The Pandora Key (9 page)

“Be sure to give it back,” he said. “Don’t take it home.”

“What about stray shots?” I looked through the windshield up and down the street. We were in a neighborhood. A very bad one, but a neighborhood nonetheless. Our target was in the middle of the block. The house on one side looked like a boarded-up crack den, but there were lights on in the one on the other side. “We could kill someone in the next house over if we’re not careful.”

“We must shoot them before they can return fire. You are a good shot. You will not miss. Aim for the—”

“Center of mass.” I knew that. I knew how to kill a paper target.

He waited for me to think up still more objections. I couldn’t, so I took a breath, adjusted my vest, and gave him the nod. We did a quick radio check. Then the four of us got out and started toward the house. I split off and went toward the back, where I was supposed to watch through the window and make sure they were in the kitchen where Bo’s reconnaissance had left them. I was also supposed to cover the door in case any of them got flushed out that way. It was the easiest assignment, which was fine by me. Timon and Radik were going in through the garage entrance. Bo was going through the front door, right up the middle.

I slipped around and started creeping along the side of the house. I had to go slowly, because it was so dark and I didn’t dare risk using the flashlight. The stink of garbage wafted up as I maneuvered around the trash cans. Where there was garbage there were rats, so I tried to prepare myself for any unexpected movement at foot level. I got to the backyard and cruised along the fence line until I got as far in as the crumbling brick planter Bo had told me about. It marked the far boundary of a cracked and pocked patio, which meant it wasn’t too far out from the back of the house. I had to be careful. I moved in behind it and made myself as small as I could. Then I peeked over the top to look through the back window.

The blinds were closed. Damn. They must have just closed them.

“Blinds closed,” I whispered into the radio. “Moving closer. Hold on.”

I turned the radio down and crawled on my belly back to the fence and toward the house. When I got there, I flattened against the back wall. As I inched toward the window, I could hear them. There were two distinct voices. They were speaking something besides English. It sounded Slavic and guttural. There was a sliver of space between the sill and the lowest blind. I crept close enough to get my eyeball to the window to look inside the house.

There were two in the kitchen, not three. The one closest to me was balding. He wore the long and greasy strands of his remaining hair in a mutant ponytail that sat too high on the back of his head. The bigger man had on a black Judas Priest T-shirt. He was Bo-sized, if not larger. He was talking on his cell phone, holding the tiny silver device against his massive head. Bo had declared him the priority. I could see why.

I crept back to the cover of the crumbling wall, turned up the radio, and gave my report. “Two in the kitchen in the back. Repeat…only two in the kitchen. No sign of number three.”

“Positions?”

“Ponytail is standing…leaning against the sink with his back to the window…facing the inside doorway. Judas Priest is sitting at the table…back to the inside doorway…talking on a cell phone. Both have their hands occupied with pizza, beer, cigarette, or phone. No third man. Repeat, no third man in the kitchen. Over.”

Bo came back. “Third in the front room watching the door and the television. I will take care of this one. On my signal…”

I waited. The next thing I would hear would be the go sign. When it came, it was a short but ferocious burst over the radio that must have been something like
Go! Go! Go!
in Bosnian.

The shouting started almost instantly. Then came the shooting. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear. I knew when the bad guys were firing, because all our weapons had suppressors. The blinds crashed back against the window. It must have been Ponytail. Whoever it was, when he fell, he pulled the blinds down with him. From my position, it was like a curtain rising.

Judas Priest was hunkered down beside the refrigerator, clutching what looked like some kind of fully automatic, magazine-fed assault rifle. Timon and Radik were firing from outside the kitchen door. They had him pinned down, but every time they tried to advance, he’d step out and blast away. Judas Priest had only one real chance to make it out of there, and it was through the back door directly across from his position. He knew it, too. He kept glancing that way. The only question was whether they would get him before he ran through it and right into me.

I got ready.

