Black Tide (50 page)

"This is the set," he said calmly. "I'll go in first and you're just providing cover, Lewis. Nothing serious when we get in. This is a snatch, pure and simple, and we just scare him enough to get him down to the Rover. Then we'll do a drive to my place and I'll take care of business later. Alone. All right? But if any shooting starts, aim for his trunk and keep on pulling the trigger until you empty the magazine. Don't let up. This isn't a goddamn arcade."

I nodded, breathing deeply, and I had my own pistol out by then and we went up to the landing. The corridor led off to the left. Roger's unit was right in front of us, and I pointed out the door. Felix motioned to me to get to the left side and he stepped back, now holding his 9 mm in both of his hands, fingers interlocked. He did a series of deep breaths, and I saw his face and muscles tense up, his skin turning red, and he did that for a couple of moments and then exhaled in a great ''
paaaahhh
!'' of air.

Then he leapt forward, almost bounding, and kicked out his right foot and yelled something, and slammed the door open. The damn thing nearly flew off its hinges. Felix got into the room, and I was right behind, crouching down. Felix moved so quickly that I had a problem keeping up with him. After a minute or two of going through the unit and popping open closet doors and looking under the bed and behind the couch and out on the balcony, Felix looked up at me and said, "Damn place is empty."

I reholstered my own weapon. "He's gone, Felix."

"Shit," Felix said. We went out on the balcony and Felix started muttering to himself, saying, ''Another hour to Logan, he might make it, but if I call down to Georgie, he and Bev, they might be able to check outgoing flights."

"Still chasing?" I asked.

"Yeah," Felix said. "He's out there, running, and I'm going to start making some calls here soon, throw out a net. Chances are the bastard's skulking back to Boston and will go to ground. This just makes it harder, Lewis. Oh, I'll catch up with him one of these days, because no one can hide forever, but I was hoping not to wait. I was looking forward to finishing everything tonight."

The view from the balcony showed the darkening and threatening sky to the east, where the lighthouse at White Island out on the Isles of Shoals was winking into existence. There were still some families on the sands below us, packing up under the mist, which was getting heavier with every passing minute. The view offered nothing to me, no thoughts of peace or serenity. Instead, I had that sickly feeling of relief, when you're approaching something awful that gets canceled at the last moment. Something like a high school math test you're not ready for, and the day of the test, school is canceled because of a boiler problem. Though you're relieved you don't have to take the test, you know that you still have to take it in another twenty-four hours and that those extra hours won't make a difference in how prepared you'll be. A postponement doesn't always equal bliss.

I had avoided Roger Krohn so far since we had left York. If I kept my mouth shut, I would be successful in avoiding him for the rest of my life, but I saw the tension and rage in Felix's face, and I couldn't let him live with that for days or weeks or months.

So I opened my mouth. "Felix?"

"Yeah?" Felix was leaning against the balcony railing, the skin around his wrists pasty white where the tape had torn away some skin and hair.

"I think he's still around here."

That got his attention, and he stood up. "You do? Why?"

"Think of who he is, Felix."

''A murderer and a torturer," he shot back. "Yeah, but he's also a thief. He steals things. He stole the paintings, and just after he shot Cameron Briggs, he stole that briefcase with the money. So where would a thief go tonight if he feels he's been successful in killing you and me and Cameron Briggs, and in destroying the safe house and the evidence? Where would he go, Felix?"

Felix started nodding, his eyebrows coming together as he realized what I was saying. "He'd have an opportunity for one more hit, and he'd take it."

"Right. Cameron Briggs's home. Full of antiques and paintings, and also holding the other half of the payment that Cameron brought to York tonight. He's probably right there at this moment, stripping the place clean."

But by then I was alone on the balcony. I went after Felix. When we got out into the corridor, a neighbor opened the door. He was a thin, wiry man with a wispy blond beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He called out, "What's going on?"

Felix gave the man a brusque reply. "Police business. Get back in and shut the door." I always knew that Felix's voice sometimes had a ring of authority, and this was proven to me again this evening. The door slammed shut as we raced down the concrete steps, and there were no more neighborly questions.

We were on Atlantic Avenue, heading north, and I turned to Felix and said, "Do you think he was telling the truth back there?"

''About what?"

''About becoming police chief. About running the town, getting mixed up with drug trafficking and the tourists. Not caring about the paintings, just seeing them as evidence."

''Absolutely,'' he said. "Roger told me, uh, when we were in the Congregational church parking lot, waiting for you to show up, he kept on repeating something, that it would all be worth it in the end. Something about running a department and having the whole town to himself, every summer. Having more money than he would know what to do with."

By now I had the Rover's windshield wipers on, for the mist had changed over to a steady rain. "He say anything else?"

Felix's tone was short. "Nothing else I'm going to mention."

Traffic was light, and when we crossed over the invisible line dividing Tyler from North Tyler, my legs started tingling and Felix drew out his pistol and laid it on his lap.

"We've got two options," I said.

"What's that?" Felix asked. ''And don't tell me that one of them is calling the cops. That doesn't exist as an option."

I kept my eyes on the curving road, knowing that Cameron Briggs's home was coming up in a matter of seconds. "Two options," I said. "We either go in quiet or go in loud. We can park the Rover and snoop and poke our way in."

"Or we can go in hard-ass," Felix said, nodding. "I'm tired of being quiet, Lewis. Let's go in loud."

The curve straightened out and there was the open gate of Cameron Briggs's home, off to our left. I had another second or two of decision-making, and a damnable voice said, skip it, just drive on and find a phone and call the cops. Felix looked at me with a gaze of fear and triumph and anticipation all mixed in, and I made the turn.

