Trail of the Zodiac - Debt Collector 10 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  The eruption was deafening.

  Even though he was protected from the explosion by a wall of steel, the blast was so hard it shook the building, and a gust of air launched him back through the doorway, landing on Hudson.

  Shimmering light.

  Chaotic yelling.

  And swirls of black smoke.

  His next conscious moment came to him in fragments. Nothing more than slivers of the world around him. He glanced at his watch, less than two minutes had passed since the explosion.

  His eyes fluttered, and he could see Hudson.

  She was mumbling behind the rag in her mouth.

  He reached over and pulled it down, she let out a gasp.

  “I thought you were dead. Get me out of this.”

  Through pure willpower he staggered to his feet and untied her binds. His arm was in excruciating pain, and a steady trickle of blood was dripping out the end of his jacket. Further inside the sound of wailing dominated.

  “I’ll deal with that, you…”

  She didn’t even have to say it. He was already up and staggering out of the building.

  “Jack, he brought me here on a separate boat, on the west side.”

  He didn’t even turn to acknowledge. A cold blustery wind hit him taking his breath away. He glanced down and under the light of the moon, he could just make out a trail of blood, and a bloody handprint against the wall. Earl was injured badly and couldn’t have made it far. Jack wrapped his hand around the Glock and pressed on down the west road. It wound its way past the inmates’ yard off to the right. All along the way, a trail of bloody droplets revealed the path he’d taken.

  As he rounded the second bend that would take him down to a rocky section, he spotted his silhouette in the distance. He was limping and some of the money from the bag was escaping and blowing behind him. Earl stopped and tried to grab it up, but that’s when he spotted Jack. His eyes flared, and he squeezed off two shots in Jack’s direction while trying to limp away. Jack was quick to return fire. A bullet clipped Earl’s ear and blew it clean off. Screaming in agony, Earl clasped a hand over it and darted into a cluster of trees seeking cover.

  Jack veered off the left to do the same, there weren’t many trees on the island but enough that he could crouch down behind a thick trunk. The darkness of the night provided additional concealment.

  “You shot my ear, you piece of shit,” Earl cried out. Jack darted from one tree to the next, keeping his back against them even as gunfire erupted. It went silent again and then he changed his tune.

  “Look, Jack, you want some of this money? I’ll give you some. Just…” he trailed off.

  Bargaining. They all did in the end. He reeked of desperation. He was a man that knew he was minutes away from losing everything. Jack could hear him groaning, and every few seconds he would shift position, a feat that wasn’t easy for him. He staggered and tripped over thick roots, then disappeared behind a large thicket of trees.

  “Hey, Earl,” Jack hollered. “You having fun yet?”

  He tossed his words back at him.

  “To hell with you!” His reply was almost lost in the hard wind.

  “Earl, you’ve got to ask yourself, was it worth it? All this just to prove your father was the Zodiac. Seems like overkill to me.”

  “This was not just about proving,” Earl hollered back. “It was so much more.”

  “Really? Cause it looks like you got some serious daddy issues.”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  More gunfire erupted and bullets tore up the ground around the tree. Jack flinched, keeping back. He smirked. When he could once again hear waves crashing against the shore, Jack peered around and saw Earl pull a hand away from his missing ear. He grimaced. That had got to hurt.

  Jack broke away from his spot and tried to close the distance.

  Every step made dead branches beneath his feet crack, giving away his location. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get close, but he just need to draw him out. One clean shot was all he needed.

  A police chopper flew overhead and a spotlight from the bottom of it swept over the island. “It’s over, Earl. This island will be crawling with cops, and the Coast Guard will stop you before you even make it back to the city.”

  Earl didn’t reply, instead he darted out of the tree line and made a run for it. He opened fire a few times to cover himself so he could make it around the next turn. Jack took off after him, but instead of following the road around and down, he crossed through a rocky area that loomed over the road. He pitched sideways and made his way down while keeping a good eye on Earl who was looking back expecting him to follow. He was so distracted by what he thought would happen, and the crashing of waves blocked the sound of Jack’s advance, that he didn’t know what hit him until it was too late. Jack launched himself away from the steep incline and landed hard on top of Earl. Both of them crashed into the thick underbrush and then rolled, toppling down until they went over the lip of a rock into the thrashing waves of the bay.

  The frigid waters slapped hard. It was so shocking it felt like a thousand knives cutting into him. Clinging to Earl, he wrapped an arm around his neck and latched onto his other ear with his teeth. Earl let out a high-pitched scream and flailed around.

  Down they went below the surface. Turning, twisting and struggling as heavy waves lashed against their bodies and slammed them into the jagged rocks, then pulled them back out. Earl thrashed within Jack’s grasp, desperate to escape, but it was futile. Jack continued applying pressure to his neck until just before he was about to go unconscious, he reached around clasped his chin and jerked it. The bones cracked and his body went limp in Jack’s arms.

  Jack released him and let him sink down into a watery grave.

  Gasping and shivering he swam back to land. He crawled out of the chilly waters and collapsed from exhaustion. He wasn’t sure how long he remained there — two, maybe three minutes before he tried to move. His muscles were frozen as the wind battered his body. He struggled to climb up the rocks and make his way back to the road.

