Silent Mercy (46 page)
With my back to the building, I moved step-by-step to the left. Heights made me dizzy, so I turned my head in the same direction and focused on getting to land—maybe twenty feet away—as quickly as I could.
Something fluttered above my head and startled me. I looked up, expecting to see a diving gull flapping its wings. But it was a bolt of silk, rolled into a ball, that Zukov had thrown, trying to secure it to a shrub just beyond my position. It landed short and he pulled it back toward him—drawing it across my body—as I continued my baby steps to the side.
“It’s hopeless, Ms. Cooper,” he called out to me. “I’m going to get you. You’ll die here alone, like one of the lepers.”
“I’ve got the gun, Zukov,” I shouted into the wind. “Stay back or I’ll shoot.”
I sucked in some air to combat the dizziness and kept walking as fast as I could. The small ball of silk sailed overhead again and almost snagged on the bare branches of a bush but fell just short.
I could practically feel his cold breath on my neck when he laughed and said, “That’s not likely to happen.”
With three feet to go, he tossed the blue fabric over my head. It caught and wrapped like a lasso around a dense thicket of
Rosa rugosa
shrubs just in front of me. I stopped in panic and watched as Zukov yanked on the strip to make sure it was secure before dropping off the ledge and flying to a clearing in the dirt just above the rocks and below the rosebushes. The gust of air, the draft created by his movement, had nearly carried me with it, practically knocking me off-balance and onto the pile of thick rocks below.
Rosa rugosa
shrubs just in front of me. I stopped in panic and watched as Zukov yanked on the strip to make sure it was secure before dropping off the ledge and flying to a clearing in the dirt just above the rocks and below the rosebushes. The gust of air, the draft created by his movement, had nearly carried me with it, practically knocking me off-balance and onto the pile of thick rocks below.
I was close enough now to shuffle to the end of the precarious ledge and jump down to the ground. Zukov had overshot that position by just a few yards to get ahead of me and was scrambling up the slope to take me on face-to-face.
I needed to circle around the bottom of the hill that held the old basement enclosure and retrace my steps to the pit in which Mike and Chat were confined. I started to climb, pushing brambles out of the way and trying to ignore thorns that nipped at me from the sturdy rosebushes.
Zukov’s hand reached almost to my foot. I could see the blood dripping from it, where the splintered wood had cut him. He was gaining on me, seemingly oblivious to the pain when his hand brushed thorns or scraped rocks.
At a break in the rise to the crest of the small cliff, I stepped to a clearing at my side and straightened up. I had only seconds to think through my decision as Zukov tugged on his silken bolt to retrieve it from the bush, no doubt planning to use it again, perhaps to restrain me when he caught up with me.
I would be fortunate to outrun him to return to Mike, but far likelier to be overtaken by him and fall victim to the combat techniques of his extreme ministry. In either case, the gun was a liability in my hands, without the opportunity to examine and prepare it for firing.
I went to my waistband to retrieve it, and while Zukov watched in disbelief and stretched out his bloody hand to try to stop me, I heaved the pistol as mightily as I could, beyond the rocky shore and into the icy waters of the Sound.
I didn’t wait to see where it landed, as he did. I knew from the splash that it was beyond his deadly reach, and that my best chance for helping the captives was for me to get to them before Zukov.
“You’ll die here,” he called out to me again. “I promise you that.”
As frightened as I was, the thought that I might die, that I might be too late to help Mike, juiced me to go even faster. I twisted and turned among the thickets, knowing that he had to do the same. On this scrubby terrain, it was impossible for Zukov to fly.
At the summit of the small slope I called out to Mike. “Are you alive?”
I needed to know that he was, and I wanted his voice to guide me in the right direction.
“Don’t come back here, Coop. Get help.”
I had only halted for a fraction of a second and was on my way again. As agile as Zukov was, the rough landscape had slowed him too.
