“Here,” Carl said, extending the shovel to Beth. “Hold this while I check the map.”
He took the folded document from his shirt pocket and opened it. Swatting away the gnats trying to climb into his ears, he found the shed and the well on the crude drawing. “The path continues over there.” He pointed to the other side of the garden, where as he did so, he saw another gate.
Letting Beth keep the shovel, Carl pushed on the partially open gate, which creaked at the pressure and collapsed, the screws on its upper hinge falling out of their rotted holes.
As they cut across the garden, a brown lizard sitting on a rusty old plow watched them with suspicion, then turned and scuttled down the handle to disappear into a hole in the ground.
The second gate was ajar enough for them to pass through without touching it. On the other side, Carl once again consulted the map. Then he looked up and surveyed the landscape off to his right.
“The first x is in line with that big tree,” he said, pointing to a tree with a broad canopy that reached at least fifty feet in the air.
Carl hurried down the path until he was directly opposite the big tree. He reached in his pocket and got out the orange tape measure he’d brought. “Take this end,” he said, offering Beth the part of the tape sticking out of the case. “And give me the shovel.”
With Beth holding on firmly, Carl pushed into the weeds and carried the tape to the seven-foot mark indicated on the map. “Okay, let go.”
He reeled in the tape, put it in his pocket, and stamped the weeds down in a small circle.
“The ground here doesn’t look disturbed,” Beth said, joining him.
“We don’t know when the map was drawn. If whatever’s here was buried when that building was intact, it could have been a long time ago.” Carl put the point of the shovel against the ground and drove it into the root-filled soil with his foot.
MAHLER EASED UP on the gas. The red dot and the blue one on the GPS receiver were almost superimposed. His targets had to be just around this bend.
He navigated the turn and moments later saw their empty car parked by an abandoned building. He inched forward and checked the setting. Perfect.
Looking behind him for traffic and seeing none, he backed up and parked on the shoulder, where his car was screened from the old building by trees and vines. He flipped the top down on the GPS receiver and pushed it aside. He hoisted the briefcase from the passenger floorboard onto the seat next to him and opened it.
Seconds later, with the suppressor screwed onto the .45 and the other contents of the briefcase in his pockets, he got out, locked the car, and disappeared into the screening vegetation.
Chapter 36
FIRMLY GRIPPING his automatic, Mahler approached the abandoned building through the tall grasses on the side where the path to the buried objects began. Knowing nothing of the map Carl and Beth had found, he ignored the path and ran to the front corner of the building, where he carefully checked to see if they had returned to their car.
Seeing no one, he scrambled along the front of the building, staying low so he couldn’t be seen through the windows by anyone inside. At the front door, he paused and listened. The place was utterly silent, so if they were in there, they weren’t talking. He slipped inside and scanned the first room.
“I’M STARTING TO wonder if there’s anything here,” Carl said, taking another shovel of soil from the hole he’d dug. He was breathing hard and his shirt was soaked, his efforts having produced a hole two feet square and about that deep.
“Want me to dig awhile?” Beth asked.
Carl’s first reaction was to say no . . . to keep digging even though he needed a break . . . in short . . . to be a man. But then, remembering how she had already saved his life twice, what would be the point? He handed her the shovel.
MAHLER STEPPED from the upstairs hallway into the last room in the building.
Nothing. Where were they?
Through the bank of broken windows on the rear wall, he heard a scraping sound. He moved quickly to the windows and edged his head around the frame until he saw the woman he was after working with a shovel. The man was standing opposite her, to Mahler’s right.
They were well within range of his automatic, but too far away for accuracy. If he missed either of them entirely, this would develop into a chase and become much harder. Moreover, the angle was so poor that if he did hit them, and by sheer bad luck scored a kill shot, he’d see them again in his dreams. No, he had to get closer.
He spent another moment checking out the surroundings through the window, then hurried down the stairs and out the front entrance, where he hesitated. If they scattered, and one of them reached their car . . .
But any attempt by him to disable it would make some noise and alert them. So he’d just have to risk leaving the vehicle alone. Considering his skill at such things, the risk was actually quite minimal.
Chapter 37
BETH PRIED UP on the shovel, and a curved white object rose from the loose dirt.
Watching intently from beside the hole, Carl saw it at the same time she did. “Oh my God . . .” He dropped to his knees and began digging the surrounding soil away with his hand, revealing more of the curvature. He clamped his fingers over the object and pulled a grapefruit-sized skull from the ground. He looked at the grisly object and then at Beth. “I’ll bet we’ll find the same thing at the other marked spots.”
“Is it human?”
“No doubt about it.”
“A child?”
“Based on the size, I’d say yes, but we need one of the long bones to know for sure. See what else is there.”
Beth drove the shovel into the dirt again. This time the blade crunched into something hard. Beth winced. “If that was a bone, I think I damaged it.” She levered the blade up and brought more bones to the surface.
