The Lethal Helix

by Don Donaldson

  “This is Doctor Bruxton. The alarm you’ve just received from my house was a malfunction. Please ignore it.” He gave them the code number that proved his identity and hung up as Boone answered his call.

  “Take Mr. Lynch to the kitchen exit.” Realizing as they departed that he was being left alone with Holly, who was only partially restrained, Bruxton stepped into the reception hall and called out, “And get some rope or tape and come back here and secure this woman’s legs.”

  Returning to his study, Bruxton looked at Holly, still on the floor recovering from the stun gun. What a fool he’d been to bring her here.

  FROM HER POSITION in the small group of spruce trees, Susan considered her next move. Toward the rear of the house she saw a conservatory. There had to be a door there, most likely with a lot of glass in it, so if it was locked, she might be able to break it and let herself in. But there was a lot of open lawn between the spruces and the conservatory. And if she took a direct route, it would allow her to be seen through a bank of windows on the side of the house.

  Farther from the house and about ten diagonal yards from the spruces, was a large curved flower bed backed with a row of huge rocks and a double row of thick junipers. Beyond that, separated by another stretch of open lawn, was a similar curved bed, so the two beds formed a discontinuous arc facing the house. Susan saw that if she approached the conservatory from the second flowerbed, she’d be screened from the house by a stand of hollies on the edge of the conservatory patio. She took a deep breath and sprinted for the first line of junipers.

  BECAUSE THE EXIT Billy used was behind the conservatory, even if Susan had been watching instead of running, his emergence would have been hidden from her by the tropical plants inside. But as he came around the conservatory with his automatic drawn, he saw her running. Instinctively, he raised his gun and fired two rounds.

  SUSAN HEARD TWO gunshots from her right. At nearly the same instant, one slug passed so close she could hear it whisper her name. The other ticked the back of her jacket.

  She dove the last three feet to the flowerbed and hit the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of her. Gasping for air, she rolled to her knees, making sure she stayed low so the rocks in front of the bushes would shield her. There was no doubt now. She’d been right to follow that car and go over the fence. These people were desperate.

  It had been forty years since her military training, but it all came back in a rush along with her breath. That damn light in the tree behind her . . .

  She turned and fired once. The light source exploded, and blessed darkness collapsed around her.

  Billy heard the shot and saw the light shatter, but he didn’t connect the two, mostly because his adversary was a woman and therefore easy pickings. He ran for the flowerbed that Susan had been planning to use as a cover before approaching the conservatory. He was exposed and a little apprehensive for the five seconds it took him to cross the open lawn, because even a woman could get off a lucky shot.

  IN THE RAVINE behind the dairy, Otto’s flashlight illuminated the freshly cut hole in the fence. Completely convinced now that Heflin and Fisher were inside and in trouble, he finally revealed that to his men.

  “They’re probably in the area with all the lights,” he said. “The quickest way to that point once we get inside is to climb out of the ravine and proceed along its edge to the road. Okay, let’s get in there.”

  Otto had twisted his left knee slightly on a slippery rock just before they saw the hole in the fence. But he was so excited he didn’t even feel any pain as he moved through the hole with the agility of a man much younger and a lot thinner.

  IN THE SECURITY center, where Richard and Jessie were still bound and gagged on the floor, all the remaining security men except their apparent leader were drinking coffee: two at the table, and the one who seemed to have responsibility for the surveillance control panel, standing with his back to the monitors. Though Richard and Jessie didn’t know it because the men had been speaking only in Italian, they’d been discussing who would go and get Richard’s car, which they thought belonged to Jessie. With her car—and by association, Jessie herself—the topic of conversation, one of them looked at her and said in English, “You are too beautiful to die. Why did you have to come here?”

  Richard and Jessie had tried to keep from thinking that their captors were prepared to kill them. After the security man’s comment, they could pretend otherwise no longer. And it seemed likely that it would happen because no one in the security area was aware yet of the police at the gate.

  Richard’s thoughts were mostly for Katie. His parents would take care of her, but what would happen to her if they fell ill? The prospect of not even being able to say goodbye to her just like when her mother was taken was unfathomable. She was just a little kid. She didn’t deserve this.

  Sandwiched between his concern for Katie, Richard was also worried about Holly. He had no idea where they’d taken her or why. She might already be dead.

  Beside him, Jessie was wondering about her dog. Would he be taken to the pound and killed? People don’t adopt old dogs. She also thought about her work . . . what she’d leave behind . . . what impact it would have . . . if the few notes and the one experiment she’d done on the soup from the diseased cow would ever be acknowledged. She decided that she’d done too little in everything. She’d die, and except for her mother and father and maybe Artie, would quickly be forgotten.

  Suddenly, Leonetti burst into the room, his cell phone at his ear. He glanced at the monitor that was still showing an image of the hole in the fence, only now cops were pouring through it. He cursed in Italian and pointed at the screen. The man who should have been watching it turned and cursed as well. The others kicked their chairs back, unholstered their weapons, and ran to look too.

  Neither Richard nor Jessie could see what had upset the room, but whatever it was encouraged them greatly. While the security men waited for orders, Leonetti called Bruxton.

