Sweepers (55 page)

This bastard was a master of light, Train thought. Galantz had a gun, and Jack might have one, too. And somewhere was the disrupter, ready to disable anyone in the room who didn’t see it coming.

Sherman groaned again, and this time he managed to sit up. He dropped his hands from his face, then slapped them back up there again when the strobe light hit him.

Where’s your girlfriend, Sherman? Galantz asked. Train tried to see Galantz’s throat, but there was only shadow.

The combination of the synthetic voice and the’s y gnu sing red light created a phantasmagorical image. And who was he talking about, Elizabeth Walsh or Karen?

The admiral did not reply. Galantz instructed Jack to go outside, see if Sherman had come alone. Jack moved immediately and wordlessly up the steps, heaved open the trapdoor, and closed it behind him. It was evident from the sounds that the trapdoor was hidden under a pile of wreckage on the ground floor.

“She’s not my girlfriend, you bastard,” Sherman said.

“You murdered my girlfriend.”

Now that you mention it, yes, I did Let me tell you about it while we’re waiting for Jackie boy to come back, okay?

After five minutes, just when she was about to get up and try to move downhill, Karen thought she heard something, something or someone moving carefully through the grass up by the house. Then the noises stopped, somewhere uphill of her position. It was hard to tell, as the patter of the first large raindrops began to mask the woods noises. She clutched the .380 and tried to remember if she had chambered it. Yes, she had.

But this one had a safety. She felt along both sides of the gun until she found the small latch down on the left side of the slide. Because if someone was coming down here to get her, he was going to get shot at a lot. She realized she was breathing too fast, and she put a clamp on it.

She tested her eyes on a hand held up in front of her face, but all she could see was a purple silhouette.

The poor admiral, that thing must have dropped him like a stone. She waited, putting all her mental energy into listening very carefully.

Then she heard the sounds again,. definitely footsteps, someone working slowly, carefully, across the hill above her now, one, two, three steps, soft crunching sounds in the grass, punctuated by intervils of silence.

She remained absolutely still. If whoever this was had been near the flash, even behind the disrupter, his might vision would not be terrific, either. You fervently hope, she thought.

She conjured up an image of a man standing up there in the woods, looking and listening, probably with a gun, or even that disrupter thing in his hand. Somewhere to her left, maybe fifty, sixty feet away, up the hill. There were some big trees up there, but the ground was badly overgrown.

There shouldn’t be a clear field of vision down here-unless he has a nightvision device. She flattened herself even harder against the ground. He would be on the edge of the trees, just inside their cover, looking down the hill. Don’t move.

Don’t even twitch.

He was moving again. She tried her eyes; she thought she could see something now, the outline of her right hand, holding the gun. She very slowly turned her head, individual blades of grass tickling her nose, and looked up the hill.

There, a darker shadow among the black tree shapes. Everything was still outlined in a purple halo, but her vision was coming back, although she had to loo* just to the side of objects to see them.”Me shadow moved again, going left across her field of vision, obscured now by the mound behind which she was hiding. He was staying in the trees, crossing a dozen yards of ground, until suddenly the buzz of a rattler erupted near him. The deadly sound made Karen jump. She closed her eyes and fought for control. She had never heard a rattlesnake before tonight, but there had been no mistaking it. She opened her eyes, then raised her head again to look. The shadow had stopped at the snake sound.

Then, making no more effort to be stealthy, the figure crunched back up the hill and disappeared into the darkness surrounding the ruined house.

Train couldn’t believe what Galantz was doing. He had ordered Sherman to move back, to crawl back over toward Train’ Then, staying in front of the strobe light, he had recounted in a cold, clinical manner how Elizabeth Walsh had died. It’s easy if you know how, Sherman. Not my first one, of course, Turn the head Sideways, then pull straight back.

You can actually hear it. It’s like a rattlesnake: an unmistakable sound Sherman’s hands had dropped as Galantz told his story.

Train could not read hiseyes in the strobe light, but everything in Sherman’s posture spelled total defeat.

