by Jon Land
The final pair still on the deck were smart enough to go for their guns instead of charging. Quail knew his quickest of lunges couldn’t reach them in time, and there were still the forces in the dinghy to consider. As he rushed forward, his hands pulled from his pockets two small gray objects and hurled them at the two remaining soldiers. Like homemade arrowheads the objects were, his own unique variation. Miniature blades that were all edge.
One sank into a throat.
The other drove through a forehead.
The two men dropped in their tracks as Quail charged between them for the gunwale and the dinghy beyond.
The total assault had lasted barely seven seconds. Even fortune had proved his ally tonight, for the final man stepping down from the cruiser to the dinghy had lost his balance and fallen atop his fellows. The small boat’s cramped confines allowed almost no space to maneuver, and the few soldiers who were able to draw their guns could aim only at a dark blur. The few shots that were fired struck nothing, and suddenly Quail was among them.
He had managed his landing in such a way as to ensure that the overloaded dinghy would collapse. As it started to turn, dumping the occupants into the water, the men’s guns were spitting futile fire at nothing. The next moment all were thrashing about in the jet-black water, Quail’s to take as a shark would.
The Dutchman had trained himself to hold his breath underwater for far more than a normal stretch of time. He dragged his first two victims down to finish them off the quick way, with a hand compressing each throat. When he resurfaced, he found himself attacked by another pair. He pushed one beneath the water and held him in a viselike grip between his legs. The other’s skull he cracked with a single blow.
He saw the skipper’s body floating near the cruiser and knew his head had been smacked by the overturning dinghy and he had drowned, which left two more soldiers alive. Both had chosen to flee, but neither was a strong enough swimmer to escape him. Quail caught the first easily and held him underwater until he stopped struggling and went limp, an easy kill. The second he caught only twenty yards from the dock and dispatched as quickly as possible because he knew the men from the fortress could be arriving at any time. He swam rapidly in and climbed atop the dock, saw there was no lookout, and turned to survey his triumph. A dozen killed in, how long? Two minutes maybe? Let Peet try to best that, just let him, Quail thought as the approach of the jeep forced him to shrink back into darkness to formulate the next stage of his plan.
Now he returned the microphone to its stand and propped the driver’s body up in his seat so nothing would look strange to the drivers of the Land Rovers en route to pick up the arriving commandos. Two more men about to die, leaving ten perhaps.
A few more, a few less. It mattered not at all.
Lisa didn’t know what it was that woke her, only that the digital clock on the night table read 12:06. For some reason she looked at the bedside phone as if expecting it to ring. Her mind slowly cleared, and memories were rekindled of the awful late-night call that had informed her of her father’s death. The phone had rung, and she had known it was bad news on the other end, had resisted answering as if that might make it go away.
Now that same feeling returned to her in the coldness of this strange room where she was a prisoner. She shivered and tried to tell herself it was just the lingering effects of the nightmare Jared Kimberlain had saved her from—saved her but not eleven employees she had watched die. Their ghosts lived in her memory, stole her sleep, and threatened her sanity. So much violence, and so senseless. They had died for nothing, and it was the feeling that she was to blame that plagued her above all else.
But tonight there was more, though she couldn’t have said precisely what. Outside her door Dom Torelli had stationed a gentle brute named Chaney who could bend steel bars. Beyond him were a dozen family soldiers, with at least that many more due in tonight and maybe already on patrol. She should have felt safe.
But she didn’t.
With the two Land Rover drivers dead back on the beach, Quail’s next step was to reach the grounds of the fortress. Clearly his best bet was to make use of one of the Rovers to gain access.
Reaching the heavy steel gate fronting the wooden mansion would be a simple chore, since the dark road led directly to it. His preliminary reports had included nothing about the jagged rocks lining both sides, but his sharp eyes spotted these obstacles before he had driven more than a few yards. After stopping to inspect them, he slid along at ten miles per hour, allowing himself a bit more speed only in the brief straightaways.
He was sweating horribly, and the layers of scar tissue he wore for a face were sticking to the fibers of his chalky latex mask. The mask could pose a real problem for him now. The guards at the gate would know he didn’t belong as he approached, would know it even before they saw him, when they realized there were no passengers in the Rover.
What then?
“Rovers One and Two, what the hell’s taking you boys so long?” the now familiar voice of the radio operator squawked through the microphone.
Quail employed his seldom-used voice to grunt something about a mechanical problem in return.
A mechanical problem …
And with that he had his answer. The front gate came into view fifty yards ahead, and he flicked on the Rover’s high beams to effectively blind the guards gazing outward. Next he probed under the dash and tore out the vehicle’s ignition wires.
The Rover sputtered and ground to a halt, crunching hard gravel. Quail turned the key. The engine sputtered again, not even close to catching. But it made noise, and that was all he needed. He located the hood release and popped it, high beams left on to continue to blind anyone who approached.
