by Scott Blade
He went downstairs and found Lin asleep on one of the sofas. The fire was still alive, but glowed less than earlier.
Widow moved to the kitchen and looked around, nothing of interest, except the coffee pot, which was off. But he looked anyway.
Saw the time on the clock. Four in the morning.
A little early for the colonel to be flying that thing, he thought.
He went to the backdoor and opened it, stepped out onto the deck. The wood was cold under his feet. He went over to the railing and looked around, checked the sky, the cluster of distant trees, the lights from the colonel’s house. He saw no sign of the Mosquito.
He also saw no sign of any of the other MSS men. No Lu. No pilots.
Saw something on the ice. On the lake.
He almost stepped off the back deck but he didn’t have his boots on.
He ducked back inside to get them. They were in the front, in the mudroom where he’d left them. He slipped them on and went back through the house, sneaking past Lin.
He realized he’d left the winter coat inside, but went outside without it.
The back deck’s light was switched off. He left it that way and walked out. He stepped off the deck and into the snow.
Then he saw someone down by the lake. It was one of the pilots. He was smoking a cigarette. As he approached the pilot, he saw the guy trying to see the object on the ice. The pilot took another puff of his cigarette.
Suddenly, his chest exploded, followed by his back. A bullet went right through him.
Widow dove for the snow.
He stayed prone and watched. The pilot’s cigarette landed in the snow, burned one last time like it was still being puffed, and it lit up the pilot’s face, which had an expression of utter shock on it. His eyes were wide open. But he was lifeless.
Widow felt a sudden pain in his arm. He’d landed on top of it, again.
He stayed still.
He saw a figure coming up off the ice. All black.
His eyes came into better focus. He saw the object on the ice was the old colonel’s Mosquito. But the man coming up the ice wasn’t the old colonel.
This guy looked old, but he wasn’t white. And it looked like he had a scar over one eye.
CHAPTER 48
WIDOW SAW A USP in the guy’s hand, silenced. But he wasn’t the one who had shot the pilot. That shot had come from the ice, or beyond. A sniper.
Widow guessed it was the Rainmaker that he was looking at because the guy fit the bill. The sniper must’ve been his protégé. The second shooter. The one who killed Gregor.
The Rainmaker approached the dead body, slowly, and looked it over once; then he started to the house.
He wasn’t planning to kill Lara with a sniper’s bullet. He wanted to do this one up close and personal.
Just then, Widow heard footsteps. He turned and saw Lu and the other pilot standing on the side of the house, investigating.
They saw the figure coming toward them, but couldn’t identify him.
Then Widow thought, they don’t know about the sniper.
But it was too late.
A faint sound echoed across the ice, a suppressed sniper rifle. It sounded like someone hitting a tree with a board, only softer than that.
Widow saw the other pilot’s head explode right in front of Lu.
Then Lu’s chest burst open in two places, almost at the exact same second.
The Rainmaker had shot him once, with the USP, right in the heart, and the protégé sniper had shot the other bullet.
Widow was about to call out to them, to warn them. Again, he was too late.
CHAPTER 49
THREE MEN DEAD, right in front of him, four if the old colonel was dead. The Rainmaker and his student had killed them in seconds.
Widow hugged the snow, didn’t move.
The Rainmaker walked up to the back deck. He stepped up and entered the house.
It would be seconds before he discovered Lin asleep on the sofa, and everyone else was asleep. Widow had to act, but the student sniper was still out there. Probably on the ice. Maybe they had managed to chopper over together. Or maybe he was on the land, not far beyond the frozen water, near the trees.
If Widow jumped up and ran for the back deck, he’d be seen, right there. The sniper had nothing else to do. No one else to look at. The house was quiet behind him.
If the second sniper was looking, he’d be seen and killed as soon as he made the first move.
For the first time in twelve years, Widow didn’t know what to do.
His head started hurting again.
Not now! he thought.
He closed his eyes, remembered staying still, twelve years ago. Remembered thinking Lin was dead, sprawled out on his chest. He had been stuck then and he was stuck now. Paralyzed.
He had to act.
He couldn’t let her die, not twice, not again.
He couldn’t let Cassidy die, or the Gagnons, or the baby on the way.
Widow’s life was worth losing if it meant giving them a chance to live.
Seconds passed. He had to act.
Suddenly, Widow got a break, and he was all about taking advantage of the right opportunity. It wasn’t going to get any better.
