Crouching on a log and safely hidden by bushes, Jake waited for the other vehicles to arrive. The woods grew dark, then the street. Marla had told him that Madigan was visiting Reichard’s for the weekend following the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Central Park Police Station annex.
“Myron spends one weekend a month at Reichard’s,” Marla had said. “And I’m never invited. He claims they’re strategizing his future, but I’m convinced this is where he’s cheating on me. Maybe he’s got his own love nest inside that goddamned mansion, or maybe they stage Roman orgies there. I wouldn’t put it past Myron to sodomize little boys. Anything that suggests the rarefied behavior of men who can get away with anything draws him to its flame.”
Jake didn’t realize how dark it had gotten until he saw approaching headlights illuminate the parked SUV. The other two department issue SUVs slowed to a stop behind the first. A moment later, the security gate ground open, and the SUVs filed through it and up the driveway, their movement triggering motion detectors that activated floodlights. Because of the steep incline and the twists and turns, it took them almost a full minute to reach the mansion’s entrance.
Raising high-powered night vision binoculars to his eyes, Jake saw Madigan disembark the middle SUV alone and walk between massive columns to the enormous front door.
Definitely not protocol.
A man silhouetted by a bright overhead light opened the door and admitted Madigan to the mansion. All three SUVs descended the driveway and exited the property. The two lead vehicles drove away, while the third parked outside the property, and the security gate closed.
Jake frowned. They’re working three shifts outside the security perimeter. No NYPD security detail would guard their assigned figure in such a haphazard manner, especially the mayor’s detail. Half of those men belonged inside the mansion with Madigan. Unless he’s really throwing his weight around. But for what purpose? To keep his sexual antics a secret? Marla no longer seemed paranoid.
Rising, he backtracked one hundred yards and moved closer to the road, where he waited. Floodlights illuminated the grounds in a continuing pattern that suggested a roaming security patrol.
Twenty minutes later, headlights appeared on the road in the distance, moving closer. A silver SUV roared past him, and when its headlights shone directly on the department’s SUV, blinding the plainclothes detective inside if he happened to glance in his rearview mirror, Jake sprinted across the road and scaled the six-foot wall and crouched atop it like a gargoyle. Darkness enveloped him. Standing straight, he slid the pack from his back, unzipped one compartment, and walked along the wide fence in the direction of his car, invisible to the world. He deliberately scuffed the soles of his running shoes on the stone surface. It didn’t take long for floodlights to light up the grass below him.
When he made it to the corner wall, he heard dogs racing in his direction, their sharp barking causing him to jump. As he reached inside his pack, three Doberman pinschers leapt snarling for his feet. Instead of jumping back to safety behind the wall, he squatted low to the stone and tossed three handfuls of ground beef onto the ground, then watched the dogs gobble the meat.
Underfed so they’ll tear any trespassers to pieces, Jake thought.
With the meat devoured, the animals circled each other, panting. One of them whimpered. Within seconds, they rolled over and stopped moving, drugged by the over-the-counter drugs Jake had purchased earlier, designed to relax pets during travel. Jake had laced the meat with four times the prescribed dosage.
Dropping to the ground beside the unconscious canines, he jogged uphill with the new section of wall to his left side so he could escape in a hurry if necessary. No longer able to see the security booth, he slowed to a walk when he reached a stream that circled the hill like a moat. Sliding down the embankment upright, with his arms outstretched like those of a surfer, he leapt to a flat stone in the middle of the little stream and hopped onto the opposite embankment, which he climbed without difficulty.
When he passed a tennis court carved into the hill, security lights illuminated him. Making certain he was surrounded by grass, so that his camouflage garb rendered him invisible, he broke into a run but didn’t sweat the lights because he knew the guard dogs must regularly trip them. As long as the dogs were loose, no one would activate more sophisticated security devices. Sixty yards higher, he circled a self-illuminated, glass-enclosed swimming pool. At last he stood facing one side of the mansion. A row of tall windows spilled yellow light onto the landscaping along the mansion’s exterior.
Raising his binoculars, Jake saw men dressed in suits and tuxedos enter the room and sit at a table.
Dinnertime. How many men?
