by Chuck Dixon
He was crouched, hopping like a toad. One glove in his teeth as he brushed fingers through the snow. His fingertips skittered over the ice, feeling for the empty shell casings. He counted as he picked them up and shoved them in a cargo pocket on his leg. When he reached thirty he stood and snapped closed the flap over the cargo pocket.
He crunched over the ice to the second shack only because Koning would ask him. And the man would know if he was lying. That damned evil eye saw everything.
As he walked he ejected the empty mag from the MP5 and stowed it in a pouch on the chest of his suit. He drew another one and secured it in place and drew back the bolt chambering the first round. Standing before the shack, he placed the weapon under one arm while he replaced the glove on his chilled hand.
He looked up at a sound just as the door of the shack exploded open. A white-faced man leapt toward the rider, a long gleaming steel hook held over his head. The look of a beast in his eyes.
28
“You understand that I must determine whether you are telling me the truth or not.” The man with the dead white eye stood before Danni. She had to crane her neck back to look up at him.
They were in the family room of the lakeside mansion that sat below their cabin. A large room with furniture gathered against a wall and draped with sheets. A full bar dominated one wall. An entertainment center on the other. A huge walk-in fireplace of fieldstone rose up the bearing wall.
“I won’t lie to you,” Danni said.
Giselle and Carl were, like her, duct taped into kitchen chairs. Mother was set on the carpet across from her children.
“I must be certain,” the man with the dead white eye said.
From elsewhere in the house Danni could hear the sound of men shouting. Glass broke. Wood splintered. They were looking for something.
“You understand?” the man with the dead white eye said. His voice was level. Flat. Even bored.
“I understand,” Danni said.
“We are looking for a safe. A vault. A very special hiding place.”
“I’ve never been in this house. I don’t even know the names of the owners.”
“Your husband maintains these properties. You help him, yes?”
“Yes. He does. I do help sometimes. But I’ve never been inside this house.”
Another man appeared in a doorway. His snowsuit was off. His hair was white-blond. He wore sideburns that connected to a brushy mustache like a hussar from back in the day. He was dressed in new mechanic's overalls. Latex gloves on his hands. Cloth covers on his boots. A sledgehammer with a long handle was in his fist. He spoke rapidly in a language Danni could not recognize. The man with the dead eye sighed and growled a command to him. The man in the doorway called back to others deeper in the house. It sounded like a different language. The man in the doorway was translating. He hefted the sledge and retreated from the great room.
“We usually find the safe in the gymnasium. It is not there. You can see why we need your help.” The man with the dead eye was crouching before her. His hand touched her knee. She recoiled as much as she could with the tape securing her tightly to the chair.
Danni looked over at her son and daughter. Carl’s head hung low, eyes down. Steam rose from a puddle of urine at his feet. Giselle was wide-eyed, staring, searching into her mother’s eyes with silent longing.
“Please,” Danni said, turning her eyes to the stranger.
“Tell me where the safe is.”
“I don’t know. None of us know. We’ve never been in this house. The owners haven’t been here in years,” she whispered, voice wet as her nose and eyes ran freely.
“You know. I believe you. I really do,” the man with the dead eye said and stood.
“Thank you,” Danni said, exhaling the air she felt she had been holding in her lungs since the men first appeared in her kitchen.
“As I said, however. I must be certain,” the man said, his back to her as he opened a canvas tool case that rested on the counter of the bar.
“I’m not lying!” She was screaming now.
He turned to them, a pair of metal shears in his gloved hand.
“Let’s confirm that, please,” the man said.
29
The needlepoint of the gaff drove into the rider's skull with all of the force Levon could bring to it.
The man’s eyes opened wide. His hands went to Levon’s arm. His only instinct was to remove the steel hook causing the unbearable agony spiking into his head just above his right eye. The MP5 dropped to the ice between them.
