Knock Out (36 page)

Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor.

Kjell was at Blessed’s side in an instant. He dropped to his knees and shook him. “Keeper! Wake up!” He reached out to grab Autumn. “What did you do to him? What?”

Kjell realized the danger too late. He leaped to his feet, brought up his gun, but Ethan was on him. He kicked the gun from his hand.

Ethan had wondered if Kjell was trained to fight, and he was. But Ethan had learned karate and some of the dirtiest street fighting on the planet—in the Philippines. He’d gotten himself stomped before he learned being vicious could be the only way to stay alive. He went after Kjell with everything he knew, with all the rage he felt. Joanna pulled Autumn to her, her hand over her eyes so she couldn’t see the violence, but she knew Autumn heard the slamming of fists against flesh, the grunts, the brief silences, which were worse, and knew the instant Ethan broke Kjell’s nose and his glasses. Blood flew out to streak down the white wall behind him.

She watched Kjell, blood pouring down his face, land a kick in Ethan’s kidney, watched him stumble back and fall, then roll back onto his feet. He went at Kjell furiously, his fist to his jaw, a kick to his belly, his other fist hard into his broken nose. Kjell, utterly silent to this point, fell back and moaned.

Joanna’s heart nearly stopped when Kjell jumped at Ethan, dragged him down to the white floor. They rolled over and over, grunting, hitting each other in the head, each trying to gain leverage.

And then it was over. Ethan, on top, reared back and sent the heel of his hand into Kjell’s broken nose, sending droplets of his blood flying. Kjell didn’t make a sound. His eyes rolled back and he went limp. Ethan shook his hand, rubbed his bloody knuckles.

Joanna’s mouth was so dry she couldn’t find the spit to speak. Finally she whispered, “Is he dead?”

“Yes.” Ethan got slowly to his feet and stared down at the young man. What had Caldicot Whistler promised him if Kjell obeyed him? Great wealth?

Power? Had Kjell killed the people Autumn had seen the Backmans burying? Now nothing mattered to him.

He was dead. Ethan picked up Kjell’s gun and put it in his belt.

Blessed moaned and sat up. He clapped his hands to his head and began to weave back and forth. He looked at Ethan, then at Joanna, looked hard, but he didn’t look at Autumn. He clutched his forehead in his hands and whispered, “This cannot be, it cannot,” and he fell onto his side again and began crying.

Ethan said, “Autumn, what did you do to

Blessed?”

Autumn was deathly pale. Ethan went down on his knees and pulled her against him. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know it’s bad, but I need you to pay attention to me right now, okay? This is super-important. Tell me what you did to Blessed.”

“I didn’t do anything, Ethan, I only—”

The door in the wall suddenly closed again.

Ethan knew they didn’t have much time. He said,

“We’re going to get out of here. We’ll go back the way we came.”

“Ethan.”

He turned to see Joanna staring down low on the wall. He heard gas snaking out from a small white vent not six inches above the floor. He cursed under his breath. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

He scooped Autumn up in his arms and ran to where they’d first entered the white room, Joanna right behind him. Even though he could see the outline of the sliding door, he couldn’t see how to open it.

“There has to be something,” Joanna said. “There has to be.” Ethan went on his knees in front of Autumn. “We’re going to run our palms over this wall, look for a button, anything. Breathe real light; try not to let the gas get to you.”

They couldn’t find a way out. Ethan slammed his shoulder against the door, but it was solid. He could smell the gas, feel it against his skin. He ripped off his shirt, ran back to the low vent in the wall, and dropped to his knees. He stuffed his shirt as best as he could between the narrow slats. But to do any good at all, he had to hold the shirt in place.

Joanna fell to her knees beside him, shoved up her shirt, and unclipped her bra. “Move your shirt.” As she stuffed her bra between the slats, Ethan yelled,

“Autumn, go over by the far wall and pull your T-shirt up over your nose and mouth!”

Joanna pulled off her sneakers and stripped off her socks. He did the same. They stuffed the socks in, trying to hold their breath as they worked.

Objectively, Ethan knew there would be no

stopping the gas, and there wasn’t. “Sorry, Joanna, this isn’t going to cut it. We’ve got to find the way out of this place. There’s got to be some mechanism.”

“Yes, there has to be something,” Joanna said.

“There has to be.”

But there wasn’t. Ethan felt the world spin, felt as if he were rising off the floor. He passed out.

