The Avenger (3 page)

He stopped and pulled his truck alongside the largest ridge. When he stepped from the truck, he could see that he'd made a good choice. The shelter effectively hid him from the view of anyone glancing out the windows.

Walking to the back of the truck, he lifted the tarp that covered a metal container. He rolled it off the tailgate and hauled it closer to the rocks. Pulling a wrinkled handkerchief from his hip pocket, he swiped at the sweat drizzling down his cheeks. He grunted as he shoved the barrel on its side and pried open the cover with a crowbar from the truck bed.

The woman tumbled from the container, her arms and legs freed from their cramped positions, her pale skin damp and slick. He checked her eyes beneath the lids, and watched as they rolled back in her head until only the whites gleamed against the ghostly hue of her face.

Pressing two fingers to her carotid, he grunted.
Good, she was still alive.

He began to dig.

#

A hot, white thrill shot through Jack's veins like liquid fire. The muscles in his arms bulged with strain while a faint sheen of sweat beaded across his forehead.

Good, she was still alive.

He jerked up in the unfamiliar bed, feeling the humid Mediterranean air wafting in through the open window.

Good, she was still alive.

Unbidden, the thought ripped through his mind again, and along with it, the image of a wide alkaline sweep of flat sand and rocky terrain.

He'd recently travelled through Jordan to his favorite Recovery site here by the blue, blue sea in the busy, crowded city of Tel Aviv. Was the image a memory of the Dead Sea he'd just gone by? Or something else?

Good, she was still alive.

A flash of dark hair tangled around a pale face. A body tumbled onto packed, sandy ground. Undeniable pleasure tightened his groin, but it wasn't his own lust. Jack pushed it away, not understanding the source, but intuiting that it was bad. Really bad. His heart skittered in his chest, erratic and painful, as he pulled on shorts and walked out onto the balcony.

The Mediterranean Sea stretched in front of him stories below. He poured water from a carafe, leaned against the railing, and drank deeply, wondering what the hell the dream mirage meant this time.

As he turned to go inside, a sharp pain sliced through his right temple, ugly and relentless, and he staggered, braced himself against the glass pane of the sliding door. He groaned as agony seared through his head and left him panting.

After a few minutes, he recovered enough to stumble to the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face. When he looked at his reflection in the mirror, the ghostly face of a green-eyed girl with long, dark hair stared back at him. God, he hadn't thought of her in years.

What did it mean?
Was she in trouble?

Chapter Four

In just a few months Olivia Gant had made a comfortable life in Sacramento. She trailed her fingers down the mahogany railing of the ancient staircase. The worn wood smelled of lemon polish and antiquity. Sunlight glinted off the stained glass windows in the foyer, refracting red, blue and gold images across the tiled entry floor.

Heading toward the bedroom, she removed her jacket and slacks as she went, stripping down to her underwear by the time she reached the bathroom. A shower, a nice hot shower, to ease her tired muscles. The first month of the school year always left her feeling a little ragged, her voice hoarse from repeated instructions to new students.

Standing under the hot shower, she let the water work its magic into her sore muscles and puzzled over the task of which staff member to place with which post-grad candidate. She decided her office mate, Dr. Howard Randolph, might be a good mentor to Ted Burrows, after all. Howard had taught at the university for years and was likely experienced at handling a charismatic, but lazy student like Ted.

That problem settled, she stepped out of the shower, slipped on a robe, and padded downstairs to pour a glass of wine. Always mindful of her mother's drinking problem, Olivia permitted herself one glass a day.

For the next several hours she pattered around the house she'd inherited last spring from her grandmother. The grandmother she hadn't even known about until her last year of graduate school when the elderly woman had contacted her out of the blue. Sarah Morse had died last spring and left Olivia this beautiful old home in Sacramento. At first she hadn't been sure she wanted the house. She'd built a solid career at Cal Berkley and was inching toward tenure. A move to the Sacramento area had been the farthest thing from her mind.

