Perfect Killer

by Lewis Perdue

  Harper sat still and concentrated. "Yes, this may be good." He struggled to his feet as Gabriel scaled the last remaining tower of barrels, the one adjacent to the door. When he looked back at Harper, something on the cave wall caught his attention.

  "Doctor?"

  "What's over by you? Looks like a crack in the wall."

  Harper shuffled over to it. "A crack in the wall."

  "These are supposed to be solid stone."

  Gabriel climbed down, walked over, and stared at a small trickle of wine

  disappearing into the crack.

  "Don't you think you should get ready?" Harper looked toward the door. "In a sec."

  Gabriel rapped on the area around the crack. Hollow. He rapped on a spot about

  five feet over. Solid. He tore at the crack, peeling off concrete fragments. "What is it?" Harper asked.

  "Maybe a better way out," Gabriel said as he worked at the wall. As the bolt

  sounds in the outside tunnel grew louder, the concrete came off in bigger pieces, revealing the mesh of reinforcing metal. The cool dankness of trapped air made its way through the mesh.

  "Holy hell!" Gabriel said as he pulled at the bottom. The metal bent outward as he pulled loose the soft metal wires used to fix the mesh to the cave walls. With a final heave, Gabriel lifted the bottom up more than three feet, enough to crawl through.

  "Here," Gabriel said to Harper. "Let me help you through." An excited voice sounded outside the door. Someone had found the stream of wine.

  "We don't know where it leads," Harper said. "Or if it leads anywhere at all."

  Outside, they heard the thuds of running footsteps.

  "That's right, Doc, but life's like that, isn't it? We know we have a tough fight the other way. I say we make a choice and pray for the best."

  The bolt on the door rattled tentatively.

  Harper accepted Gabriel's outstretched hand.

  "Wise decision, young man."

  "From you, I'm honored."

  Harper wasn't halfway in when the bolt screeched all the way back. "Keep moving, Doc," Gabriel called as he rushed to the barrel stack and scaled it with an ease that amazed him.

  * * * * * Jasmine's heart trip-hammered as she watched Tyrone paging through scene after scene from Castello Da Vinci's security cameras.

  "Now, listen." He clicked on a button on one camera image, and the sounds of distant voices came from the laptop's speakers.

  "Every camera also picks up sound."

  "That's amazing."

  Then Kilgore's voice came through on the walkie-talkie. "We're in."

  "Okay, help me for a minute," Jasmine said to Tyrone as she grabbed the walkietalkie, plugged in the earbuds and lavalier mike.

  "I don't suppose you can locate Brad and the rest?" She clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt and got out of the truck. Tyrone followed her.

  "Not too soon, I hope," Tyrone said.

  "Why?" Jasmine opened the camper shell and dropped the tailgate. Tyrone came around the side and helped Jasmine pull out one of the radio-controlled airplanes.

  "Because if I can see them, so can Braxton's security people."

  CHAPTER 94

  Rex summoned us with a stage whisper.

  Kilgore and I jogged over and nearly slipped on the wet. The unmistakable fragrance of wine saturated the air. Red wine, to be exact. I bent over, wet my finger in the

  liquid, and tasted it.

  "Young cabernet sauvignon."

  Rex shook his head, then slid the bolt, eliciting a shrill, tortured sound that

  immediately attracted the beams of powerful flashlights and echoes of sprinting combat boots.

  "Freeze!" someone shouted.

  "I'm out of here."' Rex said as he muscled the door open. A thundering detonation showered us with wine and pieces of wood.

  "The hell?" Rex yelled as he leapt back. Then another barrel exploded against the floor, followed by another and another.

  "Jesus Christ, Joseph, Mary, and the donkey!" Rex cursed.

  Braxton's security guards drew closer. Cautiously, we looked through the partly opened door at the carnage of expensive French oak and cabernet. Braxton's men closed to half a dozen paces.

  "Hands up!" they shouted.

  Heedless of the barrel barrage, Rex lunged over the priceless wreckage as Braxton's men grabbed my arm.

  * * * * * Colonel William Lewis paced calmly among his troops in the back of the shabby Napa storefront and listened intently to the radio traffic in his earbud. Lewis's troops were used to him communicating with the "Old Man," as they called Kilgore. They just had no idea where Kilgore was located.

