Текст книги "Cold Vengeance"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER 66

THE BUILDING ON EAST END AVENUE could not be dignified by the name brownstone. It was brick, not stone; it was narrow; and it rose only three stories. A more dismal and down-at-the-heels structure could not be found on the Upper East Side, Corrie decided as she lounged against a ginkgo tree on the opposite side of the street, drinking coffee and pretending once again to read a book.

The windows had firmly drawn shades that looked like they had been yellowing for decades. The windows themselves were filthy, covered with bars, and sporting lead alarm tape. The stoop was cracked, and trash had collected in the basement entrance. Despite the shabby appearance, however, the building seemed buttoned up pretty tight, with gleaming new locks on the front door. And the bars on the windows didn’t look old, either.

She finished her coffee, put away her book, and strolled down the street. The neighborhood, once German, had become facetiously known as the “girl ghetto,” the preferred neighborhood for recent college graduates, mostly women, newly arrived in Manhattan and looking for a safe place to live. The neighborhood was quiet, orderly, and undeniably safe. The streets thronged with attractive, preppy young women, most of whom looked like they worked on Wall Street or in one of the Park Avenue law firms.

Corrie wrinkled her nose and continued to the end of the block. Betterton had said he’d seen someone leave the building, but it didn’t look like anyone had been there in ages.

She turned around and strolled back down the block, feeling dissatisfied. The building was part of a long row of real brownstones, and no doubt each one had a small garden or patio in the rear. If she could get a look at the back of the building, she’d be able to check things out a little better. Of course, it might just be part of the overheated imagination of Betterton. Then again, there was something almost believable about his story of Pendergast blowing up a bar, burning down a drug lab, and sinking a bunch of boats. And although Betterton had been wrong, she had to admit he looked both smart and tough. He didn’t strike her as being someone who would be easy to kill. But kill him they had.

As she neared the center of the block, she eyed the two brownstones adjoining number 428. They were both typical, bustling Upper East Side buildings, with several apartments per floor. Even as she watched, a young woman exited one of the buildings, dressed in a spiffy suit and carrying a briefcase. The woman passed by her with nary a sideways glance, leaving a trail of expensive perfume. Other young women of the neighborhood were coming and going, and they all seemed to be of the same type: young professionals in business suits or jogging outfits. Corrie realized that her own Goth look – the streaked spiky hair, dangling metal, multiple earrings, and tattoos – made her stick out like a sore thumb.

What to do?She went into a bagel shop, ordered a bialy with lox spread, and sat by the window where she had a view down the street. If she could manage to make friends with someone on a ground-floor apartment on either side of the building, she might just talk her way into seeing the backyard. But you just didn’t walk up and say hello to people in New York City. She wasn’t in Kansas anymore…

… And then, coming out of the brownstone to the right of 428, she saw a girl with long black hair, wearing a leather miniskirt and tall leather boots.

Dropping a few dollar bills on the table, she bolted from the bagel shop and went walking down the street, swinging her bag and looking up at the sky, on a collision course with the fellow Goth coming the other way.

It had been so easy. Now the sun was setting and Corrie was relaxing in the tiny kitchen of the ground-floor apartment, drinking green tea and listening to her newfound friend complaining about all the yuppies in the neighborhood. Her name was Maggie and she worked as a waitress at a jazz club while trying to break into theater. She was bright, funny, and clearly starved for company.

“I’d love to move out to Long Island City or Brooklyn,” she said, cupping her tea, “but my dad thinks any place in New York outside of the Upper East Side is populated by rapists and murderers.”

Corrie laughed. “Maybe he’s right. That building next door looks pretty creepy.” She felt horribly guilty manipulating a girl she would actually like to have as a friend.

“I think it’s abandoned. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go in or out. Weird – it’s probably worth five million bucks. Prime real estate just going to waste.”

Corrie nursed her tea and wondered, now that she was here, how she was going to get outside into the patio behind the brownstone, get over the eight-foot wall into the backyard of the creepy house next door – and then break in.

Break in. Was that really what she was going to do? For the first time, she stopped to think about why, exactly, she was here and what she was planning. She had told herself she was just going to check things out. Casually. Was it really the most intelligent thing to do: contemplate a B&E even as she was studying at John Jay for a career in law enforcement?

And that was only the half of it. Sure, she’d broken into more than her share of places before, back in Medicine Creek – just for the hell of it – but if Betterton was right, these people were dangerous drug dealers. And Betterton was dead. Then, of course, there was her promise to Pendergast…

Of course she wouldn’t break in. But she’d check it out. She’d play it safe, peer through the windows, keep her distance. At the first sign of trouble, or danger, or anything, she’d back off.

