The Pact (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 17)

by Jonas Saul

  He eased off the girl slowly, ready at any moment to leap back on her if her calm was nothing but a ruse.

  When he lifted the pillow from her face, he saw something he had never seen before.

  The open stare of the dead.

  “Sarah Roberts,” he whispered. “I now declare you,” he paused to make sure the camera picked up the word, “dead.”

  He snatched the phone up off the floor and grabbed the small mirror from the bedside table. With the mirror close to the woman’s nose, he filmed it directly under her nostrils.

  No breath.

  No smudges on the mirror.

  “Dead,” he declared again.

  He stopped the filming and left the room. After another minute, he uploaded the file for the hacker to access when he came online.

  His job was over. He had done what the hacker had asked of him.

  He had killed a random girl. One that resembled Clara.

  He had done it.

  But somehow it didn’t feel very good. He hadn’t thought that saving his daughter’s life would feel so absolutely horrible.

  He dropped to the floor of his living room and curled up in a ball. There was work to do. He needed to deal with the body. But first, he needed to deal with the overwhelming emotions of what he had just done as sobs wracked his body.

  Anton was still crying on the floor like a smitten child when glass broke in the house somewhere.

  A man shouted.

  That fucking man was back and now he was breaking into his house.

  Anton shouted out a growl and scrambled to his feet, fists clenched.

  He’d done it once, he’d do it again. That man needed to die.

  He ran for the kitchen and the knives in the block on the counter.

  Chapter 36

  The bottom of the iron was mottled with bits of flesh and burnt hair. Ansgar placed it on the counter beside the ironing board. Aaron had squirmed so much under the iron that he hadn’t received much of a serious burn, but his arms were raw and a deep hue of red. The pain taught a man to answer questions. Any interrogator knew that. The KGB were experts in that field and Ansgar had learned from a few of their retired agents in Afghanistan.

  Over a dozen police cars had converged on the front of the hotel. They would investigate the airport van incident. Aaron was the suspect they were searching for, as well as his friends who left in the airport van. No one would be looking for Peter Ford.

  In one minute, he would leave. The stairs would offer ample egress and unless the area was roped off, Ansgar would walk away to find another hotel room where he would check in under another alias and get back to work.

  He collected his gear and walked over to the closet where the hotel safe held the two small bombs left over from the job on Aaron’s dojo. He punched in the code, opened the door, and placed the devices in a small bag.

  It was risky leaving the hotel armed with a Glock and two explosive devices but he had no choice. Leaving the gun behind was out of the question as it matched the bullets on the airport van, and he needed the explosive devices. If he encountered trouble, he would deal with it. He was not above killing a cop.

  Back in front of Aaron, he slapped him awake. The pussy of a man had passed out when the iron’s burn proved too much for him.

  Ansgar yanked the sock out of Aaron’s mouth and tossed it aside.

  “You have less than a minute to live. Tell me what I need to know and it’ll be a bullet in the forehead. Refuse me and it’ll be a couple bullets in the crotch. If by some crazy odds you manage to survive that, you’ll be less a man than ever before. I believe they call that a eunuch.”

  Aaron rolled his head toward Ansgar’s voice and glared up at him with bloodshot eyes.

  “Are you going to talk?” Ansgar asked.

  Aaron seemed to roll his tongue around in his mouth, as if he was chewing a candy. His lips separated, then a gob of saliva shot up and onto Ansgar’s shoulder. He barely jerked when Aaron spit on him.

  “You chose your future, Aaron,” he said. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

  Ansgar raised the Glock and leveled it on Aaron’s crotch.

  “Any last words?” Ansgar asked.

  He paused at hurried footsteps outside the door. They drew closer. Someone knocked on the door.

  “Open up. Police.”

  The sound suppressor on the Glock was good, but he couldn’t risk shooting Aaron with a cop six feet away. The only way out of the room was through the door the cop stood at. A moment of indecision hit him.

  The knock came again.

  “Coming,” Ansgar yelled. “Just a minute.”

  He slipped the Glock in his waistband and retrieved the sock from earlier. With one hand on Aaron’s hair, he forced the sock back into Aaron’s mouth, then leaned down close to Aaron’s ear to whisper.

  “Just one noise. If you do anything to signal the cop, I will have to kill the cop as well. You die anyway. Understood?”

  Aaron nodded. Ansgar believed Aaron was resigned to his fate.

  Ansgar got to his feet. The line of sight from the door wouldn’t reach to Aaron. He could get rid of the cop and get out of here seconds later. Everything was about timing. He knew that better than anyone.

  At the door, he looked out into the hallway using the peephole.

  Just one uniformed cop standing there. No one else. No tough blonde girl and none of Aaron’s friends.

