Valhalla Rising (46 page)

As Darfur turned to lay his rifle against a chair, Pitt, who’d pretended a look of fear, suddenly uncoiled like a rattler and lashed out at Darfur with his knee, catching the monstrous man in the groin. It should have been a stunning blow, or at least an incapacitating one, but Pitt’s aim was slightly off and the major force caught Darfur just to the side of the genitals where the thigh joins the torso.

Darfur was taken by complete surprise and doubled over with a hoarse gasp of pain, but only for a moment. He recovered almost instantly and struck Pitt in the chest with both hands clutched together in a sledgehammer punch that forced an explosive gasp of breath and knocked him over a table, crashing to the carpet. Pitt had never been struck so hard. He came to his knees, heaving to put air in his lungs. Any more of this punishment and he’d be a candidate for the morgue. He knew he could never take the giant down with his feet and fists, and he’d have required muscles the size of drainage pipes even to attempt any display of resistance. He needed a weapon, any weapon. He picked up a coffee table, lifted it high and brought it down on Darfur’s head, shattering the wooden surface. The monster must have had a skull of iron. His eyes seemed to go out of focus, and he swayed unsteadily. Pitt thought he might go down and readied himself to leap for the gun in Kanai’s hand, but Darfur shook off the blow, rubbed his head, refocused his eyes and renewed his attack.

Pitt was in the fight of his life, and he was losing. There is a truism in the world of boxing that says a good little man can never beat a good big man. At least not in a fair fight. Pitt frantically looked around for something to throw. He snatched a heavy ceramic lamp off an end table and threw it with both hands. It merely bounced off of Darfur’s right shoulder like a rock off a Patton tank. Pitt threw a telephone, followed by a vase, followed by a clock off the mantel. He might as well have been throwing a barrage of tennis balls. None had the slightest effect on Darfur’s massive body.

Pitt could read the cold, dead eyes and saw that the giant was tired of playing the game. Darfur launched himself across the room like a defensive guard against a quarterback. But Pitt was still agile enough to step aside and let the express train thunder past and crash into a piano. Pitt ran over and picked up the piano stool, preparing to smash it into Darfur’s face. The blow never fell.

With Kelly’s arms clutched around his neck, Kanai brushed her away as if she were a small rodent and brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Pitt’s head. The blow did not knock him unconscious but unleashed a sea of pain that dropped Pitt to his knees, briefly causing him to black out. Consciousness slowly returned, and through a darkness that clouded his vision, he became aware of Kelly screaming. As his vision cleared, he saw Kanai holding her at bay, twisting her arm until it was a millimeter away from breaking. Kelly had attempted to wrest the gun away from him while his attention was focused on the one-sided fight between Pitt and Darfur.

Pitt was suddenly aware of being jerked to his feet by Darfur, who circled his arms around Pitt’s chest, clutched his hands together and began to squeeze. The breath was slowly, irreversibly being compressed within his lungs is if he were being wrapped by a boa constrictor. His mouth was open, but he could not even utter a gasp. The blackness was returning, and he had no illusions of seeing daylight again. He felt his ribs on the verge of cracking, and he was within two seconds of giving in and letting death relieve his agony, when abruptly the pressure released and the arms around his chest loosened.

As if in a dream sequence, he saw Giordino walk into the room and kidney-punch Kanai from the rear, doubling him over in agony. Kanai dropped the gun and released his grip on Kelly’s arm.

The other Vipers froze, their guns now aimed at Giordino, waiting for the word from Kanai to shoot.

Darfur gazed apprehensively at the intruder for a moment, but when he saw that Giordino was not carrying a firearm and was a good foot shorter than he, the look on his face reflected an air of disdain. “Leave him to me,” he said fiendishly.

In the same instantaneous movement, he released Pitt, who fell in a heap onto the carpet, took two steps and swept Giordino up off the floor in a great bear hug and held him with his feet in the air. Instead of Darfur towering above his opponent, they stared face-to-face, no more than inches apart. Darfur’s lips were drawn back in an evil leer while Giordino’s face was expressionless, with a complete absence of fear.

