Judgement and Wrath (29 page)

He paused at the corner, studying the cars parked at the rear of the house. There was an older model Chrysler station wagon. Plus, there it was: the silver Lincoln sedan. He took a deep breath. Felt for the Taurus .38. Touched his book. Then quickly took a step backwards as he heard the rear door opening. The sound was followed by muted conversation. He couldn’t quite make out what was said, but then he detected the crunch of tyres as a vehicle approached. Angling himself against the corner of the wall, he watched a car from the Martin County Sheriff’s Department draw to a halt and a silver-haired man in a grey suit get in. The vehicle then did a quick U-turn and headed back along the road. What was that about? He waited until the car was shielded from sight by the swell in the land.

Yesterday’s actions had been governed by fury. He’d acted recklessly and without thought of the repercussions. His thirst for vengeance had led him to slay his supporters. He’d left himself without back-up, the proverbial lone wolf. But, hadn’t he always preferred it that way?

Gabe Wellborn had been useful, but he had also been a liability. His method of concealing his network of hired mercenaries had never been foolproof. Sooner or later the FBI would chance upon his website, put two and two together and draw correlations between the fantasised murders and those they reflected in the real world. Dantalion had cautioned him. He did not want the names of his brethren used by the other killers for hire on Gabe’s books. It cheapened his own identity when other men – nothing but thugs for hire in his estimation – plucked names from the Goetic pantheon with no thought for the true owners of those names. Dantalion had sought out each of those men in turn. He’d killed them all. He had planned to kill Gabe too. But not last night. That had been a reaction to the situation he’d found himself in.

This time things would be different.

He would be cool and rational. He wouldn’t go in with all guns blazing: he would use subtlety and guile to take Bradley Jorgenson. Neither would he kill him instantly. He would give him a choice. Tell me where Marianne is and I won’t cut off your hands. Tell me where Joe Hunter is and I won’t cut off your feet. Ask kindly and maybe I won’t chop off your balls and feed them to you.

Good plan, nothing psychopathic about it.

He scouted the building, looking for a sign that Bradley was inside. And found him almost immediately. He was sitting in the kitchen, his forearms resting on a table top. A man who Dantalion did not recognise sat opposite him. A digital voice recorder lay on the table between them. By the cut of the man’s suit, his well-groomed hair, and the give-away clip-on badge on his breast pocket, Dantalion saw that he was FBI. He appeared to be questioning Bradley – the digital recorder there to record the interview.

There were only two others in the room: one of them the bodyguard named Seagram, the one who had offered to help him get to Bradley. That, of course, had been before Dantalion had slaughtered Petre, who had obviously been bribing Seagram to switch allegiance. He doubted that Seagram would be so keen with his sponsor out of the picture. Now that Bradley had resumed the role of his main employer, it was in Seagram’s best interest to keep him alive. The last person was a very elderly lady. She was sitting in a wooden chair and, despite the heat of the Floridian sun, she was dressed in thick wool and tweed and had a blanket over her knees. She looked like she hadn’t a clue what was going on, and sat smiling and nodding as Bradley answered the FBI agent’s questions.

There did not appear to be anyone else around. No bodyguards, no police, only the one agent and the helicopter pilot to give assistance to Bradley and Seagram.

This was about the best opportunity for taking Bradley that he was going to get.

He quickly walked away from the house, not wanting to leave himself open to an attack from behind. As he approached the helicopter he heard the engine whine as the pilot continued his pre-flight preparations. He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and carefully folded it round a small cylinder.

He made it all the way up to the cockpit before the pilot noticed him. The man saw only the uniform and he lifted his chin in a nod of greeting.

‘Hello,’ Dantalion said. He smiled. Then flicked the brim of his hat. Sunlight flashed in his eyes. He adjusted the brim so his face was again in shadow. A natural enough action to explain why he kept his hand elevated.

‘Hi,’ said the pilot, ‘Can I help you?’ He leaned out of the open door to better see his visitor. He was reading the emblem embroidered on Dantalion’s shirt. Behind the visor of his flight helmet, Dantalion saw the man’s eyes narrow to slivers. He opened his mouth to speak.

That was when Dantalion swung his right hand as though he was holding a hammer. The bottom of his fist struck the man flush on the left side of his neck. The blow in itself could prove fatal if delivered with enough power and precision. Coupled with the hypodermic piercing his carotid artery and pumping in a lethal dose of ketamine, the man was guaranteed a rapid death.

The punch itself stunned him, the drug raced immediately to his heart, and he was dead within seconds. He didn’t have the chance to shout or even to lift his hands in defence. Dantalion accepted his sinking weight, catching the man under each armpit, and dragged him bodily from the helicopter. Then he slid open the side door and bundled the man into the rear compartment. He followed him inside and closed the door behind him.

Minutes later Dantalion emerged a new man.

Wearing the pilot’s jumpsuit and helmet, he crossed the lawn towards the house. As he got to the window of the kitchen he saw that the tableau had not changed in the couple of minutes he’d been gone. Boldly he rapped a knuckle on the window, even as he turned aside, gesturing to those within with a gloved hand. All they would see was the familiar figure of the chopper pilot. They wouldn’t be alarmed, but one of them would come to the door to see what he wanted. He walked towards the door, watching in his peripheral vision as someone – Seagram from the shape of the brush cut – moved towards the door to intercept him.

He stood very close to the door. It was solid wood, so the person inside would have to open it fully before realising that there was something familiar about the bogus pilot’s face. He readied himself. He preferred giving his victims a choice of how they would die, but he didn’t have that luxury. This death had to be conducted in silence too.

‘Yeah, what is it?’ Seagram’s voice.

