The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (3 page)

The guard was passing by her. Hedda sprang.

She covered the width of the street in a single breath, bouncing on her toes to stifle any sound, knife already in hand. Hedda clamped a hand around the guard’s mouth and plunged the blade through his back into his heart. His body spasmed, feet kicking as he rasped a scream that her hand swallowed. He was still twitching when she dragged him across the street to be hidden amid the garbage.

After stripping off the dead Palestinian’s machine gun and making sure he was sufficiently covered, Hedda grasped the soccer ball she had wedged between two fly-infested cans. The ball was an exact twin of the one the boy’s captors had attempted to interest him in the day before, right down to the dirt stains on its panels. She picked it up and held it in plain view as she made her way back across the street. On the sidewalk, she bounced it a few times and then hurled it casually over the fence. Her target was the part of the courtyard where the captors had been kicking their own ball the day before. To anyone who bothered noticing, her action would have looked perfectly harmless. A ball lost over the stone fence retrieved and tossed back in.

Hedda heard the ball bounce twice before it started rolling. When no commotion or shouts came from within, she breathed easier. All was ready now.

4:35.

Christopher Hanley would be emerging any minute. Hedda continued on the appointed rounds of the guard she had slain.

The gate permitting entrance to the courtyard from the right flank of the wall was located two-thirds of the way up and forward. It was locked from the inside even now, but she had studied the lock’s construction long enough through the binoculars to have her pick ready for what would take eight seconds at most. She would time her entrance to the courtyard with the perfect distraction as cover, something sure to draw all interested eyes to it: the appearance of the young hostage in the courtyard.

Hedda did not have to see Christopher Hanley’s emergence; she heard words spoken loudly, followed by the thud of a soccer ball being kicked.

Hers or theirs? she wondered.

She reached the gate and had the lock picked in under seven seconds. She swung it open and locked it behind her.

Hedda walked briskly through the courtyard toward the rear of the house. The boy was sitting as before on the bench, stubbornly kicking at the ground with head down while his captors kicked the soccer ball about.

No,
two
soccer balls. They were kicking both hers and theirs. One landed far off in the bushes and Hedda lost a breath thinking it might have been hers. But the one they began exchanging, trying to coax Christopher Hanley into joining them, she recognized as her own, its black squares slightly darker. Perfect.

She passed within two yards of the boy and would have been tempted to meet his stare had he not been gazing forlornly into the ground beneath him.

You’ll be out of this before you know it
, she thought, trying to push it into the boy’s head.
I promise
… .

Christopher Hanley’s head came up slightly, as if in response to a call of his name, then sank again. Hedda made her way around behind the house. With the boy outside now, all eyes would be focused his way, leaving the back clear.

Two guards patrolled the rear of the holy residence, a third maintaining a vigil near the back door. Hedda yanked her silenced nine-millimeter pistol from her belt and concealed it by her hip. Not hesitating, she walked straight toward the door guard. Either of the other two could have observed her if they had bothered to notice.

“What are—”

They were the only words he managed to utter before she shoved the pistol against his ribs and fired twice. Then she shoved him backward against the door as he died. Supporting the guard there as if he were feather light, Hedda worked the door open and brought him in alongside her. There was a small alcove off to the right, and she dumped his body in it before sealing the door again.

She heard a door close on the floor above her. Hedda reached the majestic staircase that spiraled upward, just as a slightly older man in uniform started down. Their eyes met, and his told her enough. She shot him in the head, and the man crumpled. The commotion drew a Palestinian from the front of the house, turbanless, starting to go for his gun as he moved. Hedda shot him three times in the chest and pressed on.

Another guard lunged out from a doorway and grabbed for her pistol. She saw his mouth opening to form a shout and slammed her hand over it. The force of the blow cracked his front teeth, and the man’s eyes bulged in agony. Her right hand let him have the pistol, trading it for a grip with her iron fingers around his wrist. She twisted, and the resulting
snap!
was louder than any of her silenced gunshots. The man’s agonized scream was lost to her hand, and she rotated her palm under his chin. Hedda could see his eyes watering in pain as she snapped the chin back. A crunching sound came this time, muscle tearing away from ruined vertebrae. The man’s neck wobbled free and then flapped down near his shoulders. Hedda let him slump and pushed him into the doorway he had emerged from. Then she crept to a window that looked out over the front of the holy residence.