She turned to Maggie and sighed. “I like it here. I wish I had a place like this. I’m getting kicked out of my apartment the day after tomorrow and my new lease doesn’t start until the first. Guess I’ll go stay at a hostel or something.”

Maggie brightened. “You need a place to crash for a few days?”

“Do I!” Corrie smiled.

“Hey, it will be great having somebody here. Living alone can kind of creep you out sometimes. Do you know, when I got home yesterday evening I had the strangest feeling that somebody had been in the apartment while I was gone…”

CHAPTER 67

BY TEN PM, THE WIND HAD PICKED UP, raising faint whitecaps on the dark surface of the Hudson River, and the temperature hovered a few degrees above freezing. The tide was ebbing, and the river flowed smoothly southward toward New York Harbor. The lights of New Jersey glowed coldly across the dark mass of moving water.

Ten blocks north of the Seventy-Ninth Street marina, on the riprapped shore below the West Side Highway, a dark figure moved down by the water. It was dragging a broken piece of flotsam over the rocks – a battered remnant of a floating dock, some planks of wood adhering to an abraded chunk of marine Styrofoam. The figure eased the piece into the water and got aboard, covering himself with a rotten section of a discarded tarp. As the raft hung next to shore, the figure produced a stick, whittled flat at one end, which when dipped in the water became almost invisible and which subtly controlled the progress of what looked like a mass of floating detritus.

With a small push of the stick, the man shoved the improvised barque away from shore, where it drifted into the current, joining other random pieces of flotsam and jetsam.

It moved out until it was a few hundred feet offshore. There it floated, turning slowly, as it drifted sluggishly toward a group of silent yachts in a mooring field, their anchor lights piercing the darkness. Slowly, the flotsam floated past the boats, bumping against one hull, then another, on its seemingly random journey. Gradually, it approached the largest yacht in the anchorage, knocking lightly against its hull and drifting past. As it neared the stern there was the very slightest of movements, a rustle and a faint splash, and then silence as the now-tenantless piece of garbage continued past the yacht and vanished in the darkness.

Pendergast, in a sleek neoprene suit, crouched on the swim platform behind the stern transom of the Vergeltung, listening intently. All was silent. After a moment, he raised his head and peered over the edge of the stern. He could see two men in the darkness, one relaxing on a sitting area on the aft deck, smoking a cigarette. The other was walking around on the foredeck, barely visible from this angle.

As Pendergast watched, the man on the aft deck raised a pint bottle and took a long pull. After a few minutes, he rose – unsteadily – and took a turn around the deck, pausing at the stern not five feet from Pendergast, looking across the water, before reinstalling himself in his nook and taking another long drink from the bottle. He stubbed out the cigarette, lit another.

From the small dive bag he carried, Pendergast removed his Les Baer.45 and gave it a quick check. He shoved it back into the bag and removed a short length of rubber hose.

Again he waited, watching. The man continued drinking and smoking, then finally rose and walked forward, disappearing through a door into the interior of the yacht, where dim lights glowed from various windows.

In a flash Pendergast was over the stern and onto the aft deck, crouching behind a pair of tenders.

Thanks to his new friend Lowe, Pendergast had learned there were probably only a few crew members on board. Most had gone ashore that afternoon, leaving, the general manager believed, only four on the vessel. How accurate this information was remained to be seen.

According to Lowe’s description, one of the men was undoubtedly Esterhazy. And then there were the supplies Lowe had observed being loaded recently, including a long stainless-steel dry-goods box large enough to hide an unconscious person – or, for that matter, a corpse.

Pendergast briefly considered what he would do to Esterhazy if the man had already killed Constance.

Esterhazy sat on an engine room bulkhead next to Falkoner, the redheaded woman whose name he did not know, and four men carrying identical Beretta 93R machine pistols configured for automatic three-round burst action. Falkoner had insisted they retreat to the engine room – the most secure place on the boat – for the operation. Nobody spoke.

Soft footfalls approached outside the door, and then a triple knock sounded lightly, followed by a double knock. Falkoner rose and unlocked the door. A man with a cigarette in his mouth stepped inside.

“Put that out,” said Falkoner sharply.

The man quickly stubbed it out. “He’s on board,” he said.

Falkoner looked at him. “When?”

“A few minutes back. He was good – arrived on a floating piece of trash. I almost didn’t catch it. He climbed onto the swim platform and now he’s in the aft deck area. Vic up on the flybridge is keeping track of him with the infrared night-vision setup.”