  "Sir, we've picked up some interesting stuff." Lewis turned and looked up into the face of Janet King, a fast-rising corporal, a Penn State lacrosse and rugby star (men's teams) with a computer science degree, who'd enlisted "because I was tired of the way politicians always piss on the military." She also hated being called "an Amazon." At sixone, 193 pounds, and a percent body fat she had to struggle to keep out of single digits, Corporal King had the wherewithal to make her objections stick.

  "What've you got?" "They've gone to the equivalent of general quarters over what appears to be intruders."

  Lewis said a silent prayer. "Could it be a faulty alarm or something?" She shook her head. "They've apparently made contact and have apprehended two people."

  Lewis nodded and tried to appear calm.

  * * * * *

  "Whoa! Holy cow, holy cow!" Tyrone leaped from the truck and ran around the back to Jasmine, who'd been pacing the hard-packed lane ever since she had finished connecting the electrical detonators to the accessory circuits of the aircraft. Jasmine turned.

  "The security control screen has gone apeshit!"

  "Show me."

  "C'mon." Tyrone rushed back into the truck with Jasmine close behind. Inside,

  Tyrone held up the laptop.

  "Notice the red flashes? Those were all green a minute ago."

  "This looks like a diagram of the London underground," she said calmly. "It's similar… part schematic, part spatial reality."

  "I don't think this is a good sign." Jasmine shook her head and looked back at the

  screen. "What are those little icons?" Tyrone took the laptop back and set it on the console between the two front seats so they could both see. He tickled the laptop's touch pad and used it to center the cursor over an icon. The mouseover text appeared on-screen.

  "Security camera. If we click on the link, it gives details."

  "This like a webcam?" Jasmine asked.

  "Just like. They have lots of cameras hooked on an internal network. Lots of places

  are going to IP-based systems because they're cheap to build and can be programmed and implemented quickly."

  "IP?"

  "Internet protocols." He bent over the screen, working the cursor and keyboard. A moment later, the image of a deserted hallway appeared. "There!" Tyrone said triumphantly as he clicked from one camera image to another. His triumph lasted only seconds as a jerky video showed Brad Stone and Jack Kilgore being escorted by armed guards.

  "Oh, God!"

  CHAPTER 95

  Once through the hole in the barrel-cave wall, Rex pulled a tiny LED light from his pocket and squeezed the sides to illuminate what appeared to be a stairway landing. Directly opposite the hole, steps led up. To the right, stairs led down. Rex looked around and saw recent footprints in the dust going left. As a noisy posse gathered in the barrel cave, Rex made footprints to the right and the left, then scuffed up both sets before climbing up the stairs after Gabriel and Harper.

  For all the good it would do, he thought. But what the hell, there was nothing else to be done.

  He climbed rapidly, trying once to raise somebody on the radio, but the surrounding rock made that impossible. Just as well, he thought. Braxton's men obviously had Stone and Kilgore's radios.

  "Sorry, Miss Anabel," Rex said under his breath.

  "Do you hear
somebody behind us?" Harper asked in a ragged whisper. "Hard to tell," Gabriel whispered as he half-carried the old doctor up the steps.

  * * * * * The restrained professionalism of Clark Braxton's security men surprised me. The handcuffs at my back were secure but not too tight, the grip on my arm firm but not uncomfortable. We arrived at an elevator as the doors opened and disgorged a big, beefy man with the face of an angry bull. The people holding us visibly stood straighter.

  The man's eyes burned sharp and mean. He stuck his face right in Kilgore's. "You are so far out of line this time, Jack, you will never, ever take another breath as a free man."

  Kilgore remained silent as the man stood back and adjusted his tie. "Take them up to the cellar," the big man said. "The General wants a word with them."

  "You want us to notify local law enforcement, sir?" asked the man holding on to my biceps.

  "I'll handle the county mounties when the time comes."

  "Sir?" a voice came from the rear. "Sanchez wants to know if you want to send a search party into that hole in the barrel-cave wall."

  "Tell him to wait for Jim Clayton. He knows those old tunnels like the back of his hand."

