by John Lutz
“Fuckin’ right!” Those of us who did! The winners! “We survived because in situations like this we toughened up. There’s nothing new for us here, Joe. We deal with it or it buries us. And we can deal with it if we’ve got the guts. You got the guts, Joe?”
“I’m fine in the guts department. Anyway, like I told you, there really isn’t a choice. Not for me. I’m on my way to kill the cunt who ruined my son.”
“There’s always a choice. You throw up your hands and get fucked, or you become the fucker.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Truth is, I know that, Joe. In this, you don’t have any real choice. It’s why I’m here with you, helping you in what you have to do.”
Vine pulled himself up to sit straighter, though he continued his intent stare out the windshield at the headlight beams and rushing highway. Kray hoped Vine was going to be okay. Vine was at the edge. His blood lust might overwhelm his reason, or worse, his madness might shut him down, paralyze him.
“Closer than brothers, Joe. That’s how we got it done. That’s how we’ll get this done. You ready?”
Vine didn’t answer for a while. The intermittent splat! of insects on the windshield was the only sound other than the hum of motor and moan of wind.
Finally Vine said, “Fuckin’-A. I’m better than ready. I’m eager.”
Kray smiled tightly. Confidently. Those words from Vine had been good enough before. They’d be good enough again.
Horn got the call that evening at his brownstone. He’d just snuffed out a cigar and was getting ready for bed when the phone rang.
Rollie Larkin.
“We don’t have the DNA yet,” he said to Horn, “but I thought you’d like to know that microscopic analysis matches the strand of hair found stuck beneath Alice Duggan’s duct-tape gag with hair taken from Joe Vine’s comb. Vine killed her, not that there was much doubt.”
“No doubt at all,” Horn said, “but thanks for calling. Everything in place for Anne?”
“I’m in tight communication with the operation. Everyone’s in place. Men in the woods and in the creek bed, sentries watching the road. An officer is sitting guard while the cabin sleeps.”
“I guess I can sleep then.”
“Go ahead, Horn. Drink some of that scotch of yours, if it’ll help.”
Horn smiled. “I might do that. Then I’ll drive up to the cabin in the morning.”
After hanging up the phone, Horn was glad the conversation hadn’t been on the cell phone. It would have been more likely overheard.
On the other hand, given the capabilities of Joe Vine, the phone line to the brownstone might be tapped.
Horn decided he probably wouldn’t sleep very well, scotch or no scotch.
But he did—for less than an hour.
Then he was wide awake and fumbling for the phone.
Larkin said a thick hello, as if Horn had woken him.
Horn didn’t care. “Rollie, I’ve thought of something!”
“I’m thinking of something right now, too,” Larkin said sleepily.
“Cindy Vine,” Horn said. “I remembered something she said during her interrogation, about when her husband confessed the murders to her. She said, ‘. . . they never told their wives or anyone else about the murders.’”
“Yeah,” Larkin said.
“Vine said they. And he said wives. Mandle never had a wife.”
“This means? . . .”
“Joe Vine was telling her about more than one other killer besides himself. He must have been referring to Victor Kray. The three of them—Mandle, Vine and Kray— took up murder together during the SSF’s black operations.”
“It’s possible,” Larkin said cautiously. He sounded all the way awake now and somewhat skeptical. “But why Kray?”
“Mandle stayed in the SSF and was never called on the murder Vine witnessed, so Vine must not have talked.”
“True,” Larkin said.
“Unless he did go to his commanding officer, and it went no further.”
“Makes sense.”
“And it went no further because Mandle must have had something on Kray.”
“So why didn’t Vine go over Kray’s head?”
“My guess is by that time he was in too deep,” Horn said. “All that’s important is we know he didn’t go higher than Kray in the chain of command. Then, when Mandle escaped from the prison van, Vine picked up where the Night Spider had left off, after killing Mandle. All so he could avenge what happened to his son and kill Anne; her death would’ve been blamed on Mandle.”