63

WINNETT, NORTH CAROLINA

Eight minutes passed before Savich’s cell phone rang.

“Savich.” After a moment, he nodded. “Good.”

And he punched off his phone.

He said to Cully and Sherlock, “The cavalry’s here.

The chief of police and every single deputy Winnett has on the payroll are in position. They can’t cover the woods, but they’ve got Pulitzer Prize Road blocked on both ends. They’re forming a big perimeter, hunkering down where there are breaks in the trees, but trying to stay out of sight.

“The chief said he posted a couple of marksmen on top of Victor’s apartment building, came in through the back and up the stairs to the roof. The chief assures me everyone did their best to keep Victor and Lissy from knowing they’re there. We didn’t hear any cars from here, so maybe they didn’t either. They’re looking for Victor and Lissy’s car or, rather, for a car that’s hidden, since we don’t know what car Victor and Lissy are driving right now.”

Cully said, “They’ve probably got it stashed in some trees off the road.”

“Can’t be too far from here. Maybe the chief will find it. Then we’ve got them.”

“So in the best of all possible worlds, Lissy and Victor have no clue they’re surrounded,” Sherlock said.

Cully slammed his fist into the wall. “I hate this, I really do. What if Bernie is dead?” He looked into Savich’s eyes. “I guess you don’ know. Bernie’s wife, Jessie—she’s my sister. They’ve got two kids, my nephews.”

Sherlock touched her fingers to his forearm. “He’s their hostage until they nail us and drive out of Winnett, Cully. He’s alive, at least for now.”

He nodded, but she knew he wasn’t holding out much hope.

She said again, “Dillon, it’s time to see if they split up, see if one of them is waiting out back for us to step out the kitchen door. It’s about thirty feet from the back of the house to the edge of the woods, and the neighboring house is a good fifty feet away. It’s all forest on our other side. Now, since it wouldn’t be bright to go out the bac k door, I’m thinking to go out the bedroom window, there’s a whole mess of oaks out there. Great cover.” Sherlock saw his face and added real fast, “I’m the smallest, I can slip through the window, they won’t see me. You know I can dodge and duck with the best of them. I’ll slip into those trees and work my way back—”

Savich said, “No way. You just had your spleen removed, Sherlock.”

“Come on, Dillon, it’s been months since the surgery. I’m fine. You know I’m fine. Stop playing Mr.

Protector.”

“Forget it, you’re still not up to running all out in the woods. I want you and Cully to stay put, keep a sharp eye out. Look at it this way, we’ve got backup in place. I’ll probably be redundant. Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. Good plan, by the way.” And before Sherlock could jump on him or yell at him, Savich moved away from the front windows back down the hall to the bedroom.

He heard Sherlock say behind him, “Who needs a spleen anyway?”

64

VICTOR NESSER threw his binoculars to the ground.

“Where are they?”

Lissy jumped a bit, picked up the binoculars, and looked through them. “There’s still no movement in the house, not even a face looking out the front windows. Even though they couldn’t find our federal cop buddy here—I’ll bet you they called for their crime scene team, Victor, and that’s why they’re still inside the house.”

Victor said, “But why isn’t the crime scene team here yet? Why aren’t they
doing
something?”

“I remember, it’s
forensic
team, that’s what they call them on TV,” Lissy said. “You’re right, it’s been way too long.” She handed him back the binoculars.

“Yeah, but, you know, this is a hick town. Where would anybody get a forensic team? Maybe at Bud’s Bowling Bonanza or down at O’Malley’s Dairy Queen?

What’s taking them so long to get it together?
Why
aren’t they coming out of the house?”

Lissy patted Victor’s cheek. “They will, baby, they will. They’re stupid. They don’t know anything.

They’ll come trotting out of the front door any minute now and we’ll blow them into a gazillion pieces.” She frowned suddenly, punched his arm. “Some bomb you made, Victor. First you couldn’t manage to stall out that security guard’s car in Washington, and now you couldn’t get the bomb to go off. Some computer expert you are.”

“It should have gone off,” Victor said, rubbing his arm. “I followed the instructions carefully; you watched me do it. Don’t hit me again, Lissy, I don’t like it.”

“Still,” she said, then looked over at Bernie. “We’ve got Mr. Fed here, and that’s something.”

Victor leaned over and punched Bernie hard in the arm. “Hey, wake up, pigface. You know why your buddies aren’t out here looking for you?”