  Ansgar flicked the lock off and opened the door a crack.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, sir, but we have an emergency—”

  An arm shot out as someone touched the cop near the trapezoid area of the neck. Then the cop crumpled to the hallway floor.

  Ansgar reacted by trying to slam the door shut, but something blocked him. He pushed, then peeked around the edge and saw the man who had jumped off his tenth floor balcony.

  “Alex?” he grunted.

  In his surprise, he paused when he saw him, completely unscathed from the hundred-foot drop. How could he have done that?

  Alex had redoubled his efforts and the door shot inward, knocking Ansgar slightly off balance.

  Like a charging orangutan, the young man launched onto Ansgar and jammed his hands into his flesh. He flailed his arms and shouted for the man to get off him, but then a pain bolted across his chest. That area went numb along with his arms. Breathing became a chore.

  Ansgar stumbled backward as strength fled his body. He fell backwards and hit the carpet hard, breathing almost nonexistent now.

  Alex yanked Ansgar’s feet back and straightened his body. His shoulder and arm burned like acid had been splashed across him.

  What the fuck did that little shit do to me?

  He lay there as Aaron’s friend dragged the cop’s body inside the room and closed the door.

  Ansgar understood that the tables had turned.

  He felt the first tinge of fear as the small man removed the ropes from Aaron’s wrists and ankles.

  Maybe he wouldn’t survive this ordeal after all.

  Chapter 37

  Anton held the butcher knife close to his chest, both hands wrapped around the handle. He had turned off the kitchen lights. The house was wrapped in darkness. Minor amounts of light came in through the windows. Without knowing the house like he did, a stranger would have trouble navigating his way around.

  The sound of glass breaking had come from the back somewhere. In the kitchen, he stood so his field of vision ran the length of the hall and ended at the front door. He waited until whoever had broken the glass entered the corridor in search of him. He knew his rights. Someone broke into his home. He felt threatened. Using the knife to hurt the man would be acceptable. Killing him not so much.

  But Anton intended on killing him. A couple of jabs to the throat and the man would succumb to his injuries rather quickly.

  While he waited, fantasies flashed through his mind. Was there a way to kill the man and place him over the girl’s body? The story could work.
/>   Anton had let the girl inside the house to find safety from a man who was chasing her. Anton was reluctant at first, but the girl looked like his daughter. It made sense. When he set her up in the guest bedroom and left to get some sleep, someone broke in. By the time Anton made it to the guest bedroom, the man had smothered the girl to death with Anton’s pillow.

  Without thinking rationally, Anton stabbed the man repeatedly in self-defense. He was sorry he took someone’s life and would have to live with that knowledge. What jury would convict him on such a defense? DNA, fingerprints, nothing would work against him because it was his house. Of course he had touched the pillow. At one point he had touched everything in his house at least once.

  So he waited for the man to show himself.

  Then he would slice the man’s throat open and call emergency services. He would be an emotional wreck and when it was all over, he would plead for Clara’s return.

  And life could go back to the way it was, minus the indiscretions in Aarhus. Since Damien was in jail, Anton would have to let that fun go for a while. He would wait until things settled down, then see what happened.

  Sweat dripped off his chin. The knife vibrated in his grip. He waited, the house silent, a dead girl in his guest room.

  The soft sound of someone moving around somewhere in the house doubled his heartbeat. The man was inside. This was the deciding moment. Without the intruder’s death, explaining the dead girl was a hell of a lot more difficult and the man at the door earlier seemed to be quite certain he had her. A man like that would remain persistent. So persistent that he would break in to help the girl.

  Anton could only wish.

  More shuffling down the hall.

  Anton pushed off the counter. He held the knife in front of him as he started out of the kitchen. He was a concerned home owner and someone had broken in. A telephone call to the police could wait. The immediate danger needed to be dealt with first.

  The door on the left was the bathroom, which faced the front of the house. The small window was intact. No one there.

  Something bumped the wall, followed by the sound of a man huffing and puffing.

  What the fuck is that?

  Anton continued walking, each step careful, slow, the knife leading the way. The heavy breathing grew louder as he drew closer to the guest room.

  Did he break into the guest room?

  He placed his back against the wall and waited a moment longer, listening to the sounds coming out of the guest room.

  It was definitely a man. The grunting and heavy breathing was too masculine. Through the wall, Anton heard the man mumble something with the sound of agony in his voice, like a wounded animal whining in a bear trap.

  Was the man injured? Did he hurt himself coming in and that was why he hadn’t forged his way through the house yet?

  A police siren wailed in the distance, then cut off. They were probably still searching for the man who pepper sprayed those two girls. They would never think to look in Anton’s home. He was an upstanding citizen. He worked for the government and paid his taxes—as large as that amount was—every year. Pepper spraying people was not something Anton’s neighbors would expect.

