The Mark III had a thirteen-round magazine, with a nine-millimeter load. Caine filled both magazines from the box of fifty cartridges. He put one magazine back in the gun and the spare in his coat pocket. Now it was time to pay Ms. Andrea Marenna a visit at the Portman Lodge. With a little luck, she was still alive.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Travis County, Texas
December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 11:00 p.m.
Andrea had a moment of confusion when she awoke. Then she remembered that she was staying in one of the cabins at the Portman Lodge, a small family-owned resort located on the edge of Granger Lake outside Austin. The modest facility was comprised of a main lodge and thirty cabins located about a quarter of a mile from the lake on a steep slope. The rows of cabins were unevenly dispersed across three level areas carved into the slope at descending elevation levels. The last row was situated about fifty yards from the lake. During the spring and summer, the Lodge’s guests had access to a small beach and the use of a boathouse along the lake shore.
The resort, which had a log cabin motif, was over fifty years old. The entire facility had been renovated about five years ago, leaving a rustic but comfortable haven, with all of the modern amenities.
Andrea had spent a week at the lodge with her dad when she was eight years old. The year her mother died. They’d returned for a week every summer after that until her father had passed away when she was in college. In recent years, Andrea had used the place as a weekend refuge. The peaceful surroundings and the happy memories helped her to wind down and regain her mental equilibrium when the stress from work became unendurable.
Since it was the off-season, only a limited number of cabins were open for rental, but half of them were empty when she arrived. Not many people wanted to visit the lake when it was forty-five degrees in the sunshine. Andrea’s cabin was located two levels down from the main lodge, on a point. She had a view of the lake through the picture window in the front of the cabin.
Andrea had lain down to rest after she arrived, intending to read for a while, but had fallen asleep. She looked over at the red numerals on the digital clock on the table beside the bed. It was 11:00 p.m. She stood up and stretched and walked slowly across the bedroom to the short hallway that separated the bedroom from the bathroom, wary of tripping over her suitcase in the dark.
When she stepped into the hallway, she looked into the main room. The light from one of the lamps in front of the cabin was shining into the dark room, through a narrow break in the curtains. An unbroken stream of white ran from the window across the wooden floor. Andrea started to cross the hall to the bathroom, when she noticed that the stream of light disappeared for a moment and then came back. Then it went dark again and stayed that way.
She stopped in the middle of the hall, confused, but then she realized that someone outside the cabin must be blocking the incoming light. The undercurrent of unease that she’d kept under tight control throughout the day started to resurface. She ignored the feeling and walked into the front room, intending to pull the curtain on the front window aside to look out on the walkway. A slight noise to her left stayed her hand. She looked over and watched, mesmerized, as the knob on the front door slowly turned back and forth. For a moment, a wave of fear froze her in place. Then she took two quick steps to the right, giving her an oblique view of the walkway leading to the cabin, through the small opening in the curtain.
A man with a black ski mask over his face was down on one knee in front of the door to her cabin. He was inserting something into the lock. She stared at the man, incapable of accepting what she was seeing. Then a movement at the foot of the stairs drew her attention and eliminated any doubt about the terrifying reality in front of her. A second figure in a ski mask was crouched at the bottom stairs, scanning the surrounding area.
Andrea’s breath caught in her throat, and her heart rate went into overdrive. I have to get out of here. The cabin had a back door, and there was a winding stairway at the edge of the yard that led up the slope to the parking lot. If she could slip out the door unnoticed and reach the parking lot, she could run to the main lodge.
Andrea let go of the breath trapped in her chest and slowly exhaled. The sound seemed impossibly loud. She eased back from the curtain and walked along the wall on her right until she was outside the view through the front window. Then she walked quickly to the back door, praying that she didn’t trip on anything in the dark. The door in the back of the cabin was shrouded in darkness, and she fumbled for the doorknob. Where is it! In frustration, she began to pat the right side of the door furiously. Suddenly she found the knob. She turned it quickly and began to pull the door open, but it stopped with a sudden jerk, making a loud bang. The chain latch!
She glanced frantically backward into the cabin and saw the front door opening. She slammed the back door shut, yanked the chain off and then pulled open the door. Before she had taken a full step across the cabin’s small back porch, a figure to the right seized her neck in a viselike grip. Her forward momentum carried her legs another step forward, but the iron-hard muscles forming the crook of the massive arm around her neck brutally tightened, stopping the forward movement of her upper body.
Andrea struggled to retain her balance, while at the same time grappling with the arm around her throat. The man with the arm locked around her ignored her efforts and began to drag her back into the cabin. Once she realized that she couldn’t escape from the man’s grip, she drew in a breath to scream. The figure behind felt the intake of breath and tightened his grip around her neck even further, putting crushing pressure on her throat. The vise cut off her scream and her ability to breathe. She began to struggle wildly as she fought to get a breath. Her assailant lowered his head to her face and growled a warning into her ear.
“You move, you die, bitch. You scream, you die. Relax and maybe you’ll be okay for a while.”