I reached the granite coping of the pit, sat on the side of it, and lowered myself to the ground. Chat Grant was struggling quietly against her restraints. I ran past her to Mike’s side. He’d been punched and kicked, and the bullhook was stuck into the ground, pinning both hands behind his back to hold him in place. It was unbearable—unthinkable, really—to see him incapacitated by this murderous perp.
“You’re mad to come back,” he whispered as I tried to lift the long instrument out of the ground.
“Not a word more,” I said.
I could see Zukov approaching the edge of the dark pit. I removed my flashlight from my pants pocket and knelt beside Mike.
“You got the gun?” he asked.
“Take this,” I said, placing the flashlight in his hands. I knew he’d be furious if I told him about the Glock. “Count to five and turn it on.”
“What will that—”
“I’m still in the driver’s seat. Just listen to me,” I said, my mouth against his ear.
Zukov had turned his back to us as he retied a length of aerial silk to the boulder where it had been earlier. He was preparing to float down into the pit while I slipped across to the corner beyond Chat Grant. He would be looking for me as soon as he alit.
He was halfway through his descent when Mike pushed the button to illuminate the flashlight. Zukov turned his head as the eerie torch suddenly backlighted one of his captives. Neither of us could see much against the blackness of the dirt wall, but Zukov stormed in that direction, assuming that I was holding the torch, trying to set Mike free.
“Where are you?” he shouted to the heavens, unable to see me crouching alongside Chat.
“Shoot, Coop,” Mike yelled as Zukov worked to pull the bullhook out of the ground. “He’s going to use this on one of us. He’s going to kill one of us with it. Shoot, dammit, will you?”
Zukov kicked Mike again and laughed as he pulled his weapon loose and raised it with both arms, over Mike’s chest. “I have not come to bring peace on earth,” he said, “but a sword, like Jesus Christ.”
I lifted the heavy ax from the ground beside Chat’s head and quickly took three or four steps that brought me directly behind the killer. Mike was wide-eyed, shocked out of his poker-faced expression at the sight of my armed advance.
Zukov turned his head to see what had captured Mike’s attention. I swung the ax with all my strength and struck at his outstretched arm.
He fell to his knees, cradling his wounded wrist. I picked up the flashlight and shined it on him as he doubled over in agony, covered in his own blood.
Fyodor Zukov’s scream was louder than any human sound I’d ever heard.
FIFTY-FOUR
I
took the gag off Chat Grant’s mouth and untied her hands and feet. She wrapped her arms so tightly around my neck that I thought she’d never let go.
took the gag off Chat Grant’s mouth and untied her hands and feet. She wrapped her arms so tightly around my neck that I thought she’d never let go.
“Don’t try to talk,” I said, stroking her matted hair. “There’s no need to say anything.”
There would be hours and hours of debriefing after she was treated at a hospital.
Mike was limping around the hole, about twenty feet by forty. Zukov seemed to have passed out—maybe his body had gone into shock from the blood loss—and Mike had bound his legs together. He wasn’t going anywhere, but neither were we.
“His arm? ...” I started to ask. I had meant to disable the madman, not to sever his hand.
“Don’t go soft on me, blondie. You took a healthy bite out of him, but you didn’t get the whole thing. I don’t think he’ll put the word ‘flying’ in front of his name anymore.”
“Let’s have your jacket,” I said, reaching out for it as Mike removed it.
“How come you didn’t warn me about this place?” he asked.
I wrapped his blazer, with its shredded sleeves, around Chat and we kept her huddled in a corner, trying to warm her up.
“It wasn’t a hole last time I was here. I think it’s the foundation of the old laundry building,” I said.
“But what’s that big old ruin you were describing?”
“I had forgotten all about it. In the 1870s, long before the leper colony was built, a professor from Harvard started an institution here. Built a home and a laboratory and a boathouse. The Anderson School of Natural History. That must have been the ruins of the Anderson mansion—much grander than the leper colony ever was.”
“One of the haunted houses?”
“Exactly. I’m sure my brothers will delight in telling us about it,” I said. “How’s the leg?”
“I’m likely to do a trapeze act before Zukov is.”