He jumped out again and laid down another barrage, but this time, instead of moving back to the safe corner behind the refrigerator, he crashed toward the door and opened it, firing the whole way. The second he moved onto the small concrete patio, both Timon and Radik advanced through the kitchen toward the door. The way he staggered down the steps made it clear he’d been hit, but he was still coming straight at me, which meant I either had to roll out of the line of fire from the house or stand up and shoot him, but he was still moving with such power and authority that I had real doubts about whether I could stop him. An image flashed of me rising from behind the safety of my wall, emptying a clip into him, only to have him keep coming. But then he saw me and raised his rifle, and the adrenaline surged and instinct took over, and I was standing to take my shot when someone yelled,
“Down! Down! Down!”

I dropped to my belly behind the wall and rolled. Five straight shots followed, presumably into the back of Judas Priest. The sound of the shots was subdued, like someone blowing five quick darts through a long pole, which is what a suppressor is supposed to do. Make death quiet.

I didn’t hear him die. I didn’t hear him gurgle or cry out. But he was dead, lying in the yard, facedown with the rifle still in his hand and blood soaking into his black T-shirt. Bo was the one who had shot him. He was coming toward me now.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I said, staring down at the corpse. “You?”

“Good. Everything is good. Go inside and find Harvey.” He looked around. There was one house that backed up to the alley from which someone could have seen the show. “Go. Go now.”

Inside the house, the light that bathed the room was too warm for such a cold scene. Radik was standing over Ponytail. Judging by the blood smears, he must have been blown back against the window, turned, grabbed the edge of the sink, and slumped to the floor.

“We need to turn off the lights,” I said. “Anyone can see in here from the back.”

Radik didn’t understand, so I pulled out my flashlight to show him and flipped off the overhead light. He got it.

With my flashlight in one hand and the Glock in the other, I started toward the side of the house where Bo said he’d seen Harvey. It was a rambling floor plan that didn’t make any sense to me. All I knew was that the doors were all closed, and every time I cracked one of them open, I expected to find something bad behind it—either someone coming at me from out of the dark or, worse, Harvey’s body. By the time I got to the last door, my heart was pumping out of control and my lungs straining for breath. It was controlled, but it was still panic. I had to stop. With my back to a wall, I leaned over and put my hands on my knees. Generous drops of sweat rolled from my forehead and dripped onto the floor. When I felt a little less likely to collapse, I opened the last door, shone my flashlight across the room, and found Harvey.

He was lying in a heap in the corner, still wearing the suit jacket he’d had on that morning. I stumbled into the doorway, but something stopped me there. It was the sight of him, so still and crumpled, that kept me from rushing to his side, because if I did, if I reached down and turned him, I might find his eyes fixed in a death stare. I might find his skin long cold. Maybe not even murdered, just dead from the stress on his weak system. I was so afraid that I was too late. But when I saw his chest rise, fall, and rise again, I went and knelt beside him. I put my hand on his shoulder and felt the life still in him. He moaned when I turned him. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard, and when he opened his eyes, it was a smile that he saw and not just the tears.

“Harvey, it’s me. We’re taking you out of here. We’re taking you home.”

He blinked at me, and I knew he recognized me. “Leave me alone.” He tried to roll away from me. “Let me go. Let me die.”

Not what I expected. It ticked me off. “Goddammit, Harvey, you are not giving up. Not here and not now. Die at home if you want, but right now we’re getting out of here.”

I grabbed his other arm and pulled him up into a sitting position. His head and shoulders flopped forward. He was in full rag-doll mode. I slid behind him, put my arms under his, and locked my hands across his diaphragm.

“Help me as much as you can,” I said, hoping he could—and would. When I finally got him upright, he wasn’t steady on his feet, but I needed only a second or two. All in one maneuver, I let go with one hand, slipped under one of his arms, and draped him over my back. I huffed and puffed a few times and lifted. He wasn’t as heavy as he used to be, but he was still deadweight, and I staggered until I found my equilibrium. Then I carried him out of there.

