Frame 232 (19 page)

Hammond gave the front door a perfunctory rap this time, more in the spirit of a signal than a request. He didn’t bother waiting for a reply before going in.

“Take it easy on him,” Sheila said.

“I will. Ben! Hey!”

There were traces of butane in the air, which he took as a sign that Burdick had recently lit yet another cigarette.

“Ben, I’m back! Could you please
 
—?”

Burdick appeared through the dining room archway ahead. The cigarette was dangling from a corner of his mouth, and a beer bottle hung at an angle from the hand that was slack at his side.

“I thought I asked you to leave,” he said, his eyebrows touching together in irritation.

Hammond moved forward, Sheila whispering more warnings.

“Ben, look, I need your help.” His voice was calm and measured. “We both do.”

“No.”

Hammond took the color printouts from his back pocket and unfolded them. “Who is this guy? Do you have any idea?”

Sheila watched Burdick’s reaction closely. His expression of anger morphed into a blend of rapt fascination and renewed horror.

“Ben, come on, give me
something
.”

Burdick’s gaze lingered for a moment; then he shook it away. “I’m sorry
 
—I don’t know.”

“Ben.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re lying.”

“Jason, I don’t know who that is.”

“Do you at least have an idea who it
might
be?”

The sheepish little-boy look on his face said it all.

“Tell me,” Hammond said.

“No. I don’t know anything.” He turned and began walking away. “Now please leave.”

“Jason,” Sheila cut in, “let’s go. Come on.”

Hammond followed Burdick instead. “Ben
 
—”

“Jason, just go, okay? Do us both a favor.”

“Help us, please.”

“No, I really can’t get invol
 
—”

“Ben!”

This came out like a thunderclap. Burdick whirled around; Sheila jumped. She realized at that moment that she’d had no previous sense of just how intimidating Hammond could be.

“They’re
after us
, Ben! I don’t know who, but it’s someone. They were watching this woman’s mother for years, and they blew her house to pieces while trying to kill us. Now, I don’t know what’s happened to you, and at the moment I don’t really care. If you can help us get these people, then you have to do so.”

He held the images out again, and Burdick’s eyes, now red-rimmed with grief, trained on them once more.

“I can’t. I really can’t.” This was delivered in an adolescent murmur, which Sheila found particularly disturbing coming from a grown man.

“Just what is it you’re afraid of, Ben?” Hammond put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, tell me.”

“No.”

“Has someone contacted you? Have you been threatened?”

“Jason . . .”

“Come back with me.”

“What?”

“To New Hampshire. Come back to the estate with me.”

“What for?”

“Protection.”

“No.”

“Ben, you know Noah and I can protect you. Nothing will happen to you there; you have my word.”

“I . . . I just . . .”

Burdick’s eyes kept shifting between Hammond and the photos. Sheila thought Hammond’s face betrayed a sense of self-disgust, as if he were using them like a piece of meat to lure an animal into a trap.

“We’ll protect you
 
—I promise. Just help us get these people. You’ve spent most of your adult life trying to bring them to justice. Don’t you think it’s time to close the case? Don’t you think they’ve enjoyed their freedom long enough?”

Burdick was fixated on the images now. His breathing was heavier, his eyes filled with reticent fascination. Sheila thought he looked more alert
 
—more with-it
 
—than ever.

He nodded. “All right,” he said in a whisper. “I’ll come.”

“Great. Thank you, Ben. Thank you so much.”

“Let me throw a few things in a bag. I’ll be right down.”

“Okay.”

He was gone no more than five minutes, packing enough for a week and changing into a white button-down shirt, jeans, and leather sandals.

When he returned, Hammond said, “You’re doing the right thing, believe me.”

“Let’s just go. Come on.”

“No problem.”

Burdick opened the front door and set the lock so it would catch upon closing. Then he pushed the screen door out and stepped into the warm spring air.

POP!

They all heard it. Burdick staggered back, clutching his chest, and blood began to flow between his fingers. Hammond caught him under both arms and dragged him in, easing him to the floor. Sheila shut and locked the doors. Peering through the curtained window, she saw exactly whom she expected to see
 
—the man who had tried to kill them the night before was approaching swiftly, rifle in hand. “He’s coming!”

She turned to say more, then lost the words when she saw that Burdick’s white shirt was now soaked red. Sheila knelt and began unbuttoning it, but Burdick pushed her away with what little strength he had left.

“Leave it,” he said, then turned his head and coughed spasmodically. A flame of blood streaked onto the worn hardwood. “It’s better for me like this.”

“No, Dr. Burdick. We have to
 
—”

“Get Superman,” he told her between hitched breaths. “Downstairs.”

“What?”

“The Superman . . . Hurry. . . .”

“He’s talking about his Pez dispensers,” Hammond said.

Burdick’s head rolled again and his eyes slid partly shut in a grimly mechanical manner. Then he lay still.

“Oh no. No, please . . .” Sheila brushed the hair from his face. “No . . .”

Hammond knelt beside her. “We have to get moving,” he said. He set a hand on Burdick’s chest, closed his eyes, and mumbled something in Latin. It took no more than a few seconds.