Then her floundering marriage had taken a precarious nose dive, and she'd felt both abandoned by and freed from her philandering husband. Rather than become a cliché, she'd taken a year's leave of absence and scooped up the offer from Our Lady of Fatima University. Not a practicing Catholic, she still had a healthy respect for the history and tradition of the ancient church.

In her spacious home library she began unpacking the rest of her research books. After a few minutes the door knocker sounded from the front of the house like a bomb in the quiet evening. Olivia glanced at the antique clock on the mantle.
Nine-thirty. Who in the world?

Now a firm rapping set up from her porch landing. She peered through the slatted window by the front door, but saw nothing more than a shadowy shape. She hesitated, her bare feet chilly on the cold tiles of the foyer, the old fear sneaking up on her again.

Another riff of knocking caused her to jump back. "Who is it?" she asked.

"Olivia? Open the door."

"Bill?" Relief and then irritation swept over her as she unlocked the dead bolt.

Her ex-husband stood in the faint light of the landing, his brown wavy hair ruffled by the breeze. Bill Gant lived in an apartment in Oakland over his family's dry cleaning business.

"What are you doing here?" she exclaimed suspiciously. "Did you follow me?"

"I just wanted to be sure you got settled in." He jammed his fists in his jeans pockets and gave the boyish smile that had captured her heart seven years ago.

She didn't invite him in. "Surely you didn't drive from the coast in the horrible Friday-night traffic."

He shrugged. "Like I said ... "

Even though Bill's marital affairs had been legend in their small circle of friends, he'd had a hard time believing the marriage was over. He'd taken nearly eighteen months to sign the divorce papers. Olivia shook her head and made her voice sharp. "You can't stay, Bill. You know that."

His pretty face tightened and his blue eyes went hard. "And
you
know I didn't want our marriage to be over."

"You signed the papers," she reminded him.

"You forced me into that. I told you we could work it out. I offered to go to counseling, whatever you wanted."

She was tired of the old argument. At first she'd worked hard to save her marriage. It'd taken her five years to figure out that Bill was a narcissistic womanizer, completely incapable of being faithful to one person.

"I've always given you whatever you wanted," Bill cajoled.

"Let's not go over that again." Olivia started to close the door. "It's finished, Bill. You have to accept that."

His demeanor changed in a flash. "You stuck-up, cold bitch." His voice was low, but deep with a viciousness she hadn't heard before, and for a moment a sliver of alarm chilled her. He looked around her shoulder to the interior. "You think inheriting a fancy house in a new city makes you better than me?"

Olivia clamped down on her temper and spoke in an even voice. "Get off my property or I'll call the police."

"I taught you everything you know," he snarled, raking his eyes over her. "You wouldn't even let a man get near you until I taught you a few tricks. I can't believe I wasted seven years on you."

She slammed the door in his face, turned the lock and hooked the chain. Her fingers trembled and she balled them tightly at her sides. She reached for her cell phone on the small entry table where she kept her keys and mail. Punching in the "nine" and the "one," she paused, waiting for Bill's next move. A second later she flinched at the sound of a foot crashing against the sturdy door. Shortly afterward, a motor revved up and a car squealed away.

She spent half the night reading the instruction booklet and figuring out how to reset the code on the very excellent security alarm system her grandmother had installed shortly before her death.

After using the only code she was certain Bill couldn't figure out – 101274 for October 12, 1974 – a special birth date in her memory, she was finally able to sleep.

Baltimore, Maryland

Chapter Five

The Judge was too clever to show his surprise, but Jack caught the flare of caution in the faded blue eyes as he brushed past the assistant and stormed into the Invictus office.

"What the – ?" Warren Linders, director of Invictus Organization, swiped a hand over his bald pate and quickly pasted a smile on his broad face. "Jackson Holt, son of a gun!" The Judge extended his hand, indicating the seat in front of his desk. "You look great."

Jack watched the keen eyes rake over him, taking in the finely-cut jacket and polished cordovans. He'd started to pay attention to his wardrobe after his first year in the Organization. A homeless boy jockeying for position in a rich kid's club. Or so he'd thought back then.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Warren, after the flight from Tel Aviv my ass can't handle anymore sitting." He looked out the east window at the gentle movement of the Chesapeake Bay and the rich foliage of eastern Maryland.

