He pulled his eye back from the scope and took a deep breath. He didn’t have but a moment to think about what he’d just done before the return fire from the tree line across the clearing was splintering the bark of the tree next to and beneath him.
“EBANATYI PIDARAZ!” Vasily snarled as he saw his men come running out of the cabin, on fire and thrashing wildly. He was raising his own AK to end their agonies when the tracer rounds came slicing down like bolts from the sky to lay them out, twitching and convulsing, but hopefully insensate, in the grass next to the white truck. He instinctively shifted his aim to fire on the place where the rounds had come from.
Beside him, the newest member of his squad, Viktor, who’d gotten off the plane from St. Petersburg only two days before, did the same. The durachit was actually grinning. Vasily considered ordering the man to charge against the tree line where he knew the enemy waited, just to see if he could wipe the stupid grin off his face.
He didn’t need to. Viktor stood up, aiming at the figure Vasily could see moving in the branches of a high tree at the far edge of the clearing. He fired once, a quick three-round burst. He started to stand up, still aiming the weapon.
“Nyet,” Vasily barked. It was too late. Vasily saw him topple over backward, a smoking hole in the center of his forehead and a spray of blood arcing behind him. Vasily screamed with rage, flicked the selector switch to full auto, and opened up on the figure he saw descending the tree at impossibly high speed.
KELLER HAD anticipated return fire, just not so quickly. He slung the AR-15 on his back and pulled on the heavy gloves he’d stuck in a crook between two branches. Grasping the rope he’d secured to the tree two days ago, he slid as rapidly as he could to the ground. The enemy’s fire followed him, tearing chunks of wood and smaller splinters from the live-oak tree he’d been hiding in. His boots hit the ground and he crouched for a moment, catching his breath, before moving away, keeping the larger trees between himself and where he thought his enemies might be.
In the clearing, the bodies continued to burn.
THE MAN Vasily knew as Jessup seemed to appear out of nowhere and knelt next to Vasily. “Where the hell is Zaubermann?” he whispered.
Vasily was watching the bodies in the clearing. He could feel his nerve deserting him. “He ran. Back down the road.”
“God damn it. That means it’s just the two of us. We need to split up. Go to either side, catch Keller between us.”
At that moment, the grenades that Luka had been carrying strapped to his chest began to cook off. The dull thumps came one after the other, each one blowing bloody pieces of Luka into the air.
“Jessup” smiled grimly. “Guess he gets a closed casket.”
Another dull thud and what looked like an arm went arching up and landed on Fyodor’s limp body. The smell of gunpowder and cooked meat drifted down to them on the wind.
That was Vasily’s breaking point. “Fuck this,” he said. “Enough.” He began working his way back to the road, trying to keep as many trees as he could between himself and where he thought Keller was.
“Where are you going?” “Jessup” demanded.
Vasily turned on him. “Fuck this Keller. Fuck this place, this South Carolina. And fuck you.” He turned and went back to working his way through the trees.
RIDDLE GROUND his teeth in frustration. These Russians were supposed to be such bad motherfuckers, and this guy Keller had played them for chumps. He had to admit, he was feeling a certain admiration for the crazy son of a bitch. He was showing a willingness to go to extremes that Riddle couldn’t help but appreciate.
But he wanted something. Everyone did. And the secret to killing a man was to lure him with the thing he wanted most in the world. And he knew what that was for Jack Keller.
“Vasily,” he called out. “Wait.”
The Russian stopped and looked back, his face stormy. “What?”
“I’m going to get Keller out in the open. When I do, kill him.”
The scowl deepened. “How?”
“Watch. But stay under cover. And you’ll only get one shot. Make it count.” He raised his hands above his head. One was holding his pistol. He began to step out into the clearing. He looked over to where the flames were consuming the cabin.
“Wait,” Vasily said. “He’ll kill you.”