Levon fought against the man’s double grip. He bore down harder on the rubber grip of the gaff, securing the steel hook in the bone. He punched the rider once, twice, in the throat. The blow was blunted by Levon’s weakness and the thick fabric of the snowsuit latched tight around the man’s neck.
Locked in struggle, the rider pressed Levon back toward the shack opening. The rider was a big man. Not young but fit. Levon locked his knees, forcing the man to push back against dead weight. The fallen weapon was kicked forward to slide over the ice. The double grip on Levon’s arm became feeble.
The look on the rider’s face melted from fierce determination to dull fear. The grip failed as the feeling to his fingers fled. His knees buckled. He fell forward against Levon. The gaff was yanked from the wound leaving a furrow of ripped flesh and little blood. The rider was dead.
Levon fell to the ice under the sudden weight of the man. He rose to his knees and forked his arms under the rider’s shoulders. He dragged the still figure into the shack. He straddled the corpse lying over the hole in the floor. Levon yanked the rope pull to secure the door. He set the block of wood in its cradle that held the door shut firm in the frame.
He dropped back on the bench, rubbing his hands together. They were drawing into claws against his will, the muscles and tendons seizing with the cold. His hands felt like useless clubs at the ends of his arms. His fingers were dead numb. Get those fingers working or die.
He allowed the waves of tremors that wracked him without resistance. That was his body fighting to restore circulation; his lizard brain fighting to restore his body temperature.
The blood returned to his hands. The rising pain was welcome. A sign that he’d have use of his fingers again soon.
His tremors continued. His system could only do so much on its own to bring his core temperature back to optimal. He needed a source of external heat. He needed out of his frozen clothes.
The Walbrookes had propane stoves set up in both cabins. He found fireplace matches but his fingers shook too much to keep one lit. The cock to open the propane feed took some effort to open. He turned it until he heard the hiss and smelled the rotten egg stink. Levon tore a Penthouse pet from where she was stapled to a wall. He lit a corner with three matches ignited simultaneously. The slick paper caught. He waved it toward the stove. The gas caught in a brilliant flash that sent a dusting of black embers everywhere.
Levon stood and stripped down, leaving his boots for last. He used a razor-sharp gutting knife to cut off his flannel shirt, undershirt, pants and long underwear pants. As wet as his feet were, the wool socks were still holding in what heat was left.
Naked as the redhead on the scorched Penthouse fold-out, he crouched to hold his hands within the aura of warmed air rising from the stove. Not too close. Frozen flesh would cook rather than thaw. His fingers were soon infused with a pulsing agony as the small vessels opened up to allow blood inside. Despite the pain and shivering, his hands would now obey him sufficiently for the work ahead. He pressed back against the bench and used his booted feet to lever the dead man onto his back.
The latches holding the breast of the snowsuit closed were the hardest. The zipper pulls beneath had nylon rope loops that he could hook a finger into. He stripped the man, dressing him down like a deer carcass. Now he could remove his own work boots and socks.
When he got to the man's two-piece Under Armour leggings and crew top he pulled them off the c
orpse and onto himself. The cloth was still warm from the rider's remaining body heat. Levon rubbed his feet dry with a filthy towel he found on a hook. He warmed his feet near the stove until he could move his toes without pain. He then slipped his feet into the dead man's dry wool socks.
He reached through the pile of clothing lying on the floor by the body and pulled on the t-shirt and cable sweater and then the snowsuit. The boots went on last. All was a good fit if a little roomy. The boots were too tight across the instep. He tossed them aside and put on his own work boots. They were damp inside. There was no time to wait for them to dry.
The short-range radio transmitter was in a Velcro pouch on the snowsuit’s chest. A row of LEDs glowed amber across the top. He depressed the send button. There were two answering squelches from the speaker. Whoever was out there was maintaining radio discipline.
The radio went back in the pouch. The rider had nothing else on him. No currency, ID or any other sort of personal item. Levon’s wallet and house keys went into pockets on the suit. He removed his Leatherman from his belt along with his buck knife and secured those away as well.