  Soaked to the bone, and struggling to breathe, he staggered up the road until he saw the red duffel bag of money, some of it was out blowing away in the wind. He stuffed the money back inside and zipped it back up. Farther up the hill he could see lights flashing and smoke rising from the penitentiary.

  Jack remained there for a few more minutes to catch his breath before returning.

  * * *

  Detective Hudson had a blanket around her, and several medics were tending to her when a hulking silhouette came over a rise in the road. She squinted, then pulled away from the medics, hurrying towards him.

  Jack dropped to his knees and collapsed in the middle of the road.

  His hand was a glove of blood, and his face was cut up. She took the thin gray blanket from around her shoulders and threw it over him before casting a glance over her shoulder.

  “Medic!”

  Chapter 36

  Two days after the incident that injured sixty-three and took the lives of twenty-eight tourists on Alcatraz Island, Detective Hudson arrived at UCSF Medical Center to speak to Jack. She’d been sitting in the waiting room for the past twenty minutes listening to the news. It replayed an endless stream of accounts from talk shows, survivors, and psychologists as they tried to make sense of the tragedy. Once again Alcatraz and the Zodiac killer had been brought to the forefront of everyone’s minds.

  Although Earl Bernard had taken center stage, it wasn’t him that had garnered the most attention but a mysterious man whose selfless actions had contributed to saving over one hundred and thirty lives.

  “Now to the latest in the mass murder investigation. This morning San Francisco police are extremely frustrated in trying to figure out the motive for an explosion at one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions. But authorities are learning more about the methodical way in which Earl Bernard planned the massacre. KTVU’s Terri Irwin is on Alcatraz this morning.”


  The screen split between the two news anchors and a young, dark-haired reporter. Behind her was the penitentiary along with white crosses, American flags and balloons for each of the victims that had died. At the bottom of the screen, the text read: DEVELOPING STORY. INVESTIGATORS SEARCH FOR MOTIVE. Appeal to Public for More Information.

  “Good morning, Rick and Suzie, as you can see from the dramatic memorial behind me, this community rightly wants the focus to be on the victims of this massacre, but this morning there is still a lot of attention on Earl Bernard. Police have said they are actively investigating every aspect of his life.”

  The screen changed to overhead shots of Alcatraz, one day after the incident, as FBI and cops scoured the island for evidence and worked to piece together what was being called one of the worst massacres in San Francisco history. Hudson shook her head as Captain Dickson appeared on camera acting as a spokesman for the department.

  “We thought we might find links to terrorist organizations, some kind of ideology, economic, political, social or medical reason, but we haven’t found it yet.”

  She knew they were just feeding the media a line. They knew full well why he’d done it but didn’t want to say they had jeopardized the life of one of their own, or stir up questions regarding the department’s inability to locate Earl before the massacre.

  “Is it possible that his motive was related to the Zodiac killings?”

  “We have linked him to the recent string of attacks on couples in San Francisco and though we don’t wish to speculate at this time, it would be safe to say the initial murders were related to an obsession he had with the Zodiac killer. Though why he chose to go out this way is still unclear.”

  Camera footage played out from the night of the explosion. Smoke pouring out of the penitentiary, cops on scene, the Coast Guard patrolling the waters and helicopters flying overhead.

  “New details are emerging. Sources say Earl Bernard faked his own death years earlier and possibly was tied to the death of his mother Jillian Bernard to avoid suspicion as police investigated those who had ties to the infamous 1968 Zodiac killer.”

  The screen then changed to an interview with two witnesses who survived the deadly night on the island.

  “Even though it’s hard to find hope in such a devastating tragedy, some survivors are coming forward with a baffling and astonishing account of a selfless act that occurred on that night. Survivors are requesting that surveillance footage be released showing what they swear was a man who risked his own life to free those inside the cells.”

  “… he was tall, about six foot two, dark hair,” one witness said.

  “It’s all these survivors are talking about. In the midst of trouble, this mystery man not only shot who we’ve come to know as Earl Bernard but saved the lives of many by telling them to get back from the cell doors as he went about opening them using the manual control panels that are still in operation to this day. So why is he not being mentioned by the police?”

  The footage on the screen changed to the outside of Alcatraz.

  “Today he’s being hailed a hero, yet much of it is still a mystery. As one hundred and thirty-two people began what should have been a night of fun on the famous Alcatraz Island, it soon turned into a nightmare as the man now identified as Earl Bernard appeared among the group with a bomb threat. Terrified for their lives and promised no harm would come to them if they complied, tourists crammed into jail cells in cell block B and C. They remained there for close to an hour before a mysterious man arrived carrying a duffel bag. Within minutes of his arrival, things took a turn for the worse and witnesses reported gunfire, and a desperate attempt to save lives. While sixty-three were injured and twenty-eight tourists died, there were many more that came through it unscathed thanks to the selfless act of one man. Tonight those survivors are grateful. The family and friends of those saved are appealing to the police to release information on who he is so they can thank him.”