  I didn't like what I heard; I had learned too much. Names, other things I would not expect professionals to reveal in front of captives. Unless it wouldn't matter.

  When the elevator doors closed, I imagined the sort of "accidents" that could happen when two soldiers as capable as Kilgore and I tried to escape.

  * * * * * "There they are." Tyrone pointed at the screen. "Heading to that elevator, which has a camera"—he cursored around, clicked on another icon—"right here."

  Jasmine's fear transformed into abject sorrow as she watched Brad Stone step into the elevator and look right up at the camera.

  "I love you," she whispered to his image.

  * * * * *

  Dan Gabriel stumbled up the pitch-dark stairs, half-dragging Frank Harper behind him. He stopped periodically to rest and to listen for sounds of pursuit. He pushed on upward in the dark until suddenly his face hit a barrier and he almost dropped Harper.

  "What happened?" Harper whispered.

  "Dead end," Gabriel replied. "Can you sit on a step?"

  "Yes."

  Gabriel closed his eyes against the despair, although he saw nothing less, no more,

  with his lids open or shut, so complete was the darkness. Then, beyond the dead end, the sound of voices, footsteps. Gabriel ran his hand over the dead end, and under his fingers it felt like Sheetrock. Was there hope? He pressed his ear to the wallboard. Gabriel's hopes fell as he recognized the voice of Braxton's security chief. Then Jack Kilgore.

  "We've got to do something," Gabriel whispered. "Even if it's a kamikaze charge, I can't just sit here and do nothing."

  "Nothing—"

  "Yes, Doctor, nothing is its own decision. They'll kill us if we sit here, so I might as well take somebody with me."

  "What are you going to do? Charge through the wall like a madman and attack them with your bare hands?"

  "Do you have a better idea?"

  "No," said Harper.

  Then came an unknown voice in the darkness that sucker punched them both.

  "I do."

  CHAPTER 96

  "Oh, man, take a look at this."

  The laptop screen showed rack after rack of wine.

  "This must be the holy of holies," Tyrone said. "Millions of dollars' worth." "And he never drinks it." Jasmine shook her head. Tyrone clicked around. "There

  must be ten… no, fourteen cameras in this room." Other than for different labels and neck capsules, most of the views looked mostly the same. The only ones different showed the elevator area and, the other, a brightly lit room with a view overlooking Napa Valley. The image showed the smoke rising from the hills behind them.

  A few more degrees down tilt and we'd be on this one," Tyrone said. Jasmine looked over at the fire, then up at the window she figured must be the one on-screen.

  Tyrone clicked back to the service elevator as the doors opened. He and Jasmine stared silently as guards escorted Stone and Kilgore out.

  "Where's Rex?" Jasmine asked. Then a moment later: "I don't suppose you can save the video stream, can you?"

  "I think maybe so. Why?"

  "Great evidence."

  Tyrone pecked at the keyboard.

  "I'd like to make sure if anything happens… " Her voice cracked. "If something happens, I will nail that bastard's butt to a tree."

  "Uh-huhmm," Tyrone said slowly "Please remind me not to get on your bad side."

  * * * * * Jack Kilgore and I sat cross-legged on the cool tiles of General Braxton's wine cellar. Giant, polished wooden racks reached halfway to the twenty-foot ceiling. They stretched the length of the space like library shelves, organized into rows and aisles running from the elevators at the back to a set of double glass doors at the front.

  Two security guards stood behind us, and a third stood by the double glass entry doors guarding our walkie-talkies, firearms, and the rest of our gear piled on the floor. They all had semi-automatic pistols drawn.

  We waited in the silence, listening to our own breathing and scanning the priceless wine I doubted I would ever taste.

  Suddenly, a loud hammering and crashing rocked the side of the wine cellar to my right, somewhere beyond the carefully crafted, lovingly oiled tropical-hardwood racks.

  "Damn!" Rex cursed amid the rattling of wine bottles; the rack to our right shuddered. From beyond the rack came the dull breaking noises of full wine bottles smashing on the tile floor.

  The guard in front of us raised his pistol and followed the noise.

