When he had flown over from Washington he couldn't take the gun with him on board the aircraft or in his luggage: since 9/11 the risk of getting caught was way too high. Instead, he had posted it to himself courtesy of UPS Special Delivery to the hotel he had been staying at. That way there was almost no risk.
He flicked the safety catch on and slipped the gun into a shoulder holster. He was ready to face Sonderheim.
It was four thirty. It would take him twenty minutes to drive to the location he had been given by Fiona. He planned to park his car a few blocks away from Sonderheim's house and then to cycle the rest. When he got to his house he would wait for Sonderheim to come home, and approach him man to man.
What exactly would happen next, Kerrin didn't know.
Kerrin had never broken the law before. For years he had upheld it, and on a daily basis had put his life on the line to defend it. But when he met Sonderheim today, if he couldn't provide some very satisfactory explanations to everything that had happened, it was very likely that Kerrin would have no choice but to kill the man that threatened not only the life of his wife, but also those of his friends and family. It was either Sonderheim or him.
Sonderheim lived on a large new exclusive housing development just outside of Carmel, purpose built to attract some of the wealthiest people in the state. The term 'housing development' was perhaps not the best way to describe the collection of ten massive mansions all built along the perimeter of their own private golf course. Each mansion was set in its own small estate, and was individually designed by one of the country's leading architects.
‘Millionaire's Avenue’ swept around in a long, gradual curve, a broad avenue from which small roads discreetly disappeared through large security gates into private driveways beyond. It took Kerrin ten minutes to cycle along the avenue before he got to 'No. 6', the new home of David Sonderheim, and once there, he couldn't help but wonder how on earth he was going to get through the impressive entrance so that he could talk to Sonderheim.
He cycled further along the road, past the grand entry gates, before getting off his bicycle and walking slowly back towards the entrance. Standing at the gates he looked through the large wrought iron metal bars and gawked at the impressive Spanish style villa nestling pleasantly at the end of the long drive, between Palm trees and large ornate fountains.
He looked at his watch. It was six o'clock. It shouldn't be too long before Sonderheim came home.
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The security guard inside the plant at Purlington Bay had not really expected to come up with a match, but he had run through the security procedure as a matter of course. When the light on top of the computer console started flashing red, he entered the computer room, switched off the alarm, and turned to the computer monitor.
There were two pictures on the screen which the computer had digitally mapped together. The one of the left was the photograph that they had scanned in from the image captured on the video cameras on top of the main security gate.
The photograph had been digitally compared to over twenty million photographs on their system, which was linked to the National Criminal Photograph Recognition Bureau in New York. Strictly speaking a large proportion of the people on the system were not criminals. Many were normal people. Law abiding citizens with no criminal record. But all of them were people that the government was, for one reason or another, very interested in keeping tabs on. According to the system, the photograph on the right of the screen belonged to a Mr Kerrin Graham from Washington. He was a reporter for the Washington Post. A note underneath his photograph indicated that his file had only just been added to the database.
The guard smiled to himself, while picking up the phone to call the 'alert number' mentioned at the bottom of the screen.
After speaking to the man at the other end of the line somewhere in New York, he called his boss in the main building of the Gen8tyx clinic.
"Perhaps we should alert Mr Sonderheim?" he suggested casually.
"No… too late…He left about ten minutes ago. What's the guy's security threat rating? Does it say what he'd done?"
"No. Nothing. It's a new file…just says to advise when found. Take precautionary measures where appropriate. Apprehend where possible."
"Should be okay then, but just in case, why don't you send a car round to Sonderheim's house, just to check everything is okay?"
A few minutes later, two security guards jumped in to one of their mobile units and set off for the Sonderheim residence.
Chapter 31
Day Twenty-One
The Sonderheim Residence
Millionaire's Avenue
Carmel
It had been a long, hard day. The preparations for the board meeting were now in their final stages and all things going well, David would fly out in two days time to meet with some of the other Chymera Executives on the Tuesday, before presenting to the assembled board of the Chymera Corporation on the Wednesday. Although he was not invited to attend the whole of the board meeting, he had been given over three hours to make his report, signifying the importance which the Board placed on his work.
David was excited. The Orlando Treatment was proving to be more successful than they had ever thought it would or could be. This would be only the second time he had addressed the board, but hopefully with what he was about to tell them, he would impress them and exceed all their expectations.
Things were going well for him. Very well. David was now richer than his wildest dreams had ever let him believe he could be. His new house was the epitome of luxury, and the power now at his command was intoxicating.
Becoming a member of the Chymera Corporation had been the result of five years of personal hard graft, and he didn't underestimate the opportunities that such membership now opened up to him.
He loved the power.
He liked to breathe it in, to play with it, and to let it wash over him. To watch how people obeyed him, and carried out his every command.
