J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House)

by J. A. Konrath

  “Sorry, kitty.”

  The cat walked on wobbly legs to the second floor railing and squeezed through the bars. Then it fell twenty feet straight down, hitting the foyer floor with a thump.

  “I thought cats always landed on their feet,” Joan whispered.

  Tom put his fingers to his lips and looked down the hallway. Dark and quiet. If Stang was still recovering from his operation, there was a good chance he might still be in the drawing room. That’s where Tom decided to check first. He moved warily, as if he were in a haunted house and anything might jump out at any moment. When he reached the door there was a dim light coming through the bottom crack. He held his breath and listened. Faint snoring.

  Tom went in fast. Stang was on the bed, his head propped up against the giant headboard with pillows. A thin line of saliva was escaping his open mouth. The dialysis machine next to him was silent, and a small night light plugged into the wall bathed the room in a faint yellow glow. Tom was on him in two steps, gravity knife pressed to the old man’s flabby neck.

  “Wake up.”

  Stang peeked his eyes open. When he saw who was standing over him they widened to almost comic levels.

  “Where’s Jerome?” Tom asked.

  “Two rooms over, same side.”

  “What kind of weapons are in this house?”

  “He has a gun.”

  “How many?”

  “Just one.”

  Tom took the knife and held it front of Stang’s face, near his right eye. Fear made the Senator’s thin lips tremble.

  “How many?”

  “A lot. A shotgun, an M-16, some bladed weapons.” Stang’s voice was soft, defeated. He was a far cry from the confident, cocky man who’d threatened their lives only a few days ago.

  “Anyone else in the house?”

  Stang looked away, saying nothing. Tom lowered the knife to the old man’s waist.

  “I’d be happy to reopen these stitches for you.”

  His frail body shook. “My son is here. Room across the hall.”

  Tom motioned for Joan to come over.

  “This is the guy who sent Vlad after you. Keep an eye on him.”

  Joan twirled a baton and swung at the old man’s head, stopping the club an inch before his eyes. Stang yelped, and she gave him a light tap on the nose.

  “He won’t give me any trouble.”

  Tom corralled Bert and Roy into the hall. “Bert, that’s Mr. Speaker’s room. If he comes out, give him the Gentle Ben treatment.”

  Bert nodded and crouched before the door like a defensive tackle. The bear spray was clutched in both hands, pointing forward.

  “Jerome is heavily armed,” Tom whispered to Roy. “Shotgun and an M-16.”

  They sidled up to his door, silent. No sound was coming from inside. Tom gripped the knob and counted quietly. On three he yanked the door open and Roy went in low and to the right. Tom flanked him, covering the left. The room was a moderate size. Tom scanned it quickly—desk, dresser, open closet, bed…

  Empty. On the nightstand, next to a lamp, was a baby monitor.

  “Enough talking.”

  Joan’s voice came through the speaker. That meant the transmitter was in Stang’s room, and Jerome had heard everything. He might already be on the phone with police. Tom hurried to the nightstand, reaching for the receiver.

  The bullet hit him in the lower back, the force of the shot knocking him forward. The pain was instant and terrible, like being whacked with a ten pound pick-ax.

  Tom fell to the floor face first. He heard the boom of the second shot, felt the impact between the shoulders. It knocked the wind out of him, and hurt so bad Tom wondered if the bullets had somehow gone through the vest. Was Jerome using something high caliber, or an armor piercing slug that could penetrate a Kevlar weave?

  Tom tried to roll over, to fire back, but his body wasn’t responding correctly. The best he could manage was turning on his side. He saw Jerome, crouching under the desk. The pistol was aiming away from Tom, towards Roy.

  But Roy was faster. Tom watched as the probes hit Jerome in the neck and chest, a tiny arc of blue electricity causing his upper body to snap backwards like a jack-knife. The desk toppled over and the gun went flying. Jerome began to jerk and twitch. Then he doubled over into a fetal position, his whole body shuddering as the taser sent pulse after pulse into him.

