Impulse (48 page)

“No, I’m all right. I had a miscarriage a couple of days ago. I’m still a little bit weak. Let me go now, all right? I won’t try anything more. I believe you.”

Savage turned her around even as he clasped her under the arms and hauled her to her feet. She was frayed around the edges, to put it euphemistically. Actually there were circles beneath her eyes, her hair was a ratty mess, there was a purple bruise along her jaw, and her clothes were wrinkled. And dear heavens, she was so pale. “Sit down,” he said abruptly. A miscarriage—He couldn’t believe that Marcus would be so uncaring, so stupid, as to get a woman pregnant. And here she was trying to take on a man single-handed.

Rafaella sat. She drew several deep breaths and said, “Marcus is in the toolshed, outside in the compound. It’s used for tools but its main purpose is as a jail for prisoners. What are you doing here? How did you get up here? You’re Marcus’s partner, aren’t you, his first cousin?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Savage stuck out his hand and she took it. “We need to talk now. You need to tell me everything I should know to get us out of here whole-hide.”

“Mr. Savage, I was trying to figure a way out of this mess and not doing such a great job of coming up with ideas. You did say you were the cavalry?”

“Marcus said you were different,” Savage said slowly. “He also said you were—well, never mind about that. Yes, I’m the cavalry—and my troops are just waiting for a signal to move in and try to clean this mess up.”

“Sit down, sir. Let me tell you what’s going on. Then we can figure out what to do.”

Marcus was sitting in muggy darkness, the smell of earth and manure and sweat strong in his nostrils, thinking so hard his brain was beginning to ache. He, of all people, knew the toolshed was escape-proof. One door, double-locked, a guard outside with a 9-mm Uzi submachine gun ready to blast away at the least provocation. No windows, and thick, thick walls. There were even cuffs fastened to chains embedded in the walls, but Merkel had spared him that.

What to do?

Dominick probably knew everything about him now, everything about everybody. Marcus had realized quickly enough that it was Coco who’d been working on the inside against Dominick. Odd that he hadn’t seriously considered her before. He wondered again why, all of a sudden, she’d turned so viciously and so vocally against Dominick, telling him everything. As for Charles Rutledge, Marcus was still surprised that that very well-educated man, that very civilized and law-abiding man, had planned to assassinate another. But the provocation was great. More than great, it was perhaps inevitable, preordained.

It seemed that there was nothing more to be done now except stand in front of Dominick’s firing squad and die with some sort of dignity. He shook his head violently. He was just too stupid to accept it, too much a romantic, he supposed, to roll over and let himself tolerate being killed.

He couldn’t accept anything. He had somehow to save Rafaella, the woman he loved so much it almost hurt. It occurred to him that he might never see her again, and the pain was so great he nearly cried out. No, it wouldn’t, couldn’t end like that.

He couldn’t get her white face out of his mind, or the ugly bruise that was beginning to darken along
her jaw where Dominick had struck. He knew if it hadn’t been for Merkel that first time, he’d have been killed on the spot. And that second time, well—He rubbed his stomach, his muscles still sore from Dominick’s blow. No, Dominick had decided he didn’t want him dead just yet. Why? Marcus shook his head in the dark.

It came to him then, quite unnecessarily, that Coco had poisoned the Dutchmen who’d been locked in this shed, or maybe she had a henchman among the guards. The Dutchmen couldn’t have had the poison on them; they had to have been body-searched. Hadn’t it occurred to Dominick that someone on the inside had killed them? Had worked with Tulp to kill him? Of course it had occurred to Dominick. He was far from stupid. He was biding his time. For something.

When Marcus heard the gentle thud of booted feet hit the ground outside the shed, he thought: Anton Rosch. He finally got here, finally alerted Hurley. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get out of this mess. He wasn’t all that sure, but at least something was happening. He crouched next to the door and waited, not making a sound.

“I’m not quite that crazy yet,” Dominick said, looking down at his handiwork. “No, I’m not crazy enough to leave you free to stick a knife in me. You look quite lovely sprawled out like that with your arms and legs tied. Very tempting.”

He sat down beside Coco and looked at her breasts. He lightly pinched a nipple, forcing it to tighten. He smiled as he saw her grimace, then slid his palm down over her flat belly to the dark pubic hair.

