Omega Dog - 01

by Tim Stevens

  She let him in. He glanced around too.

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ Beth said. ‘One room?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘No way.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s safer if we stay close. That’s the only reason.’

  ‘But there’s only one bed.’

  ‘I’ll crash out on the floor.’ He sighed. ‘Look, it’s not as if you’ve got pajamas to get changed into or anything. Just lie on the bed and I’ll be there on the rug.’

  Beth sat on the bed. The mattress was a little lumpy but not too hard. She felt fatigue suddenly pounce on her.

  ‘Oh,’ said Venn. ‘I got some stuff from the shop there by the office.’

  He handed over a paper sack. In it was a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of mineral water, some Handi-Wipes and a stick of deodorant.

  ‘Do I smell bad?’ Beth asked, amused.

  Again, there was that slight flush in his cheeks. ‘No, not at all. I just thought you might... well, it might make you feel more comfortable, that’s all.’

  She smiled, touched. ‘Thank you, Venn. That’s very considerate of you.’

  Later, she couldn’t even remember her head touching the pillow before she was asleep.

  Chapter 45

  They were standing over Beth. The man from her apartment, and the cop, Shelly.

  Both had guns aimed at her face, the barrels looming grotesquely large, the perspective distorted.

  Both were grinning.

  ‘Bye bye, doc,’ they said in unison, and pulled the triggers.

  Beth jackknifed up, a scream trying to burst past her fist which was jammed between her teeth.

  She stared around wildly. She was in the motel room, the sun at a slightly different angle through the gap in the drapes.

  There was nobody else there.

  Except Venn, who had instantly leaped up and sat on the edge of the bed, his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Beth, what is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Her hammering heart stopped her from speaking, almost from breathing, for a few seconds. She held up a hand to show she was all right.

  ‘A dream,’ she gasped. ‘I’m fine.’

  But she wasn’t fine, she knew. And she wouldn’t be for a very long time.

  She felt the heaviness of Venn’s arm around her. The warmth of his unshaven face close to hers.

  Beth turned her face to his.

  Death was all around her. People she knew were dead, and the threat of death was stalking her.

  Here, in this motel room in the middle of Nowheresville, USA, there was life.

  She and Venn were alive.

  She stared into his eyes. They were surprisingly soft blue, in a face as hard as his.

  Their lips met. Whether he lowered his mouth to hers, or she raised hers to his, Beth couldn’t tell.

  Their lips parted, locked together. Their tongues probed.

  Venn’s hands roved over her back, pressing her closer. Beth wound her arms around his neck, her palms cupping the bristling hair on his scalp.

  His mouth withdrew from hers, and moved down her throat. Beth arched her neck, responding to the tingle his lips produced against the sensitive skin below her jaw.

  Venn’s hands slid up to the zipper at the back of her dress and pulled it down. The feeling of his rough palms against the naked skin of her back made her gasp. Quickly, she slipped her own hands to his shirt at his neck and began to fumble the buttons free from their holes.

  Venn shifted so that more of him was on the bed, and Beth moved aside to accommodate him. She stared into his eyes as she unbuttoned his shirt, her fingers sliding over the taut hard pectoral muscles beneath. At the same time his hands pulled her dress down over her shoulders.

  Twisting, writhing, they stripped out of their clothes, something that involved a good deal of awkward contorting and kicking. He had scars, she saw, faint white lines crisscrossing the sinewy bulges of his chest and his shoulders. His belly was ridged, rippling.

  Somehow she was finally naked, on her back, with Venn over her, his arousal huge and nudging between her legs. Beth spread her thighs wide to admit him. Venn took his time, his mouth and his hands roaming over her bare breasts, teasing the nipples into full hardness. Desperately, Beth arched her back, urging her pelvis at him.

