Blood Trust jm-3

by Eric Van Lustbader

  By this time, Annika had regained the branch, but now a wind had sprung up, one that bobbed the branch up and down. Again and again, it dipped dangerously close to the electrified wire. Annika froze, waiting for the wind to subside, but it didn’t. In fact, it started to blow harder. Closer and closer she came, until Jack stretched out on the limb and slowly pulled her toward him and off the far end of the branch.

  He took the rock from her, wrapped it in the soaked square of shirt, then tied it off with a piece of plastic cord ripped from one of the outside pockets of his backpack.

  “Ready?” he whispered.

  Annika nodded, and he threw the makeshift bundle into the far left corner of the garden. Almost at once, a howling commenced and two huge dogs came racing and skidding around the corner of the house, heading directly toward the unfamiliar spoor invading their territory. Jack and Annika shinnied down, keeping the tree trunk between themselves and the dogs. They reached the opposite corner of the villa and pressed themselves against the cool stucco wall as a pair of guards, AK-50s at the ready, sprinted into the garden to see what was driving the dogs into a frenzy.

  They had very little time before the dogs scented them. Jack opened a side window and Annika climbed through. He was about to follow her when he heard a stirring in the shadows and another guard appeared. The moment he saw Jack he swung his assault rifle toward Jack’s midsection. Stepping toward him, Jack shoved the barrel of the AK-50 to one side and delivered a sharp blow to the guard’s throat. Then he grabbed the assault rifle out of the staggering man’s hands and drove the butt into the bridge of his nose. The guard went down and stayed down. Slinging the AK-50 over his shoulder, Jack dragged the unconscious guard to the windowsill and tipped him inside. Then he followed him in.

  He was in a darkened bedroom. Closing the window behind him, he looked around for Annika, but she was nowhere to be seen. Cursing under his breath, he stepped out into the hallway, looked both ways, then went to his right. He soon found himself in the large kitchen with its line of windows overlooking the garden. Two guards lay sprawled on the floor. Three down. Two were outside with the dogs. That meant one last guard left. He had to find Xhafa and the Syrian before the other two guards grew suspicious and decided to check the interior of the house. He unslung the AK-50.

  Moving stealthily, he came upon the vast living room with its prayer rugs, modern task chair, and desk. He soon discovered that the computer was without its hard drive. He saw a connection for a high-speed modem but the modem itself was missing. He turned. Had Xhafa somehow known they were coming? Had he and the Syrian abandoned the house, leaving the guards as bait?

  Then he heard the gunshot and he broke into a run.

  * * *

  THATË, HIS hand around Alli’s arm, was met almost immediately by an Albanian thug who was clearly higher up the crooked ladder than the guards outside.

  “A new cherry,” Thatë said. “And a feisty one.”

  The thug grinned. “We have a cure for that.” He ogled her openly. “We’ll break her spirit soon enough.” Laughing at her expression, he grabbed at one of her breasts.

  Thatë pulled her away before she could receive more of a mauling. “Absolutely not. Now that Edon is gone, Arian wants this one for himself. Where are the special cherries housed?”

  “Third floor in the rear.” The Albanian frowned. “But I didn’t hear anything about another special.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “We have Edon’s sister up there. She belongs to Xhafa.”

  Thatë sighed. “I only do what he tells me. Call him, if you need to.”

  “That’s just what I intend to do.”

  The Albanian pulled out his cell and Alli jammed her elbow into his kidney. Thatë used the barrel of his handgun on the Albanian’s neck, cracking several vertebrae. The Albanian crumpled to the floor. Thatë nodded at Alli and, together, they raced down the corridor and up the central staircase.

  Behind them, the Albanian’s cell activated with an incoming call.

  “Ilir, are you there? Ilir, check in.”

  * * *

  ANNIKA FOUND Xhafa in a small room, perhaps a study, because there were piles of books on the floor. He was sitting in a chair, a Sig Sauer in one hand.