Carl reached down and picked up the biggest, a bone sharply splintered at one end and smoothly rounded on the other. He examined it briefly and looked at Beth. “It’s a humerus . . . the bone in the upper arm. This sharp part was made by the shovel, but . . .” He flicked his wrist and showed her the opposite end. “This is a natural surface that hasn’t fused yet with the separate portion that completes it at puberty. So these are definitely the remains of a child.”
“You’re a hard man to find Dr. Martin.”
They both turned to look at the source of the voice. The same instant that Beth recognized he was the man she’d seen at the top of the airport escalator, he came toward them and fired the gun in his hand, aiming low. Carl went down, a red stain spreading onto his pants from the slug that had gone into his left leg.
Beth’s instincts had taken over even before Carl fell, but she couldn’t respond because he’d been in the way. Now as he fell, she reacted, bringing the shovel around in an arc directed at Mahler’s head.
Mahler saw it coming too late to duck, and the side of the blade near its shoulder struck him slightly off center, splitting his skin and sending a solid contact vibration up the handle of the shovel into Beth’s hand.
Feeling how solidly she’d hit him, a spark of elation lifted Beth’s hopes, but then the spark was snuffed, because he didn’t even blink when he was struck.
In a quick, smooth motion, he stepped forward, brought his big left fist around, and powered it into Beth’s right temple, dropping her stunned, into the weeds.
Chapter 38
BETH LAY IN the grass, her senses scrambled, unable to even raise her hands to defend herself. But it was Carl that Mahler wanted first.
When the slug had ripped into Carl’s calf, it skimmed a nerve, sending a searing jolt of fire up his leg, canceling out all other sensations and shutting off the neural support to even uninjured muscles in the affected leg, so that he’d twisted and dropped like a sandbag. He now lay face down, half sl
umped into the hole they’d dug, his right arm pinned under him. He hadn’t even heard the shovel hit Mahler, but as the pain ebbed, his faculties returned, and he heard himself moaning. He also understood how much trouble they were in.
Mahler stepped close, grabbed Carl by his belt, and hauled him out of the hole. He dropped Carl face down onto the trampled weeds beside it, disgusted but not surprised at the way this pathetic excuse of a man handled pain.
Seeing how totally he had prevailed, Mahler shoved his gun down the waistband of his pants, hooking the grip on his belt, and got the paint can opener from his pocket. The big German circled around to the right, reached down across Carl’s back, and grabbed his left arm, intending to roll him over and kneel on his throat while he worked.
But as Carl was turned, his eyes flicked open and he sat up.
Looking into those eyes at the instant they opened, Mahler saw something in them other than pain. He caught a blur of movement on his left, then something sharp hit him in the neck.
Mahler jerked into an upright stance, his own eyes wide with surprise and shock. Protruding from the side of his neck, where it had penetrated his carotid and his trachea, was the bone Beth had splintered with the shovel.
Mahler did a pirouette to the left, grabbed at the bone, and pulled it free, losing a geyser of blood that spurted from the breached vessel. He threw the bone down and covered the wound with his hand, diverting the flow so it ran through his fingers. Knowing he was likely seconds from death, he began to gasp in fear. His first deep breath sucked a bolus of blood into his trachea and he coughed, sending a spray of blood into the air from his mouth and nose.
Mahler turned to look at Carl, his expression one of disbelief. He staggered backward a few steps, and his knees gave way. He collapsed awkwardly onto his legs and hit the ground face up, where he bucked and writhed briefly, then lay still, his service for The Brotherhood over.
Unable to fully comprehend what had just happened, Carl sat limply for a few seconds and just stared at Mahler’s body. Then the pain in his calf pulled him back to reality, From what he’d seen before Mahler collapsed, there was no doubt in his mind the guy was dead. He’d killed a man . . . erased an existence.
Jesus, how had his own life come to this?
Then he remembered Beth. He struggled to his feet and wildly cast a visual net. There . . . in the grass. But she wasn’t moving.
Hopping on one foot, he went to her and dropped into the weeds by her head, which he lifted into his lap. Already, her temple was swollen and red from where Mahler had struck her. “Beth . . . it’s Carl.”
Her eyelids jittered a bit and opened. She jerked her head from his lap and sat up, looking wildly around, obviously fearing Mahler was still a threat.
“It’s over,” Carl said.
Beth looked at him, her pupils dilated. “How?”
“Whoever that guy was, he’s dead. I stabbed him in the neck with that bone we found.”
She didn’t respond, apparently still disoriented and confused. Finally, she said, “You killed him?”
Spoken, the words sounded terrible to Carl. “I had to.”
“He’s really dead?”
Carl motioned with his head. “Over there.”
Beth looked in the direction he indicated. Then she remembered . . . “He shot you.”
“Yeah, in the leg.”
“How bad?”
“Haven’t had time to look. It hurt like hell when it happened, but I’m thinking now it can’t be too bad.”
“We need to find out.” Beth got to her feet, where she wavered unsteadily for a moment. Finding her balance, she moved to Carl’s legs, knelt, and gently pushed up the cuff on the bloody side of his pants. “You’re still bleeding.”
