When finally he broke the surface, he did so silently. And though he wanted to gulp in great lungfuls of the fresh night air, he merely sipped it, remaining perfectly still along the bank while his heart rate slowed to sixty beats per minute. The distant shouts indicated that his pursuers were cutting a circuit through the woods, attempting to find his trail. But these guys were Roskov’s thugs, not professional trackers, and the odds of them finding and being able to follow his trail in the dark weren’t good. Then again, there were a bunch of them tromping through the woods and they might just get lucky.
Although the night wasn’t cold, the water had chilled him and, stirred by the stiff breeze that had come up after sunset, the chill added to his discomfort. Cold, wet, and exhausted, he could feel the demon fire rise up within, a dim but growing echo of the blood lust he experienced in his dreams. Sensing that he had passed beyond the outer perimeter his enemies had set up around the farmhouse, it would be a simple thing to shift from hunted to hunter. They would not expect him to come back at them from outside.
From its sheath on his shoulder holster, the black SAF survival knife called to him. He wanted to feel that razor sharp blade part flesh and slide through vital organs, wanted to feel the hot, sticky wetness spurt from fatal wounds to cover his arms and chest.
Jack sniffed the night air, and though the nearest hunter was downwind, he could smell the mixture of fear and anticipation that oozed from the man’s pores. Returning the H&K to its holster, Jack filled his hand with the black blade and slithered silently back toward that killer. He knew full well that it was unlikely that any of these men had taken part in Rita’s killing, but they worked for Roskov, and someone on Roskov’s team had taken his sweet time with her. A down payment on her suffering was long overdue. It would have to hold him until he got his hands on the one who had actually done the killing.
Jack paused, his senses attuned with the night. Just ahead, a man struggled to still his breathing, shifting his weapon so that it brushed a branch. When Jack moved, the man heard him and spun. As Jack’s blade sliced his throat, the man’s finger tightened on the trigger, sending the stutter of submachine gun fire into the night. The silence that followed was broken by the sound of men yelling to each other as they crashed through brush a hundred meters back toward the farmhouse.
Jack relieved the dead man of his weapon and two spare ammunition magazines before slipping into the thick brush ten meters to his right. The men racing toward the kill zone expected him to be running. As he settled into a prone firing position, Jack watched the beams from two flashlights converge on the dead man, then sweep wildly from side to side.
His first shot hit the nearest man in the back of his head, dropping his body atop the corpse and sending his flashlight rolling across the ground, its beam cutting a swath through the darkness. The second man whirled toward him, catching two rounds in the center of his chest. The dual impact lifted him off his feet, slamming him back into a young pine, its low branches catching him, a bloody scarecrow suspended in the flashlight’s pale glow.
Gunfire crackled overhead as the others who had been following these two dived for cover, firing wildly into the night. Several rounds struck the dimly illuminated dead man in the tree, making his body lurch wildly but failing to dislodge him.
Lying perfectly still, Jack noted the locations of the muzzle flashes, two from the left of the kill zone and one that answered fire from his right. That shot and its accompanying muzzle flash pulled a volley of fire from the other two and sent an agonized scream echoing through the night.
“Got him!” The German words carried a thick Slavic accent.
“Careful. He might be wounded.”
“Check it out. I’ll cover you.”
“Screw that.”
“Damn it, Schmidt. He’s down.”
“Fine. Then you go get him.”
Jack heard the tension in those voices, felt his hunger pull him toward them, and laid the submachine gun on the ground beside him. As he drew the black blade from its sheath and rose to a crouch, a distant wail pulled a memory from his dreams. The cries echoed through a deep canyon battlefield, the sound of wolves moving through the darkness to ravage the wounded, leaping up to tear the flesh from legs that dangled from hundreds of impaling pikes. But this wasn’t the wail of wolves or the screams of the dying, this was the distant warble of sirens. Jack took a deep breath and made a different decision. Now, before the police arrived, was the time, but that window of opportunity wouldn’t stay open long.
Barefoot and half naked, Jack turned his back on the chaos behind him and stepped into the night’s enfolding arms.
CHAPTER 38
“I’ve got some bad news.”
Nolan Trent looked up from his desk at the bald visage of Craig Faragut and frowned.
“Damn it, Craig. What now?”
“The Wozniaks are dead.”
“Kazimer and Ludmina?”
“Them and every guard that was on duty in their compound. Five stiffs total.”
“Shit!”
Despite the fact that he’d just chewed a handful of Rolaids from the red candy dish sitting to the left of his laptop, Nolan swallowed two more.
“Gregory?”
“All we know is that a man showed up at Wozniak’s workplace on the docks. The secretary, such as she is, couldn’t remember much about him. Average height, ball cap, and sunglasses. Said his name was Rado something and Kazimer seemed to know him. They left together at around five p.m. local time.
“Around six p.m., the police got a call reporting gunshots at Wozniak’s compound on the northern outskirts of Szczecin. By the time they got to the house it was all over. Two guards shot dead outside the front of the house. One of them had apparently been shooting into the house with an Uzi submachine gun.