  Then from behind: "What the hell?" Kilgore and I turned at the same time and saw one of our guards, pistol drawn, running toward the source of the noise. He disappeared around the far end of the racks nearest the elevators.

  Then came a faint hiss and profound screams. Two wild gunshots followed. Above my head, geysers of red wine and glass erupted. I hit the floor; bottles exploded to my left. The guard behind us looked toward his partner. Kilgore struggled to his feet.

  "Hold it!" The guard aimed his pistol at Kilgore. I seized his moment of distraction to swing my right leg around. I caught the guard's ankle in midstride, cutting his feet out from under him. He careened into the rack, snapping the neck off a wine bottle with the side of his head.

  Amid a cascade of other bottles dislodged by his impact, the guard fired a single shot, then hit the floor hard. His shot hit the tile; the slug shattered and seeded the air with shrapnel. An instant later, the glass doors developed a web of spider cracks; to the right of the door, blood appeared on the guard's forehead. His hand went up instantly to explore the wound as the blood trickled down into his eyes.

  I wrestled myself up as Kilgore kicked the fallen guard's pistol away.

  "Brad!" Rex's voice sounded from beyond the wine racks.

  "Rex?"

  "Over here!"

  Kilgore and I ran toward Rex as well as anyone can run with their hands cuffed at the small of their back. We bypassed the stunned guard on the floor, came around the corner, and nearly tripped over a guard on his knees, swaying back and forth as he screamed and rubbed at his face. The smell of bear repellent surrounded him and brought tears to our eyes. His gun lay on the floor and I kicked it.

  At the far end of the long wine rack, Rex and Dan Gabriel manhandled the guard with the wounded forehead to the floor and bound him with his own cuffs. Rex then squatted dawn, using the wine racks as cover, and peered toward the double glass doors. Gabriel picked up the man's pistol and ran toward us.

  About halfway between me and Rex, I saw an old man I assumed was Frank Harper holding unsteadily to the sides of a jagged hole in the wall. He looked back and forth, following the action, smiling broadly and making deep approving nods. The head movements made him look like an elderly bobblehead.

  "Jack!" Gabriel said as he slapped Kilgore on the shoulder, then me. You must be the S
tone guy who started it all. Let's get you out of those cuffs." Swiftly, he grabbed the cuffs from the bear-sprayed guard and ratcheted them on the man's wrists. Then, without taking his eyes off the end of the long wine rack, he dug through the guard's pockets, retrieved the cuff key, and handed it to me.

  "Unlock Jack for me, will you?"

  I quickly unlocked Kilgore's cuffs, and he returned the favor.

  "Bogey at your end!" Rex yelled. Then we heard him fire his pistol. Bottles exploded beside me. I lunged for the fallen guard's nearby pistol faster than Kilgore and came up with it at the ready. I fired a shot through the rack of wine at a shadow on the other side. More red wine and shattered glass.

  I ducked as the man fired back. I was close enough to read the label on a bottle of 1897 Chateau Margaux when it erupted like a grenade. The air hung thick with the pricey aroma of collectible claret laced with the acrid notes of smokeless gunpowder. I'm pretty sure it's not a wine nose ever described by The Wine Speculator.

  Then more wine bottles went off like roadside bombs as the man fired wildly at us.

  Kilgore moved to the end of the rack nearest the elevators. He pulled a bottle from the rack and pantomimed that he would throw it over the top as a distraction. He motioned me to join Gabriel at the other end. I ran carefully, to avoid slipping on the spilled wine and glass. My running steps drew more shots; more classified first-growth Bordeaux wine turned to glassy slush.

  As soon as I joined Gabriel, Kilgore lobbed the bottle over the top.

  When it hit the floor, Gabriel and I came around and saw the third guard, his face covered with blood, whirling toward the shattering of the wine bottle.

  "Drop it! We don't want to hurt you," Gabriel shouted.

  The guard froze, but did not drop his gun.

  "Don't do anything stupid!" Rex yelled from across the cellar, where he had run to get out of our line of fire.

  Kilgore motioned me around. I followed his direction and positioned myself so I had a third clean line of sight.

  "Come on," Kilgore said more calmly now. "You are totally triangulated. Any one of us has a clear shot. Don't do anything foolish you might regret."