He climbed down from the Rover and hurried to the hood, opening it all the way and crouching a bit so his vast size wouldn’t be noticed until it was too late. He lowered his head way in toward the engine to further disguise himself and then waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. The footsteps made crunching noises on the gravel. Quail didn’t turn until the crunching had almost stopped, until the man was within easy reach. He had to wait for him to get right under the hood.
“So what’s the tr—”
Quail’s hand lodged in the soft flesh between the man’s collarbone and throat, shutting his voice down and turning his face into a grimace. The pain made him scream; Quail wanted him to scream.
The man wailed again.
“Help!” the Dutchman blared now, sounding desperate.
The move achieved precisely its desired effect. The guard remaining at the gate rushed forward to provide assistance. Someone had been hurt, and hurt badly. Nothing else could account for that scream.
Meanwhile, Quail had slid his thumb over to the screaming man’s windpipe and crushed it as soon as he was sure the second man was en route from his post. He timed his turn to coincide with the approach of the footsteps crunching gravel, timed it to perfection, smiling slightly as he grasped the horrified guard’s head in one of his monstrous hands and smashed his face against the cooling engine. In the next instant, his free hand had brought the hood down on the back of the man’s neck, and the crunch was almost as loud as that of the gravel compressing underfoot.
Two more dead, and Quail judged that there were perhaps six left.
He knew his time was limited. The screams would have drawn attention from those within the courtyard, who then might have relayed their suspicions to the communications center. But the night winds were his allies, camouflaging the direction of the sounds. Moving with those winds, the Flying Dutchman headed for the gate.
Lisa threw back the four bolts on the heavy wooden door. Pulling it open, she found the huge bearded figure of Chaney on his feet, his ear cocked.
“I thought I heard a scream,” she told him, not caring if he saw her in the thin nightclothes she was wearing.
“Probably nothing. I’ll check it out.”
“You heard it too. That’s why you’re sta
nding up.”
“I heard something.” And he started off.
“You won’t go far,” she called after him.
“I’ll just go check things out. Won’t be long. Bolt the door again. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”
Lisa wanted to tell him not to go anywhere at all, but instead she bolted herself back behind a ten-inch-thick solid wood door a grenade couldn’t penetrate and tried to feel safe.
Quail wasn’t going to enter the grounds through the gate. If the screams had drawn attention, that’s where the remaining guards patrolling outside would gather, and he would be most comfortable entering through another route and then circling back to take them from the rear. The key was to keep them separate. A hundred men could be killed that way as easily as a single one if done so that one death did not warn of the next.
Ten yards from the gate, when he was just ready to veer off, the pair of flashlights grabbed his attention. One sprang from near the gate itself, and the other was halfway between it and the house and approaching. The snap of a lock being turned echoed in the night, and then the gate whined as it was drawn open.
“Yo, what’s going on out there?”
The question was posed by the lead guard bearing the flashlight, a big man in dark clothing who was now starting cautiously down the road.
“Hey, you hear me or not?”
The man picked up his pace as if incensed by Quail’s failure to answer him. The Dutchman slumped his shoulders, trying to look shorter. The guard stopped in terror when the flashlight caught his figure. He went for his gun, but the instant it took allowed Quail to rush straight up the beam. Needing to be quick, he killed the man in the same motion it took to toss him into the brush, then stooped over the body and retrieved the man’s cap. He tucked it over his head as best as he could manage and kept his masked face angled down as he moved toward the gate, making himself stagger.
Again his timing proved perfect. The approaching guard reached the gate a second before Quail, shifting his flashlight to the turf as the wounded figure seemed to stumble just outside the gate. As the man reached for the latch, Quail flung his hands through the gate and brought the man’s face viciously against the bars. He kept it there so the man couldn’t scream while pulling one hand back and angling his fingers into a steel ramrod that bit deeply into the flesh of the guard’s throat even as the second hand was already sliding down toward the latch.
“Everything’s all right,” Chaney told Lisa when he returned.
“How can you be sure?”
“The communications center hasn’t had a single report of anything gone wrong. With a dozen guards out there, we’d know if something had.”
“What about the other guards, the new ones?”
“Should be reaching the estate any second. Rest easy, miss. Nothing to fear out there except boredom.”
Lisa noticed the walkie-talkie Chaney had clipped to his belt.
He followed her eyes. “Can stay in better contact this way,” he explained.
“Which means you won’t have to leave the door again.”
“That’s the idea, miss.”
Chapter 20
QUAIL FOUND HIMSELF ALONE on the grounds inside the fence and knew that all the remaining guards would be inside the house. One of them was sure to be mannning the communications center, and he was clearly a prime target. The Dutchman wanted time to deal with the woman as he wished, and an alarm sent to the mainland could bring help fast enough to make him rush.
Extensive and neatly manicured grounds enclosed the mansion. Clinging to the shadows, Quail eased himself toward the well-lit area of the main entrance, ears attuned to sounds of movement in case he had somehow missed any of the outside guards. Nearer the entrance, Quail crouched low. There were a pair of video cameras to concern himself with now, but with the proper timing he could reach the door by darting between their sweeps. Quail studied the cameras closely and, with their rotations spread widest, lunged.
