Impulse

by Catherine Coulter

  What to do?

  Dominick probably knew everything about him now, everything about everybody. Marcus had realized quickly enough that it was Coco who’d been working on the inside against Dominick. Odd that he hadn’t seriously considered her before. He wondered again why, all of a sudden, she’d turned so viciously and so vocally against Dominick, telling him everything. As for Charles Rutledge, Marcus was still surprised that that very well-educated man, that very civilized and law-abiding man, had planned to assassinate another. But the provocation was great. More than great, it was perhaps inevitable, preordained.

  It seemed that there was nothing more to be done now except stand in front of Dominick’s firing squad and die with some sort of dignity. He shook his head violently. He was just too stupid to accept it, too much a romantic, he supposed, to roll over and let himself tolerate being killed.

  He couldn’t accept anything. He had somehow to save Rafaella, the woman he loved so much it almost hurt. It occurred to him that he might never see her again, and the pain was so great he nearly cried out. No, it wouldn’t, couldn’t end like that.

  He couldn’t get her white face out of his mind, or the ugly bruise that was beginning to darken along her jaw where Dominick had struck. He knew if it hadn’t been for Merkel that first time, he’d have been killed on the spot. And that second time, well—He rubbed his stomach, his muscles still sore from Dominick’s blow. No, Dominick had decided he didn’t want him dead just yet. Why? Marcus shook his head in the dark.

  It came to him then, quite unnecessarily, that Coco had poisoned the Dutchmen who’d been locked in this shed, or maybe she had a henchman among the guards. The Dutchmen couldn’t have had the poison on them; they had to have been body-searched. Hadn’t it occurred to Dominick that someone on the inside had killed them? Had worked with Tulp to kill him? Of course it had occurred to Dominick. He was far from stupid. He was biding his time. For something.

  When Marcus heard the gentle thud of booted feet hit the ground outside the shed, he thought: Anton Rosch. He finally got here, finally alerted Hurley. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get out of this mess. He wasn’t all that sure, but at least something was happening. He crouched next to the door and waited, not making a sound.

  “I’m not quite that crazy yet,” Dominick said, looking down at his handiwork. “No, I’m not crazy enough to leave you free to stick a knife in me. You look quite lovely sprawled out like that with your arms and legs tied. Very tempting.”

  He sat down beside Coco and looked at her breasts. He lightly pinched a nipple, forcing it to tighten. He smiled as he saw her grimace, then slid his palm down over her flat belly to the dark pubic hair.

  He found her flesh cold, unresponsive, but he didn’t care. He toyed with her a bit, watching her face all the while. She hated what he was doing, but she was helpless.

  Dominick rose and stood by the bed, looking down at her. She was waiting for him to rape her. He smiled. “Oh, no, Coco, I don’t want you, ever again. But I’m gong to leave you here, my dear, all sprawled and open and tied down. My guards will enjoy you. And they’ll be by, many of them, and they’ll see you and you’ll see them. Perhaps you’ll even smile at them and try to talk them into freeing you. Who knows?”

  He paused a moment, then spoke again, his voice shrill. “Damn you, I gave you everything a woman could want, everything! Except for that baby. And you turned on me just for that. You were getting too old anyway. I did protect you by having the doctor fix you. I didn’t want you pregnant again. I didn’t want any illegitimate children, and Sylvia was so very much alive.” He paused, then suddenly leaned down, kissed her hard on the mouth, and rose again. He said nothing more. He turned and left the bedroom, leaving the door wide open.

  Coco stared at the empty doorway. It would all be over in a short time now. She wouldn’t have to suffer long. If she was lucky, maybe Hector would be one of the guards to come. He could free her or kill her, whatever her need was when he found her. She didn’t cry; she’d fought hard, tried her best. She was sorry for the others, so very sorry.

  Dominick was told by Link that DeLorio was waiting for him downstairs. He merely nodded and went to join his son.

  Things were getting out of hand; he felt it in his gut. There were just too many chess pieces and he had to finish off the game once and for all. He had to move quickly now, get out of here intact. It was time to draw things to a close. It was time to end it. It was time to move on. He felt a leap of excitement. He wasn’t too old to begin again. And he wasn’t exactly poor. He thought of the eighty million dollars and change he had in the bank in the Caymans. No problem. He’d just set up elsewhere. He still had all his contacts. He knew now whom he could trust. And there was his son, his millionaire son, who would help his father get back in business. DeLorio would obey him. He was a good boy.

