to his death mark, continuing his attack unaware. Michael’s fear washed away. Raising his HK, he fired, the cascade of bullets splintering the woods as he swept his weapon back and forth in the dark direction of the unseen stalker. He emptied his cartridge at the invisible assailant, then slammed a new one in the stock, his nose burning from the acrid cordite smell. The red dot vanished. The smoke cleared; Simon hadn’t flinched, his eye still glued to the gun sight, pulling off shot after shot. Eight bodies littered the lawn. “There are probably more,” the priest whispered without looking up.
Michael looked to the woods; he had always loved the dark, the way it enveloped him, hugged him, protected him. But now it was protecting others, cloaking them as they lay in wait to kill him. Reluctantly, he checked his gun, then belly-crawled toward the trees.
“Keep track of your kills,” Michael heard Simon say as he crept deeper into the shadows.
Keep track of your kills. Sure. Does that include me? Michael thought, as he got to his feet. The lights of the mansion had disappeared behind the trees. Cautiously looking about, he held his gun like Simon had taught him, his knuckles gone white from his clench. He had drawn a line in his mind from the priest to the red beam’s point of origin. “One,” Michael murmured, as his boot toe touched his first kill.
He leaned down to the body, not knowing what he was looking for, when the tree to his right exploded with gunfire, the flying wood chips slicing his cheek. He tumbled left, taking up position behind a large oak tree, blasting his gun in the general direction of his attacker. His volley was answered with a furious onslaught of gunfire. His arm suddenly burned as a bullet grazed it. He was pinned down and inexperienced. This wasn’t his game: he knew alarms and electronics, he was a thief, and way out of his element.
He pressed his back against the tree, hoping its size proved just a slight bit of protection. Simon had taught him how to shoo
t cans. Small unmoving cans: Pepsi and Coke. These targets were mobile and unseen. And they shot back. He didn’t know if others were gathering and if he couldn’t fell them here, Simon was surely dead. And that’s when he looked up. He slung his rifle over his back. He paused, listening for movement. Hearing nothing, he straightened and started climbing.
Twelve. Simon felt a strange comfort, something he hadn’t felt in years. As quirky as it seemed, he was at home. And while he should have felt conflicted, he didn’t; these were men protecting an evil. They were the worst kind of soldier, whose loyalties ran to the highest bidder. He felt no remorse as they fell. He would leave their judgment to the afterlife—if the afterlife existed after tonight.
All the shooting had cleared his mind, forcing his senses to react by instinct. It had been fifteen years since he served in the Italian army but it felt like yesterday. He hadn’t come under fire like this but thrice in his life and it energized him; he thrived under pressure. And if this wasn’t pressure, the word didn’t exist. Throughout it all, he never forgot his vocation, that of a priest. One with a special sanction to protect the Church and its beliefs, at all costs. Each pull of the trigger was accompanied by a simple prayer of praise, for renewal and forgiveness. It was the same prayer he always said when he felled a man. A prayer he had said more times than he could ever count.
He fought to ignore the pain in his right shoulder. The bullet had passed clear through; its heat had partially cauterized the entry wound, but the exit wound was a different matter. He could feel the blood soaking into his shirt. The shooting had stopped, silence all around. His tactic of drawing the guards out had worked. He had eliminated a good portion, but the remaining guards were now at the ready and they were doing the hunting. It was the last few who proved the hardest to kill and it was always the one final opponent that posed the greatest challenge.
Colonel T. C. Roberts stepped from the house, a solid six feet, his upper body almost as wide. He looked about, seeing the bodies; he had no idea how many were down or how many were left. The blasted radio was out of commission, something was jamming the signal.
No longer in the U.S. Marines, Roberts held on to the title anyway as it immediately established command and respect among his men. Of course, he didn’t have the title when he left, having been stripped of it at his court-martial. His treatment of that simpleminded soldier hadn’t gone over well with the high command, particularly as he’d meted out punishment up to and including death. The fact that he administered the killing blow to the young Southerner’s temple with the butt of his rifle and then blamed it on his sergeant provided him few allies during his trial. But escape from military prison was easy and finding soldiers of fortune easier. Roberts knew of many from his Desert Storm command who just weren’t satisfied by that abbreviated fight. They weren’t always the most talented soldiers, but they were driven. Driven by a lust beyond money; driven by a lust for blood.
Roberts scratched at the scar along his nose. It ran from his left eye across his bridge to his right cheek and had caused him trouble since his run-in with that drunken street bum two years prior. Of course, the bum hadn’t scratched anything since, but Roberts cursed the creep’s soul daily for the disfigurement. No one would breach this house, that was a promise he made to Finster and a promise he would keep. He debated notifying him on the cell phone but thought better of it. Get the situation in hand, mitigate the damage, and end the assault. There would be plenty of time for reports later.
He set the house alarm and stood in the opening of the porte cochere looking out at the well-lit grounds. He couldn’t see beyond the lights’ reach, though, and cursed his men for their stupidity. They might as well have been wearing neon bull’s-eyes and blindfolds. Roberts pulled his Colt and in quick succession shot out the lights; one bullet per was all he needed. They exploded in a hail of sparks and winked out. The estate fell dark. He had just equalized the playing field a bit. It was time to turn the tables.