"The African matter?" the Judge asked.

"It's resolved," Jack said shortly.

"Good." Warren turned to the assistant who'd followed Jack in and closed the door quietly. "Get the fella a drink, Higgins."

Jack shook his head at the offer. "I returned early from Recovery because your message said it was urgent." He allowed the reproof to settle in the air between them.

"Hell, you look like you've been relaxing in Bermuda." The Judge reached for a box in the top drawer and held it out. "The best cigars we can make in this country. Not Cuban, but at least they're patriotic. Try one."

Jack's eyes flickered to the bottom desk drawer where he knew the Judge kept the
habanos.
"I gave those up years ago." He didn't allow his smile to reach his eyes. "Can't be a warrior and a smoker too."

Warren patted his large gut. "'Fraid I'd have to give up more than cigars to get in your shape."

Jack sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and tried to hide the unexpected surge of energy behind a casual pose. Hoping that Warren wouldn't notice something vaguely off in him, something that'd begun long before he got on that plane from Tel Aviv. "Let's get to the point, Warren. Your message was ... cryptic."

The Judge reached for a manila folder stamped "Invictus" in large red printing across the front, and beneath that the initials DLK in capital letters. Without a comment he pushed it across the desk. Jack glanced at the tab.

"Your next assignment," the Judge said.

"The last one was grueling. I need more Recovery before another one." Jack wouldn't voice the fear that had battered at him since the Africa mission. That he
couldn't
accept another assignment, that something was going wrong in his body that even the drugs couldn't fix.

"I understand," the Judge answered calmly, "but this is an old case, revisited. It'll look familiar to you. Take a look at it, Jack. You don't want to pass it up."

Jack opened the folder and scanned the contents. He removed the pictures from a clasped envelope attached to the inside cover and gazed at them for a long moment before letting them slip from his limp fingers to the glass desktop. The grainy pictures glared in the fluorescent light as a deep sense of foreboding washed over him.

"You didn't get him, Jack," the Judge accused. "He's doing it again. Maybe he's taking up where he left off four years ago, or maybe he's starting all over again. I don't know." He paused before adding, "But if we turn it over to the locals, they'll just screw it up."

"It's the same as the Peterson girl," Jack murmured.

"You need to stop the son of a bitch this time," the Judge retorted. "Permanently."

Jack read the clear subtext beneath the words. What happened four years ago was
his
fault. He felt a twitch spasm in his jaw as he reached inside his jacket pocket to pull out the vial of small white pills. Three weeks ago he'd begun taking the medication so necessary for his Recovery. They seemed ineffectual so he'd begun increasing the dosage.

He hesitated. "I need more time to recuperate."

"Hell, no one could blame you for washing your hands of the whole shitty mess, but you know the case, the victims."

Jack uttered a muffled curse as he met the Judge's implacable stare. For a wild moment he considered refusing, standing up to Invictus, storming out the door. But resignation weighted his shoulders like a heavy mantle. He replaced the white pills and extracted a slender bottle from his other pocket. The dark red tablets inside gleamed like tiny poisoned apples.

He drew in a deep breath. "When?"

"Body was uncovered two days ago, but the victim's been dead longer than that."

Jack shook a single small red tablet from the bottle, eyed it thoughtfully, knowing it would counter the white Recovery pills. "Where?"

"Utah, near the northeastern Nevada border. A military testing facility located in the Utah salt flats."

Jack popped the red pill in his mouth and swallowed it dry. "Military? That's gutsy."

"No one ever claimed he didn't have the balls of a bull."

"I'll start there. Make sure it's identical to the Peterson killing, not a copycat."

The Judge retrieved a paper from his middle drawer. "If you find another note, there's a woman in California who can translate." He shoved the page across the desk. "The broad's a first-rate linguist and expert in all that Latin and Greek crap."