  And all his betrayers, all his enemies, would soon be dead.

  He did want Merkel with him, he needed Merkel. He found him in the living room, watching Charles Rutledge, just watching him, not saying a word.

  “It’s time to go, Merkel.”

  Merkel hesitated, and Dominick felt a frisson of dread. Merkel too? No, it wasn’t possible.

  “It’s time, Merkel,” he said again. “Past time. Everything’s set. Let’s go. Get Link. When Lacy is through with Calpas in Miami, he’ll contact us.”

  Merkel looked at him, his clothes immaculate, his broad ugly face twisted with uncertainty. “All of them, Mr. Giovanni? Marcus? Miss Holland? Coco? Paula?”

  “You needn’t recite the list! Good God, Merkel, they’re all our enemies. Think of them as foes, adversaries, to be gotten rid of, nothing more. It’ll be fast, you know. It’s not like we’re going to line them up and shoot them in cold blood.”

  Merkel nodded. Dominick went one direction, Merkel the other.

  Soon now, Dominick thought, soon it would be over and there would be no traces, nothing left.

  Twenty-five

  Rafaella found Coco naked on her bed, struggling to free herself. She looked, oddly, more furious than scared. She was muttering to herself, watching her wrists and ankles grow raw as she pulled and wrenched and twisted.

  “It’s all right, Coco, it’s going to be all right. Marcus’s friend is here with backup.” She kept talking, nonsense now, as she untied Coco, rubbed feeling back into her wrists, and helped her dress.

  Coco finally interrupted her, her voice harsh, “I wanted to kill him, but he knew it of course. And he did this. He hoped his guards would come by and finish me off. Thank you, Rafaella. Now, there’s something no one knows. I found out by accident a long time ago. There are enough explosives to blow this compound out of existence. And I’ll just bet you that’s what Dominick plans. Killing all of us in cold blood just isn’t his style. No, this way would be cleaner.”

  “Oh, God,” Rafaella said. “He’d kill everyone? Even all his own men?” Even his illegitimate daughter? Rafaella wanted to laugh at herself. What did being his daughter matter?

  “If I know him, and I do, he’s probably in one of the helicopters right this minute. He’s hoping, no doubt, to watch us all go up in a beautiful orange explosion. It’s impersonal, it’s clean. I’ll also bet there aren’t any more guards left in the house.”

  “Paula’s in her room and she’s unconscious. No one else up here. Savage went to free Marcus in the toolshed. Where’s Charles?”

  “Locked in the living room, the last I saw him. No, Dominick has doubtless ordered all the men outside—Jiggs, all the servants—and given them guns with orders to cut us down if we try to escape.”

  It was almost too much for Rafaella to take in. “Let’s get ourselves armed and find Marcus and Savage.”

  When Rafaella heard the burst of submachine gunfire coming from outside, she froze. Then absolute silence. How many bullets had been fired? Enough to kill twenty men? Thirty?

  “Marcus,” Rafaella whispered, shouldered the Kalashnikov, and ran outside, forgetting about Domini
ck’s guards. There were four men lying sprawled on the ground, covered with blood. Blood everywhere. Rafaella swallowed. Marcus shouted at her, his voice frantic, “Rafe, get back into the house!”

  Coco stepped forward and called out in her clear, now very midwestern voice, “Listen to me, all of you. Both Jiggs and Hector can tell you I’m not lying. Mr. Giovanni is going to blow up the compound. Maybe some of you remember when he had the explosives installed. He doesn’t care about any of you. We’re all loose ends to him, of no account at all. He just wants to get himself and DeLorio out of here safely. There’s no reason for any of us to do any more killing. We’ve got to get out of here, and now, or we’ll all die—and it won’t matter who’s friend or enemy.”

  Hector, a thin young man with thick black hair and a hairless face, stepped out of a side door. “She’s right, let’s get the hell out of here—to the other side of the island, where it’s safe.”