Chapter 31
Busch raced through the dancing crowd, the music pounding in his ear; it was like wading through mud, the progress he was making. The young and the beautiful gave no quarter. They were oblivious to his mounting panic. An occasional few even threw a swing or an elbow at the out-of-place American.
Finster had figured them out and had gotten the jump, shoving all from his path easily as he fought to get out of the murky club and get home. The billionaire had allowed himself to get lost in the moment, enjoying his last night of fun. All the lust, all the greed—he had become just like those he manipulated. And though there was an armed force of twenty-one standing in the way at home, he was certain they could fail. He wasn’t about to lose everything he had fought for now. Those keys were his destiny.
Finster had the advantage on the American policeman; he was off the dance floor, only twenty meters to the door. He had lost sight of the cop, not that he was of any consequence. No man had ever really created worry in Finster, he was sublimely confident in himself and his abilities. His only thoughts now were on his keys and keeping them out of the hands of the thief and the priest. Ten meters to the door and he hit a wall. A human wall. Busch was there, all two hundred and sixty pounds of him. “Move!” Finster screamed over the music, his voice the sound of breaking glass.
Busch was silent. He stared at this man who so many held in awe. A man who had created such fear in Michael.
“Do you realize who I am? I’ll blind you before you can blink.” Finster could barely contain his verbal rage, yet his body remained calm, without motion.
Busch finally saw the man—not his picture, not some televised broadcast, this was Finster up close. There was something frighteningly unnatural about him, a foreboding in his stillness which contrasted oddly with his boiling wrath. He possessed an aura that felt like a repulsive field around him. And it occurred to Busch when he looked into Finster’s eyes that they were wrong. Like nothing he had ever seen before. He couldn’t explain it, but they didn’t lie. They weren’t the eyes of a man; they were the eyes of evil. Against all logic, Busch finally believed what Michael and Simon had fought so hard to convince him of. Whatever one’s religion, this was the embodiment of darkness. But, at this particular moment, he didn’t care. “You can’t blind me. Not here,” Busch replied.
Finster didn’t comprehend: he tried to barge straight through Busch. But the giant wasn’t about to budge.
“You have no idea where you are,” Busch said with confidence.
Finster stepped within inches of Busch’s face. “Out of my way before—”
“You’re on holy ground.” Busch cut him off. “This place”—he waved his hands around—“used to be a church. Consecrated in the name of God. Sanctuary.”
Finster looked around, baffled, and began to seethe. Lo and behold, it was a church. The fifteen-foot windows depicted the Stations of the Cross in stunningly detailed stained glass. At the far end, upon a raised platform, was a marble altar on which the DJ spun his music. The seats: old wooden pews. The balcony: a choir loft. The club’s shape was now obvious: that of a cross.
“Personally, I think it’s sick, but tonight it serves my purpose,” Busch said, cracking the beginning of a Cheshire smile.
“Which is?” Finster’s anger was finally manifesting itself physically, his face going red, his body quivering.
Busch’s arm snapped out, grabbing the older man’s arm, squeezing it tightly to emphasize his point. “To keep you here, blind and powerless.” Finster struggled but couldn’t break Busch’s grip. “You’re trapped in the one place you have been forbidden to enter…and…there is no way out for you.”
Busch smiled ear to ear. He had beaten the one they said couldn’t be beaten.
Michael was fifty feet up and moving through the trees. His movement was effortless but stealth proved difficult. The control he mustered to remain silent within the flexing branches sapped his energy. He was taking advantage of darkness and the distant gunfire to work his way across the tr
eetops. The wound to his arm was minor; only a little blood seeped from it. Still, his fingertips sore, his feet on the verge of failure, he wondered if he would ever get back to getting the keys before Finster returned home.
The sound of crunching leaves rose up from the forest floor. Michael froze. Moving in the shadows below, he could make out the shape of a man, hunkered on the ground, hiding tree to tree. One of Finster’s soldiers. Michael propped himself between two branches, wedging himself silently in place. He drew his rifle off his shoulder and pointed downward. It would have to be the first shot. He needed to preserve his position from any other stalkers. If he gave himself away, he was surely dead; there was no other place to go now that he was up here. Briefly, he debated letting the guy pass and then climbing down. He hadn’t realized how compromised he was. Sitting fifty feet up, he’d become a restricted, stationary target.
The man stopped directly below him. Michael braced himself, aimed at the crown of the guard’s head.
The guard fell where he stood, the bullet careening downward through his skull, through his throat, through his body. Michael looked about. “Two,” he whispered. His personal body count.
He waited a brief moment, then descended. He loved to climb but had gotten so used to brick and stone buildings he had forgotten about the joy of trees from his youth. Terrific handholds, branches for footholds. He thought it would be nice to be a child—then at least he wouldn’t be here. He jumped the last eight feet, landing next to the body. He leaned in to check the soldier.
“Don’t move.” Michael couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. “Hands in the air.” Someone behind him removed the rifle from his back. The butt of a gun crashed his head, tumbling him forward. “How many?” the soldier snarled.
Michael said nothing and was rewarded with another blow to the head.
The Thieves of Heaven Page 33