Riddle didn’t turn around. “Not right away. He wants to find out who I am. Why I’m looking for him. It’s why he told Zaubermann to tell me where to find him. Wait for him to break cover. Then shoot him.” He stepped out into the clearing. “KELLER!” he shouted, lowering his gun hand to the side and letting the pistol fall to the ground. He began walking toward the opposite tree line, hands still raised. “KELLER! YOU’VE GOT QUESTIONS! I CAN ANSWER THEM!”
There was no response. Riddle continued to advance. “YOU WANT THE PEOPLE WHO SENT ME? I CAN GIVE YOU THE NAMES. WE CAN MAKE A DEAL. LET’S TALK.” He walked past the still smoldering bodies of Luka and Fyodor, breathing through his mouth so the stench of roasting flesh wouldn’t make him gag. “KELLER!”
A figure stepped out of the trees. He was dressed head to toe in jungle camo, and his eyes were points of bright blue in a face painted black. He held a rifle trained on Riddle. “I’m unarmed, Keller,” Riddle called out. “I just want to talk.” He kept walking, waiting for Vasily to take the shot. If he missed, things were going to get messy. He saw a rifle lying in the tall grass. Luka’s or Fyodor’s, he figured, cast aside in their final agonized rush. He returned his gaze to where Keller was standing silently. Come on, you Russian bastard, he thought. Take the goddamn shot.
Even though he was anticipating it, the report of the rifle startled Riddle. What was even more startling was that Keller didn’t move. He didn’t fall, he didn’t fire back, he just stood there like a statue. Riddle stopped, frozen in confusion. After a moment, he turned around.
Karl Zaubermann was standing there at the edge of the clearing, holding a rifle across his chest, a look of satisfaction on his face. He raised his chin and looked past Riddle. “We square now, Keller?” he called out.
For the first time, Keller spoke. “Yeah,” he called back. “We’re square.” Zaubermann gave a sketchy salute and started walking to the road.
Riddle turned back to Keller, still standing there. “I didn’t think Zaubermann had it in him,” he said.
Keller walked forward, still holding the rifle on him. “Look how wrong you can be. You push someone to the edge, you never know what they’ll do.”
“You got that right,” Riddle said. He dove for the rifle lying in the tall grass. As his hands closed around it, he rolled to his back and fired. He saw Keller fall backwards, his rifle spraying a three-round burst into the air.
Riddle staggered to his feet. He heard the sharp crack of another rifle coming from down the hill. He turned and fired back by instinct. The first rounds missed Zaubermann, who dodged away. His foot caught on something and he went down. Riddle advanced, taking aim at the body lying in the grass. Some instinct caused him to turn at the last minute and look back.
Keller was up on one knee, taking aim. Riddle was close enough to Zaubermann that he could hear him struggling to his feet, cursing.
He was caught between two fires. Everything seemed to take on an unusual clarity: the blades of grass rustling softly beneath his feet, the shaft of light from the rising sun that fell across his heaving chest, the slight breeze that brought the stink of burning meat to him. The choice came to him with crystalline certainty. He spun and fired two rounds, not at Zaubermann’s head or chest, but into his legs. The big man went down, screaming in agony. Riddle didn’t try to turn back and fire; he took off at maximum speed, zigging and zagging like a running back. He heard the report of Keller’s rifle, felt the wind of the first shot as it went past his ear. The second struck him a staggering blow just below his right shoulder blade. He stumbled and nearly went down, but caught himself at the last second. He clenched his teeth against the pain and kept going. Th
en he was into the tree line and running down the path toward the parked vehicles. Zaubermann’s screams echoed behind him.
“GOD DAMN it,” Keller said aloud as he headed down the hill to where Zaubermann lay, his howls of pain and fear trailing off to low whimpers. The place where the gunman’s round had struck the Kevlar vest beneath Keller’s shirt was bruised and aching. He dropped to one knee and took aim at the running man.
“KELLER!” Zaubermann bellowed, the sound startling and distracting Keller so that the shot went wide. “I’m shot, man. Help me.”
Keller ground his teeth as he saw his quarry stumbling into the trees. Everything in him ached to go after him. But now there was a wounded man on the ground, a man who’d saved his life. Keller couldn’t just leave him. That, of course, was the plan. The man he was after knew that Keller would leave a corpse behind him in his pursuit. But he wouldn’t leave a wounded man behind to die.
