The Avenger (34 page)

"If anything happens to Olivia," Slater said, flashing Warren a meaningful look, "I'll look for who's to blame in this mess."

Warren didn't have the luxury of worrying about the woman. He had to prioritize his objectives. First, get the antidote to Jack. Second, kill the DLK. Then, rescue the doctor.

In that precise order. And his conscience be damned.

#

How dare she challenge him!
Randolph opened his mouth to speak, raised his hand to strike the impudent whore whose voice demanded rather than begged. But he looked again at her face, her imperial manner, her majesty.

Maria, not Olivia.
She struck his heart with the stark purity of her gaze. Surely she was the Mother of God. He'd chosen well this time, and of course, she was correct. The clouded veil over his mind lifted.

Suffer not the woman to behold her nakedness.
Had he read that somewhere in the
Old Testament?
Or had he made it up? No matter, the words were profound, and as God's true, pure messenger, he had inherited the call to compose scripture.

He picked up a hooded cloak that lay on the cathedra positioned behind the altar, and wrapped it around her shoulders, tying the tassels loosely and slipping the hood over her dark head. The luminous pools of her eyes stared at him briefly before dipping in modesty. Good, she understood her role in the miracle play they'd begun enacting.

He hadn't yet decided to keep his original intention and sacrifice Maria as the others had been. He glanced sideways at her. After her earlier burst of fury, she appeared submissive. Had she fallen under the strength of his righteousness, under the power of God's will?

Or was she trying to trick him? Evil abounded everywhere and suspicion ran high in his nature as was the nature of any true Avenger of God.

Whichever, Maria was magnificent, small, with long dark hair. The Mother of the Lamb of God descended from the Tribe of Judah. To imagine her as blonde was blasphemy. The Mother of God was darkly regal like this woman, his Maria.

He hesitated briefly. Except for the green eyes. They disturbed him in a way he didn't comprehend. He pushed the thought of those blazing emeralds aside. She might carry the child ... then who could deny her nobility proved by immaculate conception?

He raked his eyes over her again, imagining the naked body beneath the robe, the luscious breasts, the supple arms and legs. Briefly he imagined himself enveloped in that embrace, lying between those legs, thrusting ...

No! Blood pounded in his head and he pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. Was she the mother of God? Or a Jezebel who tempted him to break his own vows?

Part of him longed for the former while a powerful rage of desire tormented him. He clenched his fists at his sides. If she turned out to be other than who she pretended to be, by all that was holy, he'd extract an awful penance.

He thought of the package he'd bought at a drug store on the way here. When he required her to perform the test, he'd know for sure. If she didn't now carry a child, if the test was negative and she was barren, her falseness would be proved by the results.

#

When they reached the parking lot of the abandoned church at 10098 Winding Ranch Road, Warren pulled a weapon from his shoulder holster and advanced to the front of the building. Slater followed closely.

"They're in there." Slater had drawn his own weapon and it dangled at his side.

"Seems so."

"Olivia's my friend," Slater said. "I'm not waiting for backup."

"I figure the two of us are enough."

Slater squinted and looked over at the slight form of Higgins standing some yards way.

Warren glanced at his assistant. "Let's just say some folks fare better behind a desk."

"Let's do it then," Slater said without argument.

Chapter Twenty-nine

With Jack's keen hearing he detected the rattle of wind and whisper of voices, and in the distance the scream of sirens. He judged how far away by the wailing that rang in his sensitized ears. Seventeen minutes, two patrol cars.

The Judge's bullish scent reached Jack's nostrils strong and clear. So Warren had come and was close by. Not that it mattered. The whole situation would be over before anyone had a chance to enter the church.

Olivia's higher-pitched but soft voice tinkled through the musty air like chimes in a breeze, and it was followed quickly by the oily sound of Randolph's words. Jack moved stealthily toward the source of the sounds, his knife blade clenched between his teeth. The sweat of the hunt slicked his flesh and he flashed back to the jungles of Africa and his last mission. It might all end here, he thought.