  Slowly, joyously, he entered her, and she cried out softly, transfixed by the intensity of the pleasure that filled her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her nails into him, into the hard flesh of his back and his shoulder. They bucked frantically, riding the wave of sensation to its peak until Beth felt she was at a terrifying height, like the highest point on a rollercoaster before the plunge into nothingness.

  They climaxed together, Venn snarling wordlessly into her ear through the muffled layer of her hair, Beth moaning huskily, too rapt with pleasure to give full vent. The moment went on and on, ebbing slowly, until Beth felt as if hours had passed.

  They lay still, Venn’s weight on her, for what must have been a full fifteen minutes. Rather than feeling trapped, Beth experienced a safety she realized she’d been lacking for a long time. Yes, for longer than the twenty-four hours which had just passed.

  At last Venn lifted himself off her, propping himself on his elbows, and gazed down at her.

  She found his expression hard to read.

  ‘What?’ Beth said softly, laying a hand against his cheek. He kissed her palm.

  ‘I feel bad,’ he muttered.

  ‘Why? Was I that bad?’

  ‘No.’ He gave a half laugh. ‘God, no. It was great. You were great.’ He sighed, glancing away, then looking back down at her. ‘I feel bad about dragging you into all of this.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ she murmured. ‘You saved my life. If you hadn’t appeared when you did, I’d be dead.’

  ‘But this search for Professor Lomax. It’s not your problem. I should have gotten you away, far away, from the word go. Taken you miles away from the city and stuck you in a safe house somewhere. Then come back and finished my job.’

  Beth felt his leg moving against hers, and for the first time she realized he still had the electronic tag attached to his ankle.

  ‘Venn,’ she said, smoothing his hair. ‘Prof Lomax was - is - my friend. What’s happened to him is my business too. I’m part of this whether you like it or not. Besides, these people killed my friend, Luisa. For her sake alone, I’m going to bring them down.’

  Then, because she knew they didn’t have much time left, and because he was the only person in the world she could trust at the moment, and because the need for simple tender human interaction was still strong in her after the hatred and violence of the past day, Beth eased herself from under Venn, and rolled him onto his back, and swung her leg over him, and arched her back with her hands in her hair and her head flung back so that he could feast his eyes on her body, taut as a bow.

  And they began again, two souls clinging to one another in the center of the maelstrom.

  Chapter 46

  Royle had expensive tastes, but they didn’t extend to cars. In fact he didn’t even own one, preferring to take taxis or, when it was absolutely necessary that he drive, renting one. Or stealing one, as he had with the Honda last night, before his abortive second attack on Dr Colby.

  He viewed the male obsession with the motor vehicle, particularly here in the United States, as profoundly unhealthy. And possibly suggestive of an underlying sexual perversion.

  Now, though, Royle needed a car. And the faster, the better. Time was of the essence.

  He chose a Jaguar XK8, partly because of the speeds it was capable of and partly because he knew it was British and therefore reliable. The rental cost wasn’t cheap, but money wasn’t an issue. Royle handed over a wad of cash he’d picked up from one of his stashes around the city.

  The man in the car hire shop gave him the once-over. Probably thought he was an ageing fellow going through a mid-life crisis, and wanting to drive a hot
rod possibly for the first time in his life, in an attempt to recapture his missed youth.

  Well, let him think what he liked. All it meant was that Royle wasn’t attracting suspicion. Which was the way he liked it.

  He felt the throb of the Jaguar’s engine beneath him. It was strong, reassuring. Despite his general indifference to cars, Royle was in fact a good driver. An excellent one. He had no doubt Joseph Venn too was a good driver. But he would be forced to play by rules that Royle had no regard for. Rules concerning the safety of other road users. That would be Venn’s handicap.

  On the dashboard, in a holder designed for the purpose, Royle had placed his cell phone. Every now and again he glanced at the display, at the softly pulsing beacon that showed him Venn’s progress northward.