Zaubermann was lying on his side, panting like an animal. His pant leg was soaked with blood. “It’s bad, Keller,” he moaned, his eyes wide with the terrified recognition of mortal damage. “It’s real bad.”
Keller knelt and rolled him to his back. Zaubermann wasn’t far wrong. One of the bullets had nicked the left femoral artery, and the bright red blood was coming in spurts. Keller knew wounds like that, especially ones high up and close to the groin, were rarely survivable.
Zaubermann clutched at Keller’s arm with desperate strength. “Help me, Keller. Please, man. Please.”
Keller heard the roar of a big engine starting up. His prey was getting farther away from him by the second. He wanted to pound the earth and scream in frustration at the sky, but he turned his attention to the wounded man. “Okay, Karl,” he said. “I’m going to try to make a tourniquet. I’m going to try to stop the bleeding. Okay? I’m going to need your belt.”
Zaubermann nodded. His eyes were already going glassy. Keller undid the big silver buckle and yanked the belt free. He wrapped it around Zaubermann’s blood-soaked leg and tried to fasten it above the place where the blood was jetting out against his hands. He finally got it worked high enough and pulled it tight. Zaubermann let out a low moan. Keller looked at his face. He’d already lost consciousness. His face was nearly bone white. Keller tried to get an arm under him to carry him to his vehicle. The big man was dead weight. Keller had to struggle to get to his feet, and when he did, the limp body began to slide from his grasp so that he had to take him back down, slowly, to avoid dropping him.
“When we get you home, buddy,” he said, “we’re putting your fat ass on a fucking diet. Come on, help me out here.” He shook Zaubermann to try to bring him around. Zaubermann just gave a little shiver and drew a rattling breath. Keller looked at the distance between them and the truck and realized there was no way to traverse the distance with that load. He’d need to bring the truck to him. By the time he got back, however, Zaubermann had stopped breathing. Keller sat down on the grass next to the still body, leaned over and felt for a pulse. There was nothing. Keller fell back into the grass and looked at the sky, exhausted. Once again, he was the last man standing. But he’d failed. There was no way to find out who was behind what had happened to him.
No. There was one. He hated it, but that was the way it was going to have to be. This had to end. Sooner or later, Keller’s luck would run out. He was out of options.
Keller got up. It was time to move. He trudged back to the campsite he’d established in the woods, with the tent, sleeping bag, and other gear he’d bought with the Soupmaker’s money. He gathered up his few belongings and loaded them into his truck along with the guns. The cabin fire was burning itself out, and the bodies of the two Russian gunmen had stopped smoking.
Keller looked up into the trees, where the buzzards were beginning to gather. He shaded his eyes against the morning sun that cast them into dark silhouettes in the cypress trees. He considered taking the shovel he’d brought from the campsite and burying the men who’d fallen, but decided that the buzzards had to eat, too. He thought of the bodies he’d seen throughout his life. Too many to count. Maybe too many for any normal man to bear, but Keller had seen so much death, he’d long since passed from any normal frame of reference.
He raised his hand to the gathering carrion birds. “Till next time, fellows,” he murmured.
The birds stared back with glittering, merciless eyes, waiting. Someday, they’d be waiting for him. But not today.
JOHN MADDOX was sitting at Trammell’s desk, working through a mound of insurance paperwork, when the phone rang. He recognized the number and answered immediately. “Mr. Keller.”
“Is he still alive?” Keller sad.
Maddox looked through the open door of the office into the sunroom. He could hear the rasp of Trammell’s breathing. “Yes. But if you’re coming, you’d better hurry.”
“I’ll be there before dark.” Keller broke the connection. Maddox sat in the dimness of the office for a long time, thinking. Then he got up and walked into the sunroom. Trammell’s eyes opened as he approached the bed. He didn’t speak.
“He’s on the way, sir,” Maddox said softly. “Your son.”