Right then, the dogs started barking in the house.
He had to bet that the sniper would be watching the upstairs.
He leapt to his feet, stayed crouched, and sprinted as fast as he could, through the snow, up the steps, over the deck, and into the house.
No sign of the Rainmaker in the hall or the kitchen.
But he saw him, standing in the dimming firelight, standing over the girl he’d tried to murder twelve years ago.
The USP in his hand, silenced, and pressed an inch from Lin’s head.
Widow exploded into action like he was running in the Olympics and the starter gun had been fired.
He went through the kitchen, making as much noise as he could. He grabbed the cold coffee pot with his good hand and ran past the bar and into the living room.
The Rainmaker heard him coming and twisted at the waist, ready to shoot the madman running at him with a coffee pot.
Widow was faster and had a longer reach.
He slammed the coffee pot into the Rainmaker’s gun hand.
The USP fired as it was knocked free. The bullet slammed into the refrigerator in the kitchen. The gunshot was muted, but the stainless steel refrigerator door pinged loudly behind him.
The Rainmaker was faster than Widow had thought for an old man. And he was very limber.
He had pulled a k-blade out about as fast as he could draw a gun. He stabbed at Widow with it.
Widow blocked with his left hand. The blade stabbed into his cast and it got stuck there.
The Rainmaker tried to jerk it out, but couldn’t. Not before Widow punched him with a fast right hook.
The Rainmaker flew off balance and let go of the knife. The side of his face was red and bloody. Widow had cut his face open somewhere.
Widow went to grab the knife out of his cast, but the Rainmaker scooped up his gun first. He rolled with it and aimed right at Widow’s center mass.
He smiled at Widow, like he recognized him. The man who got away.
He didn’t shoot, not yet.
CHAPTER 50
THE DOGS BARKED UPSTAIRS, but the Rainmaker didn’t seem to care about that. He stared at Widow down the sights of a USP.
Widow should have been dead, but he was still alive.
He spoke first.
“Why aren’t you shooting me?”
“I no shoot you yet because I know you.”
“You know me?”
The Rainmaker nodded.
“You the man that night. You escaped me.”
Widow nodded, said, “That was you.”
“It was me.”
“All of them? You were alone?”
The Rainmaker was down on one knee, aiming the gun. It was rock-steady in his hand.
Wido
w saw that the eye with the scar was completely whited out. He was blind as a bat in it.
“Not alone. But I only one shoot that far. I kill boy. I kill woman. I kill man.”
He paused a beat and said, “I kill girl.”
“What about my partner?”
The Rainmaker shook his head.
“Not him. That other sniper. I was reserved for when you got far away.”
Widow stayed quiet. He saw Lin moving in the corner of his eye.
“You know what they do when I not kill you?”
Widow said, “Put you in prison?”
The Rainmaker nodded.
“You know what that for me was like? It was horror. They kill my wife. They kill my son. They take my eye. Only my daughter left.”
Widow nodded.
“She out there. Right now. She getting good. Like me.”
His daughter was his student, Widow thought. A family business.
Lin was moving, slowly.
Widow wondered if the Rainmaker couldn’t see her because of his eye. He had no peripheral vision on that side of his face.
Widow said, “You’re wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
“That girl.”
The Rainmaker stared at him.
“She lived too.”
Lin burst from the sofa, charged at the Rainmaker with a poker from the fireplace. Turned out he did see her moving. He shot her. She went flying back.
Widow shouted without realizing it.
The dogs were barking very loudly now.
Widow attempted to sprint and charge the Rainmaker. But he twisted, fast, and pointed the USP at Widow again. This time he was going to shoot him. No question.
Talking was over.
This was beyond personal.
Widow jerked the knife all the way out of the cast as he charged. He was ready to die, but the Rainmaker was going to get cut. He wasn’t going to die without making sure he took that other eye.
A gunshot BOOMED! through the house and its target exploded.
CHAPTER 51
WIDOW FROZE WHERE HE WAS. He had heard a gunshot blasting through the house. It echoed and rang out and quieted down after a long, long second.
The Rainmaker had a silencer on his gun. It wasn’t his gun that fired.
And Widow was all in one piece.
The Rainmaker was not so lucky. His head had exploded, like the heads of his victims. A bullet had torn through the back of his head and out his good eye.
Widow saw all of it.