The image on the video monitor looked like no more than a darkened shadow, a black splotch that went as quickly as it had come. The man in the communications room might have disregarded it altogether had not a red light and a warning buzzer alerted him to the fact that the front door had been penetrated.
“What the hell …”
His eyes swept across the other screens for hints of movement on the grounds among the floodlights. Nothing. No guards, no intruders. Why no guards, though? Could all of them be out of camera range at the same time?
Someone had entered the house, someone unfamiliar with the proper procedure for entry. It could have been one of the commandos just brought in and thus not briefed yet, but the console operator felt otherwise. No matter. The two interior guards were posted downstairs to handle any intrusion. The man flicked a pair of switches which brought the picture from the first floor onto two screens.
There were no guards visible on the monitors. No one appeared on the monitors. It was as if the intruder had moved between sweeps of the camera and used those motions to eliminate both interior guards in less time than …
Impossible! Or was it?
In the end it was a gnawing, all-encompassing fear that drew the man’s finger to a small black button that would automatically send an emergency message to Dominick Torelli wherever he was. The boss would take things from there. There was help just minutes away once the signal got through.
The man had just pressed the button when the door to the communications room eased quietly open.
Lisa was seated in a chair facing the door when the knock came. She had only just given up her futile attempts at rest and dressed in jeans and a blouse.
“It’s me, miss,” came Chaney’s now familiar voice.
She cracked the door open and gazed at his shadowy bulk in the dim light of the third-floor hallway.
“I’m having trouble with this box,” he explained, pointing at his walkie-talkie. “Can’t raise anyone.”
“What should you do?”
“Check things out a bit. Thought I heard something a few seconds ago.” The walkie-talkie was back in his belt in the next instant and a huge square pistol in its place. “Lock the door, miss. I’ll be right back.”
No, you won’t, Lisa almost said, terrified by the certainty of her notion.
The black button brought no lights blazing or alarms shrilling, but Quail knew all the same that its signal meant trouble for him in the form of reinforcements of some kind. He killed the man behind the console by squeezing his headset well into his ears until the parted flesh swallowed the soft plastic ends, making them one with his skull.
His concern with the black alarm button had made him careless, though, and when he turned back toward the door, it was without proper consideration of his surroundings. He saw the gun come up before him and to the side, knew it was too late to prevent the shot and merely twisted to avoid the bullet as the large shape whirled before him.
Lisa heard the shot explode, echoing through the suddenly empty house. She waited as if certain there would be another, and when it didn’t come she was unsure of what this meant in terms of her own fate.
The terror within her was more than a feeling. It was alive and moving through her stomach and chest, wrapping around her lungs as if to shut off her breath. She found herself standing with her back against the wall without remembering getting up from her chair.
She had to do something herself, and she had to do it now.
Quail’s next conscious thought as the gun was pointed at him again was that its wielder was big, huge even, but still smaller than he was. He managed to lash his hand out in a blur and strike the gun on its hot barrel, surprising its holder with the power of the blow and tearing the weapon from his grip.
The man seemed fazed for only an instant, and he backpedaled agilely as the Dutchman lunged with his other hand. The man managed to deflect the blow with a lucky swipe, but the gun had been his only true hope, Quail knew, and he went for the kill.
Lisa sensed she was alone now and knew her best hope was that the killers didn’t know which room she was in and would thus have to check each door before reaching this one on the third floor. She briefly considered taking her chances in the corridors in an escape attempt through the main entrance, but she dismissed the notion when she realized it was the surest way of delivering herself straight into their hands. Then she thought of the roof. Would that do as an escape route? No—the slightest slip and a three-story plunge would await her. The key was to make a stand, lay a defense here. Take advantage of what she had already and find more to add to it while she clung to the hope that help would be coming from the mainland.
First things first. Holding her breath, she unbolted the heavy wood door and grabbed hold of the chair Chaney had been sitting on outside the room so there would be nothing to make this one stand out from the others on the hall. This done, she refastened the bolts and went to her handbag. Fighting to stay calm, she rummaged through it as she went toward the bathroom. Since this was only a guest room, its medicine cabinet and the area under the sink were not terribly well stocked, but she would make do.
The best she could salvage for her planned use was a can of Lysol spray disinfectant and a jar of Crystal Drano drain opener. Working fast now, making every second count, she dropped a capful of the Drano in each of two heavy-duty plastic cups and then filled both three-quarters full of water.
The hissing started instantly, followed almost as quickly by the rise of an incredibly noxious vapor. The addition of water to the crystals created dangerous lye, and she placed the two hissing cups in different parts of the room equidistant between the door and the window. Still hurrying, she shook up the can of Lysol spray and left it on the bureau. She remembered that she had seen a cigarette lighter on the dressing table. She picked it up and put it on the bureau next to the Lysol. Then she again turned her attention to her handbag. Tossing the contents about, she came up with a nail file and a Cross ballpoint pen, the kind you twist at the top to make the hard steel writing ball emerge. Both able weapons but only in close, and if it came to that…