Yet somehow that wasn't enough. One day he was determined to be promoted and become a full executive member of the Corporation. That was what he now worked towards, the beacon which lit his way.
As he drove home through the outskirts of Carmel he smiled to himself as he pulled into ‘Millionaires’ Avenue’: what a place to live!
The sunlight caught the tops of the trees, the light slowly deepening its orange hues as dusk approached. The tall trees which lined the edges of the avenue were majestic. Things of beauty in their own right. An added touch from the designer of the development which did not go unnoticed by David.
As his Mercedes swept around the curve of the avenue he could see the entrance to his estate just ahead. For some strange reason there was a man trying to fix his bicycle on the road immediately outside his gate, preventing him from driving through onto his land beyond. He pulled up slowly in front of his house and called out to the man through the car window.
The man ignored him.
He shouted again, then opened the door to his car, and got out.
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The approaching car, an imported blue Mercedes SLK, slowed down and started to turn its wheels onto the driveway leading up to the gates. The owner peeped the horn several times, then wound down the window and shouted something at Kerrin.
Ignoring everything the man said, Kerrin kept his back turned to the car and hunched over the inverted bicycle, messing around with one of the tires, pretending to try to inflate it with his hand-held pump. He heard the man get out of his car behind him, and the 'beep' of the remote control as the driver activated the large metal gates which swung open slowly in front of Kerrin.
"Excuse me please. You're on my drive way. I can't get past…will you please move!" the man bellowed.
Kerrin turned and looked straight into the face of David Sonderheim: the deep blue eyes, the cut of the jaw, the high cheek bones.
It was definitely the face of David Sonderheim, and yet… it wasn't. Ther
e was something very wrong. The man standing before him was…different. According to the date of birth on the driving license which James had given him in Miami, Sonderheim was forty eight years old, and the photographs that Fiona had given him of David Sonderheim backed that up: they had been taken while he was at the Chymera meeting in Spain, and they were of someone who looked close to fifty.
Yet the man standing before him could only be about thirty.
Kerrin was momentarily stunned, his eyes fascinated by the man before him, his brain hurriedly trying to work out the answer to a problem which simply did not compute.
"What are you doing?" the man asked him again loudly, coming towards him and standing very close beside him and bending over the bicycle.
"Oh…I'm sorry…I'm here to see David Sonderheim…but my bicycle has broken down."
Another car was coming down the street now, its driver ignoring the signs warning of a 20 mph speed limit.
"That's me. Who are you please? Do I know you?" The man replied, his face red with anger.
"I think you may have heard of me…" Kerrin started to reply. "My name…"
The first gunshot caught Sonderheim in the shoulder, flinging him sideways over the bicycle and onto the tarmaced road beyond the gates. With the experience of Alex Swinton's shooting so fresh in his mind, Kerrin reacted instantly, diving to the ground and then lunging for the protection of Sonderheim's car.
Another gun shot rang out, and Sonderheim screamed again, the second bullet catching him in the foot as he lay sprawling on the ground.
The gunman had stopped his car sixty feet from the driveway and was firing rapidly at Kerrin and Sonderheim through the open passenger door.
Lying behind Sonderheim's Mercedes, Kerrin pulled off his jacket, and ripped open the holster underneath his shoulder, unclipping the gun and whipping it out in a single movement.
With the feel of the gun in his hand, his many years of target practice and his experiences from being under fire in several drug-related shootouts on the streets of Miami, all came flooding back to him. Despite the massive adrenaline rush which Kerrin felt pumping through his veins, Old 'Deadeye' was suddenly calm and in control.
Sonderheim had already scurried for cover behind the wall on the other side of the gate, just as another round of shots landed on the ground near where he had been. Finding no target, the burst of automatic fire moved upwards and played along the top of the wall, the bullet-cases bouncing back and ricocheting off the top of the Sonderheim's Mercedes.
Kerrin judged the source of the gunfire and in a classic maneuver which would not have been out of place in any James Bond film, he rolled out from the protection of the Mercedes onto the ground on the other side of the car, appearing from behind the back tires onto the patch of grassy ground beside the road.
He came to rest with both elbows finding support on the ground and his Beretta extended horizontally in his two hands in front of his face. Kerrin sighted the assassin in the car on the street, lined up the sights on the gun and pulled the trigger. The Beretta jumped three times in quick succession, the bullets flying through the air and blowing the head of the gunman in the front passenger seat.
Kerrin rolled back into the protective cover afforded by the Mercedes, waiting patiently for the sound of a second gunman. As he listened acutely, in his mind's eye he examined the mental visual imprint of what he had just seen, searching the image for any other people that may be there. Satisfied that he could not recall any, but acting on a strong gut feel, Kerrin crawled around to the other side of the Mercedes on his belly. Coiling himself up into a jumping position, he sprung away from the car firing rapidly at the closed rear passenger doors of the red car in the middle of the road. There was another scream, the rear car door burst open, and a man ran towards Kerrin firing wildly.
