Shadow Catcher (16 page)

CHAPTER 32

W
ulóng watched Baron's woman walk out onto the back deck with a small bag of supplies slung over her shoulder, cradling her son in her arms. She appeared to be taking the child down to the dock or the shoreline. He watched with interest for a moment. Then he lowered the binoculars and raised his weapon.

A scope was not necessary, as she would pass within a few meters of his position in the trees. He lined up the tritium sites on her forehead, just above the left eye. Though Western women were not normally to his taste, Wulóng found this one beautiful, and beautiful women made more interesting targets—the alteration that tragedy wrought upon their features was always more dramatic. As she passed his position, he shifted his aim to the child.

Wulóng pressed his lips together. He hated to begin out here. Even with the trees to mute the cries. The home's interior offered much better cover. The sun had just begun to set. He had time.

As the woman sat down by the shore of the river, he lowered his weapon. He bent down and flipped on the cell phone jammer. Then he silently crept through the trees, heading for the front of the house.

* * *

Nick glanced down at his cell phone and frowned. For the third time, Katy's line went straight to voice mail. Maybe she had turned her phone off to put the baby down. Maybe she was just still mad. He hung up and set the phone down in the Mustang's cup holder.

The rescue CONOPS was complete. Takeoff was set for the dark hours of the early morning. He hated to delay the rescue, but if the team launched any earlier, they would arrive over Fujian in daylight. In general, daylight infiltration into a sovereign nation was a bad idea. With nothing left but the waiting, Nick had headed home, hoping to reconcile with Katy before he had to leave again.

As he stepped onto the porch, Nick noticed that his front door was cracked slightly open again. He sighed. “Are you trying to bait me into another attack?” he called, walking into the house and closing the door.

Something whizzed past his head and thudded into the wall. Instinctively, Nick sprinted for the cover of the study. Fragments of plaster and tile pelted his arms and legs as a fusillade of bullets tracked down the wall and across the floor at his heels. He dove through the half-open French doors, rolling into the room and landing with a crash against his desk.

Katy.

Nick wanted to scream out her name, tell her to grab Luke and run. But he knew that calling to her could just as easily bring her into the line of fire. He tried to dial her on his cell phone. He had no signal. That was why he couldn't reach her before. The attacker was using a jammer.

Nick fought to suppress all the reactionary instincts of a husband and father. He had to slow down and think, become the same violent professional that his wife seemed to despise. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. A situation breakdown started rolling through his mind. How many bullets? Where had they come from? He knew the answer to the first question. His subconscious had recorded the unsteady rhythm of the impacts. Twelve distinct percussive sounds: eight shots and four ricochets, fired from a silenced pistol. Determining where they came from was another trick entirely.

Where was Katy?

Crouched in the corner of his office, Nick listened intently for movement, for Katy, the attacker, anything.

Nothing.

Four of the bullets had bounced off the tile and immediately thumped into the wall. Those ricochets meant the bullets had been fired at a low angle. The shooter was on the ground floor. Based on obstacles and walls, that left the sitting room or the kitchen. Nick used a toe to nudge open the closed side of the French doors. Instantly one of the glass panels shattered, and a bullet lodged itself into the far corner of his mahogany desk. That answered the second question. Wherever he'd started from, the shooter was now in the kitchen.

Nick lifted the cuff of his pants, reaching for his knife, but it wasn't there. He'd packed it with his mission gear in Romeo Seven's locker room. He needed a weapon. Crawling behind the desk, he reached up and groped around in the center drawer. Stapler, coins,
scissors.
Using a dime, he separated the two pieces, transforming the mundane tool into a pair of ring-handled daggers. He hefted them in his hands. They were a little too light, but they would have to do.

The longer he waited, the more advantage he gave to the shooter; Nick had to move. He stood, pressing himself against the bookshelf set into the study's back wall. Then he took two long steps and leapt headfirst across the foyer, twisting in midair. He saw a muted flash. Burning pain shot through his side. He launched one of his makeshift daggers. Just before he landed in the dining room, he saw the projectile sink into the hostile's left shoulder. He recognized the face. Wulóng.