“So why is Kray trying to help us nab Vine?”
“He doesn’t want us to nab him; he wants to make sure we kill him, so he can’t talk and implicate Kray. He wants to stay close to the investigation so he can control it, make sure Vine dies before talking, even if he has to kill him himself. Kray probably helped his old military buddy Vine kill Mandle after he escaped from the van, then thought the situation was contained. He had no way of knowing Vine would go on a killing spree of his own. Something else: I mentioned to Kray that Anne was going to be hidden away in her brother’s cabin.”
“You mention where the cabin was?”
“Do you really think Kray couldn’t find out?”
“I get your point. You say Kray’s at the Rion Hotel?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll send around a detail to bring him in.”
“No,” Horn said. “Just put a tight tail on him. No need yet to let him know we’re on to him.”
“Chess game, huh?”
“I hope we’re still at that point.”
“Where’s Bobby Fischer when you need him?”
“I’m driving up to the cabin.”
“I’ll go with you, soon as I arrange for the watch on Kray. That’s where this is all likely to come together. I want to make sure everything up there is being done right.”
“No need for that. Can you call Army Records in St. Louis this time of night?” Horn asked.
“I know a way to get through.”
“Get any information they might have on Colonel Kray. It might help us string him along while he thinks he’s stringing us along.” Horn glanced at his watch. 11:35 P.M. “I’m leaving in five minutes. I’ve gotta make another phone call.”
“I’ll be on the road in ten minutes.”
Larkin was determined. Horn decided to give up trying to talk him out of it. “Okay. Meet me off the highway on the county road that leads to the cabin.”
“Take your cell phone,” Larkin said.
“Always.”
As Horn hurriedly got dressed, he wondered if Larkin really knew how much the NYPD leaked.
After leaving the brownstone, Horn’s first act was to call Bickerstaff and Paula on a public phone three blocks away.
At about the halfway point of the drive to the cabin, Larkin called Horn on his cell phone.
“Just got the word,” he said. “The detail sent to the hotel to observe Kray says he checked out only hours ago. Desk clerk said he was in a hurry.”
Horn felt his stomach go cold with apprehension. Things were moving ahead of them; they weren’t in control and might not possess the necessary knowledge. Losing at chess, and the stakes were unbelievably high.
“Something else,” Larkin said. “Army Records tells me
Colonel Victor Kray resigned his commission and left the service over two years ago.”
Horn was silent, trying to drive and comprehend all of this at the same time.
“Whaddya think, Horn?” asked Larkin’s voice from the cell phone. Horn could hear the constant snarl of Larkin’s car engine in the background. Larkin wasn’t worried about speeding tickets.
Horn said, “Drive faster.”
Harlington Sheriff’s Deputy Albert “Sass” Collier settled deeper where he sat in darkness among last year’s leaves. He was alongside the dry creek bed. Like the others guarding Anne Horn, Sass had strict instructions to hold his position
and not go near the cabin unless ordered to do so. The NYPD guys were farther in toward the cabin, one of them inside with the blond Anne Horn. Sass had seen her photo in the New York papers. Nice looking lady from the big city. He wondered what she’d be like to talk to. He smiled. Talk to, hell!
Collier was on loan from the sheriff ‘s department because he was a local and a hunter. He knew the woods. If the wind was right, he could hear a deer move a hundred yards away. He could hear a squirrel chatter and know its direction almost well enough to fire at it blind and hit it with a shotgun blast. Rumor had it Sass was half Cherokee Indian. He wasn’t, but he should have been.
Nothing, nobody, was going to pass him in or on either side of the creek bed without him knowing.
He was called “Sass” because of some wildness in his younger days, and a stubbornness that had matured into genuine toughness. Sass was six-feet-two and two hundred pounds of solid cop. He knew the skills of his trade and beyond that held a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. If he did hear somebody moving through the woods toward the cabin, he’d know what to do. He’d be able to do it.