Christopher Hanley was off the bench now, hands wedged in his pockets as he kicked stones about the ground. Nearby, but not too near, his would-be playmates continued kicking her soccer ball about. Hedda pulled the detonator from the small pouch at her back and activated it. Two of the three lights upon its black exterior glowed red.

A button rested beside each of the glowing lights. One would trigger the explosive gases pumped into the soccer ball to mix with finely milled pieces of glass. Harmless until they were sent rocketing out under explosive force. The second button would remotely activate the Russian-made 7.62mm machine gun she had set up across the street in the apartment building, aimed dead center for the courtyard. Even if it didn’t claim a single victim, it would succeed in drawing the remaining guards’ attention to the apparent point of attack, this an instant after the soccer ball had laid waste Christopher Hanley’s nearest captors.

Chaos would result, and Hedda would be able to approach the men from behind while their attention was focused entirely on the apartment building. She would make it seem as though she were coming out to get the boy back inside and then take them all out from the rear.

Hedda’s fake beard was starting to itch horribly and she wished she could strip if off. The Kevlar bulletproof shirt she wore inside her uniform top was baking her with sweat that had soaked through at her underarms and midriff. But the beard was still important to her plan, and the time when she might need the Kevlar was fast approaching.

Hedda judged the Palestinians kicking her soccer ball to be comfortably away from Christopher Hanley. She raised her detonator and moved a pair of fingers to the top two buttons.

Wait! The main gate was being opened, a Jeep ready to enter the complex with what looked like a troop-carrying truck squeezed behind it. Reinforcements? Replacements? It didn’t matter. Her last guard count from the apartment building had numbered fourteen, with five of these dead already and most of the rest hers to take from the rear. But now there were additional troops entering from the front as well. Her plan was blown,
everything
was blown!

But there was still a chance for success, if she acted fast enough. The gate was just now swinging open. The troops in the truck were still outside the complex, and she was in. Hedda pressed the top button on her detonator.

The soccer ball exploded with a
poof
. A brief scream followed in the instant of hesitation she gave herself before pressing the second button. The rapid fire of the 7.62mm commenced immediately, echoing nonstop through the sifting breeze. The hundred-shot burst would be good for between ten and eleven seconds.

Instantly Hedda spun away from the window toward the front door. She threw it open and rushed down the steps into the chaos she had created.

Magnificent! Everywhere terrorist gunmen were firing into the empty apartment building, none looking her way. The Jeep that was barely through the gate was equipped with a heavy-caliber machine gun in its rear, and one of its occupants was trying to slam a belt home to join the battle. Those that had come in the truck had been effectively pinned outside the gate. Some were already firing their own barrage as well, which added to the staccato symphony. Others had merely dived for cover.

Christopher Hanley, meanwhile, was crouched behind a nest of bushes, trembling, his back to it all. The guards who had fallen to her soccer ball lay twisted in misshapen heaps just yards away from him.

Hedda knelt over the boy.

“No!” he wailed at her.

“I’m here to rescue you,” she said, and her perfect English made the boy turn her way.

His face was dirt-stained and scared. Hedda reached down and hoisted him to his feet.

“Stay near me! Whatever happens, stay near me!”

Shielding him with her body, she rushed for the house in the last seconds of blessed chaos provided by the machine gun. Inside, uniformed figures were charging down the spiral staircase.

“I’ve got him!” she screamed at them in a voice lowered to sound like a man’s.

Her disguise wasn’t meant to hold up to close scrutiny, but it didn’t have to. The onrushing guards didn’t notice anything was wrong until they were right on top of her, and by then her machine gun was firing, the boy shoved behind her. When it was over, she yanked him back to her side and dragged him away from the windows, in case her gunshots had drawn attention from the outside. Hedda figured escape through the rear of the residence held her best hope now. She reached the back door she had gained entry through and stopped.

