The Overseer (55 page)

There was no time to think, no time to consider the man or his words—
“It’s why you were chosen”
—only time to follow, to match her stride for stride, first to the stairs, then the sitting room, the sounds of rifle fire
echoing
from the front of the house as they leapt through the window to the grass below. Schenten’s guards were holding the men of Eisenreich at bay, giving their own lives for a man only minutes away from death, their
sacrifice
granting still others a chance for escape. Sarah raced ahead, Xander after, the woods rising like a vacuum drawing them ever nearer. It was only when he saw Sarah dive to the ground that he remembered the fence. Tumbling forward, he careened into her back, ramming both of them to within an inch of the metal spikes. She pushed him aside and removed the clippers. He snapped his head toward the house and gazed at its darkened facade, the calm exterior masking the violence within.
“It’s why you were chosen.”
The words battered at him.

Light suddenly burst forth from every window as Sarah grabbed his neck and pulled him toward the fence. She had cut through.

The next minutes passed without thought, the back of her head leading him through the trees, a path where there was none, direction where he had lost all sense. The world behind them vanished, the questions faded, only darkness—endless and unrelenting—until, in the distance, the road appeared, a final dash for the car, the branches tossed to the side, doors slammed before the bite of the engine tore through the silence.

“Drive.” Grass turned to road as the car sped into the night.

 

O’Connell sprang from his perch, his gun held to his chest as he pushed his way through the branches, feet nimble on the rooted floor below. For a large man, he showed remarkable dexterity.

It had happened quickly, as he had known it would. Sarah and Jaspers had approached the fence, unaware of the two men racing out from behind the house, rifles at the ready. Within five seconds, the men had spotted their targets; within eight, each had dropped to a knee and was taking aim. But it had been O’Connell who had fired first, two pinpoint shots of his own, the silencer muffling all but the
thwit-thwit,
both men eliminated in less than three seconds. Their bodies had collapsed on each other, forming an odd triangle in the middle of the open field.

Now he was running, aware that others would soon be in pursuit, he more concerned with the two he had been sent to protect. The
two
. Jaspers had made it. There
was
an instinct there; Stein had been right.

Up ahead, a diesel engine ignited and O’Connell quickened his pace. Two minutes later, he emerged to the road, dashed across the pressed gravel, and pulled a small motorcycle from a makeshift pile of pine and wood he had built some five hours earlier. He heard the engine to his left; within fifteen seconds, his 250 cc rumbled in response. Sliding the gun into his jacket, O’Connell mounted his bike and released the clutch. The wind slapped at his face as he searched the night for taillights.

 

Sarah leaned out the window, her ears intent on any sound other than the gnawing cough of the Rabbit’s straining motor. At the same time, she scanned the sky, certain that the helicopter would appear, waiting for its searchlight to bounce along the tree line before targeting the car and its cargo. But nothing came, no sudden intrusions, only the hollow whistle of air beating against her face. She continued to search, uneasy with the silence, until the wail of a distant siren brought her attention back to the road. She pulled her head inside and glanced at the speedometer. It
hovered
at eighty, Xander’s hands white-knuckled on the wheel.

“Slow down,” she yelled over the wind, “and try to find a turnoff.”

Xander did as he was told, bringing the car down to a reasonable speed as they both hunted for an opening. The sirens grew louder and louder, a hint of flashing light beyond the next hill, when Sarah pointed to an almost-invisible breach in the wall of trees to their right. Xander shifted the car into second gear, its frame buckling at the deceleration, and turned the wheel sharply, lurching the Rabbit down the steep slope. After thirty yards of back-wrenching bumps, he flipped off the beams and cut the engine. Above, the screech of the siren continued to mount as reflections of red and blue danced along distant trees, ever closer, until, in a near-blinding flash, the lights cascaded overhead and then gone. Xander reached for the keys, but Sarah was quick to stop him as the sound of a second siren broke through; again, reflected blues and reds flew by. Waiting for complete silence, she dropped her hand and nodded. The wheels churned through the dirt as the car inched its way back to the road, the rutted ascent no less jarring in reverse. Within half a minute, they were tearing along at eighty.

“You’ll wait in the car while I go in for her,” said Sarah, her eyes once more searching the sky through the windshield. Xander muscled the car around a curve, his eyes fixed on the limits of the high beams. “Did you hear me?”

“I wait; you go.” The words were spoken in rote monotone. “Yes.”

For the next mile, they traveled in silence.

“She should be able to sleep in the back,” explained Sarah. “I don’t think she’ll be too much of a bother.”

“Fine.” Again silence.

Sarah turned to him. “What?”

He continued to stare at the road.

“Is it the schedule, Schenten, what?” She stared into his face, saw the
tension
in his jaw. “Does this have to do with what happened at the motel?”

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” he asked, clearly oblivious to her
questions
, “that I’ve managed to survive through all of this?”

It took her a moment to answer. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess I’m just grateful.”