  More panting came from the room. Anton eased away from the wall, turned on his heels and tentatively placed his hand on the doorknob.

  The man on the other side of the door began talking.

  “Please hurry,” the man said. “Ambulance, too. She’s stopped breathing.”

  Anton let go of the door, leaned back, and kicked it open. The man hovered over the girl on the floor, his hands on her chest. He was pumping her rib cage, trying to get her heart going. He completely ignored Anton as he brought his mouth down onto the girl’s and forced air into her. Then he was back up and pumping again.

  Anton had lost the ability to blame everything on an intruder. This man had called the authorities. They were on their way. How could he cover that up?

  The room tilted momentarily as a madness overcame him while he watched the man perform CPR on a dead girl in his guest bedroom. A rumble began in his chest and came out of his mouth as a roar. He raised the weapon and charged the man. At the last second, the man rolled off the girl and away from Anton, his hand wrapping around Anton’s wrist.

  When they fell back and landed on the carpet at the foot of the bed, the man twisted Anton’s wrist backward until he screamed and his fingers opened. The knife dropped harmlessly beside them as they struggled.

  The man was a strong opponent, his hands faster than Anton’s. After three punches to the abdomen, Anton rolled sideways and off the man. When he got into a crouched position and turned to face the intruder, the man had the knife in his hands. His eyes seethed rage and his clenched teeth seemed ready to bite the head off anyone who challenged him.

  The man lunged downward, stabbing fast and deep into Anton’s left foot. Before any pain resonated through his body, the man pulled the knife out and stabbed Anton’s right foot.

  Anton screamed.

  The man shoved Anton away from him so hard he stumbled a few steps then fell into the wall and landed on shards of broken glass.

  He screamed at the pain in his hands where chunks of glass imbedded themselves. As the man tended to the dead woman on the floor on the other side of the bed, an intense pain flowed from the wounds in his feet. Without wanting to, he dared to look at the damage the knife had caused and almost threw up when he saw the blood oozing out of his feet just below the ankles.

  Sirens were the only thing that drowned out his voice.

  Flashing blue and red lights filled the house as the authorities showed up out front.

  There was nothing left for him to do but accept the consequences. He had screwed up and now would pay for it.

  Clara was as good as dead to him.

  As the intruder ran from the room to open the front door, Anton screamed and screamed again.

  Maybe he could say he was attacked by the intruder and then the man killed the girl.

  Maybe.

  But he doubted any story he came up with would work.

  Other than the truth. That might work.

  Chapter 38

  Despite the nausea from the searing pain in Aaron’s arms, the pain between his legs had subsided some. When he saw Ansgar sprawled out on the carpet, he ran for the immobile police officer and dragged him inside the room before shutting and locking the door.

  “Who’s this?” he asked Alex, pointing down at the man he just dragged inside the room. “Real cop?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Dangerous.”

  Alex shrugged. “Needed to get back inside without being shot at.”

  Ansgar was still on the floor struggling to breathe properly.

  “You hit the C3 nerve root?”

  Alex nodded and faced Ansgar.

  “Grab his bag,” Aaron said. “We’re leaving. Then strip the cop.” Alex turned back to Aaron, one eyebrow up in a questioning way.

  “Strip the cop,” Aaron repeated. “Put on the uniform, then get ready to leave. You’re going to carry this man out of a fire while I help.”

  “A fire?” Alex whispered.

  “Fire,” Aaron repeated, then stared down at Ansgar. “My friend hit your C3 nerve root. It sticks out from the third vertebrae on the side of your neck. When the root was pushed into your bone, your chest and shoulders would have gone numb. There’s pain, too. Since the C3 nerve controls the diaphragm, breathing would’ve stopped, but regained as soon as Alex let the nerve go. You should still be in distress, but you’ll live. For now. We’re going to carry you out of here. Then take you to a place where you will die.”

  Ansgar watched him from the floor, gasping breath after breath through his mouth. The nose job Sarah gave him made it doubly hard to breathe.

  Aaron rolled Ansgar onto his side, yanked the gun out of the man’s waistband and slipped it into his own pants. Alex was almost dressed now. The cop’s uniform was slightly big on his small frame, but Alex w
as making it work by tucking it in where he could.

  “How did you survive the fall off the balcony?” Aaron asked.

  “Sheets,” Alex said. “From above. Climbed down.” He began buttoning up the blue shirt. “Left them hanging long enough to drop to the balcony below.” He slipped his feet into the cop’s shoes. “Went over the edge, gripped the sheets and swung onto the balcony below.” He stretched out his arms. “And here I am.”