Alone I could make it. But with the boy, chased by the reinforcements in the truck through an unfriendly city …

There was no hope for them beyond the residence, beyond these walls—not yet anyway. Their best chance for success and survival now lay within.

“This way!” she said, and started to drag Christopher Hanley back toward the front of the house.

“No!” he protested, trying to hold his ground.

“It’s the only way,” Hedda said in as soothing a voice as she could manage. “You’ve got to trust me.”

Chapter 4

“I TOLD THEM
I didn’t want you here,” were Dr. Alan Vogelhut’s first words to Kimberlain. “I told them we didn’t need you.”

“Have you found Leeds and the others?” And, when Vogelhut made no reply, “Then maybe you do need me.”

“I’ve got a call in to Talley’s superiors now.”

“They’re busy with other things, Doctor, like cleaning up the mess you let spill out of here. Don’t wait by the phone.”

They were in Vogelhut’s office in the small administrative wing of The Locks, notable from the outside by the presence of windows much of the rest of the structure lacked. Vogelhut hadn’t offered him a chair, and Kimberlain hadn’t taken one. The office smelled of strong, stale coffee. Vogelhut’s clothes were rumpled and his face drawn. If he was sleeping, it wasn’t doing him much good at all.

“You stand to lose your job over this,” Kimberlain said suddenly.

“I don’t need you to remind me of that.”

“I can help.”

Vogelhut opened his mouth but didn’t speak.

“We want the same thing, Doctor: Leeds and the others back here where they belong.”

“There’s an army out there already looking.”

Kimberlain shook his head. “They don’t even know where to start.”

“Everything is under control.”

“Is it, Doctor?” Kimberlain stepped closer until his thighs squeezed against the front of Vogelhut’s desk. “Interesting group that walked out of here the other night. Care to call the roll? Why don’t we start with C. J. Dodd, who machine-gunned the occupants of three separate fast food restaurants? Or Jeffrey Culang, the auto mechanic who cruised freeways in his tow truck searching for stranded motorists who needed help. He made a museum of their body parts in his basement. I believe you testified as an expert witness at his trial.”

Vogelhut said nothing.

“You didn’t testify at the trial of Dr. Alvin Rapp, though. Lovely gentleman who drained and drank the blood of nine of his patients. Almost as nice as Mary Conaty, or Mary Mary Quite Contrary, who buried the remains of fifteen drifters in her backyard garden.”

“That’s quite enough, Mr. Kimberlain.”

“No, there are still eighty more to go, including Leeds.” Kimberlain’s stare made Vogelhut look away. “We do this one of two ways, Doctor. Either with your help or without it. I’m here on FBI authority. I don’t need to be talking to you, but I thought I’d extend the courtesy in the hope that the favor would be returned. I’m going to head toward MAX-SEC now, whether you accompany me or not.”

The Ferryman was halfway to the door when Vogelhut stood up.

“You’d fit right in with them, Mr. Kimberlain,” Vogelhut said, as their heels clip-clopped down the hallway toward the maximum security area.

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“I’ve been around them long enough to know the scent.”

“Must like that scent, Doctor. Burnout in jobs like this usually comes on pretty fast. Replacement’s a built-in ritual. Strange that you’ve been here since the beginning. Not even a single vacation.”

“I’ve got a job to do.”

“Exactly why I’m here.”

They exchanged no further words until they reached the monitoring station that marked the official entry point of MAX-SEC. Kimberlain had expected it to be crawling with investigators, but it was deserted. Bright fluorescent lighting burned on, used by no one. Over at the control board the television screens were black and dead.

Vogelhut pushed some buttons and Kimberlain heard the distinctive clicks signaling that the doors leading into MAX-SEC were now open.

“This is exactly the way my guards found it. Nothing has been disturbed.”

Vogelhut’s words caught Kimberlain after he had crossed through the open doorways. His heels echoed on the tile as he walked the corridor deliberately, trying to sense, to feel. The residue of the madness that had lurked here remained thick in the air. The Ferryman felt he could almost smell it. The vast filtration systems could not cleanse the air of the mustiness. A dank scent of mold and spoiled food.