Bernie was awake, had been for some time now, trying to control his roaring headache from the blow on the back of his head. Actually, he’d been whispering hallelujahs. Victor’s bomb hadn’t exploded, thank the good Lord, which meant Savich and Sherlock had disarmed it. Cully was still alive, and that was all Bernie wanted to think about. He’d hoped they’d say something useful if he kept playing possum, but then Victor hit him.

“Come on, pigface, open your baby blues!”

“His eyes aren’t blue, Victor, they’re brown.”

“Yeah? How do you know that, Lissy?”

“He’s all big and dark; no blue eyes for him.”

Bernie opened his brown eyes and stared up at Victor. He didn’t have to fake looking dazed. “What?”

“Hey, were you trying to fake it? Or are you still knocked stupid?” Lissy punched him in the belly with her fist. He barely responded. “See? He’s still stupid. I hit him so hard his cop brains arc still scrambled.” She leaned down and whispered in his ear as her palm flattened out on his stomach. “Hey, Mr. Agent, I like the feel of your gut. No fat, good muscle tone. Let me see.” Lissy jerked his shirt out of his pants, ripped the buttons off, and spread it open. “Wow, Vic-tor, look at our buff cop here.” She stroked her hand over his stomach, and, to his horror, Bernie felt her fingers slide down into his shorts.

He tried to jerk away, then coughed, wheezed.

Victor jerked when he saw her hand. “What are you doing, Lissy? Stop that, you hear me? You don’t even know him. Stop it!”

Lissy laughed, pulled her hand out of his pants.

“That’s the way to wake up a cop, Victor. All you gotta do is touch their brains.” And she laughed again.

“Hey, that’s true of any guy, isn’t it? From what I could tell, our cop here’s got a pretty good brain.”

Victor looked at her like he hated her, then kicked a rock on the ground beside him. “Why’s it taking them so long to come out of the house? Forget the forensic crap. There’s no way they know we’re here; they’ve got to figure we’re gone. So where are they?” But Victor didn’t really care at that moment what the federal agents were doing because his heart was still pounding at what Lissy had done—she’d actually touched another man, she’d actually
felt
the damned cop, and right in front of him. His hands shook. He wanted to hurt her; he wanted to kill the damned agent. He said again, “They should have come out.

Why haven’t they?”

Bernie heard the shrillness in Victor Nesser’s voice, knew he was furious, near violence, at what Lissy had done. He had to calm things down. He said matter-of-factly, “Since I’m not in the house, they’re checking everywhere for clues. They’re thorough, so it takes time.”
And they know you two didn’t leave. They figured it
out, they’re holding light, waiting for the local cops to show
up.
But Bernie hadn’t heard any sirens, hadn’t heard a blessed thing. Were they coming in silent?

“Our pretty boy here is right,” Lissy said. “There’s been time for a whole battalion of cops to get here, but no one’s come to save their butts. I think they’re still looking around, still looking for
clues.
Don’t worry about it, Victor, those clowns don’t know we’re out here. They’re stupid.” She thought about the constant ache in her stomach and rubbed her fingers along the row of ugly metal staples still dug into her flesh. She saw Savich clear in her mind, on his back on the bank’s marble floor. He’d kicked up so fast, kicked her so hard, she hadn’t even seen his leg, just felt the horrible pain that knocked her backward, knocked all her breath out of her. She remembered lying there, a fire in her belly, and she couldn’t breathe.

“We’ll get them.” Victor saw she was in pain and smacked his fist against his leg once, twice. “We just didn’t have time.”

Lissy said, “I could have killed all three of them when they came running out, exploded their heads right off. But you were saying wait, wait, wait.” She frowned. “Too bad that redheaded woman is going to eat one of my bullets. Her hair is cool; I want to know how she makes it look like that. She must be Savich’s partner. Do you think they’re sleeping together? Hey, pretty boy? Savich and that redheaded woman, they doing the dirty?”

“I don’t know,” Bernie said, and hoped it sounded believable.

Victor said, “Look, Lissy, you need to focus. Listen, I stopped you from shooting at them because it was too big a risk. Why take chances? If you missed even one of them we’d be in a deep crap pit now. No, this is better. We’ll wait. When they come out of that front door, not expecting a thing, we’ll take them down, take them all down, because we’ll be ready. It’ll be like shooting those Coke cans off tree stumps in your backyard, remember? Don’t forget, we’ve got their buddy here, and they’ll figure it out eventually. He’s a big, important FBI agent. He gives us an edge, if we need it.”