When Darfur had grasped him around the back above the waist and locked his arms like a vise, Giordino had lifted his arms so that they were free and stretched in the air above the giant’s head. Darfur ignored Giordino’s raised arms and used every ounce of his enormous strength to constrict the life out of the short Italian.

Pitt, still dazed and in extreme pain, crawled across the room, drawing in great breaths, gasping in agony from his bruised chest and head. Kelly leaped onto Darfur’s back with her hands around his face again, covering his eyes and wrestling with him, twisting his head back and forth. Darfur easily broke her hold with one hand and tossed her away as if she were a show window mannequin, sending her sprawling onto the sofa before he resumed his constricting grip around Giordino.

But Giordino didn’t need saving. He lowered his arms and tightened his fingers around Darfur’s throat. The giant suddenly realized that he was the one who was staring death in the eye. The leer on his face turned to contorted fear as the air was cut off from his lungs and he tried to beat desperately at Giordino’s chest with his fists one moment and pry the steel fingers from his throat the next. But Giordino was remorseless. He gave no sign of yielding. He hung on like a relentless bulldog as Darfur thrashed around the room like a madman.

There was a horrible gasping wail as Darfur suddenly went limp and crashed to the floor like a timbered oak tree, with Giordino on top of him. At that instant, a fleet of sheriff’s patrol cars and SWAT vans slid to a stop on the gravel driveway. Uniformed men with heavy weapons began dispersing around the house. The sound of approaching helicopters also came through the windows.

“Out the back!” Kanai shouted to his men. He clutched Kelly around the waist and began dragging her from the room.

“You harm her,” Pitt said, his voice like cold stone, “and I’ll blow you to pieces bit by bit.”

He saw Kanai quickly calculating the odds of escaping with a struggling prisoner.

“Not to worry,” Kanai replied derisively, as he threw her across the room at Pitt. “She’s yours for now. That is, until we meet again, and we will.”

Pitt tried to follow, but he was in no condition for a footrace and he stumbled to a stop, leaning on a credenza, waiting for the cobwebs to clear and the pain to subside. After a minute, he returned to the living room and found Giordino cutting away the ropes that bound Thomas, while Kelly dabbed a cloth soaked with Jack Daniel’s sour-mash whiskey at the wounds on the scientist’s face.

Pitt glanced down at Darfur on the floor. “He dead?”

Giordino shook his head. “Not quite. I thought it best if he lives. Maybe he can be persuaded to tell the police and FBI what he knows.”

“You cut it a bit thin, didn’t you?” Pitt said, with a tight grin.

Giordino looked at him and shrugged. “I was on my way two seconds after I saw you get sandbagged, but I had to stop and take care of the guard outside the barn.”

“I’m grateful,” said Pitt genuinely. “If not for you, I wouldn’t be standing.”

“Yes, my intervention is getting monotonous.”

There was no getting the last word with Giordino. Pitt went over and helped Thomas to his feet. “How are you doing, old-timer?”

Thomas smiled bravely. “I’ll be good as new after a few stitches.”

Kelly gazed at Pitt as he put his arm around her and said, “You’re one tough little lady.”

“Did he get away?”

“Kanai?”

“I’m afraid so, unless the sheriff’s deputies can chase him down.”

“Not him,” she said uneasily. “They won’t find him. He’ll come back to kill with a vengeance. His bosses at Cerberus won’t rest until they have Dad’s formula.”

Pitt stared out the window, as if searching for something in the distance beyond the horizon. When finally he spoke, it was in a quiet voice, as if he was dwelling on each syllable. “I have a strange feeling that the oil formula is not the only thing they’re after.”