  Roy set down the gun and hurried to Tom.

  “Am I bleeding?”

  His partner’s fingers probed the vest.

  “No. Vest stopped them both.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  There was a scream, from the hallway. Roy yanked Tom to his feet and they hurried out of the room. Phil Jr., in pajamas, was rolling around on the floor, clawing at his eyes.

  “It hurts! It hurts!”

  Bert was standing over him. He looked at Tom and shrugged. “I only gave him a little squirt.”

  Tom took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. He hurt, even worse than his ribs did after Attila had kicked him. The people who sold bullet proof vests hadn’t bothered to mention this little fact. There might have been less pain if the bullets had gone all the way through.

  Tom unclipped a roll of duct tape from his belt and walked over to Phil. He placed a knee on the small of his back and applied pressure.

  “I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars to wash off my face!”

  Tom pried Phil’s hands away from his eyes and taped the wrists together behind his back.

  “Please wipe it off! Sweet mother of mercy!”

  “Mr. Speaker, if you keep screaming, I’m going to let him spray you again.”

  The third most powerful man in America rubbed his face on the carpet and whimpered.

  Roy dragged Jerome out into the hall. He was also trussed up with duct tape, but Roy had taken the added precaution of wrapping his legs as well. It seemed kind of redundant—the guy was down for the count.

  “Here’s why it hurt so bad.” Roy walked over and handed Tom a large semi-automatic. “He shot you with a .45.”

  A forty-five caliber handgun was military issue, a real cannon. But it was preferable to a shotgun or M-16. Tom felt incredibly lucky. Joan poked her head out of the drawing room and stared at the group.

  “Everything okay out here?”

  “I got shot.” Tom held up two fingers. “Twice.”

  “You’ve got a vest on.”

  “But look how big the gun is.” Tom showed her the .45.

  Joan disappeared back into the room.

  Roy patted Tom’s shoulder. “Some ladies are hard to impress.”

  Bert managed to get the blinded Phil to his feet and lead him down the hall. Tom and Roy dragged Jerome after him.

  They gathered around Stang’s bed. The old man’s face was pure malice. With his bald head and wrinkles, he looked like a snapping turtle.

  “You need to hire better help.” Roy pulled Jerome into a corner of the room. “I know nurses at County General who can shoot a lot better than this guy.”

  Tom sat on the bed and held the gun in front of Stang’s face. “Where are all the research papers?”

  “In the basement. There’s a secret door on the first floor. Junior will show you.”

  “Dad! I can’t see!”

  Roy gave Jerome a light slap on the cheek. Jerome began to snore. “This one’s in no shape to show us around neither.”

  “That leaves you to guide the tour, Senator.”

  “I’m recovering from a major operation.”

  “Bert, I think Phil Jr. needs more bear juice.”

  Bert aimed the canister at the younger man’s face. The Speaker of the House cringed. “Take them, Dad! Take them!”

  Stang snarled. “There’s a wheelchair in the closet.”

  Tom opened it up and found the latest electric model. Stang gave instructions on how to work it, and Bert drove it next to the bed. Roy and Bert lifted the old man and set him in the padded seat.

  Joan
looked at Tom. “How can a wheelchair go down the stairs?”

  “Pretty damn quick.”

  Stang glowered. “There’s an elevator.”

  Tom instructed Roy and Bert to keep watch over the hostages, and held open the door. Joan went out first, followed by the whirring sound of Stang in the automatic wheelchair. So far everything had gone more or less according to plan. If their luck held, it would all be over very soon. If their luck held. Tom checked the clip in the .45. Six bullets left.

  “The hard part is over, Tommy. From here on out, it’s cake.”

  Bert nodded in agreement. “Let’s finish this up, get out of here.”

  Tom gripped the gun tightly and walked out the door, hoping they were right.

  “The lift is on the other side of the hallway.”