“The others died in the kitchen. Kazimer and his driver were killed with a Ruger pistol that belonged to his wife. Ludmina had multiple bullet wounds. At least a couple of those were definitely fired from Kazimer’s gun. Her body had fallen across the stove and was badly burned.”
Nolan, feeling a sudden need to stand, pushed his chair back from the desk and rose to his feet. “This is bullshit. Why would the Wozniaks shoot each other and their bodyguards?”
“We know Kazimer was having an affair with a twenty-year-old ballet dancer. Maybe Ludmina found out about it and got pissed.”
“What about the other man? Did the neighbors see anyone leave the scene?”
“That’s just it. Wozniak’s compound is surrounded by green space. It doesn’t have any immediate neighbors.”
“Then who reported the shooting?”
“Apparently one of the gate guards made that call.”
The deputy director walked to the whiteboard on the far wall of his office, staring at it as he tried to mentally reconstruct the murder scene. After several seconds he turned back toward Faragut.
“The two guards outside, where did they die?”
“The one with the Uzi cashed in his chips by the open gate, about sixty feet from the front door. The other died just outside the front door. Both had been shot with nine-millimeter rounds, not that it helps. Every weapon on the compound, including the Uzi, used nine-millimeter ammo.”
“So the two guards shot each other?”
“No. The one by the door was killed at very close range. He had a broken wrist and powder burns on his head. The gate guard was killed by a longer shot. The police report says there were motorcycle skid marks leaving the driveway. We won’t know more until the Polish homicide detectives finish their investigation.”
Nolan looked directly into Faragut’s broad face.
“Was the man from the docks riding a motorcycle?”
“The secretary didn’t know and apparently everyone that saw him is dead.”
Faragut cleared his throat, then continued. “There’s something else. It may not be connected, but I think it is.”
“Yes?”
“Late last n
ight, German Polizei responded to reports of gunfire at a farmhouse outside of Herzfelde. They found the owner, an old woman named Frau Gensler, dead at the scene. Someone had cut her throat and thrown her down the front steps. There were signs that several others had died at the site although no other bodies were recovered. But there were lots of shell casings, bullet holes, and plenty of blood. Officially, it’s being investigated as gang-related violence. Some of the evidence indicates Russian mafia involvement. My guess is that Roskov sent a team to ambush Gregory.”
“Goddamn it.”
Although Nolan didn’t have anything to prove it, he agreed with Faragut’s analysis. This felt like Gregory’s handiwork. But how had he known that the Wozniaks had allied themselves with the Roskov? And how had Roskov tracked him to that isolated German farmhouse?
Refocusing his gaze on Faragut’s face, Nolan nodded.
“Okay, Craig. Stay on it. Let me know if anything else turns up.”
“Will do.”
Watching Faragut walk out of his office and close the door behind him, Nolan made a conscious effort to release the tension that had been building in his body. Apparently Gregory had survived another bloody confrontation. If they didn’t eliminate the threat Jack Gregory’s involvement posed, Roskov’s obsession with vengeance could pull Koenig’s whole operation down on top of them. One thing was certain. When Jacob Knox learned that Roskov was still muddying the waters, he was going to be very unhappy. But no matter how pissed off Jacob got, he couldn’t even begin to approach the meltdown happening inside Nolan’s gut at this moment.
Picking up the phone, Nolan dialed his admin assistant.
“Yes?”
“Lindsey, get Vladimir Roskov on the phone, then patch him through to me.”
“It might take a while.”
“I don’t want any excuses. Just get him on the line.”
Nolan ended the call without waiting for her response. Considering his mood, Lindsey was probably thankful not to have to continue the conversation.
CHAPTER 39
Janet Price felt an electric pulse surge through her body, a tingle that felt as if sparks would leap from her fingertips into the keyboard that rested on the hotel desk in front of her. After this much time had passed with no contact, she had begun to contemplate the risk–reward ratio of attempting to track down Jack, even though the information she’d revealed to him would make that task one hell of a lot more difficult. But now that wasn’t going to be necessary. Jack had posted an encrypted message onto one of the monitored websites.
Centering, Janet enforced the calm that would bring her proper focus, then directed her attention to the decrypted text on her screen.
I have decided to allow you to make a good-faith deposit in the interest of testing our mutual cooperation. It works like this: First you provide me with the requested information. I will use that to determine your ongoing asset value. Right now, I offer nothing in return.
I want to know the current location and recent activities of Vladimir Roskov. You have until Friday midnight GMT to provide the information. J.G.
The request sounded simple enough, but carried within it a mystery. Jack had tracked down Roskov without NSA help before, so why was he asking for help now? There was no doubt that this was connected with the killing of the Paris CIA operative, a killing patterned after murders attributed to Roskov. The CIA certainly believed that Gregory was her killer and, having seen the video evidence, Janet could understand why. But she didn’t buy it for a second. And Big John put the correlation factor at a lowly zero-point-two-three. That meant Big John wasn’t buying it either.