He walked to his left so he faced the next window and saw more men dressed in formal wear sit at the table. Two Mexican women in blue frocks served their food.
At least six, possibly eight.
Returning the binoculars to their designated pocket, he took out his small high-definition video camera and moved fifty yards to his right. Once the dining room windows were out of sight and he knew he could not be seen by the men, he ran straight to the mansion’s corner, triggering security lights. He felt fully exposed but knew he blended into the lawn and bushes. Reaching the mansion, he crept through the shrubs to the first dining room window and peeked through the glass with his camera recording.
Eight men, all right, Madigan among them. All Caucasian, and all but Madigan had white or silver hair. Gleaming silverware and fine china covered the silken tablecloth. Ignoring their servers, the men laughed and traded cocky looks with each other. They all reminded Jake of Old Nick. A roasted pig occupied the table’s center, surrounded by side dishes so exotic that Jake couldn’t identify them. The men ate the food with the refined manners of those accustomed to high society, yet their ravenous appetites repulsed Jake.
Captains of industry, he guessed. Reichard dominated the conversation, the others hanging on his every word. Powerful men. But no women. Marla may have been correct that her husband was up to no good, but based on what Jake witnessed, she was wrong about him having an affair, at least at these weekend retreats. An all boys’ club, and none of them seem effeminate. The old men seemed to take extra care to include Madigan in their exchanges. He’s new to the choir.
The servers filled their glasses with alcohol, and one circled the room toward Jake, who ducked with his back pressed against the cold brick wall. Staring at the window light on the ground, he saw the rectangle narrow to a sliver as the woman closed the drapes. The drapes in the next two windows closed as well. Standing, Jake still observed enough through the slit between the drapes to know the men remained engaged in conversation.
With a glance at his watch, he estimated he had maybe another hour before the guard dogs regained consciousness. Tiptoeing along the shrubs, he made his way around the mansion. His shoulder brushed ivy clinging to white latticework, and he gazed across the property. Two guest homes, a maintenance building, an enormous parking garage, and a horse stable divided the rear half of the hill.
A footstep to Jake’s right made him flatten his back against the wall again: a man in a classic chauffeur’s uniform exited the mansion through a side door and activated one of the garage doors. Lights flickered on, illuminating a white stretch limo. The chauffeur got into the car, started its purring engine, and backed the limo out of the garage.
When Jake lost sight of the limo, he circled around the way he had come. Although he didn’t see any cameras, he knew they were mounted in the nearby trees and trained on the entrance. Camouflage or no, the guard in the security booth below would see him crossing the front of the mansion if he was paying attention. Jake walked in a straight line from the mansion’s front corner, passing the trees. Then he walked along woods facing the opposite side of the mansion. Once he had passed a gazebo, he saw the limo idling beside the mansion with the chauffeur standing beside it.
He expects to be needed soon.
Jake made himself
comfortable. Somewhere behind him a twig snapped, and he jerked around. Peering through his night vision binoculars, he scanned the woods but saw nothing but trees. He did his best to relax, but the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
Not much later, the side door opened, and the dinner party members exited. The chauffeur opened the passenger door, and the men climbed into their luxury ride. Then he closed the doors, got in, and drove forward, not toward the entrance but to the rear of the property.
Jake’s heart beat faster. What the hell were they up to? Staying close to the woods, he jogged after the limo. The driveway dipped down the opposite side of the hill, and the limo drove a quarter of a mile away and stopped. Clearing the trees, Jake saw a stone building with Gothic architecture that resembled a giant crypt the size of a two-story home: a domed roof capped angular abutments and narrow windows. Floodlights rendered the scene visible.
The old men exited the limo, and Reichard led them up stone steps to the front door. He keyed in an alarm code that also activated lights inside the building, and the men followed him inside. Once the door had closed, the chauffeur got into the limo and headed back to the mansion.
Jake narrowed his eye. The big shots liked to surround themselves with underlings but kept them far away from the main action. As the limo climbed the hill, he estimated he had ten seconds before the floodlights went off and he would have to worry about triggering them again. He ran to the stone building and inspected it. Glass block windows: even if they weren’t covered with dark drapes, he would be unable to see inside. Avoiding the front door and its alarm, he circled the building, and the floodlights darkened behind him. He stood in the back, gazing up at the stone ledge around the dome, framed against the night stars.