  Stang’s voice was tired. He pushed the little joystick on the armrest all the way forward, but his chair didn’t roll any faster than walking speed.

  “There’s something I wanted to ask.” Tom rested the gun on Stang’s shoulder. “Why the hell did you create us, anyway?”

  “I’m asking myself that same question right now. It was all about power.”

  “Explain.”

  The old man cleared his throat. “I couldn’t ever be President, being born in Germany. So, from birth, I’ve been grooming my son for the job. But winning an election has little to do with ability. Sometimes it comes down to different hot issues, or party support, or running mates, or looks, or a hundred other ridiculous reasons. I decided to stack the deck.”

  They reached the end of the hall. An old fashioned elevator, complete with metal folding gate, was waiting for them. Tom opened the door as Stang talked.

  “So I cloned the greatest people in history, to align them with my son. It was a no lose situation. If greatness was genetic we’d have all the political savvy of Jefferson and Lincoln, all the brilliance of Einstein and Edison, Shakespeare to write the best speeches, the military strategy of Robert E. Lee.”

  The Senator had become more energetic, gesturing with his free hand and raising his voice.

  “And even if you turned out to be idiots, you still had the famous faces, the famous names. Tom, I’d planned for you to become Vice President. Name someone in America who wouldn’t vote for you? Democrat, Republican; it wouldn’t matter. If my son had you as a running mate, and announced Lincoln as a future Secretary of State, Einstein as Secretary of Education, and so on, he’d be a sure thing. Robert E. Lee would capture the southern vote, Joan of Arc would get the women, we’d be unstoppable.”

  Tom shut the door to the elevator and Stang instructed him to pull the switch down. He did, and the lift began to descend.

  “You think America would vote for clones?”

  “Of course not. But I had papers made, all proving lineage to the people you’d been cloned from. Tom, you were Jefferson’s great great great grandson. All of you had the genealogy. America would have eaten it up.”

  “Let me guess what happened. Edison figured out he was a clone.”

  Stang sighed. He appeared to partially deflate. “It started before that. I’d managed to recruit some of the others—Vlad, Attila, Jack, and Bill. But when I tried to recruit Robert E. Lee, he refused. Threatened to go public. That wouldn’t do—the United States would vote for a descendant of Robert E. Lee, but mention the word clone and everyone starts crowing about religion and messing with the forces of nature.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “Of course. And then Jessup—Edison—figured it out by himself. I knew he did, because I’ve been keeping tabs on all of you since you were born. But when I offered him the chance to join he balked as well. By then Einstein knew, and you. Since none of you showed even a shred of political potential anyway…”

  Tom followed the twisted train of thought. “You decided to cut your losses and get rid of us.”

  The elevator stopped on the first floor, but Tom didn’t move to open the door.

  “I created you. It’s my right to destroy you. If you play God, you’re allowed to play it to the hilt.”

  Tom felt like throttling the guy. Everything, all the death, all the fighting. Just because of some megalomaniac’s ego.

  “But I had no idea.” Joan looked down at Stang. “Why try to murder me? I would have lived out the rest of my life not knowing.”

  Tom had one of those moments where everything suddenly became clear. He knew the reason, the real reason, why Stang had to kill them all.

  “You were still a possible threat. Stang had to make sure no one ever knew that human cloning was possible. He said it himself, the United States would never elect a clone.” Tom stared at Stang. “Especially a clone of a man who was born in Germany.”

  Joan looked at Tom, confused. Then her eyes got big. “The Speaker of the House?”

  Tom nodded. “Phil Jr. A chip off the old block. Stang couldn’t become President, so he cloned himself. If his clone became President, it was almost the same thing.”

  Stang looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “I had a right to hold that office. One stupid, archaic law kept me out.”