And her only crime was to have been your girlfriend Just like the old man: He was really your only friend, wasn’t he, Sherman? Did I get that right? Ifelt a twinge about killing the woman, but the old man-well, he was on borrowed time. I think he actually had a heart attack, when he saw my face. Not the first guy to do tffat, either. The face you gave me, Sherman. You remember, don’t you?

The rhythm of Galantz’s voice was almost hypnotic-die strong inhalation, the stream of words through the voice box, with that wheezy harmonic.

Sherman was shaking his head slowly, as if unwilling to hear any more of this. There was a rattle of boards above, and then the trapdoor opened and Jack came back down the steps.

“The yard area’s clear,” he said. “Can’t tell what’s out there on the hillside. If they’re out there like you think, they haven’t moved -any closer.”

Galantz moved to the other side of the strobe, passing directly in front of it. Train got a glimpse of his face in the reflected light. He definitely had some kind of mask on.

Train wished he could fire a disrupter right about then. The light amplifier of a nightvision mask would really do a number on him.

That woman is out there somewhere, Jack Your father here isn’t brave enough to come alone. Get me the flip phone. Jack went to the desk, sorted through some things, and then brought Galantz a small flat object. Train chose that moment to begin creeping very slowly along the wall, an inch at a time, toward Sherman. He didn’t have a plan, but he couldn’t bear just standing there anymore. He had gone about two inches when he sensed Galantz looking at him, and then there was a bellowing blast from the .45 and something hit the wall next to his head, stinging his face with stone splinters, followed by the sounds of a bullet ricocheting around the stone walls. Everyone in the room except Galantz ducked down instinctively, including Jack.

Train straightened tip and put a hand up to the right side of his face.

It was wet, the blood making a black smear in -the red light.

“Is that like”Don’t move’?” he asked.

“Sit still, you crazy bastard,” Jack hissed, rising from his own crouch, his tone of voice clearly intimating that Train wasn , t the only crazy bastard in the basement. Sherman had ducked his bead almost down to the concrete floor, and he was only now raising it. Galantz was talking into the phone as if nothing had happened.

Karen waited ten minutes before moving, keeping her eyes closed to let them rest, listening hard while fighting back the urge just to get up and run full tilt down the hill. She was almost sick with worry about Train. He had to be up there, too, which gave them two hostages. But was down there on the road, with a car and a phone. Finally, she put her head up and looked: across the hillside. But there was nothing moving out there, just the stationary shapes of trees and bushes couched among the’sounds of the night insects. The rain had petered out for the moment, although the diurhp and rumble of thunder in the distance was getting more frequent. She thought about going up the hill, then quickly discarded that idea. The best thing she could do was get help, and help lay at the end of that car phone down the dirt road.

Staying on her hands and knees, she crawled carefully down the hill, trying to remember where that damned wire was, with all its venomous voices. Another ten minutes and the undergrowth thinned out as she crept closer to the huge downed tree blocking the top of the dirt road, near Jack’s trailer. And then she froze, her skin crawling, when she heard a low, rumbling growl.

Animal there. Big animal. Dog. Huge dog.

She raised the gun. She couldn’t see the dog, but there was no mistaking that noise.

Familiar noise.

“Gutter?” she called. The rumbling stopped immediately, replaced with an eager whining noise.

“Gutter, come,” she called, trying not to say it too loudly. The dog bounded out from behind the downed tree and ran straight to her, a hundred-pound mass of sleek, wriggling canine. She hugged the dog with more than just a little relief. She stood up and walked straight down the hill, around the fallen tree, and discovered her Explorer parked to one side. Train. She looked inside, then hurried down the path toward the trailer.

She was pretty sure that she had heard Galantz tell someone-most likely, Jack-to bring Sherman in. So Jack’s trailer should be empty. She had to find out if Train was in there, although she was pretty sure she knew where Train really was. With the dog at her side, she wasn’t worried anymore about what might be lurking in the bushes.

She went to the trailer and found the front door open.

Gutter bounded inside and made a quick sweep, then started whining excitedly. So Train had been here. She followed the dog back out, but then she called him back, her heart sinking, when he started up the hill. All right. So Galantz had them both. Now, get to a phone.

