Stone Cold (3 page)

He drew a glue gun with the long tube of aircraft adhesive from his pack and uncapped the nozzle. The substance was strong enough to be used to bond ceramic tiles to the space shuttle. He could smell a strong whiff of the quick-drying epoxy in the still night air as he carefully wedged the tip of the tube between the door and doorjamb, then worked a glistening bead of it across the top of the threshold and down the side of the door itself. He pumped a little extra near the latch and strike plate to figuratively weld the mechanism in place.

Nate left the porch and kept his head down as he circled the house, leaving snail tracks of epoxy along the bottom of all the closed
windows in their frames. He replicated the procedure on the back door, and waited a few minutes for the glue to dry. He risked tugging on the back door and found it bound tight.

He capped the glue gun and stowed it away in his pack and turned toward the main house. Nate had decided to not worry about the older couple in the bungalow.

•   •   •

A
LTHOUGH HE
APPROACHED
the front door of the main log house by zigzagging from tree to tree across the lawn, Nate had no doubt that his image was being captured by video sweeps from the closed-circuit cameras, and that additional motion detectors were noting his movements. But since the technician was bound up near the river and there was no clicking on of lights or discernible movement from within the main house, he banked on the assumption that the technician had been alone with no backup.

Nate paused at the heavy front door and stared at the keypad. A wrong combination might trigger an additional alarm that could wake Thug One and Scoggins inside.

He reached down and punched 4-2-2-8.

A tiny red light pulsed on the side of the keypad, but there was no internal sound that indicated the door had unlocked. He could hear no alarm inside.

Nate drew his .500 Wyoming Express with his right hand and held the long-barreled weapon tight against his right thigh and punched 4-2-2-9 with his left index finger. There was a
thunk
from the locking mechanism, and Nate pushed the door open as a single high chime rang out inside.

He entered quickly and eased the door shut behind him and raised his weapon. He hadn't been able to see inside the home before, and had only guessed at its layout. He found himself in a dark vestibule at the mouth of a great room. Coats and jackets hung from pegs on the vestibule wall, and there was a neat row of shoes and boots.

Because of the chime, his senses were on high alert.
Who would have guessed a chime would ring out when the door was opened?

Nate entered the great room and felt it open up above his head. There were sconces on the walls emitting very dim light, and he took it in: heavy leather furniture draped with Navajo rugs, pine interior walls, framed paintings of fish and wildlife, a huge hoary bison head above the fireplace—all very western chic. A wide carpeted staircase rose up from the ground floor to the second, and on the second level a railed walkway rimmed the opening. A massive elk antler chandelier dropped from the roof in the center of the opening.

He glanced right and saw light leaking out from under a door at the end of a hallway: the technician's security room. Then he glanced left, where he had guessed Thug One slept. But instead of a closed door at the end of the hallway, he saw one that was ajar.

Nate swung in that direction and cocked the hammer of his gun with a single upward motion. Would he be able to close the door and seal it with the man sleeping inside?

That's when he heard the slap of bare feet on the other side of the great room, where the kitchen was. And a growling, “Who the fuck is coming in here for a midnight snack?”

Thug One stood in the entryway of the kitchen, naked except for boxer shorts and a shoulder holster, with a bottle of beer in one hand and a pork chop in the other. His hair was matted on the right side
of his head from sleeping, but it took only half a second for him to realize what was happening.

Thug One threw the chop one way and the bottle of beer the other and went for his pistol. No
Who are you?
or
What are you doing here?
The beer bottle smashed against the stone of the fireplace.

Nate said, “Don't do it.”

Thug One froze, his fingertips an inch from the butt of his pistol. He was in a slight crouch, his thigh muscles taut, his eyes locked with Nate's.

“If you pull the weapon, I'll blow your head off,” Nate said softly.

Thug One blinked, and Nate sensed the man had made the right decision.

“Take off the holster and lower it to the carpet.”