  “I knew you’d come,” he said. “Like a dog to its own stink.” He lifted the handgun and pulled the trigger.

  Annika, in shadow, was already moving. The bullet whizzed by her ear. Then she kicked out with her right boot, connecting with the point of Xhafa’s chin. The chair tumbled over backward. Reaching out, she plucked the Sig Sauer from him and pulled the chair back onto its feet. Xhafa sat dazed, blood drooling from a corner of his mouth.

  “Sure I came back,” she said. “You’re the dog, you’re the stink.”

  That’s when the barking of the dogs rang through the house.

  Xhafa smiled through his pain. “Bang, bang,” he said. “You’re dead.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  THEY WERE pounding up the safehouse stairs when Alli felt a breeze on her cheek, cold enough to make her shiver.

  “They’re coming.”

  It was Emma. Alli fought down a certain terror. Emma spoke to Jack only when he was near death or in dire straits. Was it the same with her?

  “Prepare yourself, Alli.”

  “Company,” Alli said to Thatë.

  —Emma, stay with me.

  Two men appeared on the second-floor landing. The moment they saw Alli and Thatë, they opened fire with AK-50s.

  “I guess our cover’s blown,” Alli said as she scrambled out of the way.

  Thatë opened fire with his assault rifle and the two men scattered. He advanced upward, Alli in his wake. She saw one of the men above them prone on the landing, aiming his weapon at Thatë, and she shot him. Her hands were firm, her mind unclouded. These were the lessons Jack had taught her, even before he’d brought her to the firing range for the first time. A firecracker could have gone off next to her and her concentration wouldn’t have wavered. Jack was a zen master when it came to concentration. For him, it was a necessity. In order to function more or less normally in the world took enormous amounts of concentration on his part. Anything flat with letters on it looked like a pinwheel or the inside of a lava lamp.

  They were almost at the landing. Where was the other Albanian? As they reached the second floor, Thatë indicated that she go left while he went right. To the left, the banister ran along the second floor for about fifteen feet before arching upward on the flight to the third floor. Just before she reached the landing, Alli swung onto the banister. Here her smallness and light weight were a distinct advantage. Hooking her ankles through the uprights, she inched her way along. Behind her, she heard a spray of bullets and, turning, saw Thatë coming toward her. He was pointing upward; he had nailed the other Albanian.

  They launched themselves up the staircase. Alli checked her watch. Less than four minutes until Vasily started his diversion.

  They were only partway up, when a commanding voice called from behind them. “Stop where you are! Lay down your weapons and kneel with your hands behind your head!”

  * * *

  JACK COULD see Annika in the shadows, heard her speaking, presumably to Xhafa, when the barking of the attack dogs announced their entry into the house. He turned and, in a half-crouch, prepared to defend their position.

  The first of the dogs appeared, its claws skittering on the wooden floor. Jack got off a shot just after it saw him. He hit a flank, but that hardly stopped the animal. It merely bared its teeth and came on. He shot it in the chest, but he was distracted by the sight in his peripheral vision of the second dog. The first dog was hardly slowed down by the two bullets and was barely two feet from Jack when he shot it in the head. It dropped in front of him, but now the second dog was upon him, its long claws extended, its jaws snapping as if it were rabid.

  The sheer weight of it bowled him over. He jammed the barrel of the AK-50 between its jaws to keep it at bay, b
ut its claws were tearing through his jacket as it if were made of tissue. He cracked his elbow into the side of the dog’s head, but that only made it angrier. The dog had hold of the AK-50 and wasn’t going to let go. He twisted it so hard, he heard the animal’s neck vertebrae click. In that moment, he let go of the weapon and used his crooked arms to jerk the dog’s neck even farther. The vertebrae cracked like a gunshot, the light went out of the animal’s eyes, and its weight slumped on top of him.

  He took a deep breath and was about to retrieve the assault rifle from the dog’s clamped jaws when a voice said, “I’ll take that.”

  He found himself staring up into the face of one of the guards.