Carl leaned forward to look. After assessing both sides of his calf, he said, “It’s through and through . . . bullet is in the weeds somewhere. And it didn’t hit an artery, so all we have to do is wrap the wound tight with my shirt, and I’ll be fine.” He began working on his buttons.
“Shouldn’t you at least go to a hospital and let them check you out?”
“Beth, I’m a doctor. I know about these things.” He pulled his shirt from his pants. “Besides, if Puerto Rico has the same law as in the States, any gunshot wound would have to be reported to the police.” He shucked off his shirt and handed it to her. “And we certainly don’t want the cops here finding out what happened.”
She began wrapping Carl’s wound. “So we’re just going to leave him?” She glanced at Mahler’s body. “Like that.”
“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t. But I don’t want to get tangled up in the legal system of some other country even if it is a US protectorate. You do realize he’s part of what’s going on in Artisan?”
Continuing to work, Beth said, “I saw him at the airport. When he stepped out and shot you, I figured they sent him.”
“If they can track us to Puerto Rico, they have resources we can’t even imagine. Who knows what influence they could exert on the police here.”
Beth wrapped the arms of Carl’s shirt around his calf then tied them together so his wound was firmly bound.
“What about the bones we found?” She said. “And there are probably two more sets where the other Xs are on the map. Those were children.”
“At some point we’ll tell the authorities what we’ve found. But not now, not while we’re under the double disadvantage of being out of our own country and still in the dark about what it all means. Right now, we need to get out of here. But I’m not going to leave the remains of that child scattered around like refuse. It’s a poor solution at best and will likely only last until someone discovers that body, but let’s put them back where we found them.”
Aware that later their actions could be construed as trying to hide evidence, Carl nevertheless helped Beth as best he could to re-inter the skeletal remains they’d unearthed, including the splintered bone with Mahler’s blood and tissue on it.
It was hot and horribly sweaty work, and by the time they were finished, dusk had coaxed a horde of mosquitoes from hiding, making the place uninhabitable. Both Carl and Beth longed for the protection and air conditioning of the car.
Suddenly, they were startled by the sharp call of some night-loving animal that sounded like coqui . . . coqui. As if cued by their precocious comrade, more of the creatures joined in until the area was a bedlam of noise.
“What is that?” Beth said.
“I think they’re frogs.”
“They must be huge.”
“If it’s the one I’ve heard about, they’re very small. Let’s get out of here.”
Knowing Carl couldn’t stand any pressure on his injured leg, Beth moved to his side. “I’ll help you.”
It was a tempting offer, but Carl didn’t want to put any more stress on her than she’d already experienced. “Thanks, but I can use the shovel.”
As they left, despite the mosquitoes, Carl paused at Mahler’s body and stared at the dead face looking up at the darkening sky. The patient that had died in his care had succumbed to a mistake. His complicity in that death was by circumstance. But he had killed this man directly, with his own hand.
“Stop thinking about it,” Beth said, reading his mind. “The only one who carries any blame here is him.”
Her comment snapped Carl out of his self-absorption, and he once again was able to think constructively. Could this guy have been the only one sent to kill them? Maybe, maybe not. In any event, they couldn’t afford to remain so vulnerable. Flattening a mosquito feasting on his neck, he scanned the ground around the body.
“What are you looking for?”
“His gun. Do you see it anywhere?”
He waited a moment while Beth initiated a search. When she didn’t spot it right away, he decided to check the body.
Carefully sliding his hands down the shovel so he wouldn’t rely too much on his wounded leg, he knelt beside the corpse and gingerly lifted up the loose shirt the guy was wearing. “Never mind. Here it is.”
While Beth abandoned her search and came back to join him, he worked the gun out of Mahler’s waistband.
“That’s really ugly looking,” Beth said, seeing the gun. “Why is it so long?” She slapped at a mosquito on her forehead.
“It’s got a silencer on it, which we don’t need. Hold the shovel for me will you?”
With Beth in control of the shovel, Carl now had both hands free to unscrew the silencer. When he had the six-inch cylinder disengaged from the barrel, he handed the gun to Beth, then wiped his prints off the silencer with Mahler’s shirt. Leaving the silencer on the ground by the body, he lifted the shirt up a bit more so he could get at the holster he’d also seen peeking out of Mahler’s waistband.
Beth helped him to his feet and returned the gun, which he promptly holstered, and slid into his own pants. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
“Those bones we buried . . .” Beth said. “They’ve got our fingerprints all over them too.”
“Nothing we can do about that.”
MINUTES LATER, BACK at the abandoned building, Beth said, “I don’t see another car. Where’d that guy come from?”
“I guess he parked off-site so we wouldn’t hear him arrive. Hope he was alone.”
Beth then realized something Carl had known much earlier. “Are you going to be able to drive?”
“You’ll have to do it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“It’s an automatic transmission. All you have to do is point it and step on the gas. I’ll show you.”
Carl hobbled around to the trunk, opened it, and threw in the shovel. He pulled on a clean shirt from his bag then gave Beth the keys and made his way back to the passenger side, where she let him in.
The Blood Betrayal Page 19