When I got to the front room, Timon was gathering weapons into a pile on the floor. Bo was there, standing very still over the body of the third man, the one he must have dispatched when he came through the front. He was looking at the corpse with an expression I had never seen, and I wondered if he knew his victim. Slowly, he crouched and pulled at the man’s shirt, baring his chest and an amazing webbing of tattoos that covered him practically from head to toe.

Bo called for Timon. He walked over and looked where Bo was looking, but he didn’t say anything. Then Timon crouched, too, pulled out his knife, and did something really strange. He grabbed the dead man’s pants at the knees and sliced them open. Timon stepped back, and Bo said something, and there was a rushed exchange that I didn’t need to understand to feel the deep concern.

“Bo?”

He seemed almost dazed when he looked at me. “Give me the weapon.”

“What? Oh.” He wanted the Glock back. “What’s going on?”

“You must leave here,” he said. “You must take Harvey and leave at once.”

10

I WANTED TO TAKE HARVEY TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM, but Bo said we couldn’t risk it. He said they would look for us there but didn’t bother to tell me who. He said we didn’t have time to discuss it and that Radik would take us home and keep watch. Watch for what? The ride home with the sleeping Harvey and the English-challenged Radik was completely silent, leaving me plenty of time to wonder. Also to think about what had just happened. While the adrenaline had been flowing, I hadn’t felt much of what I had seen. Now I was starting to.

The bodies. The blood. The smells. I saw the tattooed man lying on his back with both eyes open. They were blue. Pale blue. There was a third hole between them, and there was no weapon in his hand. I didn’t have to wonder why. The look on his face told me everything I needed to know. He’d had no warning, but maybe that was part of why we were all still alive and Harvey was in the backseat on his way home.

Or maybe it was just murder.

Bo must have given Radik specific instructions, because when we got home, he carried Harvey into the house and put him in his wheelchair, then did a complete sweep of the inside while we waited in the foyer. Once I had the all clear, he went outside, presumably to patrol, and I wheeled Harvey into his bedroom. As I was trying to work out the logistics of how to get him into bed, he stirred, and then he opened his eyes and blinked at me.

“Where are my glasses?”

I reached out to pat his jacket. “They’re in your breast pocket. How are you feeling? Are you injured?”

“Just tired. Very tired.”

“What can you tell me?”

He looked at me hard, as if he were trying to pick me out of a Where’s Waldo? puzzle. Part of it was the fact that he didn’t have his corrective lenses on, but much of it, I was sure, had to be due to the trauma he’d just suffered. I wouldn’t get much from him before he got some sleep, but I had to get my basic questions answered.

“Harvey, where’s Rachel?”

“I…I do not know. Is she not with you? Is she all right?”

“She’s not with me. She sent me to Quincy to an empty house. There was no husband or jewelry or photos or anything else. Why did she do that?”

“An empty house?” I hoped that his confused look was because he hadn’t known about it.

“Yes. She moved out last week in the middle of the night. It seems to me she wanted me out of the way so that whoever grabbed you could do it without interference. Does that sound right?”

“No. Why would she do such a thing? Why would she have to? I would have gone with her, had she asked.”

Sadly, that was probably true. Rachel had to know that. There would have been no need for the elaborate subterfuge just to get Harvey to go somewhere with her. “Do you know who took you?”

“No. I…” He tried to reach up and rub his eyes, but his arm was a little floppy. “I cannot remember much. I have been sleeping.”

“What can you remember?”

He looked around his room, as if absorbing the familiar might sharpen his memory. “We were listening to music, Rachel and I, and…” He squeezed his eyes shut. One of his arms slipped off the armrest, which caused him to tilt slightly. “She left. She had to go, and then I was alone in the music room—”

“The room upstairs with the turntable?”

“Yes. It was our music room when she lived with me.” The thought seemed to relax him, but only for a second. “Someone came up the stairs. I thought it was you, but they put a bag over my head. They put me in a vehicle, in the back of an SUV, perhaps. I was lying flat. I tried to think about how long the trip was, but I was disoriented. I was…” His voice trailed off.

“Did they speak?”

“No one spoke. I asked them several times who they were and what they wanted. They would not answer.”