“Does he suspect anything?”

“No. I pretended to be drunk, like you said.”

“Very good.”

Esterhazy rose. “Damn it, if you had an opportunity to kill him you should have taken it! Don’t get cocky – this man is worth half a dozen of you. Shoot him at your first chance.”

Falkoner turned. “No.”

Esterhazy stared at him. “What do you mean, no? We already discussed—”

“Take him alive. I have a few questions before we kill him.”

Esterhazy stared. “You’re making a huge mistake. Even if you manage to take him alive, he won’t answer any questions.”

Falkoner gave Esterhazy a brutal smile, which stretched the already repulsive mole. “I never have problems getting people to answer questions. But I wonder, Judson, why youwould have a problem with that? Afraid we might find out something you’d rather keep hidden?”

“You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with,” Esterhazy said quickly, a stab of familiar fear suddenly freighting his anxiety. “You’re a fool if you don’t kill him right away, on sight, before he figures out what’s going on.”

Falkoner narrowed his eyes. “There are a dozen of us. Heavily armed, well trained. What’s the matter, Judson? We’ve taken care of you well enough all these years – and now you suddenly don’t trust us? I’m surprised – and hurt.”

The voice was laden with sarcasm. Esterhazy felt the old fear grow in the pit of his stomach.

“We’ll be in open water on our own boat. We’ve got the advantage of surprise – he has no idea he’s walking into a trap. And we’ve got his woman tied up below. He’s at our mercy.”

Esterhazy swallowed. As am I, he thought.

Falkoner spoke into his headset. “Take her out to sea.” He looked around the group gathered in the engine room. “We’ll let the others take care of him. If things go awry, then we’ll make our move.”

Pendergast, still crouching behind the tenders, felt a rumble shudder through the yacht. The engines had been turned on. He heard some voices forward, heard the faint splash of a mooring pennant tossed overboard; and then he felt the prow of the boat swing westward, toward the navigational channel of the river, as the engines accelerated to full throttle.

Pendergast pondered the coincidence of his arrival and the boat’s departure, and decided it was not a coincidence after all.

CHAPTER 68

Aboard theVergeltung

ESTERHAZY WAITED IN THE ENGINE ROOM with Falkoner. The twin diesels, now running at cruising speed, were loud in the confined space.

He checked his watch. Ten minutes had passed since Pendergast came on board. The air of tension was gradually increasing. He didn’t like this – didn’t like it at all. Falkoner had lied to him.

He’d taken exquisite care in reeling Pendergast in. Constance had done precisely what he’d expected, escaping her loose bonds, writing a note and tossing it out the window of the safe house to his plant in the next garden. And since Pendergast was now on board, he had clearly swallowed the bait so carefully dangled—“vengeance,” which of course in German translated to Vergeltung.It had been a balancing act, giving Pendergast just enough information to locate the boat but not enough to suspect a trap.

But now Falkoner was insisting on taking Pendergast alive. Esterhazy felt a twinge of nausea: he knew that one reason Falkoner wanted this was because he enjoyed torture. The man was sick – and his arrogance and sadism could still mess everything up.

Esterhazy felt the old sense of fear and of paranoia increase. He checked his handgun, racked the slide. If Falkoner didn’t follow through at the first opportunity, he’d have to do it himself. Finish what he’d started on the Scottish moors. And do it before Pendergast – intentionally or otherwise – did in fact reveal the secret Esterhazy had kept from the Covenant for the past decade. Christ, if only Pendergast hadn’t examined that old gun; if only he had let sleeping dogs lie. The man had no idea, no idea, of the madness he’d unleashed. Maybe he should have let Pendergast into the awful secret years ago, when he first married his sister.

Too late now.

Falkoner’s radio crackled. “It’s Vic,” came the voice. “I don’t know how, but we seem to have lost him. He’s not behind the tender anymore.”

“ Verdammter Mist!” Falkoner said angrily. “How the hell could you lose him?”

“I don’t know. He was hiding where we couldn’t see him. We waited awhile and nothing happened, so I left Berger on watch in the main cabin and went to the sky deck to look from a better angle – and he was gone. I don’t know how – we would’ve seen him no matter which way he went.”

“He must still be down there somewhere,” said Falkoner. “All the doors are locked. Send Berger onto the aft deck; cover him from your position on the flybridge.”

Esterhazy spoke into his own radio headset. “A locked door is no impediment to Pendergast.”