Levon searched the floor of the shack for the MP5. On hands and knees he looked under the bench. He slid the body aside, turned it over. He undogged the door and opened it to scan the ice outside.
The weapon was gone. It could only have fallen through the hole in the ice when he dragged the rider’s body inside.
Patting the many cargo pockets on the snowsuit revealed more magazines for the automatic but no other weapons beyond a clasp knife.
He stood a moment reviewing options.
The man lay face down. His back was inked with tattoos. They were good but not professional. Prison marks. A pair of dice reading seven on one shoulder. A fleur-de-lis on the other. The largest, a medieval lion icon, stood rampaging on his spine. They were all faded; the ink turned a blueish hue with edges blurred. The lion obscured a long-healed line of sutures. Not Russian. No minarets or crosses or eight-point stars.
Dropping to a crouch he used the rider's clasp knife to make a deep ‘Y' incision in the man's abdomen from the join at the sternum to the mound at the crotch. The bloodless cut bisected a tattoo of a spider spread-legged over the stomach. The incision would allow any gases to escape as the body decomposed. The body would sink and stay down. He used his own belt to bind the corpse's ankles together. He tied the rider's boots tight around the ankles with the ends of the laces. Using strips of his own sliced clothing, he knotted the wrists together over a full case of Sebago beer empties, twenty-four bottles. The only thing of any weight in the shack. It would help the body sink and hold it down long enough for Ty Grant's trout to feed on face and fingers.
He tied a long strip of cloth around the body's torso and through the handles of the cardboard carry case before lowering the body head first into the hole in the floor. Levon lifted the feet to angle the corpse and drop it into the water. Water slapped the sides of the hole as the boots descended into the black water on the ends of the laces tied to the rider's ankles. A cascade of bubbles broke the surface; the case of beer bottles filling with water to further reduce the body’s buoyancy.
Levon tossed the bloody gaff into the hole before exiting the shack and trotting to the snow machine that was still puttering on the ice by the first shack.
30
The vault was hidden under a cleverly placed hatch in the floor of the master bath.
The room looked like something out of a movie about the Caesars. Fluted columns and tiles from floor to a domed ceiling painted with a faux mosaic of water nymphs. Jan Smets found the hiding place using an ultraviolet lamp. It revealed some incongruous fingerprints around the edges of some of the tiles in the center of the floor between the Japanese soaking tub and walk-in shower.
"Time to go to work," Smets said and adjusted the tartan cap atop his receding hair, turning it around backwards. The tap of a mallet shattered a few of the ceramic tiles, revealing a recessed ring pull beneath. He called for some of the others. They used a sledge to break the tiles all around. A five foot by three-foot hatch swung open on piano hinges, exposing the door of a stout steel vault door below.
A custom Mosler. The size of a coffin. Double bit key locks.
“Shit,” Avi said under his breath.
“Thermal lance. Just enough to get inside the works. Make room while I get the tools,” Smets said. He called for a man named Axel to help him.
Avi and Jussi took sledges to the soaking tub and threw the pieces into the walk-in shower. The water was turned off so the pipes were dry when they snapped off. They were finishing when Smets returned with the magnesium rods. Axel carried the heavy fireproof gear folded in his arms.
Koning appeared in the broad arched doorway of the master bath. His one good eye swept the room. The side of his mouth that still worked twisted in a snarl at the sight of the dull steel face of the vault set in the recess.
“This will take hours. We don’t have hours,” Koning said.
“I burn a hole right here between the double locks. Then we see what breed of bitch this is,” Smets said, drawing a rough oval in grease pencil between two brass keyholes set side by side in the façade of the otherwise featureless steel door.
“And if you like what you see?” Koning said.
“If the bitch is a whore then she will open up for me without a fight. I have the tools to work the tumblers. A matter of moments.” Smets shrugged.