There was one more bullet left in Kerrin's gun. He looked on terrified as the man charged at him, gun outstretched, bullets flying past his head.
The world seemed to slow down, and amidst the deafening loudness of the gunshots and the smell of cordite in the air, he was dimly conscious of his own right hand coming up in front of his face, his eyes calmly taking a sighting, the slight pressure from his finger on the trigger, and the body of a man falling at his feet.
Kerrin looked at the man lying face down before him, the blood pouring from his wound.
Then, almost in a dream-world, and calmly expecting the worst, his detached mind looked down at his own body, examining himself for bullet wounds.
His hands searched his body, probing his clothes and his flesh for the wounds he surely must have, but miraculously there were none.
He looked up.
With the immediate danger now gone, he breathed deeply, his body suddenly gasping for air.
It was as if he had been watching it all taking place on a darkened cinema screen, his field of vision restricted only to the movie playing in slow motion directly ahead of him. But now, with the rush of oxygen to his brain quickly bringing back all his senses, the world started to speed up again.
Once more alert, his experience shouted at him, warning him that the danger may not yet be over.
Realizing that his own gun was empty, and that stupidly he had left his spare clip of bullets in the pocket of his jacket beside the Mercedes, he crouched beside the body, replacing his empty Beretta back into his own shoulder holster and taking the gun from the dead man's clasped hand. He reached quickly into the corpse's pockets, finding and taking out a spare magazine, which he immediately loaded into the Glock his victim had been firing.
He stood up, still pointing the gun at the seemingly dead man. "Never underestimate your enemy" he heard a voice within him say. He kicked the body, flicking it over with his left foot. His bullet had taken away most of the man's chest and throat. There was no question he was dead.
Arms outstretched, the Glock clasped tightly in his hands, he moved quickly towards the red car, running around the back of the vehicle, poised to shoot instantly should there be anyone lying in wait on the far side.
He glanced inside. The back seats were empty. In the front of the car, the body of the driver who had taken the first shots lay half in, half out of the car. His head was splattered over most of the windscreen, blood and brains coating the windows and inside of the dashboard, dripping slowly onto the floor.
'Sonderheim,' Kerrin thought to himself aloud. He ran back to the gate, just as the heavy metal gates swung closed in front of him, preventing him access to the man who was slowly pulling himself up onto his feet.
"Are you okay?" Kerrin heard himself asking, not believing that the words which came out of his mouth were actually his.
"Does it look like it?" Sonderheim replied, holding his shoulder with one hand, the blood oozing out from between his fingertips, and also pouring out of the sole of his shoe, where the second bullet had caught his foot.
For a second, the two men stared at each other.
The spell was broken by the sound of another car approaching, screeching around the corner at the end of the avenue. Realizing that he was very exposed, Kerrin took a last look at Sonderheim and jumped into the driver's seat of Sonderheim's Mercedes. The key was still in the ignition, the engine purring away.
Without looking back, Kerrin kicked the car into gear, then drove forward, swerving around in a tight curve and scraping the pristine bodywork along the edge of the wall bordering Sonderheim's estate.
The other car swung up to the gate, and two security guards in black uniforms from Purlington Bay jumped out and starting firing rapidly after the disappearing Mercedes.
Accelerating away fast, Kerrin swung the car back onto the road and vanished down the avenue ahead.
The men made no attempt to follow, and as the metal gates to the estate swung open, the last Kerrin saw of them in the rear-view mirror was as they disappeared through the wall, rushing to Sonderheim's side.
A few blocks away he cut his speed in half in an effort not to draw any unnecessary at
tention to himself. He found the street where he had parked his own car, driving past it and parking the Mercedes a hundred yards further down the road.
The street was a normal residential area, and people were attending to their gardens and chatting to each other on their porches in the approaching dusk.
He walked casually back to his own car, climbed in and drove back to his hotel. Once inside his room he quickly showered, packed his bags and checked out. He had already paid up-front for three nights in cash, but he didn't bother wasting any time asking for a refund for the night he hadn't used the room.
It was only when he had driven a hundred miles along the route to Las Vegas that he started to relax.
It was then that he noticed that his hands were still shaking.
Chapter 32
Day Twenty-One
The Sonderheim Residence
Millionaire's Avenue
Carmel
The two security guards rushed in through the gates, grabbing Sonderheim just as he began to fall backwards onto the ground. Within minutes they had applied a tourniquet to his left leg, had bundled him into their car and were speeding off to the hospital in Carmel.
Sonderheim was beginning to show the first signs of shock, but it looked like they had managed to stem the blood loss just in time. He would probably survive.
As Sonderheim lay in the back of the car, drifting in and out of consciousness, he started to wonder what had just happened. It made no sense to him.
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 80
