Day Of Wrath (45 page)

He stayed still a moment longer, waiting for more gunfire.

Nothing.

Still panting in short, shallow gasps from his frantic dash out of the car, Reichardt took quick stock of his surroundings. He was deep in the woods—at least a hundred yards from the road.

Briers he’d snagged during his initial, panicked flight had ripped holes in his wool slacks, torn his jacket, and even drawn blood from his hands. But he still had his pistol, his briefcase, and his cell phone.

The phone! He could summon help from Ibrahim’s estate security force or even the local police.

Reichardt fumbled in his pockets. Where was it? He swore softly. The cell phone was gone. It must have fallen out onto the ground during his dash for safety. He tried drying the sweat from his palms on his jacket, knowing he would have to press on. If he could just outdistance his pursuers he could find a house and beg for help or flag down a passing car.

The German started moving again—still angling away from the road. For now he needed the concealment the woods offered more than the speed he could have attained on pavement.

Reichardt stumbled into a low-hanging branch, felt a sharp twig draw more blood from his cheek, and swore again angrily.

This was not right. As a servant of the East German state and then as a freelance terrorist, he had been a master of men’s lives for more than twenty years. He was always the hunter—never the hunted!

He pushed through more brush and then stopped dead in his tracks.

He’d come to a sluggish stream wending its way downhill through the trees. The watercourse wasn’t wide—almost narrow enough to jump, in fact. But the bank sloshed muddy and slippery.

More to the point now, the forest canopy parted above the stream—allowing more light to fall on the weed-choked water.

Frowning, Reichardt turned to peer behind him again. He snarled. It was hopeless. It was as dark as a witch’s heart under those trees. He could see nothing.

He plunged ahead, squelched through the soft ground, and waded into the knee-high water. Ripples spread across the still surface.

“Freeze I” Shocked by the shout from behind him, Reichardt felt sudden terror grip his heart. It was the woman, Gray. He exploded into motion—surging toward the opposite bank.

Blam.

The bullet caught him in the fleshy part of the left thigh and spun him halfway around. My God. He lurched forward. There was no pain. Not yet. That would come later. He gained firmer footing and stumbled forward, panting louder now.

Blam.

A second bullet hit him, this one in the right shoulder. His own pistol went flying off into the mud and tall grass. Reichardt moaned aloud. No!

Clutching his briefcase tightly to his chest, he limped out of the stream and into the sheltering darkness beyond. He’d gone a few yards when his wounded leg abruptly gave out—dumping him flat on his face in the undergrowth.

Reichardt heard someone else crashing through the woods nearby—on this side of the stream. It couldn’t be that bitch who’d shot him. Could it be Brandt? His probing fingers found the torn and bleeding edges of the exit wound in his thigh and recoiled. It had to be Brandt. Please God, let it be Brandt!

Still holding the briefcase, he dragged himself toward the noise, crawling awkwardly on his stomach. “Johann! Johann!” he whispered harshly, hissing now as the first fiery tendrils of pain coursed through him. “Hill mir! Hill mir!”

His scrabbling fingers touched a shoe. A man’s shoe. Reichardt looked up, smiling. His smile faded slowly.

Lawrence Mcdowell looked down at him. A puffy bruise covered half the senior
FBI
agent’s cheek. He held a pistol—a 9mm
SIGSAUER
.

Reichardt caught the acrid smell of burnt powder on the weapon. It had been fired recently. He grabbed at the cuff of the other man’s pants, pointing back the way he’d come. “The woman Gray is there! You must kill her, PEREGRINE! It is the only way you can be safe!”

Mcdowell smiled nastily. “I will kill her, Herr Wolf. After I finish my business with you.” He raised the pistol. “I’m canceling my debt, you bastard. Permanently.”

Reichardt saw the muzzle center on his forehead. In horror, he saw Mcdowell’s finger tighten on the trigger.

“Noooooo!”

Reichardt stopped screaming when the bullet tore through his brain and sent him straight to hell.

Helen Gray jumped lightly across the stream, skidded on the slippery ground, and quickly recovered her balance. She’d been tracking Wolf cautiously—aware that, like a wounded animal, even an injured man could still be dangerous. Then she’d heard the voices coming from a thicket a few yards away. Had Wolf’s driver evaded Peter and linked up with his employer? Her mind would not accept the other explanation.

