Covenant (23 page)

            “Well?” Lisa asked. 

            “It’s nothing,” he said.  “The storm woke me, that’s all.”

            “Okay.”  She closed her eyes and lay against him again.  But he gently moved from underneath her.

            “Sorry,” he said.  “I can’t sleep any more.”

            “Can I?”  She kept her eyes closed.

            “Sure.  I’ll wake you if I need something.”

            Perhaps it was due only to the dissonant music of the storm, but his nerves were as taut as guitar strings.  He approached the front window, peeled back the curtains, and looked toward Mike’s rental house.

            A spectral flicker of lightning temporarily obscured the view.  When the brightness faded, he saw that the light he’d left burning in the second-floor bedroom was off.  Blackness shrouded the property.

            While the floor lamp still glowed in their hideout, the thunderstorm could have prompted a power outage that had killed the light in the rental if the homes drew electricity from different lines.  It was a plausible explanation.

            But he didn’t like it.

            Gun drawn, he swiftly searched the entire house and garage.  They were alone, and the jeep was as they’d left it.  There were no signs of an intruder. 

            But he wasn’t satisfied.        

            Back in the living room, he pulled on a baseball cap—and then shrugged into his concealable body armor vest.  He strapped a nylon utility pouch around his waist and filled it with two magazines of 9mm ammo and a speed-loader of ammo for the .45. 

            As he prepared, Lisa came awake again.  “What’re you doing?”

            “I was about to wake you up.  I need you to stay alert for a little while.”

            “For what?”

            He hung his night-vision binoculars around his neck. 

            “I’m going to go outside and look around.”

            “What?  Why?  Is there something wrong?”

            “It’s probably due to a power outage, but the light I left on at Mike’s house is off.  I’m going to look into it.  I want you to stay here while I’m gone.”

            Fear brightened her eyes.  “You think they found Mike’s place?” 

            “I didn’t say that.”

            “But you’re thinking it.  I know you—it’s all over your face.” 

            After three years of marriage, she could read him as easily as a book.

            “Let me come with you,” she said.  “I don’t want to be alone.”

            He shook his head.  “Like I said, it’s probably nothing, just me being paranoid.  No point in you going out there and getting your hair wet.  I know how fussy you can be about your ‘do.”

            “Very funny.   I still want to go.” 

            He holstered the Beretta, and grabbed the Colt revolver. 

            “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” he said.  “You got your piece?”

            She unzipped her purse and showed him the gun.

            “Keep it close,” he said.  “Stay away from the windows, too.”

            “But—“

            “Please, Lisa.  I need you to wait here.”

            “You’re in one of your stubborn moods, I see.”  She placed the purse on the sofa cushion beside her.  “But you better come back soon, or I’m coming out there to get you.”

            “Fair enough.”

            He kissed her, and quickly moved through the house to the back door.  He stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind him. 

            Cold rain immediately drenched him, bounced off the bill of his cap.  He wished he had thought to bring a rain jacket.  But he had fought in worse conditions.

            He clasped the .45, muzzle pointed to the ground.  Moving low and fast, sloshing through muddy puddles, he rounded the rear corner of the house.  All clear.  Keeping close to the wall, he moved along the western face, crept around the big AC condensing unit, and neared the front corner, where a downspout dispensed a gurgling river of rainwater into the grass.

            Rumbling thunder shook the earth beneath his feet.  A crack of lightning briefly brightened the night.

            He inched around the corner, the house shielding half his torso.  He placed the binoculars to his eyes and swept the lenses across the rental.

            The green display revealed nothing of concern. 

            But his intuition was buzzing.  He was certain the fanatics had somehow found the house and cut the light.  He didn’t know why they would have done that—perhaps they wanted to toss the place in darkness—but he felt them out there as surely as he felt the cold rainwater dripping down his neck. 

            It was time to turn the tables, go on the offensive, and force them to give him some answers.

            Crouched, he moved away from the house, across the grass, toward the street.  Thunder rocked, lightning flared, and the .45 suddenly leapt out of his grasp with a
ping!,
spinning away into the rain in a burst of orange sparks. 

Rifle fire.  Shit!          

            Muffled by the storm, the shot had originated from the area of Mike’s rental.  The sniper must’ve been concealed in the shrubs, waiting—and he’d known exactly where to expect Anthony to appear.

            These people somehow knew he and Lisa had been hiding in the house.  But how could they know that?  Did they know everything?

Figure it out later.

            He ran for cover.

37

            Cutty had fooled Thorne. 

            He’d instructed Valdez to park the SUV around the corner, and they’d returned to Alfaro’s property on foot, entering via the back door to stay out of sight of the house where Alfaro’s jeep was garaged.  When they’d entered the home and determined it was empty, in spite of the burning lamp in the bedroom, he suddenly realized the game Thorne was playing.

            The cunning ploy would have deceived a lesser man.      

            He had turned off the light.  Then he’d hunkered down in a dense block of holly ferns at the front of the property, hood drawn over his head, the Remington balanced on a collapsible bipod.

            Like a mouse catching the scent of cheese, within twenty minutes, Thorne had emerged from around the home where Alfaro’s jeep was stored.  He moved right into Cutty’s telescopic sight. 

            It should have been a textbook case—one head shot, one kill.  But the turbulent storm had conspired to throw off the bullet’s intended trajectory.  He’d succeeded only in blasting Thorne’s gun out of his hands.

            “Shit, shit, shit,” he said, and was thankful that Valdez was not near.  He had ordered her to remain in the house until he radioed her.  The use of foul language was sinful, but he would seek penance later. 

            As he prepared for another shot, Thorne fled to the street and took cover behind a sedan parked at the curb.  

            Rain pounding onto him, Cutty placed his eye to the scope, and waited.  Sooner or later, Thorne would have to move—and next time, he would not miss him. 

