The Sign (42 page)

They weren’t in the least bit sure of what they’d find when the 300C got to wherever it was headed. As Matt had conceded to Jabba, he didn’t really think he’d find Danny there, but there was a small chance they’d find Rebecca Rydell. Maddox didn’t seem to have an entire brigade of thugs dedicated to this. They were running a lean, mean operation. It wasn’t beyond reason to think they weren’t running more than one safe house, and that they might be keeping her stashed away at the one. It would be the safest place to keep her, and saved resources. Matt started to reel back to what would have happened had he not moved the tracker over to Maddox’s car in the first place, but gave up after finding it was taking away from his concentration. He didn’t want to risk losing them. Beyond the possibility of finding Rebecca Rydell, this was also a chance to throw a wrench into Maddox’s plans, which, to Matt, sounded pretty satisfying right now

They dumped the turnpike for the 95, which they rode north for a couple of miles before getting off at Weston. Matt pulled back as the traffic got lighter. He stalked the big car and its distinctive, boxy taillights east, all the way to Bacon, where it turned left and headed into Waltham. The going got dicier. There were far fewer cars here, and Matt had to drop way back to avoid being noticed. He also switched from main beams to daytime running lamps at each change of direction to vary the front appearance of the Bonneville in the 300C’s mirrors.

The 300C threaded through some residential streets before finally turning into an unlit driveway. Matt already had his lights off and pulled over a couple of houses back. He killed the motor and watched. The three men emerged from the car and headed into the house. The last of them, the driver, beeped the car shut. He hung back and gave the street a cursory sweep before following the two other goons in.

Moments later, the 300C’s interior lights automatically faded to black and the car and the house were shrouded in darkness.

The house was a small, two-story structure. Matt knew those houses well—it wasn’t far from where he’d grown up, in Worcester, and the internal layouts in that stratum of the housing market were pretty standard. Front or side entrance to a front living room, kitchen at the back, stairs in the middle going up to two or three bedrooms and a bathroom or two upstairs. There was also a basement, and Matt was pretty sure that was where they’d be keeping any prisoners.

There were no lights on in the upper floor, and the front living room was also dark. Traces of light from the back of the ground floor filtered through the bay window of the living room and cast a faint glow on its ceiling.

Matt glanced at Jabba and nodded. There was another car in the driveway. The black Durango they’d seen at the airfield. The one Maddox’s goons had stuffed Rebecca Rydell into.

The easy part was over. It was time to crash that party.

Luckily, they hadn’t come empty-handed.

THE
GUYS
FROM
THE
CHRYSLER
were in the kitchen at the back of the house, talking, having a smoke, sipping cold cans of Coke. Going over the events of the day. Winding down. Not really expecting to be called out again that night.

The loud crash changed things.

It blasted through the house and whipped them to attention. It came from the front, at ground level. From the living room. The distinctive sound of glass, exploding inward: something dense thumping heavily against the wall and landing in a dull thud while a shower of glass cascaded down onto the floor, where it exploded into tiny shards.

The guys moved as one, the lead guy from the hotel barking orders as he rushed to the front of the house, his gun already drawn and out in front. He got one guy to stay behind in the kitchen. Another followed him halfway through the house and stopped at the central staircase, positioning himself at a door that led to the basement. The third was hot on his heels as he burst into the front living room.

It had a wide bay window, and louvered half shutters ran a little over halfway up the glass, to a height of about five feet off the ground. In a defensive reflex, he didn’t turn on the lights, relying instead on the dim light that spilled in from the hallway. The room should have been empty, as the rental was unfurnished, and it still was, except for the glass shards that littered the wood floor. They crunched noisily under the man’s heels as he advanced into the room, sweeping his gun around. He stopped and looked up at the bay window and saw that its central portion had a huge hole punched out of it, the size of a large pumpkin. He glanced around, trying to make sense of what had happened, and spotted a rock, about the size of a football, at the foot of the back wall. His mind was still processing the idea of someone throwing a big rock through the window when something else came crashing in, something bigger and bulkier that clipped the edge of the broken glass, busted an ever wider gap through what was left of it, and narrowly missed him. It showered him with glass and splashed him with a sour-smelling liquid before it tumbled to the ground and clattered to a rest. He stared at it, dumbfounded for a nanosecond. It was a gas can. Lightweight polyethylene, red, threaded vent. Only its lid wasn’t screwed on. In fact, it didn’t have a lid. And it had spewed fuel like a Catherine wheel as it spun through the air on its inward flight, hosing him along the way and now spilling its load all over the floor.