Blood sprayed all over the sofas and across Widow’s face and clothes.
Standing at the top of the stairs was a pregnant Lara Gagnon, holding one of her sniper rifles. It was bolt action and smoke plumed out of the barrel.
Turned out she was pretty good with it at short range too.
Widow dropped the knife and ran over to Lin.
She was still alive. The Rainmaker had shot her on the left side again, thinking it was her heart. But she was breathing badly and it was still a dangerous wound.
She was conscious. He told her to stay quiet.
Cassidy appeared at the top of the stairs, behind Lara and Lawrence. She had her Glock out.
They all came down the stairs, the dogs too.
The dogs were licking up what was left of the Rainmaker. No one stopped them.
Lawrence took over tending Lin and ordered Cassidy to get him water and towels from different rooms.
Widow stood up and grabbed Lara’s arm.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded.
“There’s one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“You got night vision on that gun?”
She smiled.
They went to the top floor and she looked out through a window from her bedroom. They left the lights off.
“I see the sniper. It’s a girl.”
She’d found the protégé, the Rainmaker’s daughter. Which he didn’t tell her.
“Yeah. How old is she?”
Lara paused and said, “I’d say in her early twenties.”
Widow paused.
“Want me to kill her?”
Widow thought for a second.
“Hurry, she looks worried. She’s shuffling around.”
She had killed Gregor. She had murdered in cold blood. And who knew how many others.
“Do it,” he said.
Lara breathed in, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 52
LAWRENCE MANAGED to keep Lin alive long enough for them to get her into a vehicle and drive to town, where there was a small hospital. He told Widow that she would have to be moved to a better one, which was an hour’s drive south, but she should make it just fine.
Widow looking for holes in the ice. He thought about having them dump the bodies in the lake, but he had brought enough problems to the Gagnons.
Lara was a by-the-book type. Mostly.
They wanted to get the authorities out there as soon as possible.
Widow convinced them to wait until Lin was safe and stable in the local hospital. He rode with them to bring her. As did Cassidy. Only the dogs stayed behind in the house.
They arrived in downtown Doberman and Widow helped them get Lin into the emergency room, which was bigger than Widow expected.
He saw her go in; she was talking. She’d be fine, he figured.
He never said goodbye to her.
He took Cassidy by the hand and fell back with her, behind the Gagnons and the nurses and doctors.
They returned to the airport.
She mentioned Tiller one time. Asked if he was going to do anything else about him. Widow responded with a shrug and a “life’s too short to worry about an insignificant person like him.”
That was all they said on the matter.
They held hands waiting for two different flights. His was first. He said goodbye to her at the gate and took her business card.
They did the if you’re ever in Ireland again conversation.
Widow kissed her and boarded a plane to JFK.
In the air, he thought maybe he’d call DeGorne when he landed. Then again, maybe not.
The Nomadvelist
Nomad + Novelist = Nomadvelist
Scott Blade is a Nomadvelist. He writes the bestselling Jack Widow book series, two of which reached the Top 100 list on Amazon, knocking Harry Potter off the #1 spot.
Scott isn't a traditional novelist who spends his time stuck behind a computer desk in some dreary office. He truly walks the walk. Scott drifts around like the nomad he writes about. He tours the world, writing mysteries and searching for the perfect coffee.
He is currently working on a new book series called Jesse Omaha.
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A COLD DRY PLACE
BOOK 10 in the
JACK WIDOW series.
Coming Soon
A small community in New Hampshire, a warm summer, a quiet people without a care in the world, and zero interest in outsiders. Soon they have to deal with that because Jack Widow strolls through the neighborhoods.
The town is called Hell or High Water. Widow had seen it on an old map, posted on the wall of an abandoned New England bus depot. He hadn’t known that it was abandoned when he stopped in to wait for a bus.
The depot had yet to be decommissioned. It still looked like it was in operation. Instead, he found out the hard way that it had just been forgotten. He chalked it up to budget cuts.
Curious, about a landlocked town called Hell or High Water, he decided to go out of his way to check it out.
Everything appears to be normal
. On the surface.
But when Widow discovers an unmarked grave, surrounded by an iron rod fence, old and unattained, he gets even more curious.
When he asks around about the grave and the mysterious tombstone, he gets the run around.
Jack Widow isn’t known for letting wrong things go. But digging up the past, can be deadly. Tread carefully.