The Rover went up the gravel pathway and Felix called out, "Here we go!" and I saw the Audi parked off to the side, with the trunk lid open. I slowed the Rover down a bit, and then I didn't stop. I bumped right into the radiator grill of the Audi, and with the Rover shuddering some, I pushed the car into a brick wall in front of the house, and there was a metallic bang as the rear bumper of the Audi struck the brick.

After I switched off the engine, both of us bailed out of the Rover. I called out to Felix, "I want to make sure he isn't going anyplace," and Felix yelled back, "Take the rear and I'll get the front, and keep your head down!"

And I did just that. I kept low when I went around the south side of the house, passing the windows and keeping a lookout so I wouldn't get ambushed. Shades and draperies were drawn, and I had gone several steps before realizing that my Beretta was now in my shaking hands. Past the putting green and across the stone patio, I got to the rear French doors, and I rattled the door handles. Locked.

Murmuring, "I've always wanted to do this," I smashed a pane of glass with the butt of the Beretta, and after reaching in to unlock the door I got into the rear dining area. I crouched down, breathing heavily, my throat feeling like the Kevlar vest was strangling me. Off to my left was the huge kitchen, with the stoves and walk-in refrigerator and collections of pots and pans hanging from the rafters. I slipped through, taking cover wherever I could find it, and remembering with great clarity a three week course in firearms training I had taken in Quantico, back in my DoD days.

Training being training, I usually got killed during those sessions. That didn't help my confidence factor much.

There was an open door in front of me, and I remembered it led to a formal dining room. I made it through the door, near a long, polished table with dining chairs along the sides. It looked as if there were fresh flowers in the center of the table. I moved along the table to the far door, then the deafening thunder of two gunshots made me drop to the floor. So damn loud! I got up, hunched near the table, my breathing even more ragged, making my ribs hurt.

"Lewis!" Felix yelled from further inside the house. "He's ---"

I didn't hear the rest because Roger Krohn came stumbling into the dining room, the door slapping open. His head was turned to Felix's voice, and I yelled, "Freeze!"

Roger turned, shocked, and then he brought his arms up, pistol in hand. He stood next to the long table, only a few feet away from me, pistol pointing at my head. My own hands were heavy but my aim didn't waver.

Roger said, almost in a conversational tone, "Looks like a bit of a standoff, doesn't it?"

"Not for long," I said, conscious that a weapon always feels heavier when you're pointing it at someone, and Roger said, "We'll see."

Felix came in, breathing harshly, his face bright red, pistol in hand.

Roger was quick. "Hold it there, Tinios. We're in a situation here, and you might succeed in wrapping things up, but your writer friend will be the first to go."

It was a terrifying tableau, the three of us in that dining room. Felix and I drawing down on Roger, and Roger drawing down on me. I blinked my eyes. The salt from the sweat trickling down my forehead made my eyes sting. My ribs and stomach hurt.

Felix, voice low and in control: "It's over, Roger. Drop it."

Roger stared at me and I stared right back, looking at the finger wrapped around the trigger, trying not to imagine seeing those muscles tense up.

"Do it, Roger," I said. "Drop the gun."

His eyes, unblinking.

"Roger," I said. Felix moved around to the other side of the table, arms extended, his own 9 mm pointing at Roger. The pistol didn't waver. I didn't move, looking at the man who wanted to be police chief, who wanted to fit in, who had been busy plotting and killing. I felt angry and scared and I felt despair, despair that I had not spotted this creature earlier.

Then he smiled.

And put both arms out, and the pistol clattered to the floor.

My chest ached so much, I realized I hadn't been breathing. Felix moved in and kicked Roger's pistol away with a foot. Roger turned to him and started saying something, and Felix punched him to the ground with two sharp, hard jabs of his fist.

Then Felix muttered something in Italian and grabbed Roger by his shirt collar. Roger was groaning as he came back up, his legs and arms loose, blood streaming down his face. Felix spun Roger around and slammed him against a wall that was covered with gilt-edged wallpaper. Dishes on a serving table rattled.

Felix stepped back, nodding as if he was satisfied, pistol still extended.

"Pat him down, will you?" Felix asked.

I holstered my own weapon at the small of my back, and moved in. Roger was against the wall, leaning on his hands. He turned his head as I came closer. Snot and blood were running down his nose. He noticed that I was watching him and he --- 

He winked. Roger winked at me.

"Felix ---"

I was too late. Roger spun around, quick as gravity, and slammed an elbow into my face, knocking me back, and I fell, my shoulders hitting the dining room table. More dishes rattled. Some yells. A door slamming open and then Roger was gone and Felix was almost as quick, stumbling past me and racing after him, and I followed, not quite believing what I had seen. The man had winked at me.

The chase was short, with Felix yelling back at me, "The bastard's gone upstairs!"

Felix raced up the sweeping staircase and I was right behind him, aiming over his shoulder at the doors that led off to the left. There was movement at the middle door and Felix fired, the enclosed roar making my ears hurt, and there was a splintering puff of wood from the doorway. We got to the upstairs landing and hallway and Felix went into the bedroom and then went out to the balcony.

Both the bedroom and the balcony were empty. Another Italian swearing session from Felix, and I said, "He's on the lawn, Felix."

And so he was. Running across the lawn in the swirling rain, and I saw him just pause for a second, as he grabbed something near his ankle, and then he resumed running down the gravel driveway, backup weapon in hand, heading out to the road and the ocean.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Felix yelled out, "Not this time!" He shoved his pistol in his waistband and then leaped over the balcony, letting himself drop past the wrought iron and the trellis, grabbing and swearing as he tumbled down to the lawn. I looked down and looked back and ran into the house. Heights don't bother me all that much but controlled falls do.