Nick forced himself to continue forward. Ignoring the pain in his midsection and the wet feel of blood trickling down to his waistband, he made for the dining-room entry to the kitchen, hoping to outflank the Chinese assailant. He ducked into the butler's pantry, crouching in the same spot from which he'd sprung into the kitchen the night before. For a brief moment, he wondered if this were some bizarre waking nightmare, if he were about to unconsciously finish what he started when he attacked Katy the evening before.

He pushed the thought out of his mind and listened. Silence. Wulóng was cautious. Stalking him. The last few minutes had shown the assassin that Nick was no easy kill. Now he carefully advanced, but from which direction? Then Nick heard the faintest scrape of coarse fabric against granite. It could just as easily have been a trick of the mind as a real noise, but he committed. He rose and spun out of his hiding place, holding the scissor handle like an ice pick, thrusting the blade in a wide arc.

Wulóng's eyes widened with pain and rage as Nick forced the makeshift knife between the bones in his forearm. He did not scream, though. He did not even grunt, even though the blade burst out the other side of his arm.

The strike knocked the gun from Wulóng's hand, sending it clattering across the kitchen floor and under the stove. Nick pulled back his homemade dagger, slicing tendons as he removed it from Wulóng's wrist. Only then did he notice that his first weapon was no longer embedded in the attacker's shoulder. He raised his right arm in defense, just in time to deflect a slashing blow aimed at his face. He felt the sickening slice as Wulóng carved a deep gash into his forearm. Then the back door opened. Nick risked a glance.

Dear God, no.

“Nick?” Katy stood just inside the back door wearing a look of horror. Luke slept peacefully, nestled in her arms.

“Run!” he shouted.

Wulóng took advantage of his distraction. He landed a right cross that sent Nick reeling back. When he regained his balance, Nick saw Katy bolting through the back door with the assassin in close pursuit. He tore after them.

“Stop, or she dies,” said the assassin.

Nick halted just outside the door. Wulóng stood on the deck, just ten feet away. He had Katy by the hair, the point of the bloody scissors blade pressed against her throat.

“If she screams, I will kill her. If you move, I will kill her,” said Wulóng, his voice like ice.

Nick began to circle right, trying to put the assassin off balance.

“I said stop.” Wulóng pressed the blade harder into Katy's throat to emphasize his command. A drop of blood formed at the tip and rolled down the blade.

Nick froze. “She has nothing to do with you,” he said. “She doesn't know who you are or why you are here. Let her go.”

Wulóng grinned, his expression full of malice. “Put down your weapon now, Major Baron.”

Nick hesitated, but Wulóng yanked Katy's head back by her hair. She let out a terrified yelp. Luke woke up and began to cry. Nick leaned forward and stuck his half of the scissors straight down into the wooden rail of the deck. Then he took a step back and slowly raised his hands. “Let her go. You came to kill me, not them.”

Wulóng smiled. “To borrow a cliché from your American movies, if I had come here to kill you, then you would already be dead. Tsk, tsk.” He shook his head slowly. “You came home a little early this evening. You interrupted my process. Most unfortunate.” He wiped his damaged arm on Katy's face, smearing his blood across her cheek. Katy recoiled, but he quickly grabbed her hair and jerked her back.

“This is not about killing. It is about control,” continued Wulóng. “I only need one of these in order to maintain that control. The other one will serve as a demonstration of my resolve.” He glanced down at the wailing baby, his expression grim, decisive.

“If you do as you are told,” said the assassin, lowering the blade toward Luke, “perhaps you will both live to have another son.”

The world slowed, as if every movement were made against the heavy resistance of black tar. The killer's hand seemed to move only a fraction of an inch per second. Nick's eyes did not leave Katy's as he lunged forward. Her face contorted in pure maternal rage. She tightened her grip on her screaming child with her right arm. With her left, she pushed Wulóng's scissors away. At the same time, her left heel came crashing down against his instep. Nick planted his left foot and snatched the scissors blade from the deck rail, slashing upward at the assassin's neck. Katy screamed as a shower of blood splattered the deck chair behind her.

Wulóng went limp and collapsed. Katy fled to the other side of the deck and crumpled into a ball, sobbing and pressing Luke to her chest.

Nick dropped the bloody scissors to the deck and lifted the assassin by the collar. Blood poured over his hands. “Who sent you?” he demanded.