The aroma of incense and smoking candles wafted through the building as he edged carefully through the dim room. The hollow slap of Olivia's bare footsteps and the much heavier tread of the killer's shoes resounded through the church.

Jack darted behind a sleek column and peered into the large vault of the church's interior. Randolph held Olivia's left hand. Although her eyes had a heavy look, she appeared unharmed. Her bare feet showed from beneath the hem of a brown robe that covered her body and fell to the floor. In a single moment, she looked up and then quickly away as he jerked behind the column.

Good. She'd seen him.

He removed the knife from his teeth and hefted it once, twice. Grasping the knife by the blade, he raised his hand over his head and aimed for the vulnerable eye socket where the tip would pierce the brain and bring instant death. He darted another look around the column. Olivia stood between him and the target, an inadvertent barrier protecting Randolph.

He hesitated.

In the moment that he wavered, the quiet creak of a door opening in the foyer alerted him to someone entering the church. The Judge.

Stupid move.
There was a reason Warren avoided field assignments at his age.

Howard Randolph reacted to the sound immediately, pulling Olivia in front of him and using her as a human shield. He eased backward one pace at a time. Jack stepped from the shadows in full view, his back to the foyer of the church. Olivia strained against the vise of Howard's arm around her waist.

"Bitch!" Randolph snarled and cuffed her hard on the face with his free hand.

From the pocket of his robe, he pulled a .32 caliber Baretta and pressed the barrel against her temple, his left arm still secure around her waist. The weapon was so small it looked like a toy, but Jack knew its lethal capacity.

"Back up, Agent Holt," Randolph ordered.

Had the threat to Olivia been a knife to her throat, Jack would've thrown his dagger straight for Randolph's exposed eyes. And he would've enjoyed watching the life drain out of the man as the blade penetrated the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. He was that sure of his skill.

But even as fast as his reflexes were, he couldn't outrace the speed of a bullet. Livvie would be dead while his knife still flung through the air. His heart tripled-hammered in his chest, a fearful staccato wholly unfamiliar to him. He glanced once at her as her fingers dug into the powerful arms clutching her waist while rage flooded through him like the roar of a waterfall.

The risk was too great.

Slowly, he lowered the knife, crouched down, and laid it on the marbled floor.

"That's a good boy," Randolph taunted. "Are you wondering how I know who you are, Agent Holt? Wondering how I knew where you'd hidden her." He indicated Olivia with a jerking of his chin. "While you've followed me, I've followed you." He grinned. "And her, of course."

"I suppose you must be a very smart man, Randolph." Jack bared his teeth and growled quietly. "A computer search, an informant who knew, or you followed her. What does it matter?"

"It doesn't. My, look at you, Agent Holt dressed like a cast member of ... what?
The Lord of the Flies?"
His shrill laugh revealed his disintegrating mind.

"Which character are you, I wonder?" he continued. "Are you Jack, Jack? Or Ralph? I'd have guessed Ralph when I saw you years ago, dressed so tidily in your federal costume of suit and white shirt. So sure that the rules would save everyone."

The gun wavered in Randolph's hand while Jack considered rushing him. A mere leap and he'd be on him, ripping his throat out with gnashing teeth.

"But now," Randolph continued, "seeing you in your primordial state, I realize you're not Jack. Not even Ralph. But Roger." He nodded as if answering his own question. "Yes, Roger of the simian brow and the jutting jaw. Man at his most primitive."

Jack thought of Roger Strong, Olivia's stepfather, and tamped down the fury. "Shut the fuck up." The words came with a calm and coldness he didn't feel. As if he were the one who held all the cards, but the emotion was that of a beast in pain.

Then the reflection of red and blue lights – from a patrol car, probably – flashed through the stained glass windows.

"Cops are here, Randolph," Jack snarled. "You'll never get out alive."
And if you put down that gun, you'll be dead in less than a second. I'll gut you faster than a hog for slaughtering.

At Jack's warning, Livvie's expression changed and he imagined he saw revulsion fixed there, not for her captor, but for him, her would-be rescuer. The thought jarred him deeply.

Randolph's eyes darted to the vestibule. "She dies first," he threatened, digging the pistol harder into Olivia's temple. "Kick the knife this way," he ordered.