            “The devil can’t protect you from me,” he whispered, face pressed against the cool, adjustable cheek piece of the rifle stock.  “God is delivering you into my hands.”

            A barrage of thunder sounded as if it would split the earth in half.  Whips of lightning lashed the night.

            Cutty shivered.  God’s awesome power, channeled through the intense storm, charged him with such a holy fervor that he felt as if he could take hold of the next thunderbolt God delivered and hurl it like a spear toward Thorne, blowing him apart and plunging him straight to hell.

            A van grumbled down the street, coming in Cutty’s direction, tires spewing water.  As the vehicle passed by, obstructing his line of sight, he shifted aim to the left, anticipating Thorne using the van’s passage to make a run back to the house in which he and his Jezebel had taken refuge.

            Instead, Thorne broke across the street, fleet-footed as a cheetah, and by the time Cutty pivoted the rifle in his direction, he vanished around a tree, taking himself beyond Cutty’s range. 

            To get Thorne in his cross-hairs again, he would have to move.

            “Fuck!”  He knocked away the rifle.

            Valdez’s voice crackled in his earpiece: “Is okay?”   

            He realized that he hadn’t shut off his radio.  She had heard his numerous obscenities.  He was setting an exceptionally poor example of proper Christian behavior throughout this mission, and if he continued, might give Valdez cause to doubt the purity of his heart and reject his imminent proposal.

            “I’m sorry for the language I used—but Thorne broke away from the house,” he said.  “I can’t see him.  I think he’s coming our way.”  

            “Need help?”

            “No.”  He withdrew his Glock from the holster.  “Sit tight.  I’ll handle him on my own.”

38

            Using the van for cover, Anthony dashed across the street, splashing through puddles, and ran into the front yard of a darkened home, where a maple provided shelter from the rain and the gunman.  He pressed his back against the slick trunk, a drift of mud sucking at his shoes.

            Across the street, the .45 lay in the rain-battered grass.  He had the Beretta as a back-up—keeping a back-up piece had been hard-wired into his brain since boot camp—but was thinking that if the shooter’s aim had been adjusted upward,
he
might have been lying on that grass.  Lisa would have been left to fend for herself, and his vow to get justice for his family would have been forever unfulfilled.

            But luck had been on his side again.  This was the second brush with death he’d experienced that night, the first being when the sniper had sent a smoking round through the windows of their SUV.  He didn’t want to give the guy a third crack at him.  The fanatic seemed to be a skilled marksman, and he probably would not miss again. 

            He slipped the Beretta from the holster and racked the slide to chamber a round. 

            He took off into the backyard of the property.  A slide-and-swing set stood in the middle of the lawn, swings rocking in the rain.  Pulses of lightning threw the playground apparatus into such stark relief that it resembled the animated bones of some ancient, lumbering dinosaur.

            He looked to the right, where Mike’s place stood, four houses away.  None of the properties were separated by fences, and he didn’t see any dog kennels.  He saw only a couple of utility sheds, a flower garden, and an old pick-up on cement blocks.  Every house had patio furniture and barbecue grills. 

            He ran across a couple of back lawns, weaving around patios, keeping close to the homes.  He didn’t see the rifle-toting zealot.  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t prowling the night. 

            And where was his partner, the Latina woman?  She had to be in the proximity, too.  Had to watch for her.

            He crept alongside the attached garage of the next home, angling toward the street again.  He worried the guy was anticipating him making a rear approach, because that was what he would have thought if their roles had been reversed.  The man was crazy, but he had keen instincts.

            He reached the front of the house and surveyed Mike’s place next door.  Clear. 

            He ran to the row of shrubs along the front.  Examining the holly ferns, he found snapped branches and tamped down leaves.  The guy had been concealed there with his rifle.

            He glanced at the front door, and, on a hunch, approached it.  The door opened when he twisted the knob.

            He waited for a bellow of thunder, to give covering noise if the hinges creaked, and went inside.     

            The house was quiet.  The interior was dark but for a dim light above the range in the kitchen.  It had not been on during his prior visit.

            Cloaked in shadow, a slim, feminine figure stood posted at a kitchen window that overlooked the back yard.  The partner. 

            She did not give any indication that she had detected his entrance.                  

            Grateful for the carpeting to mute the sound of his wet shoes, he tipped across the living room.

            Thunder shook the walls.  Rain beat a frenzied tune on the roof.

            His clothes were completely soaked through, but inside, he was on fire.  Adrenaline had burned away the night’s fatigue, superheated his muscles, ignited his fighting instincts.     

            He paused at the edge of the kitchen, which was floored in linoleum that would squeak underneath his rubber soles and give him away. 

            When thunder grumbled again, he charged forward.

            The woman began to whirl around, but he had the pistol pressed to the back of her head before she could complete her turn.  She let out a thin squeal of surprise, and froze.

            “Don’t scream,” he said quietly.  “Put your hands in the air.”

            Silently, she did as he commanded. 

            “Move against the wall, to the left,” he said.  “Keep your hands up, and spread your legs.”     

            Hands in the air, she pivoted to face the wall near the oven, and widened her stance.  She glanced at him over her shoulder.  Her dark eyes were as placid as a pond, completely submissive.

            “Okay?” she asked, in heavily accented English.

            “Yeah, okay,” he said.  “I’ve gotta ask you—how the hell did someone like you get tied up with a bunch of religious maniacs?  You don’t look crazy.”

            She blinked at his question, and steel surfaced in her eyes.  He saw that same steel in his own gaze when he looked in the mirror—steel forged from experience with death and other terrible things.  

            Although he aimed the gun at her back, now that her attitude was on display, she didn’t appear to be afraid of him.  Her lips curved in a faint smile, as if she possessed some damning secret.