Both of us were pacing back and forth—Mike nursing a mild limp—grateful that the fog was lifting and counting on help to get to us soon.
It was about four thirty in the morning when I heard voices. Mike answered first. “Come this way! Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.” I didn’t know who responded, but I was elated that a team was on their way.
Within minutes, four uniformed Coast Guardsmen were standing over us, and beside them was Maggie Rubey Lynch.
“That’s Mike Chapman,” she said with a smile. “And Alex Cooper.”
“You’re a woman of your word, Captain Lynch,” Mike said.
“Well, I promised an armada, but all I came up with was a flotilla. Best I could do on short notice.”
“I’m still buying the drinks if you get us out of here,” Mike said, blowing her a kiss. “Can you get Ms. Grant up first, guys? She needs medical attention.”
“We’ve got four more men on the boat. Two are on their way with a stretcher. Looks like you solved this problem yourselves,” one of them said, pointing at Zukov.
“For the moment, we have. She gets the first stretcher. I’ve got a tourniquet around his arm, but it’s a big bleed.”
“Helicopter’s on the way. We just airlifted the four crewmen from the trawler.”
“So that situation has a happy ending too,” Mike said.
We waited with Chat until the guardsmen lowered a portable ladder into the space of the old foundation. “You think you can climb up that?” one asked. “We’ll ride you the rest of the trip.”
The dazed young woman told them she could, and slowly made her way up the rungs to the top. She collapsed onto the stretcher and two burly guardsmen prepared to carry her off.
I was next up the ladder, with Mike behind me. I took one of Chat’s hands, reminding her that she was going to be fine, and that she needed to concentrate on getting herself better in the next few days. I was sure that Faith would be flown up to her sister’s bedside at Mass General, the Boston hospital that was a short hop from these islands.
She clung to me until we heard the welcome sound of the chopper blades hovering over the island. The sky was lightening, and I could see a grassy field that would make an easy landing pad for the helicopter.
Once Chat Grant was airborne, the crew worked on rigging another stretcher to lift the unconscious Zukov out of the hole in the ground. The second chopper was on its way for him.
“You two ready to head back to the Cape?” Captain Lynch asked.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said to Mike. “Come with me to the Vineyard. It’s what—Saturday morning? Let’s just chill for the weekend.”
“You look more worried about hacking at Zukov than saving Chat’s life. Of course I’ll go with you, just to order your priorities if nothing else. Make sure your head’s on straight.”
“Maggie, will you take us there?”
“Sure. You can explain to all the impatient Vineyarders why the newspapers are coming over so late today.”
“I’m in,” Mike said. “Commissioner Scully will be looking for my scalp.”
“Yours?” I said. “I might as well just hand him mine.”
“I’ll take it back with me. May be my only hope to keep my gold shield.”
The
Patriot
was roped to the uprights on the old pier alongside the jetty. Mike let himself onto the stern of the boat gingerly, favoring his bad leg. He moved forward and seated himself in the wheelhouse, close to Maggie.
Patriot
was roped to the uprights on the old pier alongside the jetty. Mike let himself onto the stern of the boat gingerly, favoring his bad leg. He moved forward and seated himself in the wheelhouse, close to Maggie.
I wanted the brisk, fresh morning air. I stayed outside, watching the sun begin to rise, and letting my hair blow wildly in the wind.
Somehow, no matter what turmoil awaited me at the office, the peace and beauty of my island home always managed to bring back an inner calm. A few days and nights here would give me the emotional energy to deal with repairing Gina Borracelli’s delicate emotional health and getting her in the proper professional hands. Mike would follow up on my hunch that Bishop Deegan had no idea who Fyodor Zukov was when he nodded at the stranger in the clerical collar, and instead that Zukov had the defendant, child molester Denys Koslawski, on his pariahs-of-the-church hit list.
There was a strong chop in the water and the whitecaps gleamed in the morning sunlight. I had dozens of questions for Chat Grant, but they would have to wait until doctors treated her and determined that she was able to cooperate with us to give us every detail of her long encounter with the crazed murderer.
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