  * * *

  ALLI TURNED to see the man with one green eye, the other blue; monstrous eyes, revealing a pitiless and relentless soul. She shivered and even Emma, beside her, seemed to quail.

  “He’ll kill you, Alli. Give him the chance and he’ll kill you.”

  Thatë made the mistake of trying to reason with him. “I work for Arian Xhafa. We’re here for Liridona. We have no quarrel with you.”

  “The blood you’ve spilled is quarrel enough.” One eye seemed to speak while the other was deep in scheming. He was addressing Thatë but seemed to impale Alli with his implacable gaze. “No one leaves my safehouse.”

  “Yours?” Thatë shook his head. “This safehouse belongs to Arian Xhafa.”

  “Arian Xhafa belongs to me.”

  The Syrian lifted a pearl-handled M1911 but before anyone could react, a ferociously hot fireball raced up the stairs with a massive lightning crack. The Syrian turned. Thatë shot him in the shoulder, but the Syrian, seemingly unperturbed, fired the .45. The full-metal-jacket bullet buried itself in Thatë’s chest, throwing him back against the stairs. From that semiprone position, he fired again and again, forcing the Syrian back into a room on the second floor.

  “Thatë!” Alli cried, bending down to see to his wound.

  But he thrust her roughly away. “Upstairs. Find Liridona and get out of here. I’ll keep this fucker out of your way.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” He glanced up at her. “This is what I’ve trained for, this is my life. Now leave me to it.”

  He began to fire again.

  “Thatë—”

  He shoved her hard. “Go!”

  “Run, Alli.”

  Tears running down her face, she turned and bolted up the stairs.

  * * *

  ANNIKA IGNORED the shots and the animal growling that came from the room behind her. This appeared to surprise Xhafa, until he said, “You’re not alone.”

  Without a word, she hauled him out of the chair and, spinning him around, slammed him down on the floor.

  “You’ll always be mine, you know,” he said. “Whatever you do, until the day you die.”

  Annika straddled him. Taking a huge bowie knife out of her backpack, she proceeded to strip off his clothes, baring his back. The muscles rippled in anticipation.

  Pressing the blade point to his skin, Annika proceeded to score seven concentric circles into his back, carving each circle deep into the muscles. Blood flowed, Xhafa screamed and kept on screaming.

  * * *

  CAROLINE WAS sitting in the passenger seat of the Syrian’s car, cradling her laptop, when she heard the volleys of gunshots. The car was parked a block away from the safehouse but the cracks sounded much closer. She turned to look out the side window just as Taroq pulled the door open.

  She got out and Taroq embraced her. For all the emotion inside her, she might have been embraced by a boxcar.

  “You had no trouble following us?”

  He shook his head. “None at all.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  He pointed off to their left. “My car is this way.”

  At his side, she walked quickly away from the Syrian’s car and never looked back.

  * * *

  THE FIRST screams caused the guard to look beyond where Jack lay, buried beneath the attack dog. In that moment, Jack located his Glock, brought it out, and shot the guard in the head. He was taking no chances. Grunting, he began to shrug off the dog’s corpse, when it juddered back into him, struck by two bullets fired from the second guard’s gun. He slumped to the floor as if shot.

  Through slitted eyes, he saw the boots of the second guard coming hesitantly toward him. He was taking a calculated risk, he knew, but the dog was so big that it covered all of his torso and head. His hand with the Glock in it was beneath the attack dog’s neck and so able to move.

  When he saw the boots close enough, he edged the muzzle of the pistol forward, tilting it up. It was then that the left boot slammed down on the Glock, trapping it.

  At once, Jack let it go and, slithering out from under the animal, fired at the guard with the handgun in his left hand. He missed, and the guard slammed the barrel of his pistol into Jack’s cheek. Even as the pain jolted him, Jack stepped forward, inside the guard’s defense, delivering a flurry of vicious blows to his adversary’s head and neck.