Peter was alive. He had to be alive.

The high-pitched, womanish scream and the echoing gunshot took her by surprise.

She lunged forward through the screening brush and froze—staring in shock at Larry Mcdowell, the gun in his hand, and the twisted, mangled corpse at his feet. Her old boss was still grinning nastily at the man he’d just murdered. Heinrich Wolf, their only link to the smuggled shipment from Russia, and their only hope of clearing their names, was dead.

“You shit, Mcdowell,” Helen said softly. She swung her Beretta on line. “Drop the goddamned gun …”

Mcdowell looked up and seemed to see her for the first time.

An odd, almost maniacal glee danced in his eyes. He shook his head.

“What are you going to do, Helen? Kill me? How are you going to explain that?”

“I’m not kidding, Larry,” Helen said tightly. “Drop the gun.

Now!”

Mcdowell laughed harshly. “Screw you, bitch!” He lifted the SIG-Sauer, pointing it toward her.

Blinded by a sudden wave of cold fury, Helen pulled the trigger.

And again. And again. And again.

Slowly, still shaking, she eased up on the trigger, staring over the muzzle at the carnage her bullets had created. Her first shot had caught Mcdowell low—well below the stomach. Each successive 9mm round had climbed higher—ending in one that blew his face apart.

Helen sank to her hands and knees, retching uncontrollably.

She felt icecold now, too cold ever to be warm again.

When she was done, she rose to her feet, still shivering. She slipped the Beretta back in her holster—succeeding on the second try—and fished out the cellular phone they’d taken off Mcdowell back at the bed-and-breakfast. In a daze, she punched in a number she’d memorized and then heard the phone connect.

“Farrell.”

“Sam,” Helen heard herself say weakly. “I need your help, Sam. Things have gone terribly wrong …”

JUNE
18

Super 6 Motor Lodge, Near Falls Church, Virginia

Helen Gray blotted away some dried blood and dirt with a cotton ball soaked in iodine, finished taping down the gauze pad, and then stepped back to admire her handiwork. “How’s it feel?”

“Ouch,” Thorn said. He raised his bruised right arm, winced, and then gingerly touched the bandaged side of his head. “I’ll live, I guess, but I have a feeling I’m not going to win any beauty contests this year.”

“You’ve got that right, mister,” Helen said—working very hard to keep the same light, cheerful tone.

She was still grappling with the emotional trauma of their bloody early morning gun battle. Losing Heinrich Wolf, their only solid witness to the Caraco-run smuggling operation, was bad. Killing Mcdowell was worse. She was also uncomfortably aware that she’d carried out something very close to an execution on Mcdowell. Once she’d fired that first shot, she’d never even considered trying to take him alive.

But the biggest nightmare of all had been the sudden, blinding fear that Peter Thorn might be dead—torn forever out of her life. They’d faced death twice before in the past couple of weeks, but always together—never apart and alone.

After Helen had made that frantic phone call to Farrell, she’d held herself together just long enough to search Wolf’s and Mcdowell’s bodies for any possible evidence. Then, with tears staining her cheeks, she’d stumbled back through the pitchblack woods to where they’d left the two cars. And there she’d found Peter sitting by the side of the road with his injured head in his hands—blood-spattered, dazed, and furiously angry at himself, but alive.

Mcdowell had hit him over the head with a rock—clearly intending to kill him. Only the fact that he’d reacted fast enough to ward off some of the impact with his arm had saved his life.

That and the fact that the traitorous
FBI
agent must have rushed off to chase down Wolf without making sure he was dead.

Still tearful, though with relief now and not sorrow, she’d managed to bundle Peter into the back seat of Wolf’s Chrysler, pat down the body of the driver for any more evidence, and then head back to pick up Farrell outside Caraco’s Chantilly complex.

Pressed for time, she’d been forced to leave Mcdowell’s bulletriddled Ford parked out in the open on the shoulder.