  Silence. Then the low buzz of conversation as the guards argued. Rafaella heard Hector, his voice raised, telling them to stop wasting time, to stop everything, the bombs were ticking away.

  And then it was over. The guards, including Hector, just melted away into the jungle.

  “It was that easy,” Marcus said under his breath as he stepped from behind a frangipani tree. He eyed the dead men who’d tried to kill him and Savage. “I don’t believe it.”

  John Savage said from behind him, “Where are the explosives?”

  Coco was already dashing into the house, yelling over her shoulder, “The swimming pool!”

  Savage sprinted after her. Marcus grabbed Rafaella, hugged her tightly, and whispered against her temple, “We’ll make it, Ms. Holland, I swear we’ll make it. Then I plan for us to spend the next fifty years sharing a wonderfully boring life together.”

  Rafaella started to say that was a fine idea, but obscenely loud gunfire cut her off. “That must be Savage’s men. I guess they just got the guards.”

  “Good. But Giovanni and DeLorio will get away.” Marcus pointed. “Look!”

  There were two helicopters climbing slowly above the trees. Dominick had obviously had the wrecked helicopter repaired. Marcus wished he had one of the Soviet RPG-7 rocket launchers. It would easily destroy a helicopter. The Czech Skorpion VZ-61 he’d taken off a dead guard was like an Israeli Uzi. It could take down twenty charging men, but no way did it have the range to bring down a helicopter.

  Giovanni would get away. Clean. To set up shop somewhere else in the world. Was DeLorio in the other helicopter? Merkel? Link? He’d heard the guards outside the toolshed say that Frank Lacy had already been sent to Miami to take out Mario Calpas.

  Marcus had failed, and it stuck raw and deep in his craw. His one and only big assignment, and he’d failed, blown it all to hell, just as they could all be blown to hell at any minute.

  He grabbed Rafaella’s hand and they ran through the house, out onto the veranda facing the Olympic swimming pool. Savage was on his knees, ripping up tiles near the diving board, Coco working frantically beside him.

  “Marcus, quick! I think the plastic is C-4. You know more about how to deal with the stuff than I do. We haven’t got all that long before the whole thing blows. Giovanni’s got it on a timer.”

  Marcus dropped to his knees beside Savage and studied the control unit. The wires—four different colors, all intertwined, as complicated as could be.

  Rafaella read the digital red numbers over Marcus’s shoulder. There was a goodly number of minutes left, but the controls looked so complex and intricate. She felt Marcus’s tension building and wondered if the minutes left really meant anything, if just touching the wrong wire, pulling at the wrong switch, would send them to oblivion.

  Marcus began talking. “Yeah, what we’ve got here is PETN mixed with an oily plasticizer. You see that, Savage? Yeah…nitrogen compounds…very professional, and I’m not, and those wires—it’s got to be the green one, see, it’s the one that’s attached to the timer. You think that’s right? I think that’s the timer.”

  Coco snarled in his ear, “Just do it, Marcus, just do it!”

  Savage didn’t say a word, didn’t move as he watched Marcus grip the wire firmly, wrap it around his fingers, then suddenly jerk it free. The four of them froze, waiting, waiting for the explosion, waiting for death. Nothing happened.

  They continued silent, frozen in place. Still nothing. Marcus looked up to see the helicopters still hovering. So Dominick was waiting too. Rage exploded inside him.

  Then he saw what Coco was clutching tightly against her chest—a SAM-7. The thing could bring down an airliner taking off. Marcus grabbed it from her, positioned himself on one knee, and quickly balanced the antiaircraft missile on his right shoulder. It wasn’t particularly heavy or difficult to handle, but it wasn’t all that accurate either. It required skill or luck to inflict serious damage. If only the helicopters stayed low, if only they continued to hover and give him a stationary target.

  He had only one try; that was it.

  He shaded his eyes, staring at the helicopters, and hesitated. Suddenly there was a burst of automatic fire and the tiles around the swimming pool exploded, spewing shards everywhere. Marcus saw Rafaella grab her arm, saw Coco and Savage hit the ground, saw flower blossoms explode into bits of wild color. One of the helicopters was firing on them. Dominick must have realized that they’d neutralized the explosives. More fire blasted around them. Then there was answering fire from Hurley’s men, now coming out of the trees surrounding the compound.