  He estimated that Royle had an approximately two-hour head start on him. It was a slight disadvantage, as was the fact that Royle had no idea where Venn, and presumably with him Dr Colby, were heading. No matter. Royle would just need to put in a little extra effort to catch up, and to stay on the pair’s trail.

  Royle made it a rule not to take a personal interest in the targets he was hired to eliminate. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help feeling a hint of intrigue about this man, Joseph Venn. Where had he appeared from, and what was his connection with Dr Colby? Was he some kind of bodyguard, as former Marines and police officers sometimes became in order to continue to exercise their skills? And why was Dr Colby herself marked for assassination?

  Best not to wonder. It only complicated matters. Even if Royle did choose to look further into it, he was hardly going to get the opportunity to ask Colby or Venn any questions. It was going to be a firefight, he knew, based on recent experience. And it would have to be a quick and dirty one if he was going to take them both down.

  Keeping an eye on the road, Royle peered at the display on his cell phone. After fifteen minutes he was satisfied that what he’d suspected had been correct.

  The beacon was stationary. That meant Venn had stopped.

  Good. It would give Royle a chance to catch up.

  The highway stretched out before him, and Royle put his foot down.

  Chapter 47

  The problem Shelly had was this.

  The NYPD were the best people to find Dr Colby and her mystery rescuer. They had the resources, the manpower, the technology.

  But Shelly didn’t want the NYPD to find the fugitives, because then they’d interrogate them. And Shelly’s role in the killings of Gomez and the McNeills would come out. Sure, the cops might not believe the word of two criminals. Then again, they might get suspicious.

  Another drawback of Colby’s being taken into custody was that, even if she kept her mouth shut and didn’t implicate Shelly, or even if she did but nobody believed her, she’d still become inaccessible. She’d be under constant protection after that, and Shelly wouldn’t be able to get near her.

  So Shelly was in a bind. She needed a way to exploit the Department’s expertise in tracking down Dr Colby, without allowing the Department actually to find her.

  Getting sent home after being shot in the shoulder actually worked well for Shelly.

  From her NoHo apartment, she made calls to six people within the Department. Not just her own station house, but others across the city. She’d been a detective two years, had been a courageous and well-liked uniformed cop before that, and she’d cultivated contacts all over the five boroughs.

  To each person she called, she said she was relying on their help. As they may have heard, she’d been sent home, and was off the case. But of course she was itching to find the killers of her partner, Mike Gomez. So she wanted to be kept apprized of any developments, no matter how small.

  Each person she spoke to completely understood this. They said they’d feel the same if they were in her shoes, and promised that as soon as the smallest scrap of information came in about the whereabouts of Dr Elizabeth Colby and her abductor, Shelly would be informed immediately.

  Shelly made each person she spoke to believe that they were the only one in the entire New York Police Department that she was approaching in this way. Furthermore, in the subtlest way possible, she dropped hints to the men she spoke to that there might be something in it for them, from a sexual point of view, if they helped her. With the women she played the female solidarity card. Here she was, sidelined by the men who’d decided to take charge, and all she wanted to do was avenge Gomez’s death.

  These calls took Shelly the best part of an hour. When she finished, she was about to start doing the rounds of all the informers and stool pigeons she’d forged links with in the city, to prime them about the Colby woman and the other guy.

  Before she could do so, however, her phone rang. It was one of the Department cops she’d just spoken to.

  ‘Something’s just come in,’ the man said. ‘It may not be relevant, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.’

  Shelly listened as the cop told her about an incident that had just been reported, out of state in Massachusetts.

  As the cop gave details and descriptions, Shelly felt a surge of excitement.

  She thanked the cop. Then she went down to her armory once more.

  She picked up the weapons she’d selected earlier, the Sig Sauer, the .22 H&K, and the Ka-Bar killing knife.

  As an afterthought, she added an FN SPR sniper rifle, an Armalite AR10 assault rifle, and a Panzerfaust rocket-propelled grenade launcher, designed to take out a tank.