He found her flesh cold, unresponsive, but he didn’t care. He toyed with her a bit, watching her face all the while. She hated what he was doing, but she was helpless.

Dominick rose and stood by the bed, looking down
at her. She was waiting for him to rape her. He smiled. “Oh, no, Coco, I don’t want you, ever again. But I’m gong to leave you here, my dear, all sprawled and open and tied down. My guards will enjoy you. And they’ll be by, many of them, and they’ll see you and you’ll see them. Perhaps you’ll even smile at them and try to talk them into freeing you. Who knows?”

He paused a moment, then spoke again, his voice shrill. “Damn you, I gave you everything a woman could want, everything! Except for that baby. And you turned on me just for that. You were getting too old anyway. I did protect you by having the doctor fix you. I didn’t want you pregnant again. I didn’t want any illegitimate children, and Sylvia was so very much alive.” He paused, then suddenly leaned down, kissed her hard on the mouth, and rose again. He said nothing more. He turned and left the bedroom, leaving the door wide open.

Coco stared at the empty doorway. It would all be over in a short time now. She wouldn’t have to suffer long. If she was lucky, maybe Hector would be one of the guards to come. He could free her or kill her, whatever her need was when he found her. She didn’t cry; she’d fought hard, tried her best. She was sorry for the others, so very sorry.

Dominick was told by Link that DeLorio was waiting for him downstairs. He merely nodded and went to join his son.

Things were getting out of hand; he felt it in his gut. There were just too many chess pieces and he had to finish off the game once and for all. He had to move quickly now, get out of here intact. It was time to draw things to a close. It was time to end it. It was time to move on. He felt a leap of excitement. He wasn’t too old to begin again. And he wasn’t exactly poor. He thought of the eighty million dollars and change he had in the bank in the Caymans. No problem. He’d just set up elsewhere. He still had all
his contacts. He knew now whom he could trust. And there was his son, his millionaire son, who would help his father get back in business. DeLorio would obey him. He was a good boy.

And all his betrayers, all his enemies, would soon be dead.

He did want Merkel with him, he needed Merkel. He found him in the living room, watching Charles Rutledge, just watching him, not saying a word.

“It’s time to go, Merkel.”

Merkel hesitated, and Dominick felt a frisson of dread. Merkel too? No, it wasn’t possible.

“It’s time, Merkel,” he said again. “Past time. Everything’s set. Let’s go. Get Link. When Lacy is through with Calpas in Miami, he’ll contact us.”

Merkel looked at him, his clothes immaculate, his broad ugly face twisted with uncertainty. “All of them, Mr. Giovanni? Marcus? Miss Holland? Coco? Paula?”

“You needn’t recite the list! Good God, Merkel, they’re all our enemies. Think of them as foes, adversaries, to be gotten rid of, nothing more. It’ll be fast, you know. It’s not like we’re going to line them up and shoot them in cold blood.”

Merkel nodded. Dominick went one direction, Merkel the other.

Soon now, Dominick thought, soon it would be over and there would be no traces, nothing left.

Rafaella found Coco naked on her bed, struggling to free herself. She looked, oddly, more furious than scared. She was muttering to herself, watching her wrists and ankles grow raw as she pulled and wrenched and twisted.

“It’s all right, Coco, it’s going to be all right. Marcus’s friend is here with backup.” She kept talking, nonsense now, as she untied Coco, rubbed feeling back into her wrists, and helped her dress.

Coco finally interrupted her, her voice harsh, “I wanted to kill him, but he knew it of course. And he did this. He hoped his guards would come by and finish me off. Thank you, Rafaella. Now, there’s something no one knows. I found out by accident a long time ago. There are enough explosives to blow this compound out of existence. And I’ll just bet you that’s what Dominick plans. Killing all of us in cold blood just isn’t his style. No, this way would be cleaner.”

“Oh, God,” Rafaella said. “He’d kill everyone? Even all his own men?”
Even his illegitimate daughter?
Rafaella wanted to laugh at herself. What did being his daughter matter?

“If I know him, and I do, he’s probably in one of the helicopters right this minute. He’s hoping, no doubt, to watch us all go up in a beautiful orange explosion. It’s impersonal, it’s clean. I’ll also bet there aren’t any more guards left in the house.”

“Paula’s in her room and she’s unconscious. No one
else up here. Savage went to free Marcus in the toolshed. Where’s Charles?”