“And the burn?”
“An hour to do it right, chef.”
“And if the bitch is a nun with a cunt like the bank of England?” Avi asked with a scowl that reddened the scar tissue that ran from the corner of his mouth to his throat.
“We haul her out and take her through the ass.” Smets wrinkled his nose and raised the cap to wipe away sweat on his sleeve.
All laughed but Koning.
“We’ll need Visser. He has the muscle,” he said and turned to go.
31
The earbud was alive with crosstalk that Levon couldn’t understand.
The crew was Belgian.
The language was Flemish. He knew that much from the few words he could pick out. It was mixed with some phrases in Dutch depending on the speaker. He counted three distinct voices.
Questions came over the radio for someone named Visser. The voice asking the questions became more impatient when no reply came. Visser was unresponsive. He was missing. Visser was the man lying on the bottom of the lake.
Levon keyed the mike after each question for the missing man. Squelches on the other end would tell them that their man was still out there and having radio trouble. The questions stopped coming after a while. The crosstalk dissolved into occasional exchanges. Then the earbud went silent.
That meant the crew no longer needed their radios to communicate.
They were all in one place.
Levon gunned the snow machine and leaned low over the control bar. Snow stung his face. His field of vision was filled with flakes streaking toward his eyes like comets out of the black night. He could continue over the lake and roll right up on them. They had no reason to believe he wasn’t their man Visser.
He had no real idea of their number. He wasn’t armed. That plan wasn’t going to work.
There was an M4 rifle with a thousand rounds of ammo locked in a gun safe back at his place. There was a Colt 1911 with four magazines secured under the seat of the Ram. Getting at either weapon would take him further from the Fenton house. He had no idea of the situation that lay ahead of him or what kind of threat Merry was under. Time was the primary factor here. He needed to be among the strangers with as much force, and in as little time, as he could manage.
He turned the snow machine hard right as he neared the opposite shore of the lake. All of the houses were dark except for a nascent glow from within one building close to the water.
It was a sprawling house in a faux chalet style that was considered by everyone Levon met to be the ugliest home
on Mohawk Road. It was the largest home on the lake. Danni Fenton called it “an architectural abortion.” The Fentons’ cabin was just behind it on the slope. There was much speculation about the owners. They hadn’t visited the place in years. Or ever, as far as anyone knew. Their absence fueled rumors. They were drug dealers. The owner was a porno king. It was owned by a famous Hollywood couple and the home was trapped in divorce limbo.
Someone paid the property tax. Someone kept the home association membership up to date. And now armed strangers came to break in. It wasn’t just a random burglary on a remote home. The crew shut down the electric and phone services. They spread out to lock down all the residents. And they had advance intelligence on who was living here. They needed time to do what they’d come to do. They established a secure area of operations just as a military unit would. They’d be here until daybreak at the very least.
The crew, some of them anyway, were former military. Their leader was a soldier for certain. That meant they’d act like a military unit. That meant Levon could predict some of their routine. He had an idea how they would react in most scenarios.
The snow machine clawed up a drift, sinking into the fresh snowfall until it found the solid ground that led up the slope to the roadway. Levon hooked a left onto Mohawk Road and drove straight for the Fenton’s cabin. The crew in the big house would hear the engine roaring past. They’d think it was their man. That bought him time.
The earbud came to life again. They heard him pass. There were angry calls for Visser to answer them. He pulled the bud from his ear. The voices continued to call, tinny now, from the tiny speaker bobbing on his shoulder.
The Fentons' kitchen and family room showed signs of a violent struggle. Danni and the kids had fought being taken. Levon scanned the room, looking for blood traces and found none. It was abduction, not murder. For now.
In the master bedroom, he pulled the canvas case from the closet. He pulled the SKS rifle out and examined it. It was oiled and maintained. He slid the action back to open the bolt. The interior was shiny slick. The action moved easy without being loose. It would do.