Wulóng only gurgled in response. Then the life faded from his staring eyes, and his head fell back.

Nick rushed over to Katy. He helped her to her feet and held her tightly. “Are you all right?”

Katy did not answer. She continued to cry, her cheek still pressed against her wailing son. The left side of her face and neck was covered in blood.

Nick led his wife over to a chair and sat her down. “I need to get you some warm washcloths to clean you up,” he said, starting for the door.

Katy grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Don't leave me,” she pleaded.

Nick knelt down beside the chair. He kissed her forehead and caressed his son. “I won't, sweetheart. I won't.” But the moment the promise left his lips, he knew that he could not keep it.

CHAPTER 33

“Y
ou're leaving again, aren't you?” asked Katy. She and Nick sat at the dining-room table. She still held Luke in her arms; Nick had not been able to convince her to let him go. At least the baby had fallen asleep again, exhausted from his crying. The assassin's pistol lay in the middle of the table, a trash bag full of bloody rags on the kitchen floor.

Walker was on his way with a team from Romeo Seven. Nick had only just called him. The phone lines were dead, and he had to peel himself away from Katy's grasp and treat her wounds before committing to a search for the cell phone jammer. It took him several minutes to find it, a small suitcase tucked into the trees outside. He discovered a skiff as well, but there was nothing inside but a pair of waders.

Their wounds were minor, considering the attack. Nick had already begun to treat Katy when he remembered that he had been shot, but when he lifted his shirt, he only found a blood-caked abrasion. Apparently the bullet had just grazed him. The deep gash in his arm was much more pressing and would probably require stitches. With Katy's help, he cleaned it thoroughly and then wrapped it with gauze. They also cleaned the puncture wound in her neck. Once they had wiped away all of the blood—both hers and Wulóng's—they found only a minor cut.

“This isn't over,” said Nick, diverting his eyes from Katy's pleading gaze.

“It is for you,” she countered, grabbing his chin and turning his head back until their eyes met again. “You're just an adviser, right?”

Nick pulled away from her and sighed. Why couldn't she just be happy to be alive? Why did she have to interrogate him, make him lie to her? “I have to protect you,” he said forcefully. “And to do that, I have to find out what's going on. You don't understand.”

Katy looked down at Luke. “You're right. I don't.”

Walker arrived with Drake and a small crew to clean up the mess. While Doc Heldner tended to Katy, the colonel pulled Nick into the study. “We've already contacted the Chinese Embassy,” he said with his usual scowl. “They claim that they will launch a full investigation, which is dignitary speak for ‘sweep it under the rug.'” His eyes narrowed. “McBride tells me this is your guy from the morgue stakeout. What did I tell you about digging into your leak theory?”

“It paid off, didn't it?” asked Nick. “How else do you explain his presence in Kuwait ten years ago?”

“The sergeant says this guy gets around,” said the colonel, waving Nick's argument away. “A lot of foreign intelligence operatives found their way to Kuwait during the first few days of Iraqi Freedom. That place was brimming with the latest American military tech. As for his presence here, I'm thinking this is revenge for taking out his divers.”

Nick shook his head. “No, Wulóng said that he wasn't here to kill me.”

“He just said that to keep you off balance. Would you expect the truth?”

Despite the colonel's frustration at being kept in the dark about Wulóng, Nick convinced him to let the rescue attempt continue. But to make it happen, the team would have to stick to the original launch schedule. There would be no extra rest. Nick would have to report back to the base just after one o'clock in the morning, only a few hours away.

When the crew finally left, Nick lay down in his bed next to Katy. The full moon cast its light through their sheer curtains, sending dull white beams across the sheets. He stared at the ceiling, unable to shut down his mind. How did it all connect? What role did Wulóng play in the failure a decade before? How could he possibly be tied to Novak? Nick could not find the answers, nor could he find sleep. Finally, he rose and began to dress. “Are you awake?” he whispered.

Katy just shifted in the bed, rolling over to put her back to him. Nick walked around to her side of the bed. Her eyes were closed, the comforter clutched tightly to her chest. He bent down to kiss her cheek and tasted the wet saltiness of tears. Her eyes opened, moist and glistening in the moonlight.

“I love you,” he said.

She looked away in silence.