They ran to the back of the house, into the den where they had first found him. There was a plain white door in one corner, next to a recessed bookcase.

“That’s it over there,” Hammond said. Two more shots echoed from the front as the assassin blew through the locks. Sheila surprised herself by not screaming out this time.
I’m getting used to this,
she thought.
That can’t be good.

They took the steps quickly but quietly. Like the rest of the house, the basement’s former glory was still discernible in spite of years of disregard. Three baskets of dirty laundry sat on a tan-felted pool table. Several large boxes bearing the SMU logo were piled on the bar alongside more empty booze bottles and overwhelmed ashtrays. And the textured, cream-colored carpeting was in desperate need of a good shampooing.

Along the wall adjacent to the bar was a series of long shelves. Standing in neat rows on each, like lines of soldiers awaiting inspection, were hundreds of colorful Pez dispensers. There were characters from all points around the cultural
spectrum, from movie and television icons to sports stars and historical figures.

They scanned the collection like a pair of confused androids, their heads moving about crazily.

“Where is it? Where is it?”

“There,” Sheila said, pointing to the lower left-hand corner. The cartridge was bright blue with an armless bust of Superman on top. Hammond grabbed it and pushed the top back with his thumb.

“Oh, wow.”

“What?”

Hammond held the contents out for her to see
 
—hidden in the cartridge was a USB flash drive.

Before she had a chance to comment, another muffled report came from upstairs.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, tucking the dispenser and its precious cargo in his pocket. “Come on.”

There was a ground-level window above the washing machine. Hammond tried the latch, but it had been painted over too many times and wouldn’t budge. When Sheila heard hurried footsteps pass directly overhead, she felt nauseous.

“Jason . . .”

“In there,” he whispered, nodding toward a door on the other side of the pool table. Behind it was a small utility area with a slop sink, water heater, and furnace. There was a second window over the sink, but its latch was also the victim of too many lazy painters.

Hammond spotted a cobwebbed broom in the shadows. He grabbed it and climbed into the sink.

“What are you doing?”

“Since our options are obviously quite limited, I’m resorting to extreme force,” he said. He aimed the butt end
of the broom handle at the latch and began striking it in short jabs.

“Jason! The noise!”

“I know. I’m trying to be as quiet as possible.” The latch broke free after a few more shots, and the window came up with a squeal. “Okay, ladies fir
 
—”

Hammond’s smile vanished when they both heard a second squeal
 
—the door at the top of the stairs opening.

Birk still had not heard anything, but he saw the door in the den and had to check it out.

He took the first step carefully, setting his foot down at the extreme edge, where it was least likely to creak. He paused to listen and heard nothing. Part of him didn’t believe they were down there, that this was a waste of precious time. Another part, however
 
—the methodical part that had been rammed into place by his masters all those years ago
 
—led him forward.

Hammond was listening closely, Sheila watching him. Finally he got out of the sink and took her by the hand, leading her to the darkened side of the long room, stopping midway to loosen the bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. When they crouched behind the furnace, he whispered, “Breathe through your nose as calmly as you can.” Then he readied both hands on the broom and waited.

A feeling of unreality washed over Sheila. She knew she was frightened, but the fear seemed far away somehow, like a tiny boat moving along a distant horizon. What was inside mostly was nothingness, a bloodless cold that made her
feel more machinelike than human. At the same time, she seemed to have a greater awareness of her surroundings than she could ever remember. Every sense was on some kind of physiological high alert. She could hear the man’s footsteps as if through headphones. She could smell every dust mote on the floor, every drop of stray heating oil that had dried around the furnace’s aging fixtures. She had never known such perception.

When the man opened the utility room door and peered around the corner, Sheila’s sensation of surrealism deepened. It was like watching events unfold through a pool of water. The man felt for the light switch and gently lifted it. When the bulb failed to ignite, his eyes went up to it suspiciously, then down again. He took a tentative step into the room, and Sheila saw that he was holding the rifle.
The one he used to kill Dr. Burdick.
The barrel was matte black with a silencer screwed onto the end, and he was holding the weapon low, with the butt against his hip. Death was no more than twenty feet away now. He took another step forward, then paused to listen. The next few seconds were the longest of Sheila’s life. To combat the terror that was at last beginning to flow along her every nerve, she tried to focus on Jason’s advice
 
—
“Breathe through your nose as calmly as you can.”

After an eternity, the man back-stepped out of the room.

They remained in their crouched positions and listened as he surveyed the rest of basement, then crept back up the stairs.

“I think I just died inside,” Sheila said hoarsely as all emotion returned in a wave.

“Me too.”

Hammond went over and closed the door, this time twisting the little lock on the knob. Then he returned to the
sink. “Let’s make like the wind and blow outta here before Chuckles returns.” He propped the window open and held out his hand. “After you, madam.”

Sheila found herself smiling, amazed again at how casual Hammond could be in a life-and-death situation.

She stepped into the sink with his assistance, like a Gibson Girl being helped into a carriage. Then he guided her through the window.

Once outside, she asked, “How are
you
going to get out?”