But he heard nothing other than the soft breeze playing through the leaves, even as dark forms above him moved through the forest canopy. If he’d glanced up, they would have been still, merely shadows among shadows.
One of the dark forms dropped straight down on a slender line to a point about three feet behind and above the seated Sass. The dark figure made a sudden, silent movement that tipped his body forward and down. In the same abrupt but smooth motion Sass’s hair was gripped, his head yanked back to expose his throat, and tempered sharp steel sliced through his neck deep enough to sever both carotid arteries.
It had all happened in a few seconds, and the only sound had been the gush and soft splatter of blood on the dry leaves—like a gentle summer rain that passed quickly.
Sass’s face barely had time to register surprise.
53
When Horn turned off the highway onto the narrow country road and killed his headlights, he saw by the faint moonlight that Rollie Larkin had already arrived.
Larkin was standing by a uniformed NYPD cop Horn didn’t know, a stocky young man who looked like a serious weight lifter. Horn wondered if some of these young guys were taking steroids. He wondered if he would have when he was young, to be a better cop. Only animals took steroids when Horn was the young cop’s age.
“This is Officer Wunderly,” Larkin said, when Horn had gotten out of the car and walked off the road and into the tall grass where Larkin’s car was parked.
Horn looked at Wunderly and gave him a nod.
“No sign of anything since we’ve been here, sir.” Wunderly had a narrow head, made pinched-looking by the sidelight-ing of the moon. It was a head that didn’t go with his muscular frame.
“Been in touch with the sentries?” Horn asked.
“Every hour,” Wunderly said.
“How long since the last time?”
Wunderly glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“You doing it on the hour?”
“Yes, sir. Easier to remember.”
And predict, Horn thought. “Contact the nearest.”
Wunderly went to the patrol car and got out a black, leather-cased walkie-talkie. “These are from the sheriff’s department. Regular two-ways don’t work worth a damn out here,” he explained. “Local yokels don’t have ‘em anyway.”
Horn and Larkin looked at each other while Wunderly tried to contact the sentry, keeping his voice low.
“Wunderly to Deputy Collier . . . Deputy Collier . . . Sass, you there? . . .”
Wunderly’s brow furrowed. He looked at Horn and Larkin. “Can’t raise him.”
“Got a map?” Horn asked.
“Sure. Sheriff ‘s department gave us a dandy.”
“Sounds like the sheriff’s department is running the whole goddamn show,” Larkin said.
“You relay my order for the sentries to maintain position?” Horn asked Wunderly.
“Yes, sir. Made it plain so everybody understood.”
“Get the map and show me where Sass is,” Horn said.
In the blackness of the night, Vine and Kray silently moved from limb to limb, overhead in the forest canopy, then dropped straight down on lines and garroted or slit the throats of the police guarding the cabin where Anne was staying.
Vine spotted one sentry, a local, sitting halfway up a tree in a deer seat, a contraption hunters used to stake out spots during deer season so they could fire down on the unsuspecting animals when they approached. The seats were held fast to the trees by the tension of weight and leverage against metal frames or straps.
Vine dropped silently along the other side of the tree’s trunk, made a slight sound on the sentry’s left so he’d turn his head in that direction, then deftly reached around the trunk from the right and slit the man’s throat. He knew that Kray, watching, must approve.
This was the third man they’d killed. They wanted to be sure that when they finally did enter the cabin, they’d be alone with Anne.
Then Kray would be alone with Vine.
Then Kray would be alone.
Kray knew the aftermath would be awkward. He could say he knew how dangerous Vine was because he’d trained him, that he’d taken it upon himself to make sure Anne Horn was protected and Vine was captured or killed. Unfortunately, he’d been only partly successful.
Still, he’d be a hero. And he knew PR and how to cover his ass. He’d be first to get out his version of what happened, take advantage of all the media morons and cable news channels that would want to interview him.