He looked over at her, then turned and took the car to ninety.

Another minute passed before she spoke. “What happened back there?”

He laughed in disbelief. “Happened? A man was killed. That’s what
happened
. A man just like Carlo, or Emil, or Feric. Schenten was just another to be sacrificed.” A controlled rage laced his words. “And, yet, through it all, I somehow manage to remain unscathed. Now, that’s
strange
, isn’t it? How do we explain that?”

She tried to understand. “What are you asking me?”

“I’m not asking
you
. … I’m simply asking. Yesterday, an hour ago, I would have been too frightened, too relieved to think of anything but my own survival. Then again,” the self-mockery more apparent, “I did write that
neat
little memo that gives me a purpose in all of this, didn’t I? That’s high on the
erudition scale,
isn’t it? Problem is, it doesn’t really count.
Theory
won’t explain why I’ve managed to survive to this point.”

“What
are you talking about?”

“You want to believe you’re a killer—fine. You want to believe that in all of this, that’s your
purpose
, the reason you were
chosen
—”

“Slow down,” she broke in, uncomfortable with his tone.

“‘
It’s why you were chosen,
’” he barked. “Didn’t you hear what Schenten said, what he said about
me?
” He glanced over at her. “Don’t you get it? You’re not the only one who’s been handpicked to take part in all of this.”

“You think—”

“I don’t
think
,” he cut her off, his focus again the road. “I heard it, saw it in his eyes. Even he seemed surprised to find out that I had no idea.”

“No idea about what?”

“I
don’t
know. How I tie in. Why I was chosen.
My
purpose.”

“Chosen for what?” she asked. “By whom?” She started to reach for him, then stopped, her shoulders inching away. “You mean
me
?”

He glanced over at her. “
What
?”

“You said ‘chosen.’ I was the one who got in touch with you. That would seem to say that—”

“What?” For a moment, the anger and confusion faded from his eyes. “That’s not it at all. You’re the only reason I’m still holding on. I’ve told you that.”

“Then what
do
you mean?” she asked defensively.

He looked back at the road. “I don’t know.” The motel sign appeared on the left. Xander slowed and pulled the car into the driveway. “I stay. You go.” His tone was again distant. She stared at him, then opened the door.

 

O’Connell cut the engine and coasted to the top of the hill, guiding the bike onto the shoulder and the relative cover of the tree line. A hundred yards below, the Rabbit sat idling in the drive of a roadside motel, the
passenger
door open. He inched himself tighter against the trees, stopped, and pulled out a pair of binoculars as the sound of a helicopter rose from
somewhere
off to his right. But it was Sarah who drew his attention as she emerged from one of the rooms, a second figure at her side, bundled within blankets and pillows. He watched as both stooped and slid into the car, Sarah slamming the door as the VW accelerated to the road. An instant later, a set of giant rotors appeared hovering just above the trees. The copter banked to the right and swung low, its high beams lighting up the back of the speeding Rabbit, which now serpentined across both lanes. Rifle fire exploded from above.

O’Connell fired up the engine and surged out onto the road. With his right hand, he pulled a gun from his jacket, this one far larger than the small precision piece he had used to compromise the two men in the field. He squeezed the throttle and brought the motorcycle to within twenty yards of the bird, whose nose was edging ever closer to its prey. The rear rotor, however, was riding high and exposed, a position all too vulnerable to someone with a trained eye. Leaning into the wind, O’Connell raised his gun and fired.

The recoil from the shot forced him to swerve, the grassy ledge of the shoulder coming precariously close before he straightened himself out and regained the center line. Meanwhile, the helicopter had banked high, his bullets evidently having missed their mark, a second high beam now appearing to target him in its blinding attack. Shots cascaded from above, peppering the road around him and forcing him to careen from side to side, both his hands essential to the task. With another burst of speed, he raced to the bird’s underbelly, zigzagging with it so as to maintain his
position
directly beneath, the huge bulk unable to shake him. Again, he drew his gun. Again, he fired. This time, his aim was true. Smoke billowed from the fuselage as the rear rotor began to jump haphazardly from side to side. He slowed and let off several more shots. As if caught in a sudden updraft, the helicopter bounced high in the air, twisting on itself like a giant top out of control. She was going down. She would be forced to land.

He swung out wide on the narrow road, taking the motorcycle to its
limits
so as to slip past the dying bird. Once beyond her, he tried to reaccustom his eyes to the darkened road; even so, he could find no trace of the two red dots he had been following for the last half hour. Over his shoulder, he saw the results of his handiwork, four or five bodies leaping from the smoke,
several
of them spraying the carcass in an attempt to keep the helicopter from exploding. But no Rabbit. As he shifted forward, however, he caught sight of something off to his right, something flickering through the trees,
mirroring
his own movement. It took less than a second to recognize it—
taillights
. There, deep within the woods, the VW bounced defiantly, its driver somehow having found an inroad to the dense cover.
Bloody brilliant.