It took her five minutes to get down the hill, with only one delay when she twisted her ankle in a rut she failed to see. The darkened sedan was parked across the entrance to the dirt road, pointed uphill on the edge of Cherry Hill Road.

But the car was empty when she peered inside. When she looked up, Hiroshi was standing up across Cherry Hill Road,

where he had been hiding in some bushes. He cradled what looked like a sawed-off shotgun in his arms. Gutter ran across the road, wiggling a greeting to his old friend.

“Hiroshi, thank God,” she said. “I need to get on the phone. They’ve taken Admiral Sherman. And I’m sure Train’s up there, at the top of the.hill. There’s an old ruined house up there.”

Hiroshi trotted over, unlocking the car doors with the remote key set.

Karen jumped in on the passenger side and powered up the phone while Hiroshi waited outside with the dog, scanning the dirt road. Now, who to call? Mcnair was the obvious choice, but she hesitated. Mcnair already knew that Galantz was probably up on this hill. He had sent a message for Sherman to stay out of here. So why in the hell weren’t the woods full of cops?

She stared down at the lighted keys on the back of the car phone’s handset, increasingly aware that critical seconds were passing, but also sure she was missing the big picture here.

Hell with it, she concluded. I’m going to call 911, bust this thing wide open. Even better, call 911, then call the nearest television station.

Start a media circus. But then she hesitated again. That last bit was not such a great idea. It might provoke Galantz to do-what? Shoot them both, the kid, too, and vanish? She groaned in frustration, finger poised over the keys.

Then the windshield suddenly filled with headlights, from ahead and from behind, accompanied by the sounds of cars skidding to a stop. She was blinded by all the white light, and she heard Gutter start barking outside, but now the lights were everywhere, all pointing at high beam into the car, and then there were several men outside, shouting some tense orders to Hiroshi to drop the gun, someone else shouting about tranquilizing the dog. A large man was opening the door on the driver’s side and sliding in. Before Karen could say anything, he told her to put her seat belt on, and then he was autolocking the doors and starting up the car. -She looked frantically for Hiroshi, but he was gone, and the other cars outside were already starting to pull out.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, ignoring the order to put a seat belt on.

“The cavalry, Commander. You’ve done your part; now we’re taking over, okay? Put your goddamn seat belt on.”

He slammed the car in gear and pulled out onto Cherry Hill Road, headed uphill. It looked as if there were two cars in front and another behind.

“But what about the admiral? And-“

“Not your prob anymore, Commander.” The car swerved around the next curve, going up the hill at much too high a speed. Karen grabbed a handrest on the right-front door as the car almost went into the ditch.

She decided she’d better put her belt on.

“Who the hell are you, goddarrm it?!” she yelled, struggling with the seat belt. “Where are you taking me? What have you done with my dog?”

“FBI,” he answered, swerving again, again almost missing the next turn.

There was a roar of gravel from the leftrear wheel. “Goddamned road!” he yelled, looking back in his rearview mirror. The car behind had backed off to avoid all the gravel. “We’re handling the secondary. Another agency is working the primary. That there’s a kill zone, lady, back on that hill. Our orders were to pick up you or anyone else who came back down that hill. The dog’s okay; they’ve just tranked it. This guy Galantz-he’s got von Rensel?”

“I think so, yes.”

“He was a good man. Too bad.” The two cars ahead were slowing down now that they were well away from the dirt road. “Too bad? “Was’? What’s going to happen up there?”

He didn’t answer her, concentrating on the road. She repeated the question. He still didn’t answer, but he looked over at her for an instant, and she was shocked to read sympathy in his face. She faced forward then, realizing now that Sherman, Train, and Jack had all become expendable.

Someone was going to solve the rogue operative problem once and for all, and any bystanders be damned. The cars up ahead were slowing down even more, apparently preparing to turn off into a large driveway that was visible up ahead on the right. The car behind them had already pulled over, its emergency flashers going. The “secondaries” were going to wait here until the “primaries” had finished whatever was planned up on the hill.