Although she felt as if she was being choked to death, Andrea forced herself to stop struggling. A long moment later, the monster loosened his grip around her neck slightly, allowing her to draw small gasping breaths into her lungs. A voice from inside the cabin said, “The bedroom’s over here. Bring her in.”
The word rape screamed in her mind and she started to struggle again. Again, her captor anticipated her effort and tightened his grip, yanking her body hard against his chest, all but cutting off her air supply. The man chuckled to himself and dragged her across the room.
“Relax, bitch. You can’t do nuthin’.”
Andrea was facing the back door as the man dragged her down the short hall. As she struggled futilely to get free, a second figure stepped through the rear door of the cabin. She assumed that the man was coming to help the other man drag her into the room. The man took three quick strides and stepped past her, placing himself between her body and the wall, and directly behind her captor, who was facing the interior of the cabin. The man dragging her belatedly realized that someone was behind him and turned his head to look back down the hall.
“Who the—” He never finished the question.
Travis County, Texas
December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 10:50 p.m.
Caine pulled into the parking lot of the Portman Lodge, avoiding the driveway that circled up to the front of the main lodge. He parked in the row closest to the road. On his way to the Lodge, Caine had called and explained to the clerk at the front desk that he would be dropping off a package of closing documents in the morning that required Ms. Andrea Marenna’s signature. The young clerk obligingly confirmed that Ms. Marenna was staying in cabin thirty-two, but suggested that he might want to come to the front desk when he arrived and have someone bring him down to the cabin in a golf cart.
Caine walked over to a map of the facility located in a glass-covered marquee near the front of the parking lot. Cabin thirty-two was two levels down the slope from the main lodge, on a point overlooking the lake. A paved walkway provided direct access to the cabin from the lodge, but the
map also showed a secondary stairway. The stairway ran down the steep slope behind the parking lot to the lake, passing directly behind the cabin.
Caine walked over the edge of the parking lot and found the stairway. The Lodge apparently wanted to discourage the use of the stairs. The area wasn’t lighted and a sign beside the stairs directed patrons to use the main walkway after sunset. Caine walked down the darkened stairs to the first landing and stopped for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark. Then he continued, walking past the row of cabins on the first level.
About halfway down to the next level, Caine stopped and looked over the railing at the three cabins below him. He was able to distinguish cabin thirty-two from the others by its forward location on the bluff. Caine was about to start down the next flight of stairs when a movement in the rear of the cabin stopped him. He eased into a crouch and stared at the outline of the figure that appeared to be waiting on the back porch of the cabin. Caine could tell by the outline that the figure was a man.
Caine looked to his left and noticed that a small trail ran along the left side of the stairway. He stepped under the railing and eased down the path, stopping behind a large tree surrounded by bushes. The man on the porch was standing against the wall beside the rear door, about twenty yards away. Caine knew from the figure’s movements that he wasn’t there for a friendly visit.
Caine started to reach for the Browning in his jacket, but remembered it was in the truck. He’d decided that meeting Andrea Marenna for the first time with a gun in his jacket might not be his best move, particularly after their last phone call. That perspective seemed incredibly stupid at the moment.
Caine worked his way around to the left side of the cabin using the trees and bushes as cover. He stepped on a fist-sized rock as he came around a bush. He picked up the rock and put it in his jacket pocket. It wasn’t much, but it might give him an edge.
A sound from the rear of the cabin drew his attention and he stopped moving. A woman with shoulder-length hair, wearing dark jeans, a loose sweater, and tennis shoes opened the rear door of the cabin and started to run across the back porch. It had to be Andrea. The man against the wall was expecting this move. He seized the woman around the neck as she ran by him, and the woman began to struggle frantically.
Caine started forward, intending to cover the fifteen yards to the porch as fast as possible to prevent the man from killing her. As he moved out from behind the bush, the man with the arm lock around the woman’s neck jerked her against his chest and said something in a harsh voice. Whatever he said had the intended effect, because Andrea stopped struggling. Satisfied, the man began dragging her back into the cabin.
As soon as the man passed through the open door, Caine sprinted across the yard, stepped across the porch and looked inside the cabin. A light shining from an open door further inside the dark cabin gave him a view of what was happening. The man dragging Andrea down the hall was facing away from Caine. He was at least six five and easily topped two hundred and sixty pounds. His bulging arm dwarfed her neck.
Caine took three quick strides and stepped past Andrea, putting himself within striking distance of her captor. Andrea must have reacted to his movement, because the man turned his head back toward Caine, exposing his open throat above her head. Caine’s strike, a blade hand to the man’s throat, was already whipping across his chest, when the man started to react to his presence. The man opened his mouth to yell, just as the blade of Caine’s hand smashed into his throat with brutal force, cutting off any sound, and, temporarily, his ability to breathe. Caine’s second blow landed a fraction of a second later, smashing into the gagging man’s temple. The impact rocked the big man backward and he loosened his lock on Andrea’s throat. Caine seized the opening, grabbing the man’s wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other. He shoved the man’s elbow upward and pulled his wrist downward in single fluid movement. The man wheeled around, with a grunt of pain. When the back of the other man’s head was exposed, Caine released the man’s arm and smashed the heel of his palm into the back of the man’s head, in a quick piston-like movement. The strike had its intended effect. The man’s body went limp and slid to the floor.