Thug One stood up straight and glared at Nate, his head cocked slightly to the side, his face hard. His eyes shifted from Nate to the gaping hole of the muzzle.

“Why are you here?” Thug One asked. He had a saw-blade Boston accent:
Why ah you he-ah?

“I'm here for your boss. He's all I want.”

“How'd you get in?”

“Through the door.”

Thug One shot an inadvertent glance down the hallway toward the closed security room door, then made a face.

“Fuck you,” the man said, turning back. “You ain't gettin' back
out
.”

Nate sighed, tired of the game. He chinned up toward the second floor, said, “Are you willing to lose your life to save his?”

Thug One didn't answer.

“Two seconds,” Nate said in a whisper.

Just as Nate began to repeat himself, the man slipped the leather
strap off his shoulder and let it slide down his arm so he caught it in his hand. He bent and put the gun on the floor.

Nate gestured with his weapon toward Thug One's open bedroom door.

After a glower that seemed more obligatory than dangerous, the man did a shoulder roll and padded down the hallway with Nate behind him. “He's an asshole, anyway,” the man said.

“I'm going to close your door,” Nate said. “Stay inside and you'll keep breathing. Open it and you won't.”

Thug One walked to the foot of the rumpled bed and stood with his back to Nate.

“Put your hands behind your back and don't turn around,” Nate said.

Because he was so muscle-bound through the shoulders and lats, Thug One could barely reach backward. Nate looped a zip tie around Thug One's wrists and wrenched it tight, pulling the man's hands together.

“That hurts,” Thug One said through clenched teeth.

“It's supposed to,” Nate said, backing away and closing the door tight. He slid the glue gun out of his pack and sealed it. The fumes were sharp and acrid in the closed hallway.

Nate grimaced and thought,
Boxer shorts and a shoulder holster?

He paused before going back into the great room, listening closely for any stirring upstairs. How could Scoggins have slept through the door chime, the broken bottle,
and
the conversation?

•   •   •

N
ATE WORKED
FAST,
cognizant of the three sleeping thugs in the guesthouse, the couple in the cottage, and Thug One fuming in his
room. He ran down the hallway into the security room and located the Mac Pro server the technician used for the outside surveillance network. After yanking out all of the cords, he carried the machine back into the great room and unfurled a military-style body bag from his pack and stuffed it inside.

He left the body bag open.

Nate stood in the middle of the room and looked up at the four closed doors along the walkway and wondered which one Henry Scoggins slept behind. He could try them one by one.

Or . . .

The incredible
BOOM
of Nate's gun was concussive in the closed house. The .50 caliber slug blew through the chain that held the elk antler chandelier aloft, and he stepped aside as it crashed to the floor.

Out in the compound, he visualized the three other thugs awakening from their stupor, having heard the shot and the crash. He guessed the cook had rolled over in her bed and roused her husband at the sound. Thug One must be glaring at his closed door, guessing what had happened on the other side and wondering if he'd ever again land a personal security job.

Nate stepped back into the dark vestibule. What happened next was important. He couldn't kill an unarmed man—that was the twist. It was the reason he'd created the distraction instead of searching for Scoggins room by room.

He expected Scoggins to come rushing through one of the doors. Instead, there was an angry shout.

“Jolovich, what the hell just happened?”

So Thug One was Jolovich, Nate thought.

“Jolovich, goddamn you—you woke me up. What were you doing? Cleaning your damned gun again?”

Nate determined the voice was coming from one of the doors on the east side.

“Jolovich?” This time, there was a hint of panic with the anger.

Scoggins threw open an east door and staggered out to the railing. His sleep mask was pushed up on his forehead and he was in the process of digging a foam earplug out of his right ear—the reason he hadn't heard the door chime. He wore the open robe Nate had seen him in earlier, and his thin legs and basketball-sized naked belly were shockingly white.

As Scoggins clutched the railing, Nate noted how the robe sagged more on the right than the left because of something heavy in the pocket.