Jack had lost his major source of intel. That’s what all this data screamed at her. He’d been blinded in one eye. Rita Chavez. She’d been important to Jack. Just how important she’d find out after she sent her next set of Big John priority intelligence requests to Dr. Denise Jennings. But without the bother of invoking that computer super-mind, Janet had a feeling that Rita Chavez had been more than just an intel source to Jack. If that was true, God help her with stopping Jack from killing Vladimir Roskov. Janet had a bad feeling that if Jack did that, they’d lose their only chance of finding out what was really at play here.
So she’d make her move and hit the clock. Janet was in The Ripper’s world now, and as illogical as it was . . . she liked it.
CHAPTER 40
Jacob Knox arrived at the farmhouse at six thirty a.m., parking his white Audi Quattro in the gravel driveway, just behind a green tractor that looked like it hadn’t been moved in months. The Polizei had finished their investigation of the crime scene yesterday and had taken all their crime scene tape and evidence bags with them. Later today, Frau Gensler’s brother was scheduled to arrive from the United States, and after claiming her body and coordinating with the mortuary, he would probably make a trip out to the farm. By then, Jacob would be long gone.
Having read a copy of the official report, Jacob had no confidence that the Polizei would ever figure out what had happened here. Then again, he was perfectly capable of discovering those facts for himself.
The blood stain on the stone front steps showed him the spot where Frau Gensler had died. She’d tried to stop the men who had kicked in that door and they’d cut her throat and tossed her aside as they raced inside. The blood spatter high up on the door frame built a picture in his mind, revealing the exact angle she’d been held as the knife parted her right carotid artery.
Jacob stepped inside and switched on the lights. The entryway was a mess, pieces of the shattered door strewn about, bloody boot prints leading up the stairs on the left, another blood stain farther inside where one of the intruders had been shot.
Jacob took his time, pausing to examine every detail of what had happened in this entryway. Among his special talents was his ability to spot the little things that others, even highly trained investigators, missed. And as he examined the blood stains, the bullet holes in the far wall and in the corner of the counter, the knocked over furniture, and the boot prints heading up the steps, a clear picture formed in Jacob’s mind.
Something had so startled Frau Gensler that she had already moved close to the entry door when the intruders kicked it in. But she hadn’t been going for the door—she’d been headed for the stairway. From the angle she’d been grabbed and slammed against the wall, no other path made sense.
The action in this room had happened in two waves. The old frau had reacted to something, probably a loud noise from upstairs, and had hurried to discover its source. She’d probably just reached the first step when the door had been kicked in. One of the men killed the frau as others raced past. While Jacob couldn’t be sure how many had come through that door, it had been at least a half-dozen. Two of those had remained downstairs.
The second blood stain and bits of hair and bone told Jacob that one of these had been killed by whoever came back down those stairs. An overturned chair and a bullet hole in the wood said that his partner had survived by diving behind the counter. Good decision.
Climbing the stairs, he walked to the room at the far end of the hall that had been a focal point of the action. Its door had been torn from its hinges and hurled back inside the room. As soon as he stepped across the threshold, Jacob understood exactly what had happened here and what had pulled Frau Gensler to her death at the bottom of the stairs. Something had been hurled through the window, spraying broken glass across the floor, bed, and onto the small table.
It had been the opening act in this violent play. In addition to the window, the mirror above the sink had been shattered, as had the two water glasses. Examination of the shards revealed that neither the mirror nor the glasses had suffered direct impact. They’d broken as the result of an explosion. But the limited extent of that damage meant that someone had hurled a flash-bang grenade through that window, just before the assault team had entered the house. The way the door lay on top of the glass merely confirmed this timeline.
Jacob walked back down the h
all, stopping to examine the bullet holes in the wall at the top of the stairs. How had the man gotten behind his attackers? Looking back toward the shattered bedroom, his eyes were drawn to a closed door on the right hand side of the hallway. Walking up to it, he saw the large blue WC lettered at eye level. Of course, the water closet.
Opening the door, Jacob stepped inside and flipped on the light switch. The room was typical of these older buildings: a blue tile floor, a sink, toilet, a single shower stall, and a wood bench. A half-used bar of soap sat in a porcelain dish with a single hair stuck to its side. The hair was blond, except for a hint of brown at the root.
Jacob held it up to the light. The hair had dried blood on it. Placing the hair in a Ziploc baggy, Jacob completed his examination of the shower and stepped back out into the hallway. The shooter had been in the shower when the assault had happened. More important, the man had already been injured.
The final details of the events that had taken place inside this farmhouse two nights ago clicked into place. The shooter had heard the attack on his room, had stepped out into this hall and shot two of the men in the back, then ran down the stairs where he killed another man before escaping into the night.
The Ripper.
He didn’t need to search the grounds to fill in the rest of the movie. Roskov’s men had made the fatal mistake of chasing The Ripper into the woods at night. They were lucky he hadn’t hunted and killed them all.
Now, because of Roskov’s bloody stupidity, Gregory had been thrown off the track Rita Chavez’s murder had set him on. Feeling his teeth grind together, Jacob forced himself to take a deep breath. Then, without so much as another glance around, Jacob walked out of the farmhouse, got in the rented Audi, and headed directly back to Berlin.
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