  Shelly lugged the weapons and ammo through to her underground garage, taking several trips to do so. In the garage was the little Kia she used to ride around town in, and the Hummer H2 which she kept for special occasions.

  Like this one.

  She loaded up the Hummer, concealing the sniper rifle and the RPG with all its paraphernalia in a specially-designed compartment under the rear seats. Shelly hoped she wouldn’t have to use the RPG. She wasn’t sure her injured shoulder could handle it.

  Still. Que sera, sera.

  Whistling the Doris Day tune to herself, she pulled out into the daylight.

  Chapter 48

  Venn woke to the indefinable sensation that had roused him countless times when he was a Marine in the field in Kosovo, and during stakeouts as a newbie detective.

  That feeling that was part prickle at the back of the neck, part tingle in the blood.

  From the slant of the sun on the wall of the motel room he estimated it was around noon. The bedside clock said he was fifteen minutes slow.

  Beth lay across his arm, her hair tousled and covering her face. For a few seconds he gazed down at her, savoring the moment, and the memories of the past couple of hours.

  But that chilly sensation wouldn’t go away.

  Venn kept very still for a moment, breathing through his mouth.

  When he was satisfied that there was no tell-tale sound of somebody outside the door or window, or even in the room with them, he gently disengaged his arm from under Beth and whispered in her ear.

  ‘Beth. Time to get moving.’

  While she mumbled and groped for the covers, Venn rose and dressed quickly. For an instant the tag round his leg caught him by surprise. He realized this was the first time he’d slept since Corcoran had put the tag on him.

  That had all happened only fifteen hours earlier. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  When Beth looked like she was going to go back to sleep again, Venn shook her shoulder.

  ‘Honey. We need to go.’

  She was suddenly awake, eyes wide, sitting up. He imagined that as a physician she, too, was used to rising from naps and having to function at full alertness without a moment’s delay.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she said sleepily. As she sat up the sheets fell from her upper body. Venn glanced away, embarrassed for her, even though they’d spent the last couple of hours naked together. It was too early for that easy familiarity couples came to share with each other’s bodies.

  Too early. He was thinking as though they had
a future together. As though it was certain either of them would survive the next twenty-four hours.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘But I have a... feeling.’

  Beth looked at him for a long instant. Then she nodded. As if she, too, knew what it was like to have instincts about situations, and to trust those instincts. Which as a doctor she probably did.

  She said, ‘Okay,’ and began to pull on her clothes.

  Venn checked the mechanism of his Beretta, made sure the spare magazines were close to hand in his pockets. Ammo might become a problem if he went through much more of it.

  He walked over to the window and tweaked the drapes aside. The parking lot of the motel drowzed in the noonday sun. There were no new vehicles out there. Business seemed quiet. But then again, it was a weekday, hardly peak time for customers.

  Beth freshened up quickly in the bathroom, and emerged gazing at Venn expectantly. He put an arm round her shoulders as he’d done before.

  ‘Rested?’

  ‘A little.’ She tried a smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t blame her.

  Venn pushed open the door and peered out. Just like he’d seen through the window, the forecourt was empty apart from one or two cars which had been there earlier. He led the way over to the Impala.

  Nobody opened fire. Nobody showed themselves.

  It was only after he’d returned the room key to the clerk behind the counter, gone back to the car where Beth was waiting in the passenger seat, and started the engine, that Venn understood the source of the unease he’d been feeling.

  Parked up on the road, fifty yards from the entrance to the motel’s parking lot, was a car.

  A bottle-green Jaguar.

  Venn didn’t pass it on the way out, and didn’t get a look at the driver through the tinted windows. But he didn’t have to wait long before he saw the car start up after them in the rearview mirror.

  Beside him, Beth seemed to catch his mood, and looked over.

  ‘Trouble?’

  Keeping his eyes on the mirror, Venn said: ‘We may have company.’