Caine glanced down the hall. The other men were still inside the room on the right. Caine turned, pulled Andrea to her feet, and pushed her toward the rear door of the cabin. As they went out the door, Caine heard movement behind him, followed by an enraged voice.
“Hey! What the fuck is going on!”
Caine moved to the right, out the doorway, and pulled Andrea beside him. The men inside were almost certainly armed. To get away, they would need a distraction—something that would buy them some time. Caine reached into his jacket and pulled out the rock that he’d picked up earlier. He threw it downward through the door of the cabin and yelled, “Grenade!” The rock skittered down the hallway into the main room, drawing yells and frantic movement within.
Caine turned and spoke in curt whisper, “Andrea, we have to get to the parking lot. Stay with me.” Caine could barely see Andrea’s face in the dark, but she nodded and followed him across the porch. When they reached the yard, Caine started to run. Andrea raced after him.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Travis County, Texas
December 5, 1999 / Sunday / 11:15 p.m.
About halfway up the stairs, Andrea slipped, and the man running beside her turned quickly and grabbed her hand, steadying her. Then he turned, still holding her hand, and continued to race up the stairway. When they reached the dimly lit parking lot at the top of the stairway, Andrea slowed, trying to catch her breath, and looked at the man ahead of her. He was about six feet tall, lean, and heavily muscled in the chest and arms. His hair, which was worn longer than she was used to seeing in the corporate world, was light brown with a tinge of gray on the sides. When he glanced back toward the stairway, she saw the outline of a strong jaw and a hard but handsome face in the semidarkness. He noticed she was looking at him, and his deep-set eyes looked directly into her own.
“Andrea, it’s me, John Caine.”
Then he continued to run down the length of the parking lot, pulling her along with him. Andrea was in excellent physical condition, but the desperate sprint up the steep stairs had winded her. She wanted to stop and catch her breath. She also wanted to find out what John Caine was doing here.
He turned back to her again and pointed to a black pickup truck parked at the end of the lot.
“There’s my truck. We have to get away from here, now. We only have a few seconds.”
As he started to turn away, Andrea resisted his pull. When he felt the resistance, Caine stopped and turned to face her, glancing quickly over her shoulder at the edge of the slope behind her. Andrea held up her hands in front of her, and tried to speak, while at the same time gasping for breath. Caine looked at her closely for a moment. The attractive woman who stared back at him didn’t fit the image he’d attributed to the skeptical voice from earlier in the day.
“Wait … wait a minute. How did you get here? You … you said you were in California. And how did—”
“I flew in two hours ago,” Caine interrupted her. “I knew you were here, because I overheard the bellman on our last phone call. Look, Andrea, you don’t know me and have no reason to trust me, but if I wanted to do anything other than help you, I wouldn’t be doing this little rescue mission. We have to get away from here, now. Those men will kill both of us if we stay here, and that eighteen-year-old kid behind the desk in the lodge is not going to stop them. So you have to make a choice. Either trust me, or not, but either way you have to decide now.”
Andrea wanted more time to figure out what was going on. She had so many questions. A second later, the decision was made for her.
“Time’s up,” Caine said. “The bad guys are here. We have to go now.”
Andrea glanced behind her and saw four figures racing up the stairway toward the parking lot. A rush of fear and adrenaline swept over her.
“Okay, okay, let’s go.” Then she ran after Caine as he sprinted over to the driver’s side of the truck.
As soon as she climbed into the passenger seat, Caine drove over the curb in front of the truck onto the lawn that separated the lot from the state highway. As the truck accelerated across the lawn, he glanced in the mirror and yelled, “Get your head down!”
A second later, the rear window above her head exploded, sprinkling her with glass. Andrea put her head down even lower and glanced over her shoulder. The bottom left quarter of the rear window was now a crazy quiltwork of lines with a hole in the center. A part of her mind wondered where the bullet went. Then she looked up at the front dashboard. A furrow was ripped through the black leather padding to her left.
Andrea felt the truck bounce off the grass onto the shoulder of the road and race onto the state highway. The truck weaved wildly for a second on the rain-slick road. Then it straightened out and rapidly accelerated away from the lodge. After glancing in the mirror, Caine looked over at her.
“It’s okay. We’re out of effective range.”
Andrea just stared at him. He glanced in the mirror again and turned back to the road ahead. She followed his gaze. The road ahead was empty and dark except for the light from the truck’s headlamps. A mist began to cloud the windshield. Caine fumbled for the windshield wiper switch in the dark. After a second, he found it and switched on the wipers, clearing the view. Then he looked over at her.
“Andrea, I need your help. I need to know where this road goes, where the next town is, and whether there are any side roads that might help us stay away from these people.”
Despite the pounding in her chest and the shock of the last five minutes, she surprised herself by giving him a ready answer.
Helius Legacy Page 12
