by Blake Banner
Kill: Four
Copyright © 2019 by Blake Banner
All rights reserved.
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ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
WHAT'D YOU THINK?
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ONE
I lay still in bed, feeling an indefinable disquiet: the stillness of the small hours, hazy beams of moonlight leaning silent through the open window, lying in limpid, twisted oblongs across the foot of my bed, an owl calling for a mate, far off across the dark fields, the steady croaking of the frogs in the pond near the black woods outside.
I rose and went to the window. Everything was motionless. The almost turquoise glow of the full moon lay luminous over everything: the blacktop on the driveway, the softly glinting leaves on the trees, the rooftops and the chimneypots silhouetted against the translucent sky. There was nothing there—nothing visible.
I stood a while, not looking for objects but for movement, and eventually it came: a shifting of the dark among the trees that bordered Concord Road, then the muted cones of headlamps and the hum of an engine retreating toward Weston.
* * *
At breakfast the next morning, as Kenny set down my bacon and eggs and poured my coffee, I said, “Check the CCTV footage for last night, will you, Kenny? We had a prowler, somebody in a car parked on Concord Road. I want to know who it was.”
His eyes searched my face for less than a second. “I’ll do that right away, sir.”
He withdrew and I sat alone, eating my eggs and bacon, more aware of the lawns and woodlands beyond the leaded windows, behind my back, than I was of the food and the coffee on the table in front of me.
At seven thirty I rose from the table, slipped my Sig Sauer p226 under my arm and stepped out for a walk along Concord Road. It was a fresh, bright morning. The early shadows were long, dense and cool among burnished light, but the sky was vibrant blue. Fall was just a few weeks away, and you could smell it in the air.
I walked slowly, scanning the blacktop and the verges of the roads. There wasn’t much to see but grass, meadow flowers and an occasional fallen leaf. Above my head and deeper in the woodland there was sporadic birdsong, or the sudden flap of wings, but aside from these small, desultory bursts of activity, there was no movement. Nothing stirred.
I came to the spot where I had seen the headlamps, and hunkered down to examine the soil. There were impressions. I photographed them with my cell, but I was pretty sure I recognized the tread as belonging to a Range Rover.
I stood, moved in among the trees and made my way back to the house through the woods, exploring one by one all the spots where you could get a good, clear view of the house without being seen. My search was inconclusive. There might have been someone there, or not. But if there had been, they were good. They didn’t leave tracks.
At nine thirty, Kenny knocked on my study door and came in, closing it behind him.
“Sir, we do indeed seem to have had a visitor last night. A dark blue Range Rover parked on Concord Road. It was captured by one of the cameras you had installed in the trees beside the road. In the footage, the driver does not exit the vehicle, so his face does not appear. Nor are his plates clear enough to make out in detail. It seems he was there for a couple of hours from two until four. Then he drove away.”
I leaned back in my chair and sighed, gazing out at the luminous green lawn and the tree line thirty yards away at the back of the house.
“This was why I was reluctant to come home, Kenny. I didn’t want to visit this on you and Rosalia. But I thought it was over. I thought we were done with this. I really thought we were done. I’m sorry, Kenny.”
His expression was pained. “Sir, if I may speak freely, Rosalia and myself, we have known you all your life, and your father before you. It is no comfort for us to survive and live, if you are killed or hurt in some distant part of the world. This is your home, and ours, and we defend it together.”
I smiled at the old guy who had been more of a father to me than my father ever had. “I know, Kenny. We’re family. I’ll see to it, don’t worry. Stay on high alert, double check the security systems and see what you can hear on the grapevine about a dark blue or black Range Rover in the neighbourhood. I’m going to go into Weston.”
I took the Kuga because it was inconspicuous, I opened all the windows and drove the mile and a bit to town, through dappled shade at a leisurely twenty-five miles per hour. On the way I scanned every front yard, every parking lot and every car that came my way. I didn’t see a dark Range Rover.
I dropped the Kuga at Walgreens and took a stroll around the town, visiting every shop in turn and scanning the parking lots outside each of them. I even visited the Catholic church.
I eventually found the car at the dentist’s. I guess even international hit men get trouble with their teeth. So I strolled up to the green beside the hot dog stand, where I had a good view of the dentist’s parking lot, and sat myself down at one of the benches there to take the sun and wait for the driver to show.
He showed after half an hour, holding his cheek, and climbed into his car, where he sat without moving for five minutes before pulling out and driving slowly away. When he’d gone from view, I strolled down to the dentist’s and pushed through the door. Peggy on the reception desk smiled up at me.