  AS BRUXTON WATCHED the scene outside his home unfold on his monitor, Boone tied Holly’s ankles together with an Ace bandage. As he finished, the phone rang. Boone answered, listened a moment, and said, “It’s Leonetti.”

  Irritated at having his attention diverted from the intruder outside, Bruxton took the call and told Boone he could leave. Keeping his eyes on the monitor, Bruxton put the receiver to his ear. “What’s the problem?”

  “There are cops all around us here, and they’re coming in. What should we do?”

  WITH THE LIGHT out of commission, Susan turned her attention to Billy. She peeked through the junipers just as he disappeared behind those in the next flowerbed. He obviously planned to come around the near end of that bed and “surprise” her.

  Scrambling to her feet, Susan stepped around the end of her flowerbed that was farthest from Billy’s, got in a good stance, and fired five rounds in his direction, spreading them evenly from left to right.

  IN THINKING THAT just because he couldn’t be seen he was safe, Billy had made a silly mistake. Susan’s second round ripped through the junipers hiding him and shattered one of his ribs before tearing through his left lung and exiting through his back. As blood spurted into his collapsed lung from a major pulmonary vessel, he couldn’t believe a woman had done this to him.

  He coughed and sprayed bloody froth into his hand. His head felt as if it were bobbing on the end of a string, and he was definitely going to throw up. Aware that he was dying, his only regret was that even if someone else killed Holly, he had for the first time in his life failed to complete a contract.

  Billy toppled into the junipers, fell through the branches, and came to rest draped over the rocks in front of them.

  SEEING BILLY FALL and hearing that the police were at the dairy, Bruxton realized it was over. Just like that . . . all he had worked for . . . gone. His picture and stories about the monsters he�
��d produced would soon be in newspapers all over the world. Tasting blood, the media would tear him apart, forgetting in their zeal all the people he’d cured. “There’s nothing that can be done,” he muttered into the phone to Leonetti.

  OTTO AND HIS men stood in a line across the front of the wooden gates to the calving area, their weapons drawn. Otto raised the bullhorn he’d owned for three years but had never used. Still breathing hard from the trek there, he took a calming breath, pressed the Talk button, and said the kind of things he’d always longed to utter.

  “This is the sheriff. I have men at both entrances. Open this gate immediately.”

  Inside, Palagio moved the camera on the flagpole so Leonetti could see what they were up against. He wasn’t impressed. Only five men, led by a sloppy old grassone and lined up in the open. He spoke sharply to his best marksman, Tony Manzione, who grabbed his Fara assault rifle and left the room.

  In two minutes, Manzione reported by radio that he was on the roof of the calving building and had the grassone in his sights. Whenever Leonetti gave the word, they were all dead.

  37

  LIPS PINCHED, EYES flinty with rage, Bruxton looked at Holly.

  Recovered now from the stun gun and having seen on the security monitors what had happened outside, Holly could tell from Bruxton’s expression that the phone call had brought further unwelcome news. “Having a bad day?” she said.

  “Not as bad as you’re going to have.” He snatched a cell phone off his desk, crossed the room, and locked the study doors. As he hurried past Holly, she tried to trip him, but missed. Reaching the far side of the room, he disappeared through a small door decorated to look like part of the wall.

  On the other side of the door, Bruxton urged his tired and pain-racked body up a flight of stairs that led to the roof. Whatever happened in the next few days or weeks wouldn’t affect his foreign bank accounts. He’d still be able to live well in some other part of the world. But he’d never be remembered as a great and good man, as he wished. And he was being driven from his home and country like some refugee. Even alone on the stairs he could feel the heat of humiliation on his cheeks.

  But in all this dross, there was a glint of gold. Because he still had the power to make the one responsible for his troubles pay dearly.

  BOONE LISTENED HARD.

  The helicopter on the roof. He heard the cough of its engine.

  Immediately realizing the implications of this, he bolted for the front door. In the soundproofed theater upstairs, the driver who’d brought Billy and Holly had no idea what was taking place. Boone darted into the night, leaving the front door open. Afraid of being shot by whoever was out there, he ran awkwardly, his hands over his head.

  Seeing him, Susan gave chase. When she’d closed to within ten yards, she ordered him to stop running.

  Boone turned, the shadows exaggerating the fear on his face.

  “Where’s the woman with short blonde hair?” Susan asked, her Beretta pointing at Boone’s head.

  “It doesn’t matter. She’ll be dead in a minute, and so will we if we don’t get away from here.”

  Susan jabbed the air with the Beretta’s muzzle. “Would you rather die right now? Where is she?”

  “In the study.”

  “Who else is in the house?”

  Forgetting the driver in the theater, Boone said, “No one. Doctor Bruxton is on the roof, leaving in his helicopter.”

  “Show me where she is.”

  “I can’t.”

  Susan fired a shot over Boone’s head. “The next one will make a mess of your hair.”

  Whimpering like a whipped dog, Boone started for the house. “You’re going to kill both of us.”

  “Hurry up.”

  Boone started running, Susan close behind. When they reached the reception hall, Boone pointed across it. “In there.”

  “Go over and open the door.”