“He couldn’t have gotten past the main cabin door without us seeing him,” said Viktor.

“Flush him out,” Falkoner repeated. “Captain, what’s our position?”

“We’re just coming into New York Harbor.”

“Maintain cruising speed. Head for open ocean.”

Viktor crouched on the flybridge of the Vergeltung, three stories above the surface of the water. The boat had just passed the site of the fast-rising One World Trade Center and was rounding the southern tip of Manhattan, the Battery on their left, lit up by a cluster of spotlights. The buildings of the financial district rose like clusters of glowing spikes, casting an ambient light across the water, bathing the boat in an indirect radiance.

Below him, the aft deck of the Vergeltungwas softly illuminated in the glow of the city. Two outboard tenders – small motorboats used for coming and going when the yacht was at anchor – lay side by side on the port stern deck, each in its launching cradle, covered with canvas. There was no way for Pendergast to have gone forward without crossing the open deck. And they had been watching that deck like a hawk. He must still be back in the stern area.

Through the night-vision goggles, he saw Berger emerge from the main cabin, gun at the ready. Viktor lowered the goggles and raised his own weapon to cover him.

Berger paused a moment in the shadows, readying himself, then skipped alongside in the cover of the first tender and crouched behind its bow.

Viktor waited, his Beretta pointed, ready to unload at the slightest movement, the briefest exposure. He was ex-military and didn’t care much for Falkoner’s order to take the man alive; if this fellow showed his head, he’d take him down anyway. He wasn’t going to risk the others for a live catch.

Slowly, Berger worked his way alongside the boat toward the stern.

Viktor’s radio crackled, Berger speaking to him through his headset. “No sign of him behind the tenders.”

“Make double sure. And be careful: he might have slipped back behind the stern transom, waiting to jump anyone coming out.”

Keeping his weapon trained on the scene, Viktor watched as Berger crept from the first tender to the second.

“Not here,” came the whispered voice.

“Then he did slip back behind the stern,” Viktor said.

Viktor watched as Berger advanced to the stern rail, keeping to a low crouch. Then the man tensed and sprang up to full height, training his weapon on the twin swim platforms behind.

A moment later he dropped back down. “Nothing.”

Viktor thought hard. This was crazy. “Inside. He might be hiding inside one of the boats, under the tarp.”

Viktor shifted his gunsights to the tenders as Berger grasped the stern ladder of the first, swung it down, stepped onto it, and raised himself up. He leaned against the propeller shaft in order to lift the edge of the tarp and peer underneath.

Over the radio, Viktor heard a faint click, then an electronic beep.

Oh, Jesus, he knew that sound!“Berger—!”

A sudden earsplitting roar erupted from the tender’s outboard; Berger screamed and there was a shower of dark spray as his body was kicked sideways by the whirling propeller, his side ripped wide open.

After an instant of horrified shock, Viktor raked the tender with multiple bursts from his Beretta, sweeping back and forth until the magazine was empty, the rounds shredding the canvas and punching through the boat, riddling anyone who might have been hiding within. After a moment, flames erupted in the stern area of the tender. Berger’s body lay where it had fallen, unmoving, a puddle of black spreading out from beneath it.

With trembling hands Viktor ejected the empty mag and rammed another home.

“What’s going on!” came Falkoner’s furious voice over his headset. “What are you doing?”

“He killed Berger!” shouted Viktor. “He—”

“Stop firing! We’re on a boat, idiot! You’ll start a fire!”

Viktor stared at the flames licking up the canvas from the tender. There was a muffled thumpand a shudder as more flames burst upward from the ruptured gas tank. “Shit, we’ve already got a fire.”

“Where?”

“On the tender.”

“Launch it. Get it off the yacht. Now!”

“Right.” Viktor scrambled down to the main deck and raced to the tender. The man Pendergast was nowhere in sight – no doubt he was lying dead in the belly of the tender. He unclipped the stays fore and aft, threw open the stern transom, and hit the windlass switch. As the gears on the windlass hummed, the twelve-foot tender lurched back, sliding on launching rails; Viktor seized the bow and gave it an additional shove to keep it moving. When the burning stern of the tender hit the fast-moving wake, the water grabbed it and yanked the little boat off the deck, the chains snapping; Viktor was thrown off balance but managed to grab the stern rail, recovering quickly. The burning tender fell astern, spinning in the water, already sinking. It had taken the fire with it and most likely the dead body of the target. Viktor was vastly relieved.

Until he felt a stiff shove from behind, his headset yanked off simultaneously, and he went tumbling into the water after the burning tender.