“Lacklan, we haven’t seen you around here for a while. How are you?”
“All the better for seeing you, Peggy. How’s Dave?”
“Can’t complain. The practice is going well. Nothing much changes around here, does it?”
“Say, I must be wrong, but I am pretty certain I just saw an old colleague of mine come out of here and drive away in a dark blue Range Rover. I called out to him but he didn’t hear me…”
Her eyes widened at the prospect of possible gossip. “This last guy who just left?”
“About five minutes ago.”
She rattled at her computer. “From your time in the military?” I made an affirmative noise and she tapped a little mor
e. “He had a kind of military air about him all right... He was not an American, I can tell you that. I think he was Australian or maybe British. Here we are, Mark Philips, just visiting the U.S. from South Africa. Broke his tooth last night eating a salted almond. Is that your friend?”
I frowned. “You know, I think it might be. It was a few years ago. I think I’ll look him up. Where’s he staying?”
“At the Arabian Horse, in Wayland.”
I smiled. “Sure, where else?”
I stepped back out into the late morning sunshine and made my way slowly back toward my car. When I got there, I climbed in and sat for a while with the windows open, listening to the gentle sounds of late New England summer—and thinking. After ten years serving with the British SAS, there was no shortage of people in the world who might want me dead, but most of the ones I could think of were either from the Middle East or Latin America. I couldn’t think of a single one from South Africa. And the name Mark Philips, apart from being the first husband of Prince Charles’ sister, meant nothing to me.
Was I becoming paranoid? Probably, but that didn’t mean they weren’t after me, it just meant I knew about it.
I hit the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot, but instead of heading for home I turned east, as though I were going into Boston. At Conant Road I turned north and started cruising slowly through the woods. I figured the chances were better than good that if this guy was watching me, and had found my address, he also had my cell number and was tracking my GPS. So I followed Conant Road for about a mile through the forest until I came to Sunset Road on my left. There I turned west and followed that road for half a mile or so till I came to the grounds of Weston College. At the college, I turned left into Merriam Street and drove for a couple of minutes through the dense cover of the trees until I found a lay-by. There, I pulled off the road, left my phone in the car and sprinted back through the woods to the intersection, where I dropped on my belly among ferns and waited.
I waited five minutes, and was beginning to think I might have made a mistake and read too much into what was, after all, just a guy parking on a wooded road for a couple of hours, when his blue Range Rover nosed up to the crossroads. Then I felt a sinking feeling in my gut.
It wasn’t over; not yet.
He waited a long time at the intersection, maybe a full minute and a half. Finally he slowly pulled onto Merriam Street and crawled at no more than four miles an hour along the black top until he caught sight of the Kuga. Then he stopped and backed up a bit.
There was no doubt in my mind now that he was tailing me. The question had become, what for? The fact that he was watching my house between two and four AM suggested he was planning either to break in and steal something, or break in and kill me, and anybody else he happened to find in there—the only purpose in watching a house at that time of the morning is to see what obstacles you’re going to find when you force an entry.
I gave him another minute to see what he did. He didn’t do anything, so I backed up in among the trees and took a circuitous route back toward my car. I allowed him to see me walk out of the forest, cross the road and climb into the Ford. Then I drove back to my house at a leisurely pace. He was professional enough to stay out of my rear-view mirror. But by that time I was pretty sure I knew who he was.
I got to my house, left the Kuga out front and crossed the hall to my study, where I stood a moment, looking around at the familiar room. Kenny had, as he had every morning since I had returned home, set and lit the fire and opened the French doors onto the lawn at the back. It was a quirk of mine, I enjoyed having a fire burning with the windows open.
I went to the sideboard and poured myself a Bushmills from the decanter, then lit a Camel and stood with my back to the flames, looking around the room. Throughout my childhood and my teens, it had been my father’s study. I had been punished in this room more times than I could remember. It was in this room as much as any other that I had grown to hate him—long before I had learned about his membership of Omega.
It had been two years now since his death, and in that time I had spent very little time in the house I had inherited from him. I had not made my mark on it. I had not taken possession of it. I had spent all my time and all my energy destroying the organization he had been a part of.
And I had thought, after Mexico, that the job was done.
I took my drink and my cigarette to the desk, dropped into the large, leather chair and called Jim Redbeard in L.A.
“Lacklan, it’s good to hear from you. It’s been a long time. Sole asks after you. You know, Sole, my wife?”
“Hi, Jim. Would that be Sole, your ex-wife? Apart from discovering jealousy for the first time, how are you?”