Helen had hated to do that. The abandoned car would act as a beacon to the next passing patrol can-signaling that something very wrong had happened along that isolated stretch of road. More to the point, their fingerprints were all over the car, and even a cursory check of the government-issue plates would reveal it had been signed out to
FBI
Deputy Assistant Director Lawrence Mcdowell—now missing.

Not good, she thought grimly. Not good at all.

Helen checked her watch. It was after eleven in the morning.

By now, there might very easily be an
APB
out for the three of them.

And the charges against them could range from kidnapping to murder.

Somehow, in the space of just a few days, she and Peter had managed to push the punishments they were facing from likely administrative reprimands to possible imprisonment, and now maybe even the death penalty.

She shook her head in dismay. It was best to focus on the immediate future. For the moment they were free and still in a position to try something—anything—to stop whatever Heinrich Wolf and his employer, Ibrahim, had planned.

The hours since their abortive attempt to capture Wolf had passed in a dizzying blur. After a quick cleanup in the rest room of a large, busy gas station, she, Peter, and Farrell had found an out-of-the way residential street and abandoned the Chrysler.

With luck, it might be days before the neighbors compared notes and discovered it didn’t belong to a visitor or anyone local.

Next, they’d phoned a cab and checked into this plain, clean, and relatively inexpensive motel. Close to the Beltway, the motor lodge mostly catered to truckers, traveling salesmen, and economy-minded vacationers touring the nation’s capital. It offered privacy, easy access to the local road and highway network, and effective anonymity to anyone paying cash.

After a short rest, Farrell had left a couple of hours ago on a hurried shopping expedition.

Someone knocked on the door—softly but urgently.

Helen waved Peter down and checked the peephole. It was Sam Farrell.

He bustled in, set a large plastic bag down on the nearest bed, and displayed a set of rental car keys. “Okay! We’re mobile again.”

Helen read the tag. “A white Oldsmobile Ciera?” She tried hard to match his determinedly cheerful mood. “Not a brandnew, 007-type BMW?

Hardly our style, Sam …”

Farrell grinned. “I know, I know-dull, boring. But there’s a zillion of ‘em out on the road. We’ll blend right in with everyone else in the metro area.

“I also got this.” He pulled a bulging manila envelope out of the shopping bag, opened the flap, and dumped several thick stacks of twenty-dollar bills onto the bed. “There’s somewhere around five thousand dollars there. I cleaned out one of my savings accounts.”

“Jesus, Sam,” Peter said, looking down at the money. “Your wife will kill you when she finds out about this.”

“Not with an
IOU
from you in hand,” Farrell reminded him.

“Louisa trusts you, Pete. It’s her one big blind spot. Anyway, we need the money right now.”

That was certainly true, Helen knew. Neither she nor Peter dared use their own credit or
ATM
cards, and their earlier travels had pretty well depleted their own cash reserves. And, unless the police or the
FBI
nailed them in the next few hours, they were sure to need money and lots of it.

She tapped the still-bulging shopping bag. “So, what’s left, Sam?”

“This,” Farrell said. He handed her a massive hardcover German-English/English-German dictionary.

“Perfect.”

Helen led Peter and Farrell over to the small circular table where she’d sorted out the possessions she’d collected from the three dead men—Wolf, his driver, Brandt, and Mcdowell. She’d swept Mcdowell’s into a separate bag for later disposal. What struck her about the other two men was the complete lack of commonplace personal items.

Their wallets contained only some cash and one credit card apiece—both tied to a Caraco corporate account. There were no dry cleaning receipts, no shopping lists, no photos of their wives or kids.

Both Wolf and Brandt were “clean”—covert operations jargon meaning neither had carried anything that might contradict their cover identities.

Which left just two interesting items. Brandt had apparently been more than just a simple driver and bodyguard for his boss.

He’d been carrying a fat, leather-bound appointment book. And Helen had found Heinrich Wolf’s blood-soaked briefcase under his still-warm body.

Naturally, all the notations in both the appointment book and in the papers inside the briefcase were in German. Hence the hardcover monstrosity Sam Farrell had just handed her.

Farrell took one look at the small table and shook his head.

“Two’s company, three’s a crowd-especially when you’ve only got one dictionary. You two take the first whack at this stuff. I’ll take a gander at the TV and see if there’s anything on about a shoot-out near Middleburg.”