“Jolovich, where the hell are you? Peterson?”

The technician must be Peterson, Nate thought. He stepped out into the dim great room.

When Scoggins saw him, he instinctively did a little knee-dip of surprise.

Scoggins fired questions: “Who the hell are you? How did you get in here? Where's Jolovich?”

“Nate Romanowski. Used the keypad. Hiding.”

“Hiding?”

“It's tough to find good help these days.”

“But . . .” Scoggins sputtered, gesturing toward the security room down the hallway.

“Peterson isn't doing so well, either,” Nate said.

Scoggins shook his head, puzzled. “Why are you here?”

Nate said, “Guess.” He raised his weapon and said, “Come with me.”

Scoggins shook his head. “No.”

“Then you'll die where you stand.”

Scoggins started to argue, then narrowed his eyes and squinted down through the dim light. Nate guessed all he could see was the gun.

“I can pay you more than they pay you,” Scoggins said.

“I'm sure you can.”

“Are you a reasonable man?”

“Never have been,” Nate said. “Now come down.”

Scoggins sighed and groaned and slowly made his way down the stairs. He was wheezing from the exertion, and when he got close Nate was shocked by how small and froglike he was just a few feet away. The sleeves on Scoggins's robe were long and hung past his hands, and he kept his arms at his sides. As the man passed, Nate again noted the weight pulling down the material of the robe from the right pocket.

“Are you going to let me get dressed, at least?”

“No.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Scoggins said, looking up toward the ceiling. “Which one of my enemies put you up to this?”

Nate ignored the question and prodded Scoggins with the muzzle of his gun, then followed him through the vestibule and outside. Nate paused on the porch while Scoggins walked a few steps ahead and fumbled for the ties of his robe against the night chill.

“It's fuckin' freezing out here,” Scoggins said, cinching his robe with his back to Nate, but actually reaching for his semiautomatic pistol in his pocket. He turned clumsily with the gun raised and Nate shot him in the heart. The impact lifted the man completely off his feet, and he collapsed in a half-naked tangle. The gun skittered across the flagstone portico.

•   •   •

H
E DRAGGED
THE BODY BAG
with Scoggins, the server, and the pistol around the side of the house. Scoggins didn't weigh as much as he looked, and the nylon of the bag sizzled along the manicured grass toward the river. In the distance behind him, Nate could hear shouting and pounding from the three thugs trying to get out of the guest cabin. Other voices—from the cook and her husband—melded with the noise. Jolovich remained in his room and stayed quiet.

“I can't get the door open!” a man's voice shouted from the compound.

“Don't you think we know that, old man?” one of the thugs yelled back.

A woman's voice: “Go find Jolovich, Ron.”

Ron: “
You
go find him. You know how he is.”

•   •   •

N
ATE LEFT
THE BODY BAG
on the bank and an opening in the wire fence. He splashed in the shallow water upriver to unanchor his boat. He pulled it behind him to the lawn, then lifted the body and the contents onto the floor of the boat and swung in.

Within a few minutes, river sounds overtook the shouting and thumping from the Scoggins compound. He withdrew his cell phone and powered it on again. When he had reception bars, he made the call.

It was answered after one ring. Nate could hear the whine of an engine in the background.

“Did you do some good?”

“Affirmative.”

“Good man! How far out are you?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Splendid! Magnificent! I'll be there.”

Nate punched off.

•   •   •

T
HE DRIFT
BOAT
was slightly more sluggish because of the dead weight inside, but he stuck to the swift channels. The eastern horizon was banded with a creamy rose color, and the stars in that quadrant of sky were fading in intensity.

The temperature dropped as he powered the boat downriver, and the steam got thicker. He could feel waning body heat on his legs from the bag at his feet.

Nate tried not to dwell on what had just happened at the compound. He could sort that out later. Leaving Peterson and Jolovich alive were wild cards.