Watch the stars . . .
He had reached a crossroads: if he continued circling the building, he would trigger the lights again. Reaching up, he grabbed a handhold of cement. The structure had all kinds of angles, and with relative ease, he climbed to the top and stared at a skylight centered in the domed roof.
Bingo.
Crossing the roof, he hunched down beside the skylight and focused on the room below. A fire blazed in a wide fireplace. Leather-bound books filled recessed bookcases. Eight black leather reading chairs, each with its own mahogany stand, circled an elaborate Oriental rug. Leaning closer to the skylight, Jake saw a sofa and at least three doorways leading into dark rooms. The dinner guests took their seats and lit cigars, and Reichard, speaking, poured drinks. Then he disappeared into one of the darkened rooms. The other men spoke to Madigan, who sat on the edge of his seat, his belly spreading like batter.
Jake took out his camera and recorded the scene, zooming in on each man. He recognized none of them but believed they were important enough that they would be easy to identify.
Reichard emerged from the room, and to Jake’s surprise, not alone. The kingmaker escorted a woman in her twenties into the center of the rug. Her long dark hair spilled over her silken robe, which clung to the curves of her body. She walked with deliberate sexuality designed to trigger a response from the men around her.
Hooker? Jake wondered. No, too classy. A call girl, maybe.
Reichard presented the brunette to his guests, who rose and bowed to her.
The woman smiled, her eyes shiny.
Drugged, Jake surmised. If she’s about to do all of them, I don’t blame her.
The men returned to their seats, but Reichard gestured to Madigan and said something, and the mayor stood again. Reichard escorted the woman over to Madigan, whose tie she loosened. Looking uncomfortable, Madigan spoke to her and she responded. Then she kissed him on the mouth, and the men leaned forward in their chairs. Jake captured the kiss with his camera.
Well, Marla, you’re not crazy after all.
Still kissing the woman, Madigan extended his open right hand behind her back. Before Jake had time to react, Reichard set a gleaming dagger into Madigan’s waiting hand, and the mayor drove it between the woman’s shoulder blades, piercing her heart. She arched her back and stared straight up with her mouth open, making eye contact with Jake, who snapped his head in disbelief.
You son of a bitch!
Madigan allowed the woman to slip to the floor and crouched over her. Jerking her to one side, he wrenched the dagger free, then rolled her onto her back, her arms flailing. He made a motion with his arm that sent arterial spray splashing across the rug. Madigan stood, his chest heaving, and Jake saw that he had sliced her throat. Crimson gushed onto the floor as she bled out. Reichard gave a handkerchief to Madigan, who wiped his face. The other men brought their hands together in applause.
Jake felt his brain pulsing. What the hell is with these guys?
Reichard reached into his jacket pocket and removed something too small for Jake to discern at first. Then Madigan extended his right hand with his fingers spread apart, and Reichard slipped a ring onto one finger.
Some sort of initiation ceremony . . .
Jake rose on weak legs, uncertain what to do next. The woman lay dead below, blood pooling around her, her murder preserved on his camera’s memory card. Her glazed eyes continued to stare up at him, and his mind catalogued the victims whose murders he had investigated in Special Homicide. As he took a step back from the skylight, an inhuman shriek pierced his ears from behind him, causing his body to jump and constrict at the same time.
Spinning around, Jake saw a figure standing eight feet away. He could not tell if it was male or female, only that it wore a brown robe with a cowl that masked its features. It stood maybe five and a half feet tall, with stooped shoulders.
Jake’s mind raced. No human being had made the shrill sound he had just heard.
The thing shuffled forward, its feet hidden by the robe. The canvas fabric undulated from the waist down, as though the thing moved on legs that lacked a skeletal structure.
Shoving his camera into his pocket, Jake reached for his Glock, holstered beneath his left arm. Before his hand closed around the gun’s grip, the thing emitted a loud gurgling sound that chilled his blood, and something shot out at him from beneath the cowl. He ducked to his left, and the protrusion darted onto the space where he had just stood, then retracted into the darkness within the cowl like a tape measure. It must have been four feet long.