Who could prove his story false other than Anne Horne and Vine?
The dead didn’t testify in court.
Paula knew the way better, and she could see better at night, so she gave Bickerstaff directions as he drove.
The dusty unmarked car, running without lights, pulled to a stop behind Wunderly’s patrol car just off the county road.
Bickerstaff leaned forward over the steering wheel and looked around. “Where the hell is everyone?”
Paula didn’t answer. She got out of the unmarked and right away noticed two other cars. They were parked in the shadows of a copse of trees. Moving closer to them and squinting in the dim light, she saw that they were unoccupied. But she knew the cars.
She took a few steps back to where Bickerstaff was climbing out of the unmarked.
“Horn and Larkin are here,” she said. “Somewhere.”
Bickerstaff looked in the direction of the cars, then all around him. Nothing but night. Not even the sounds of crickets or nocturnal animals. Maybe something moving, far away. A bear or cougar? He wondered, uneasily, if they were still to be found in upper New York State. He looked over at Paula in the faint moonlight.
“We seem to be alone,” Bickerstaff said. “Yeah.”
“So whadda we do?”
Wunderly had gotten Horn and Larkin Kevlar vests from the trunk of the patrol car. The three of them had gone about two hundred yards into the woods, walking as quietly as they could. Still, they made what Horn considered to be a lot of noise as they strode through the dry underbrush and occasionally blundered into unseen branches that snapped back, sometimes scratching their arms and faces.
Two middle-aged Caucasians and a big-city white boy, Horn thought, trying to act as if they knew what they were doing in the wild.
Finally they came to the creek bed on the sheriff ‘s map. Horn saw no more than a shallow depression full of dry twigs, vines, and uneven stones. The detritus of winter that hadn’t washed away.
“Easier going that way,” Wunderly said in a soft, knowledgeable voice that would have made an Indian guide proud. He spat off to the side. “Creek bed’s like nature’s path.”
“Where you from, Wunderly?” Horn asked.
“Brooklyn, sir.”
“Nature’s path, huh? We go crashing along through all those rotted leaves and dead wood, we’ll make a hell of a l
ot of noise.”
“You got a point, sir. “
“How far till we get to this Sass character?” Larkin asked.
“ ‘Bout a hundred yards that way, sir.” Wunderly pointed in the direction of the cabin.
“Let’s approach at an angle,” Horn said.
He led the way, moving more confidently. The woods still obscured what faint moonlight there was, but his eyes were accustomed to the dimness.
The three city animals were making less noise now, but still too much.
“This Sass guy won’t lose his cool and shoot us, will he?” Larkin asked.
“Not the type, sir.” Wunderly’s feet suddenly slipped out from under him and he was on his back on the ground. “Jesus!” He was staring at his hand.
It was black. No, red.
“It’s blood!” Wunderly was staring to his left, scooting backward away from what he saw.
Wunderly’d had his direction right but his distance wrong. A man Horn assumed was Sass was sitting with his back against a tree, his head dangling to the side. So saturated were his clothes with blood it was hard to recognize them as a uniform. The expression on his pale face suggested he was leering at a dirty joke. He wasn’t, though. His throat was slit so deeply he was nearly decapitated.
“How far ahead is the next sentry?” Horn asked.
“Not far. Over that way.” Wunderly pointed, then abruptly leaned to the side and began to vomit.
Horn and Larkin waited. Larkin stood staring at Sass, his face almost as pale as the corpse’s. “Think you ever get used to this kind of shit?” He was talking to Horn.
“I hope not,” Horn replied.
Wunderly was struggling to stand up straight. He wiped his bloody hands on his pants, then spat off to the side as he had when he was the seasoned trail guide.
“You okay?” Horn asked.
“Yeah. Not the first body I saw. I don’t know why I let go like that.”
“Lead on.”
They walked with guns drawn, afraid of what they were going to find, afraid they might be making enough noise to draw attention.