Jack heard the footsteps that crept through the vestibule into the church interior. Two men. He inhaled deeply and caught the familiar scent of his mentor and the steady odor of his old friend.
The Judge and Slater.

Suddenly a white, hot pain jabbed his right eye and he felt the burning sensation in his kidney. He nearly gasped aloud.
Oh shit!
Now he knew why Warren had showed up. The overdose of lysergic was shutting down Jack's systems.

Not yet, he begged silently.

He shook his head and forced himself to focus. He needed a single swipe to topple his enemy, but he couldn't risk that Randolph's involuntary jerking would release the hair trigger of the gun and discharge the weapon. He nudged the knife closer to where the man stood, still shielding himself with Livvie's body.

Randolph crouched, dragging his captive down with him until they both squatted on the floor. "Get it," he ordered, shoving Olivia forward so that she could grasp the knife where it had landed mere inches from her feet.

Instinct shouted that this was the moment. Would Olivia know what to do? Jack caught her eye, gave her a silent message. Without considering the consequences, he leapt forward and caught Randolph under the chin. A sharp blow to the throat with an elbow toppled him.

Olivia flung herself flat on the floor while the gun discharged, loud as a cannon shot in the vast, vaulted room. The robe slid off her shoulders and fell to the ground. She lay on her stomach, knees curled up beneath her, arms straight out for balance. She stared at Jack over her arm, her face reflecting horror and shock.

That she witnessed him like this – carnal and primed for the kill – wounded him.

Jack's forearm pressed against Randolph's throat and he waited to hear the distinct crunch that signaled the crushing of the small bones of the neck. Her eyes wide with shock, Livvie stared as he tightened his strangle-hold on Howard Randolph.

Easing back, gazing into Olivia's stunned face, Jack wormed his way into her mind, and saw himself through her eyes. A wild brute, fierce, lustful, without reason or rationale. A creature driven by instincts and the basest desires. One which could kill without conscience or qualm.

The latest model of the Invictus soldier.

Jack remembered when Olivia had promised to love him no matter what. But how could she love a man like that? His heart thundered, the blood burned in his veins, and his muscles collapsed with fatigue. Loosening his grip on Howard Randolph, Jack rolled over onto his back.

The last thing he saw before his eyesight narrowed to a small, dark tunnel was the Judge's florid face hovering over him.

#

Slater slammed the suspect to the floor and jerked his hands behind him, kneeling hard with his right knee in the center of the man's back. He then tightened the cuffs in a vicious twist. The DLK suspect coughed and sputtered, his throat an angry red blotch.

Warren knelt over Jack, whose face and arms were clammy to the touch. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his body temperature had plummeted. Warren placed two fingers on the carotid artery and felt the pulse, erratic and faint.

From the corner of his eye, he assessed the situation inside the church. The Gant woman sprawled naked on the floor. The Sheriff grabbed the fallen robe, covered her, and gently led her to the row of hard wooden benches. Held her in his arms like she was crystal.

Warren checked Jack's eyes for mydriasis. His pupils were blown, a clear symptom of the overdose. He wasn't a doctor, but he'd seen enough men die that he knew Jack was in trouble. Any moment his internal organs would shut down one by one. The kidneys first, then the circulatory system, and finally cardiac arrest. The distant whine of the ambulance siren reached his ears and he estimated their ETA about five or six minutes.

Not soon enough.

"Bring the damn medeport," he yelled to Myron Higgins.

Higgins, who had hovered in the foyer, scurried over, opened the medical portage unit, and reached for the syringe and the first bottle of serum.

"Straight into the veins," the Judge instructed while Higgins filled the syringe and tapped the raised needle. "Use the neck."

Higgins injected the first vial into the vein at Jack's throat as the Judge prepared the second one. "We'll use the femoral artery for this one."

His assistant looked up in surprise. "Sir, that's a dangerous spot for the injection site."

"Hell, take a good look at him. He's no good to me if I can't bring him completely back. We don't want a goddamn vegetable. We don't have any choice."