  “… he could have turned and run but he didn’t. Whether he works for the police, government, or is just a member of the public, it doesn’t matter, he is the reason I’m alive. I just want to thank him,” said another witness.

  “The San Francisco Police Department’s Facebook page has been filling up fast with comments. One in particular stands out — ‘Do any of the first responders know who the man was that risked his life? I would love to shake his hand.’”

  The screen went back to the newsroom with the two anchors, the female one mentioned how they had reached out for a comment from the police department, but they were not at liberty to say.

  “Everyone who survived was touched by the selflessness of that stranger. Dozens of people saw him yet no one is coming forward. Nothing, just a story of a man with a duffel bag.”

  Detective Hudson smiled and turned her head as a nurse called out to her.

  “Detective, you can come through now.”

  She was led down the corridor and guided into room 203. When she entered, Jack was sitting upright in bed with a tray of food in front of him. A carton of milk, a bowl of cereal and a napkin. His left arm was bandaged up, and his face was still sporting some gnarly gashes.

  “Really, detective, you have got to try the food,” he scooped the last of it into his mouth and then set the spoon down. “Damn, I swear, I think I might check into here more often.”

  She smiled.

  “How you healing up?”

  He glanced at his arm. “Ah, I’ve lived through worse.”

  She nodded and closed the door behind her.

  “So…” she inhaled deeply, “you know you’re being hailed a hero.”

  He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. Hudson pulled up a seat and placed her bag down. “There’s a lot of people out there who want to thank you for what you did.”

  “People died, detective, I don’t think what I did was heroic.”

  “You could have run.”

  He stared back at her looking a little uncomfortable with being talked about as someone who had helped people. She noted the way he changed the topic.

  “How are you doing?”

  “A few bruises and cuts, but nothing serious. I just wanted to touch base with you and thank you.”

  His lips formed a thin smile.

  “You know, Jack, I know little about you or where you come from and quite frankly, it’s none of my business. However, what you did in this investigation was greatly appreciated. You saved a lot of lives.”

  “More could have been saved.”

  “I’m sure first responders at the twin towers said the same thing. But we can’t save everyone, Jack.” She paused. “The fact is the lives of one hundred and four people were saved, not to mention those he might have gone on and murdered. That’s all that matters now.”

  He nodded slowly. “I guess so.” He gazed down into his food before looking out the window. “I’m sorry about your partner.”

  Hudson brought a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. His death had cut her to the core. Although Romero could be a pain in the ass, she would miss him.

  She returned a strained smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Just out of curiosity. Did they ever find out if the lunatic’s father was the Zodiac?”

  “Not so far but they are still investigating his property.”

  “So the 340 code still remains unsolved?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You must have got a lot of heat from the media over that?”

  “The department’s PR team is handling it.” She paused for a second and studied him. “You know, they dragged his body out of the bay yesterday. Earl, I mean.”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah, I caught it on the news.”

  “Coroner said his neck was broken, but it wasn’t that which killed him, it was asphyxiation.”

  “Well he was in the water.”

  “Right,” she said, a thin smile forming on her face. Jack readjusted himself in his bed. She crossed her legs. “Still, there is on
e thing that remains unanswered.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The red duffel bag of money. It was never recovered. You wouldn’t know what happened to it, would you?”

  With a straight face he shook his head. “No idea. Did they check the bay?”

  She nodded. “Police and Coast Guard have scoured that island. Nothing.”

  Jack made a clicking noise with his lips. “Well, I’m sure the city will recover.”

  Hudson narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure they will,” she said rising from her seat with a grin on her face. “Oh Jack. You’re aware that whatever charges were laid against you have been dropped because of the immunity agreement, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So where are you heading from here?” she asked.

  “Home.”

  “Which is?”

  He pulled a face. “I don’t know. Maybe Texas, New York, I’ve always thought Hawaii looked relaxing.”

  She stood at the door and drummed her fingers against it. “Well, wherever home is, it’s lucky to have you. Take care, Jack.”

  “You too, detective.”

  She lingered for a few more seconds then exited.

  * * *

  A week later, a brilliant sunrise stretched across the horizon over the rocky mountains of Colorado. Dana sat in a porch rocker nursing a cup of hot coffee. She squinted into the distance at the vast sea of spruce-fir forest, and the San Juan Mountains that framed Jack’s beautiful home. The past week had been nerve-racking. Contrary to Jack’s request on the boat that night, she didn’t leave the city immediately. There was far too much to take care of with Jason’s funeral, which was being delayed due to the investigation. She squeezed her eyes tight at the thought of her son. Not a day had passed when she hadn’t broken down and cried uncontrollably. It had broken her heart to lose him. That’s why she’d hounded the department demanding answers, and eventually she got them, though they weren’t what she expected, nor did it sit well with her. Jason’s body was being stored at the San Francisco County Morgue. The police department had reassured her he would be released soon, and that it was not uncommon for homicide victims’ bodies to not be released for weeks due to delays in receiving back autopsy reports. Fortunately someone in the department must have got the wheels in motion sooner, as true to their word, two days after arriving in Telluride, she got the call. Now it was just a matter of arranging where and when the funeral would take place.