“Locked in the living room, the last I saw him. No, Dominick has doubtless ordered all the men outside—Jiggs, all the servants—and given them guns with orders to cut us down if we try to escape.”

It was almost too much for Rafaella to take in. “Let’s get ourselves armed and find Marcus and Savage.”

When Rafaella heard the burst of submachine gunfire coming from outside, she froze. Then absolute silence. How many bullets had been fired? Enough to kill twenty men? Thirty?

“Marcus,” Rafaella whispered, shouldered the Kalashnikov, and ran outside, forgetting about Dominick’s guards. There were four men lying sprawled on the ground, covered with blood. Blood everywhere. Rafaella swallowed. Marcus shouted at her, his voice frantic, “Rafe, get back into the house!”

Coco stepped forward and called out in her clear, now very midwestern voice, “Listen to me, all of you. Both Jiggs and Hector can tell you I’m not lying. Mr. Giovanni is going to blow up the compound. Maybe some of you remember when he had the explosives installed. He doesn’t care about any of you. We’re all loose ends to him, of no account at all. He just wants to get himself and DeLorio out of here safely. There’s no reason for any of us to do any more killing. We’ve got to get out of here, and now, or we’ll all die—and it won’t matter who’s friend or enemy.”

Hector, a thin young man with thick black hair and a hairless face, stepped out of a side door. “She’s right, let’s get the hell out of here—to the other side of the island, where it’s safe.”

Silence. Then the low buzz of conversation as the guards argued. Rafaella heard Hector, his voice raised, telling them to stop wasting time, to stop everything, the bombs were ticking away.

And then it was over. The guards, including Hector, just melted away into the jungle.

“It was that easy,” Marcus said under his breath as he stepped from behind a frangipani tree. He eyed the dead men who’d tried to kill him and Savage. “I don’t believe it.”

John Savage said from behind him, “Where are the explosives?”

Coco was already dashing into the house, yelling over her shoulder, “The swimming pool!”

Savage sprinted after her. Marcus grabbed Rafaella, hugged her tightly, and whispered against her temple, “We’ll make it, Ms. Holland, I swear we’ll make it. Then I plan for us to spend the next fifty years sharing a wonderfully boring life together.”

Rafaella started to say that was a fine idea, but obscenely loud gunfire cut her off. “That must be Savage’s men. I guess they just got the guards.”

“Good. But Giovanni and DeLorio will get away.” Marcus pointed. “Look!”

There were two helicopters climbing slowly above the trees. Dominick had obviously had the wrecked helicopter repaired. Marcus wished he had one of the Soviet RPG-7 rocket launchers. It would easily destroy a helicopter. The Czech Skorpion VZ-61 he’d taken off a dead guard was like an Israeli Uzi. It could take down twenty charging men, but no way did it have the range to bring down a helicopter.

Giovanni would get away. Clean. To set up shop somewhere else in the world. Was DeLorio in the other helicopter? Merkel? Link? He’d heard the guards outside the toolshed say that Frank Lacy had already been sent to Miami to take out Mario Calpas.

Marcus had failed, and it stuck raw and deep in his craw. His one and only big assignment, and he’d failed, blown it all to hell, just as they could all be blown to hell at any minute.

He grabbed Rafaella’s hand and they ran through
the house, out onto the veranda facing the Olympic swimming pool. Savage was on his knees, ripping up tiles near the diving board, Coco working frantically beside him.

“Marcus, quick! I think the plastic is C-4. You know more about how to deal with the stuff than I do. We haven’t got all that long before the whole thing blows. Giovanni’s got it on a timer.”

Marcus dropped to his knees beside Savage and studied the control unit. The wires—four different colors, all intertwined, as complicated as could be.

Rafaella read the digital red numbers over Marcus’s shoulder. There was a goodly number of minutes left, but the controls looked so complex and intricate. She felt Marcus’s tension building and wondered if the minutes left really meant anything, if just touching the wrong wire, pulling at the wrong switch, would send them to oblivion.

Marcus began talking. “Yeah, what we’ve got here is PETN mixed with an oily plasticizer. You see that, Savage? Yeah…nitrogen compounds…very professional, and I’m not, and those wires—it’s got to be the green one, see, it’s the one that’s attached to the timer. You think that’s right? I think that’s the timer.”

Coco snarled in his ear, “Just do it, Marcus, just do it!”