  “So you created all of us to help your clone win the election, and when it turned out we would do more harm than good…”

  Stang looked ready to spit venom. “I found another way to win the Oval Office. Without an election. Without a platform. Without a group of worthless freaks like you. I’ve watched you both, your whole lives. Pathetic. A woman who once saved France, reduced to a pimp who makes bad movies. And a man who once created a new nation, now just another dumb pig.” His eyes were narrow, and flecks of spit dotted his lips and chin. “My son, he’s my blood, my genes. He’s me. You two are just some chemicals we cooked up in a lab. You aren’t even human.”

  “I’m not sure you’re the right person to judge humanity, Stang.”

  The old man slumped in his chair. Tom opened the folding gate and they went into the hallway.

  “Where?”

  “The next room. There’s a hidden door.”

  It was a trophy room, deer heads and trout mounted on oak plaques and hanging on all four walls. A fireplace was in one corner, a matching sofa and chair arranged around it on the wooden floor. Tom checked the room out, top to bottom, and couldn’t find any evidence of a hidden door.

  “That’s because it’s hidden,” Stang snapped. “Go to that bookcase and take out the volume of Moby Dick.”

  Tom found the book and pulled on it, half-expecting a secret passage to open. None did. He flipped through the book and it appeared normal.

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Hold the book against the wall, just above the light switch. It’s a magnetic lock. Then flip the switch up.”

  Tom did as instructed, and there was a clicking noise. Several wood panels in the center of the floor had risen up about an inch. Tom knelt down and realized it was a trap door, the seams hidden by the natural cut of the wood. He pulled open the hatch and flashed his penlight into the hole. A staircase.

  “At the bottom there’s a keypad. The code is 61694. Punch it in and the door will open. There’s a short hallway, and at the end of the hall there’s another door with another lock, same code. That’s my safe. The papers are in there.”

  Tom sniffed the air. It was stale, and something else. Musky.

  “Want me to go?”

  Tom shook his head at Joan. “Stay here. If anything happens to me, tell my partner to snap Stang’s neck.”

  He took the stairs slowly. When he reached the bottom he figured he was about twenty feet underground. A large aluminum door blocked his path. Tom found the keypad to his left and punched in the numbers. There was a clang and a hiss, and the door clicked open.

  Tom was hit by a wave of cool, damp air. The musky smell was stronger, more acrid. He pushed the door inward and aimed the penlight down the dark hall.

  “There’s a light switch,” Stang called to him, “on the wall to the right.”

  Tom located the sw
itch. He flipped it up, bathing the narrow hallway with pale yellow light. Looking ahead about fifteen feet, he saw another metal door. This one appeared larger, stronger. It also had a big metal slat in the center, with a slide bar. Tom had seen a similar contraption on a door in the solitary confinement wing at Joliet State Penitentiary. It had been the food slot. Violent inmates could receive their meals without the risk of opening the door.

  “Hey Stang, what’s this thing in the middle of the door?”

  “I can put valuables into the safe without opening it up.”

  Tom didn’t know if he bought that. His back hurt, his ribs hurt, and he now felt a sharp stab of paranoia. He approached cautiously, gun in hand. Being careful, he pulled back the slat on the door and tried to peer inside. It was dark, and his penlight didn’t penetrate very far. An awful stench came through the slot—the smell of death. Tom thought it over. What if this wasn’t a safe at all? What if it was some kind of private graveyard?

  Actually, that would be a good thing. If Stang was burying dead bodies under his house, they wouldn’t need all the cloning evidence to put him away. Local law enforcement would take care of him, and the media would take care of his son.

  Tom punched in the code and the door unlocked. This one opened outward rather than inward. He peered inside the room, awash in the awful smell, trying to see in the darkness.

  He called to Stang. “Is there a light?”

  “On the far wall. It’s only a few feet inside.”

  “What’s that awful smell?”

  “A, uh, an animal burrowed under the house and died. We haven’t been able to find it.”

  That sounded like a big grandaddy lie. Tom took a step into the room, trying to steel himself against any possible shock.

  He didn’t see it, but he immediately sensed something directly in front of him. The hairs on his neck stood up, and he aimed his gun forward. By then there was movement on both sides of him as well.