“Fuck,” he rasped as he lunged down and grabbed its handle, turning it upright to stem the flow of gas—only that didn’t help, as small geysers of fuel were pouring out of it from all sides, drenching his arms and legs as well as the floor around him. He saw that crude perforations had been cut into it. There was no way to stop the fuel from pouring out. Which wouldn’t have been that bad, except that a third projectile came flying into the room. This one was coming right at him, and it was lit.

MATT
WATCHED
THE
MOVEMENT
of shadows inside the front room and flicked the lighter on. In his other hand, he held a water bottle that he’d emptied then refilled, half with gasoline, half with motor oil. A wick, in the form of a strip of dust cloth that was soaked with gasoline, was stuffed tightly into its neck, waiting for the flame. Two other identical projectiles were ready and willing by his feet.

The rock had drawn the guys from the Chrysler into the room, in time to receive the gas can he’d cut holes into. He knew he had to move fast and hit them before they understood what was going on. He lit the rag and lobbed the bottle in. The petrol bomb arced through the cool night air and flew into the room through the broken window. A flash of light lit up behind the shutters, followed almost instantly by a bigger fireball as the flames caught the fuel from the gas can. He heard a panicked scream, lit a second bottle, hurled it in through the same opening, grabbed the third bottle, and sprinted around to the back of the house.

THE
LEAD
GUY
SHRIEKED
as his arms and legs caught fire. He twisted around furiously, trying to bat the flames down with his bare hands, the second guy side-stepping around him in a panic, unsure about what to do to help. The flames were stubborn, more stubborn and stickier than expected—and hotter. The gasoline was easier to smother and kill off. The motor oil was a different story. It stuck like tar and burned stronger and harder. There was no way to get it off his clothes or off the skin on his hands, and it was growing, hungrily consuming everything it touched. Flames had also grabbed hold of the floor and were spreading across the wood.

“Get it off me,” he yelled demonically as he dropped to the ground and rolled on himself, trying to suffocate the flames, unaware of the futility of his moves. Shards of glass were now cutting into his exposed, burning skin, which made the pain intolerable. The second guy took off his jacket and crab-stepped around him, looking for an opening to dive in and wrap it around him. Gray smoke was choking the room, thick with the stink of charred skin and hair and burned motor oil. The third guy, the one who’d been stationed by the stairs, was also in the room, watching his burning partner in horror. He looked around frantically, trying to find something to use to smother the flames, but the room was bare. No carpets, no curtains, no throws over sofas.

“What the fuck’s going on?” the fourth guy shouted from the back of the house.

“The kitchen,” the second guy ordered the third guy, “cover the back.”

But it was too late.

THE
FOURTH
GUY
WAS
ALONE
in the kitchen. He had edged right up to the door, by the hall, trying to see what was happening while not wanting to move away from covering the house’s back entrance. He could hear the screams and see the flames and the smoke and smell the stink billowing out through the living room’s door and getting pushed through the house by the air coming in from the broken window, and it panicked him. It panicked him enough to snag his attention away from the back door and move him away from it enough to make Matt’s move feasible.

Matt was hugging the back wall of the house and peering in through the kitchen window. He recognized the man as one of the two guys who’d escorted Rebecca Rydell off the plane, and it gave him a boost of confidence that she might be there. He registered the man’s position and decided it would do. He lit the last bottle, took three steps back to give his Molotov cocktail enough momentum to break through the glass, and hurled it with all his strength. The bottle punched its way into the kitchen and exploded against the wall inches away from the guy. He bolted sideways as flames fanned out angrily, looking for food. That split second of diversion was all Matt needed. He kicked the door in right after the throw and caught the guy flat-footed. The guy was still swinging his gun hand around when Matt put him down with two rounds to the chest.