I
t was late in the afternoon. Darfur and the two Vipers that Pitt and Giordino had subdued were handcuffed and driven away in patrol cars to the Sheriff’s Department and booked for the murder of Egan’s security guards. Kelly and Thomas gave their statements to the sheriff’s homicide investigators, followed by Pitt and Giordino. Kelly was correct in saying the deputies would never catch Ono Kanai. Pitt traced the killer’s tracks to the high cliffs above the Hudson River, where he found a rope leading down to the water.

“They must have escaped in a waiting boat,” observed Giordino.

Pitt stood with his friend in a gazebo at the edge of the palisade and stared down at the water. He lifted his gaze across the river to the green hills and forests. Small villages strayed along the New York shore in the part of the Hudson Valley made famous by Washington Irving. “Amazing how Kanai covers every bet, every contingency.”

“Do you think the Vipers will talk under interrogation?”

“It really wouldn’t make much difference if they did,” said Pitt slowly. “The Viper organization probably works in cells, each ignorant of the other, under the command of Kanai. As far as they know, the chain of command stops with him. I’ll bet none of them are aware their true bosses sit in the corporate offices of Cerberus.”

“It stands to reason they’re too smart to leave a trail leading to their doorstep.”

Pitt nodded. “Government prosecutors will never find enough hard evidence to convict them. If they’re ever punished for their hideous crimes, it won’t be under the law.”

Kelly walked across the lawn from the house to the gazebo. “You two hungry?”

“I’m always hungry,” Giordino said, smiling.

“I fixed a light dinner while Josh mixed the drinks. He makes mean margaritas.”

“Dear heart”—Pitt put his arm around her waist—“you just said the magic word.”

T
o say that Dr. Elmore Egan’s taste in decorating was eclectic would be an understatement. The living room was furnished in early Colonial, the kitchen had obviously been designed by a high-tech engineer whose passion ran more to exotic appliances than gourmet cooking and the dining room looked like it had come straight from a Viking farm, its chairs and tables crafted from heavy oak, with matching chairs carved and sculpted with intricate patterns and designs.

While Pitt, Giordino and Thomas savored margaritas that could have jumped from their glasses and walked away, Kelly dished up a tuna casserole with coleslaw. Despite the trauma of the day, everyone ate normally.

Afterward, they retired to the living room and replaced the uprooted pieces of furniture to their proper positions while Thomas poured everyone a glass of forty-year-old port.

Pitt looked at Kelly. “You told Kanai that your father’s formula was hidden in the laboratory.”

She glanced at Thomas as if seeking permission. He smiled slightly and nodded his approval. “Dad’s formula is in a file folder that fits in a hidden panel in back of the door.”

Giordino swirled the port slowly in his glass. “He’d have fooled me. I would never have looked for it inside a door.”

“Your dad was a clever man.”

“And Josh is a brave man,” Giordino said respectfully. “Despite a nasty beating, he told Kanai nothing.”

Thomas shook his head. “Believe me, if Dirk had not walked into the room when he did, I would have spilled the secret of the formula’s hiding place to save Kelly further torture.”

“Maybe,” said Pitt. “But when they saw they couldn’t beat it out of you, they switched their efforts to Kelly.”

“They could come back, perhaps even tonight,” said Kelly uneasily.

“No,” Pitt assured her. “Kanai would need time to put another team together. He won’t try again soon.”

“We’ll take every precaution,” said Thomas seriously. “Kelly must leave the house and go into hiding.”

“I agree,” said Pitt. “Kanai will no doubt assume that you’ll secrete the formula someplace other than the farm, which still leaves the two of you their only key to finding it.”

“I could go to Washington with you and Al,” said Kelly, with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I’ll be safe under
your
care.”

“I’m not sure yet whether we’re going back to Washington.” Pitt set down his empty glass. “Could you please show us Dr. Egan’s laboratory?”

“There’s not much to see,” said Thomas. He led them from the house to the barn. Inside were three counters upon which sat the usual apparatus seen in most chemistry laboratories. “It’s not very exciting, but it’s where we formulated and developed Slick 66.”

Pitt walked around the room. “Not exactly what I was expecting.”

Thomas looked at him queerly. “I’m not following you.”