‘I need to give my colleague a message,’ Dantalion said, purposely speaking a couple of octaves lower than normal.

‘What is it? I’ll tell him.’

‘Can’t do that, sir,’ Dantalion said. ‘Official FBI business, I’m afraid. You do not have clearance. I have to tell him myself.’

Seagram muttered a curse under his breath. He tugged open the door, which squealed on seldom-used hinges.

Seagram stood looking at him for the briefest of moments. Then it was there, the subtle movement of his jaw, the dilating of his pupils. He’d recognised the lie.

‘Hello, Seagram,’ Dantalion said as he stepped forward. The knife he’d brought from the dead warden’s house went under Seagram’s ribcage. All eight glistening inches of it. Dantalion’s other hand covered Seagram’s gaping mouth. As the man’s knees buckled under him, Dantalion supported him on the blade. He leaned close, placing his lips close to Seagram’s ear. ‘I’ve come to tell the FBI that the killer is here.’

Seagram knew he was dying, and that it was his greed that had brought him to this point. His eyes went large above Dantalion’s cupped hand. He tried to shout, but the knife seemed to suck the words down into his throat as Dantalion pulled the blade out of his abdomen.

Dantalion placed Seagram on the floor just inside the vestibule, and swiped the blade across his trachea. His mouth still opened and closed like a fish on dry land, but no noises beyond the bubbling blood in his sliced trachea issued forth. Groping under Seagram’s jacket, Dantalion pulled out a Glock 17. Not the model 19 he was used to, but still better than the five-shot Taurus.

He fitted his hands round both guns’ stocks. The two-gunned assault had a decidedly intimidating quality to it that worked for him.

He strode along the hall.

The kitchen door was open and he could see the old lady sitting with her back to him. That would put the FBI agent on his right, Bradley on his left. The FBI agent was the most dangerous enemy in the room. By rights he should die first. Dantalion, however, had different ideas about rights and wrongs. He fired a single round through the old lady’s back even before he was in the room. The Glock punched a 9 mm round directly through her and shattered something on the far wall. The woman toppled towards the table. As she did so her face twisted to one side, and Dantalion would have sworn that she was still smiling.

‘Hello,’ he called in his usual fashion. ‘I’m Dantalion.’

Bradley and the FBI agent were too busy to take note of his words. They were half risen from their seats, Bradley turning away, the agent grabbing for the H&K inside his jacket.

Dantalion fired one shot from the Taurus, one shot from the Glock. Neither of them at Bradley. The .38 calibre bullet hit the agent above his right hip. A split second later the 9 mm struck him directly between the eyes. The opposing forces of the bullets made him jig in place like a disjointed puppet. Then he dropped straight to the floor, knocking over the chair he’d so recently been sitting upon.

Bradley was lurching around the far end of the table, seeking a way out. He had both arms over his head and was yelling something reminiscent of the defeated bellow of a bull as the matador serves the
coup de grâce
.

Aiming left-handedly, Dantalion fired the Taurus. The bullet struck the wall directly in front of Bradley who responded by dropping down and covering his head with his two hands. He shouted something but Dantalion’s ears were ringing to the echo of his own guns.

‘Surprised to see me, Bradley? Thought I was dead, eh? Must piss you off that the big bold Hunter failed to stop me? Stand up.’

Terror kept Bradley exactly where he was.

‘I said “
stand up
”
,’ Dantalion yelled. ‘Or I will shoot you where you are. Cowering on the ground like a dog!’

Bradley came partly to his feet, but couldn’t prevent his knees dipping again. Dantalion stalked over, kicking aside the dead FBI agent to get at him. He pushed the hot muzzle of the Taurus under Bradley’s ear. ‘Stand up. That’s the only choice I’m giving you right now.’

Cringing like a wounded animal, Bradley came to his feet. He tried to protect himself with his arms but Dantalion struck at the meat of his forearms, forcing the hands away. Then he pushed Bradley back against the kitchen counter and forced him to bend backwards away from the pressure of the gun.

‘Now, Bradley, it’s choices time again. Do you die instantly, or would you rather I kept you alive as bait to bring Marianne to me?’ Dantalion pushed the muzzle of the Glock under Bradley’s chin. ‘Come on, speak up. I’m giving you the opportunity of living a little longer.’

‘Please,’ Bradley croaked. His plea never came to a conclusion, and Dantalion was left wondering what decision Bradley had reached.

Dantalion heard a car pull up outside the front of the house.

So he made the choice himself.

He slipped the Glock in his pocket, pulled out a hypodermic syringe. Given in the same dosage, ketamine would kill Bradley as instantly as it had the pilot, but this syringe didn’t contain ketamine. He’d brought this ampoule from the truck: sodium amatol left over from the hit on the Moore household. In small doses it caused the drugged person to become compliant. A higher dose caused unconsciousness. Too much and the person would die. Dantalion administered just enough to leave Bradley with no will of his own but with the use of his legs. He didn’t want to have to carry him out of there.

36

Special Agent in Charge Taylor Kaufman wasn’t exactly pleased to see me. He extended his hand, but his shake was abrupt and his words dry. ‘Walter Conrad says you’re the best in the business.’

‘Depends what business he’s referring to,’ I answered.

The silver-haired SAC studied me with eyes the colour of tarnished brass. He didn’t appear impressed. Something about my accent seemed to irk him as well. I guessed it was because he’d already fought a jurisdiction war with the Miami PD and Martin County Sheriff’s Department, which he’d indubitably won, only now to be faced with a Brit with carte blanche to take over his position of power. He straightened his grey suit. Nodded towards the squad car.

‘You’d better get in. I’ll take you to Jorgenson.’

‘Go ahead,’ I told him. ‘I’ll bring my own car.’