  Marcus saw Hurley go down. He had no choice now, not really. They were sitting ducks. Slowly he balanced the missile again on his right shoulder, aiming carefully. Just one chance to bring them down.

  He saw Dominick clearly piloting the lower helicopter, the one spraying them with fire. And just as clearly he saw DeLorio hanging out the open cabin window, the automatic in his arms; he mowed down two men even as Marcus aimed the missile. Both father and son in the same helicopter; he didn’t have to decide which one to take down.

  He prayed as he aimed the SAM, prayed that his luck was in, and he fired.

  He saw the disbelief on DeLorio’s young face just before the missile struck the helicopter, saw the automatic rifle fly out of his arms. He couldn’t make out Dominick, just saw the wild jerk of his body as the missile struck. The helicopter exploded instantly into a ball of orange flame. It was an incredible sight, an awesome sight, and more terrifying than Marcus could have imagined. It had been years since he’d seen a helicopter explode. Long ago, in western Austria.

  The other helicopter was already out of range, veering off over the Caribbean, due west. Marcus thought he saw Merkel and Link in that one.

  Coco looked up and said dispassionately, “It’s over, Charles. It’s all right now. The bastard’s dead; DeLorio is dead. It’s over for both you and Margaret.”

  Rafaella turned and saw her stepfather watching the flaming helicopter parts as they hit the water, splashing up thick veils of water that steamed and hissed with the impact. She got to her feet and ran into his arms.

  Charles couldn’t think of a thing to say. He hugged his stepdaughter. “I’m sorry, Rafaella.”

  “We’re alive,” she said, pulling back to look at his face, “and Mother will be all right soon now. I know it—no, it’s just a scratch on my arm, don’t worry.”

  Marcus looked over at Hurley, his shoulder being attended by one of his men. He’d have to try to deal with Hurley somehow. He’d failed; he hadn’t managed to bring Dominick Giovanni to justice. And that had been the agreement. But God, he’d brought the bastard down, he’d sent him straight to hell, him and that lunatic son of his.

  He thought of Uncle Morty. He’d best get to Hurley while he was still weak and thankful that Marcus had brought Giovanni down before Hurley and more of his men had been killed. But not just yet.

  He looked at Rafaella and smiled. She walked right into his arms. Whatever happened with Hurley and the feds, she was his life,
and life for both of them would be vastly different from now on.

  He was kissing her when he heard Anton Rosch say to Ross Hurley, “He’s Irish. The Irish always get the girl.”

  Epilogue

  Pine Hill Hospital

  Long Island, New York

  April 2001

  I dreamed he came to me last night. He took my hand and leaned down close to my face and said, “Hello, Margaret.”

  That was all he said for a very long time.

  I wasn’t surprised to see him, even though I suppose I should have been. Things are easy to accept in dreams.

  I knew he was looking at me, and it seemed very odd that he would just stare without saying anything, until I realized that he hadn’t seen me for twenty-six years.

  A very long time for a woman. Too long.

  But in my eyes he hadn’t changed, because I’d watched him over the years, so often studied his photographs, so that the years had come easily, and altered him only gradually. He seemed untouched to me.

  And then he started speaking, his voice low and tender, and he told me he’d met our daughter and how lovely she was.

  Odd that I didn’t wonder how he could have met Rafaella, his daughter. But he had; somehow I knew that was true.

  He was silent again, but he didn’t release my hand. I wished I could speak to him, perhaps even tell him how very sorry I was, but I realized that I wasn’t sorry, no, I’d thought about it all very carefully for a very long time. No, I wasn’t sorry. I did wish I could say something to him, but it was the sort of dream that is so very real but whose dreamer can’t act, can’t participate, can’t speak. But I thought about what I’d say to him if I could speak. There were so many things, years upon years of things to say. Then I realized that as soon as I thought of these things; formulated them in my mind, they lessened in their importance until they were nothing at all. It was odd, but it was so.

  And then he said, leaning down and kissing my mouth, “I must go, Margaret. I must leave now. Your life is yours again. It’s over, finally over. It’s time for you to wake up, Margaret. It’s time for you to live.”