Trammell swallowed, the effort clearly causing him pain. He didn’t speak. He just nodded and closed his eyes again. Maddox watched him for a moment. He checked his watch. Too soon for more pain meds. He walked slowly back to his desk and sat down. He took several deep, controlled breaths, trying to empty his mind.
He’d always been a calm, unemotional man. It had served him well in his profession, even as it had cost him two marriages. But calm was coming harder and harder to him these days as he saw the man who’d mentored him for so long coming apart. He thought about Keller, finally making his way here, and experienced a brief flash of an anger that was almost alien to him.
It wasn’t fair. He’d certainly been more of a son to Trammell than Jack Keller had. He’d taken the older man’s advice for years and reached the point where he could offer his own and know he was respected enough to be listened to. He’d laughed at Trammell’s jokes and listened to his stories, even the ones he knew by heart and the ones he knew the old man was embellishing.
Keller was a stranger. And yet, Trammell had grown more and more obsessed with the son he’d abandoned as death closed its bony fingers around him. It had caused him to lose all perspective. Keller was a loose cannon, volatile, prone to explosions of violence, at least if their research was accurate. Maddox didn’t imagine that recent events had done much to calm him down.
He pursed his lips and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the desk top. He reached into the desk’s top drawer and withdrew the old Army .45 caliber pistol that rested there. It was the sidearm Trammell had worn in Vietnam, the one he’d killed the reporter with. Moving with the thoughtless assurance of long practice, Maddox pulled out a fully loaded magazine and slid it home. He racked the slide, seating a round in the chamber, before replacing the pistol in the drawer. He hoped he wouldn’t need to use it. But you never knew. Not with someone like Jack Keller.
He felt calmer now, the anger replaced with a sense of purpose. Among the many lessons he’d absorbed from Clifton Trammell, one of the most profound was that complaining about what was fair or unfair was a game for fools. He could only imagine his mentor’s derision if he’d tried to tell him his obsession with the son he’d never met was unfair to the man who’d served him so well. There was what needed to be done, and everything else was irrelevant. He put emotion aside and went back to work.
KELLER ARRIVED just as the sun was going down. He pulled into the gravel driveway in the truck he’d gotten from Zaubermann, then got out and paused for a moment, looking up at the house.
Trammell’s home sprawled over almost an acre atop a steep rise. Hedged terraces rose in four levels from the graveled parking area to an expansive slate veranda in front of the house. Keller slowly ascended, noting how each set of steps to the next terrace was offset several feet from the one below, so that a person app
roaching the front door had to ascend one stairway, then walk several steps to the right or to the left to find the next one up. Each level was walled off from the one beneath with a thick hedge, so that someone going up couldn’t charge straight up the hill, even if he was so inclined. For a suburban Virginia home, it was constructed remarkably as if someone was expecting a siege.
As Keller reached the top of the last staircase and stepped onto the veranda, the door opened and Maddox stepped out. His face was expressionless.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Keller,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s a bad time.”
“Well,” Keller said, his voice harsh, “this is the time I could get here. So let’s get this done.”
Maddox shook his head. “It’s…” His bland composure seemed to slip a bit. “It’s actually called ‘sundowning.’ People in Mr. Trammell’s condition…they seem to lose mental function particularly badly as the sun goes down. Maybe you should come back in the morning.”
Keller studied the man’s face, saw the anguish lurking just beneath the surface. “I get it, Maddox,” he said, as gently as he could. “But can you guarantee me he’ll even be alive in the morning?”
Maddox’s face froze. Then, without speaking, he turned and walked back into the house. Keller hesitated for a moment, then followed.
No one had bothered to turn on any lights. The only illumination came from the setting sun, shining through the tall windows of the old house. Keller followed Maddox through dimly lit hallways to the back of the house to a large sunroom. The light was better here, but only slightly, the dying rays of the sun casting an orange glow across the room. There was a large, incongruously gleaming hospital bed set up near the windows. Maddox was bending over the bed, taking a moment to wipe the brow of the figure inside it before leaning over to murmur something in his ear. Keller drew closer and stopped at the foot of the bed.
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