  “Lady, you’re insane.” Boone ran to the door and tried to open it. “It’s locked. And I don’t have a key.”

  “Holly, it’s Susan. Are you in there?”

  “I’m here,” Holly called out. “But I’m tied up so I can’t move.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Boone said, tears filling his eyes.

  ON THE ROOF, with Bruxton at the controls, the helicopter lifted off. On the seat beside him was his cell phone. To prevent the discovery after his death that he possessed many stolen works of art, the house had been rigged with plastic explosives attached to large canisters of propane, wired to detonate when he called a special phone number and entered a five-digit code. He’d believed when he’d conceived the plan to hide his larcenous soul that he’d be making the call as his last act, from a hospital bed. Even then it would have hurt to destroy his things. Coming now, with life still throbbing within him, it was going to be much worse. But ledgers have credit columns as well as those for debits. In just a few seconds, the death of Holly Fisher would substantially offset his losses on this transaction.

  SUSAN PUSHED A thirty-thousand-dollar Chinese vase to the floor, shattering it. “Help me here,” she said, motioning to the short Corinthian column on which the vase had rested. “We’re going to use this as a battering ram on those doors.”

  Susan had to keep one hand free to hold the Beretta. Hers was therefore a one-armed contribution to their effort. Aiming the column at the line where the two doors met, Susan said, “On the count of two. One . . . two . . .”

  Susan and Boone charged forward, splintering the doors open. The impact tore the column from Susan’s curled arm. Unable to hold it on his own and with no need to try, Boone dropped his end as well.

  Seeing Holly on the floor, Susan ran to the spot, knelt beside her, and put down the Beretta. Drawing her knife from the sheath strapped to her ankle, she went to work on Holly’s restraints. Taking advantage of the moment, Boone fled.

  LEONETTI STARED AT the monitor where the five policemen were still waiting for his response. The warrior in him wanted to show them how stupid they were to stand like that, but he saw the futility in it. If those men were killed, the ones at the gates would radio for help, and there would be a massive mobilization against him and his men. Better to let them in and take his chances with the American judicial system, which could easily be manipulated by money and clever lawyers. And what had he and his men really done? It was all Bruxton’s doing. Even if the woman had been killed by now, they had no part in that.

  He ordered Manzione to come off the roof and be prepared to surrender his weapons. He told the others the same and ordered them to give the impression that they spoke only Italian. They all went outside, where they met their countrymen from the special projects section, who’d left the harvest to see what was happening. Leonetti quickly explained the situation and sent a man to let the policemen in.

  Seeing the gates begin to move, Otto’s heart, already beating faster than it had in his entire career, set a new record. When he saw the eight Italians, all with their hands in the air, and he realized there would be no skirmish, he was greatly relieved and a tiny bit disappointed.

  Otto moved forward, his men close behind him. They entered the compound, and Otto ordered those inside to lay down their weapons.

  The Italians all acted puzzled. Leonetti uttered a few lines of Italian to show Otto they didn’t understand.

  Ricky Blake pointed at his gun and then at the Italians. He mimed laying his gun on the ground and pointed at them again. When everyone who was armed had complied, Otto waved them away from their weapons. Leaving three men to watch them, he sent Del Brice to the calving area to look for Richard and Holly while he checked the security building.

  When Otto found Richard and the woman he at first thought was Holly, and saw that they were still alive, he was thrilled. He quickly realized as he began to remove her gag who the
woman was.

  “Otto,” Jessie gasped when she could speak. “How did you find us?”

  “You practically left a road map,” he replied, turning to remove Richard’s gag. “Where’s Doctor Fisher?”

  “We don’t know,” Richard said slowly, his mouth dry and his tongue stiff. “They took her somewhere.”

  “Sheriff.” It was Del Brice, at the door, obviously excited. “You gotta see this.”

  WHEN HOLLY’S FEET were free, Susan grabbed the Beretta and helped her up. “I think there’s a bomb in the house. We’ve gotta go.”

  Holly’s first couple of steps were gimpy and she moved far too slowly for the situation.

  HOVERING A SAFE distance over the house, Bruxton entered the last digit of the detonator code into his cell phone. In the mansion’s wine cellar, the locked relay box emitted a barely audible click as a switch was activated and electrical pulses were sent along twenty-three wires to their destinations.

  “WHAT ARE THEY?” Otto said, bending to look at the slippery objects still attached to the cow’s uterus by their umbilical cords.

  As he spoke, a convulsive shudder rippled along the cow’s flanks and a third object oozed wetly from the cow’s vagina and plopped into the stainless steel tray on top of the others.

  “They’re . . .” Almost unable to utter the words, Richard’s parched mouth, now arid out of horror, said, “human fetuses.”

  Then, in a moment none of them would ever forget, the eyes of the one that had just entered the world blinked open, stared at them longingly for a moment, and closed.

  Suddenly, from far off, they heard the whump of a tremendous explosion.

  THE BLOOD PUMPING into Holly’s vessels from her racing heart lubricated her muscles, so as she burst from the house behind Susan, she was moving at near peak speed. When they were twenty yards from the house, it blew, producing a flaming shock wave that threw both women off their feet and set their clothes on fire.