He pushed through the house without hesitating, scanning around for a locked door, sweeping the area with his P14. It felt weird being in there. He wondered if Danny had ever been held captive there. The feeling made him angrier. He stowed it for now and focused on finding Rebecca Rydell. His guess was they’d be keeping her in the basement, and sure enough, the door that led down, by the stairs, was shut. Not only shut, but locked, as someone was desperately hammering against it from the inside and tugging against its handle and yelling. A girl’s voice, confirming Matt’s thinking.

He didn’t veer off to help her. There were at least four of them, and two potentially out of action still left at least two goons to deal with. Matt was easing past the stairs when another guy slipped out of the living room, on his way to help his now-dead colleague in the kitchen. Matt had a flash of recognition from the airfield. He didn’t stop to ponder it. He just lunged sideways and down as the guy from the plane loosed off a couple of rounds that crunched into the walls just as Matt let the big handgun rip. A round caught the guy in the thigh and he jerked backward momentarily, then his leg buckled and he collapsed on top of it. The shooter raised his gun, hoping for another shot. The strength had drained out of him and he looked like he was trying to lift a lead brick. Matt was on bent knees, down low against the wall, in a two-handed stance, and squeezed off two more rounds that took the guy out.

Matt stayed there for a beat. He glanced up the stairs, dismissed the idea that anyone would still be up there, and just stayed where he was and waited, arms outstretched, covering the door, watching the smoke and the flames wafting out from the living room, the screaming and the stomping echoing in his ears. He knew the fourth guy had to come back out if he didn’t want to get barbecued alive. And there was only one way out of that room.

And then he heard them. The sirens, low and grating squawks, distant but closing in. Just when he needed them. He’d told Jabba to call 911 the instant the first petrol bomb exploded, figuring he’d have enough time to storm through the house before the fire engines got there, and thinking they could come in handy if things hadn’t gone according to plan. The sirens grew louder, and he crouched lower, arms tensing up, expecting that the guy inside had heard them and would be needing to make a desperate, Butch-and-Sundance-like breakout. And then he heard something else: glass, shattering furiously, a loud crashing noise, and he understood. The guy had decided to bail through what was left of the bay window.

A stab of panic cut into Matt as he thought about Jabba, out there on his own without a weapon, but they’d parked a couple of houses back and he imagined neighbors were probably stepping out of their houses by now and converging outside the house, alerted by the flames and the gunshots, which would give Jabba some cover.

He waited a beat longer, straining to listen to any telltale noise that contradicted what he thought had happened, then scrambled back to the closed door. Rebecca Rydell—it had to be her—was still banging her fists against the door and shouting.

“Hey! What’s going on? Get me out of here!”

Matt tried the handle, but it was locked. “Step back from the door,” he yelled back. “I need to shoot the lock off.”

He waited a couple of seconds, then shouted, “You back?”

She said, “Yes,” and he fired—once, twice. It more than did the trick. The locks were old and basic, the door frame soft with age. He kicked the door in. Wooden treads led down to a basement where an attractive, tanned girl was cowering against the wall, her face riven with terror.

He extended his arm down toward her, waving her up. “Come on, we’ve got to go,” he hollered over the increasing crackle of the flames. She hesitated for a second, then nodded nervously and rose to her feet.

They stormed out of the house, past the startled faces of a few neighbors, past a fire truck that was swinging into the driveway. Matt peered through the darkness, scanning for the Bonneville, and a stab of dread cut into him as he saw that it was no longer there. A scream of horror confirmed his worst fears and he ran faster, his heart fighting its way out of his rib cage, imagining the worst. As he drew nearer, he spotted Jabba’s silhouette, flat on his back on the curb outside a nearby house.