“I am sensational, as always, and I am not jealous. I just hope your intentions are honorable. I’d hate her to meet another bastard like me.”
“Right now I have no intentions, Jim. I just need to run something by you.”
“Shoot.”
“My house is being watched by a South African in a Range Rover. I get the impression he is a pro. He doesn’t make sloppy mistakes, he’s patient, he’s meticulous and I am pretty sure he is here to assassinate me.”
“Ah…”
“What do you mean, ‘Ah…’?”
“South Africa has been popping up on the radar lately.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Is your line secure?”
“As secure as any line on the planet at the moment.”
“OK, I’ll give it to you in general terms without buzzwords, but we should meet, soon, and discuss this.”
“OK.”
“I’ve received information about something, some kind of building, a structure, it’s massive, that’s being put up along the border with Namibia, on the South African side of the River Orange. I don’t know what it is, and none of my informants knows what it is.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s in its early stages, but it looks as though it’s going to be a huge pyramid.”
“A pyramid?”
“That’s what I’m told. I haven’t been able to get photographs, video—nothing. Just oral testimony. Which is in itself telling you something. It is being kept strictly under wraps. There is no official record of it, no licenses granted, no requests submitted. The thing does not exist officially, it is being built in one of the remotest parts of the globe, and it is vast. Estimates I have heard are in the region of the apex being up to a thousand feet high. That would give it a base in the region of two thousand feet across, or more.”
“What the hell would they want to build something like that for? That’s the size of a small city.”
“I know. But there is more.”
“What…?”
I asked him, but I knew what he was going to say, and he said it. “Your friends seem to have become active.”
“Shit…”
“They seem to be organizing a reunion.”
“Don’t say any more. That’s who my visitor is. A messenger.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We need to meet. Soon. In the next day or so.”
“What about your visitor?”
“I’ll take care of him.”
“Good. Let’s meet in Seattle. I’ll send you the details. I’ll be in touch in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Good.”
I hung up and called Kenny. A couple of minutes later, he came in and closed the door behind him.
“Any development, sir?”
“Yes, I’m going to take a walk, cross country, to Plimpton. When I get back, I’ll need to pack. I’m going away for a couple of days.”
“Will you be back, sir?”
I stared at him, not sure for a moment what he meant. Then I smiled and relaxed. “Yes, Kenny. I will be back, for sure.”
“Rosalia will be very relieved, sir.”
“While I’m out, I want you on lock down, Kenny. Nobody comes in and nobody goes out. Anybody tri
es to force their way in, you shoot them.”
“I understand, sir.”
He closed the French windows and locked them. I cocked the Sig, slipped it into my waistband where it was less visible than under my arm, and stepped out into the front drive. Behind me, I heard Kenny lock the door, and knew that he was engaging all the house’s security systems: the one my father had installed, and the ones I had added. Then I set off around the back of the house, through the old fence that separated our property from Marni’s, and into the deep forest that stretched for over a mile between our small hamlet outside Weston and the village of Plimpton.
I walked like a man without a care in the world. The tall, ancient trees closed in about me, leaning in to form a translucent green cathedral over my head. Each footfall, rustling on the leaves or cracking on a dry branch, created a dull echo through the woodland, its sound bizarrely both muffled and amplified by the trees. I didn’t follow a path. I meandered in a vaguely north-westerly direction, guiding myself by the familiar landmarks of the forest I knew so well. This had been my playground as a boy—mine and Marni’s.
I knew, for example, that at the halfway point there was a steep slope, and at the bottom of that slope there was an ancient fallen tree, lying in a shallow trough, and that tree was what I was heading for.
I got there after about fifteen minutes of apparently aimless wandering and stood a moment in the diffuse green light, gazing down the slope, listening to all the sounds of the woodland. Then I took a step forward and screamed.
I hit the ground on my right shoulder and cried out again, rolling fast and out of control down toward the tree. At the bottom of the steep slope, I hit the tree. I had a million small aches, cuts and bruises all over my body, but I ignored them and crawled under the huge fallen trunk, over to the far side where there was a clump of tall ferns. I worked my way in among them, then pulled out my cell and tossed it over, under the tree, then lay and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. After no more than a minute, he appeared at the top of the slope. At first it was just his head peering over. He was cautious, but he saw my cell and concluded that I must be nearby, under the massive trunk. He stood and half-ran, half-scrambled down the slope to the tree. As he bent to peer under it, I stood and walked over to him, with my Sig held out in both hands. He sensed me before he saw or heard me, went very still and straightened up. I said, “Put your hands on your head. Turn to face me. Let me get a look at you.”