That’s a tongue!
With his heart hammering, Jake pulled the Glock free, thumbed the safety off, and aimed at the approaching thing. The tongue, as thick as a snake, lanced out again, and he cocked his arm, aiming the Glock at the sky. The tongue wrapped around his forearm several times, its tip shaking in the air inches from his face. A vertical slit opened in the grayish-pink flesh, and Jake jerked his arm away as a stream of yellowish-green fluid sprayed out of the orifice.
Venom!
With the fluid discharged, the figure retracted its tongue, but Jake gripped it with his free hand and jerked it back, dragging the thing straight for him. The creature lunged at him with open arms, and Jake glimpsed thick claws protruding from the digits on each scaly hand. He batted the hands away from his throat, and the thing crashed into him. The impact jarred Jake, who pivoted on one heel as he fell backwards with the thing on top of him, reversing their positions in midair before they landed on top of the skylight. Below them, the men looked up at the sound.
With the stench of fish overpowering him, Jake heard a splintering sound, and a moment later the glass gave way. He and the creature plummeted to the floor twenty feet below, and as Jake felt his stomach crawling up his throat, he saw the men scattering in all directions. The floor rose to meet him, and the thing beneath him broke his fall, the impact forcing Jake to drop his gun. He felt the creature’s ribs snapping and ruptured flesh spreading beneath the robe like buckets of jelly. The thing emitted a wet-sounding wail and vomited black blood in a stream over the top of its head.
Jake leapt to his feet, untangling the limp, sandpapery tongue from his wrist. Surrounded by shards of glass, the creature writhed on the floor
beside the dead woman. Its cowl had fallen back, and Jake gasped at its features. He saw no eyes, nose, or mouth, just a dozen feelers, perhaps ten inches long and an inch thick, with tapered ends that twitched in the air like tentacles. Its hands and feet were webbed and scaly, with black claws. All of the visible flesh was as pallid as the belly of a fish. Three suckers, like those found on the tentacle of an octopus, glistened on the inside of each finger. A rattling sound issued from deep within the creature, and the feelers stopped moving. Then the air turned even more foul.
Jake scanned the stricken faces staring at him. Somewhere in the room a glass shattered on the floor. Reichard appeared puzzled more than anything, but Madigan stood paralyzed with his eyebrows raised and mouth open. Was he horrified that his crime had been witnessed or that a monster lay dead at his feet? One man with a widow’s peak and a square jaw glared at Jake, and Jake sensed the man coiling to make a move. Jake dove for his Glock, rolled across the floor, and came up in a crouch. He swept the gun past the face of each man, causing them to stiffen. At least they couldn’t see his face beneath the ski mask. He bolted for the front door.
“Don’t shoot!” he heard one man croak to the rest. “You’ll bring everyone on the grounds running. He’ll never leave the property alive.”
Jake threw the door open, darted outside, and slammed the door shut. He charged into the night, triggering floodlights as he ran at a forty-five degree angle across the estate. He sprinted before the mansion, his shoes slapping the brick driveway, and cut a path toward the far corner of the stone wall. As he passed the glass-enclosed swimming pool, he thought he saw silhouettes keeping pace with him right outside the light, and then he heard the same shrieks that had been made by the creature he had just killed.
There are more of those things!
His body turned numb with fright. He ran faster, which was hard to do going downhill. When his movement triggered the floodlights around the tennis court, he counted at least three of the robed figures in his peripheral vision. He had to turn his head all the way left to check the terrain in that direction with his sole eye, and this caused him to stumble and roll down the hill. He clutched his Glock tight in his right hand, refusing to drop it again. Rising without coming to a stop, he stutter-stepped toward the stream that circled the hill’s base. Rather than descend one embankment and hop across the stream to the other one, he leapt from the edge of the grass over the stream and landed on the opposite embankment, his lead foot sinking deep into mud. The mud made a sucking sound when he pulled his foot free, and he scrambled up the earth.
Cosmic Forces: Book Three in The Jake Helman Files Series Page 5