  Undeterred, the guard drove his fist into Jack’s wounded side, and Jack crumpled in agony. Grinning, the guard stood over him, pointing his pistol at Jack’s head. One instant his finger was about to pull the trigger, the next the blade of a bowie knife was buried hilt-deep in the left side of his chest.

  He looked up, past Jack, but he was already arching backward and all his glazing eyes saw was the ceiling before his heart, sliced in two, ceased to beat.

  Jack looked back over his shoulder and saw Annika standing in the doorway.

  * * *

  ALLI HAD just reached the third floor when she heard the pounding of boots. She had just enough time to duck into a room before six or seven armed men came charging down the hall, drawn by the gunfire and the smoke and flames from the ground floor. When they had passed, she darted out, running full-tilt down the hall. She flew by rooms with young girls in them, lying on mean pallets, or, more likely, deep in drug-induced slumber. She wanted to free them all but in their current state and under the circumstances that was impossible. She was here to find Liridona.

  Liridona was in the back room, caged like an animal, on her hands and knees because there was no room to stand. Alli rattled the door, but it was padlocked.

  “Edon sent me,” she said to the terrified girl. “Where’s the key?”

  When Liridona failed to answer, Alli shouted, “Stand back!” Then she shot off the padlock, opened the door, and brought Liridona out.

  “Do you speak English?”

  When Liridona nodded, she said, “My name is Alli. Edon sent me.”

  “Edon is alive?”

  “Alive and well,” Alli assured her. “Now it’s time to get you out of here.”

  “But how?”

  A good question. Thatë said there was only one entrance. But Vasily was there and the guards would be clogging the entrance, putting out the fire. What to do?

  “Where do the guards sleep?”

  “We’re not allowed to go—”

  “Quickly, now!” Alli commanded her out of her terror-induced stupor. “Show me the way!”

  Liridona stumbled down the hall, Alli at her back, guarding her like a lion with its cub.

  * * *

  JACK, COVERED in blood, heaved the attack dog’s corpse off him and rose shakily to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” Annika said.

  “I should be asking you that.” He brushed by her into the room. “Good God.”

  Arian Xhafa was on the floor, his naked back a mass of bleeding wounds. His fingers were curling and uncurling spastically and he was trying to get up on his hands and knees.

  Jack walked toward him. “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “What he did to me.” Annika was right beside him.

  He watched Xhafa crawling his way toward the chair.

  “Only worse.”

  “Only worse,” she affirmed.

 
Jack glanced at her. “Is it over now?”

  Her carnelian eyes were hard and, also, he thought, a bit sad.

  “You know better than that.”

  Behind her, Xhafa, hands on the chair’s arms, pulled himself up.

  “I only counted five guards,” he said. “And where is the Syrian?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xhafa’s right hand slide beneath the chair’s cushion. In an instant, he had whipped around, a 9mm in his hand. Pushing Annika, Jack squeezed off two shots. One passed through Xhafa’s neck, the second took off the back of his head.

  Annika did not turn around. Instead, she stared into Jack’s eyes. “All that work,” she said, “for nothing.”

  Was she serious or being facetious? That was the thing about Annika. You could never be sure.

  * * *

  LIRIDONA LED Alli into a warren of well-furnished, almost opulent rooms. She crossed the floor and opened one of the windows. This was the side where the ivy grew thick against the wall.

  Liridona, at her shoulder, looked wide-eyed. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting out of here.”

  “I can’t.” Liridona shook her head wildly. “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “We have no choice. This is the only way out.”

  Liridona shrank back. “No.”

  “Look.” Alli pointed to the streetlight that rose up at the rear corner of the house. “All we have to do is get over there and it will give us an easy way down.”

  “I can’t. Please.”

  “I won’t let you die here.” Alli grabbed her. “Put your arms around me.” She felt the girl’s rail-thin body as she climbed onto her back. “Now when I swing out, wrap your legs around me, too.”

  Holding on to the window sash, Alli put one leg over the sill, and grabbed for the nearest vine before realizing that their combined weight was too much for her.