by Seb Kirby
When Heller located the next target, there was a problem. There were two men together. The huntsman had emerged from his cottage and was talking to the last of the remaining protectors outside on the lane, pointing towards the farmhouse and surrounding fields, planning, no doubt, how to provide protection overnight. The danger was that one or both of them would discover the body he’d left near the barn. Heller decided only immediate action would do.
A lesser man might have delayed to find a more suitable time to launch the attack but he was not like other men. He knew the powerful effect of sudden, undisguised terror. It was what had served him and his kind so well over all the years.
He retreated down the hill under cover of the dry stone wall and emerged lower on the lane and began to walk up it, towards the two men. They would see him as just another walker, setting out for a late-night visit to the bridge.
As he approached, he gave a smile and a nod, a silent good evening.
Before the two men could respond, he struck. He pulled a silenced pistol from under his jacket and shot the accomplice between the eyes. As the man fell and the huntsman sought to find a response to the shock of seeing his partner dying, Heller aimed two sharp blows, one to the eye with two outstretched fingers, blinding the man, and the second, before he could level the shot gun he had assumed would be his protector, a kick to the leg breaking it at the knee, sending the huntsman collapsing into unconsciousness.
Heller picked up the collaborator and placed the body in a ditch beside the lane. He then picked up the huntsman and draped the body over his shoulder, fireman’s lift style. Heller entered the huntsman’s cottage, using the key he found in the unconscious man’s pockets. He tied the man to a chair using cabling ripped from the dining room. The man was not dead. When he recovered consciousness he would have a use.
The dogs were barking louder now he’d entered the cottage. Perhaps they were responding to the attack on their master or perhaps they were responding to Heller’s alien presence. Either way, they would have to be silenced.
He walked into the compound and faced the first of the animals. The fact that he did not back down as the dog charged gave him a great advantage. As the dog leapt, he grabbed it by the neck and spear-tackled it to the ground, breaking its skull as he drove it deep into the sandy floor of the compound. Two more dogs came at him and received the same treatment. The remaining eight dogs drew back, whimpering and trying to run away but there was nowhere for them to go. One by one he found them and broke the neck of each with a swift twisting action. The compound was now silent.
He returned to the cottage to inspect the huntsman. He was still unconscious, still breathing.
It was a satisfactory start to the action against the farmhouse but no more than would be expected of a man whose power and status was as well-established as his own. After all, if these people insisted on deploying amateurs to do a professional job of protecting the Blake woman, what else could be expected? He would have been foolish not to demonstrate that supremacy. So much was self-evident.
Heller listened to the silence of the countryside all around him.
He felt calmed by its serenity.
It was a short distance across the fields that surrounded the farmhouse but he wanted to do this right. To maximize the shock to the Blake woman there should be no signal of his approach. This was nothing more than the professional way. Professional since it would allow no time for the Blake woman to phone for help.
As he neared the center of the field an unexpected confrontation took place. A ram stood in his path. To order, the clouds above parted to reveal a full moon that bathed Heller and the animal in a bright, steely light, as if a spotlight had been shone on them to illuminate the encounter.
The ram, large and horned, stood in his path. It stared straight at him with unrelenting green eyes.
Heller fell to his knees and stared back. He spoke in a quiet voice. “Just like me, dear friend, you have fathered many.”
He moved to touch the animal’s massive head but drew back as the ram lowered its head in preparation to charge. He was impressed by the animal’s soulless intensity, by its complete absence of reason and feeling.
Heller understood what was at stake. The ram sought to protect his progeny, his right to reproduce and shape the future. His DNA, the life source, would be eternal. He spoke again. “Yes, my friend, we are the same, you and me. We demand and get the same.”
It was stalemate. The animal stood as solid as stone. There was no thought. There was no fear. There was nothing but the absolute determination to take the future and make it its own. Something handed down through the millennia. Ancient, unyielding, ever present. This animal had achieved its own nirvana, the state of being that Heller could not yet emulate despite all the years of meditation and prayer.
There was so much to learn from the unyielding beast before him.
He stood, smiled, and stepped aside. This beast must be recognized as the master it was in this, his domain. Just as he himself must be recognized as the master he was about to become in his own, wider world.
It was relative.
But the same.
The animal and himself.
Masters in their own worlds.
Heller walked on towards the farmhouse and the prey awaiting him there.
Chapter 93
The baby had stopped crying and was sleeping.
It had been a long day. Little Simon had not settled without a struggle. If Faith were here she would have told her all along it was wind, something quite normal for babies that would clear in its own good time and then he would sleep. Julia wished she were here now so she could tell her she was right. But she knew she’d have to settle for the contented look on her baby’s face as he lay silently in the crib.
Julia looked around the room before closing the door and heading for the sitting room. She could think about herself for the first time that day.
There was no sound coming from down the hill. The huntsman’s dogs were silent though just earlier they’d sounded agitated. That was unusual. Once any immediate intrusion had been dealt with, one or more of them would be expected to be barking or snuffling around. Just as if you live near a stream where the sound of running water is forever present, after awhile you aren’t aware of it yet you notice when it stops. It was the same with the huntsman’s dogs. Why were they this quiet?
Julia looked at the old mantelpiece clock. Nine PM. Already dark outside.
She hoped for a call from James.
It was about his time if he was going to call. They’d agreed she would not call him unless it was an emergency. She could not call now. What would she say? “Jim, I’m scared. The huntsman’s dogs are too quiet.”
No, she was being feeble. The huntsman had been here just an hour before and told her everything was fine. She should relax and settle down to making the most of the few hours break she had before baby Simon woke again for his next feed.
Then she saw the shadow of a man pass across the dining room window. Before she could respond, the apparition was gone. She had to convince herself she had seen it, so fleeting had been its appearance.
She was frightening herself. It was all about suggestion, she knew that. The dogs had fallen silent, no doubt for some quite understandable reason, and she was in a heightened state of alert. Scared of a shadow. She needed to set aside these figments of her imagination.
Then came the unmistakable sound of the front door of the farmhouse being forced open, followed by the sound of a man’s footsteps approaching along the stone flagged passageway.
Chapter 94
Wolfgang Heller was on Julia before she could defend herself.
Her only thought was for her baby.
Did this man know about the child? Would little Simon stay asleep in the room next door long enough for her to find a way of getting this man to do something, anything that would keep her baby safe?
He had her by the throat. His eyes were fire. His hands massive. H
is raw power impossible to oppose.
She wanted to shout out but could not speak.
He was mouthing words but she couldn’t decipher them. It was as if her fear had placed a veil between herself and this man, as if he were speaking another language. Then she realized, the words she was hearing were German.
He released his grip on her throat for her to be able to speak. “I don’t understand.”
He tightened his grip again. “You want to hear it in English, Frau Blake? Have you ever thought how arrogant it makes you seem, expecting me to speak your language?”
He relaxed his grip, long enough for her to reply. “Why are you here?”
“To repay you for what you have done. For the damage caused by you and your family.”
Through the pain and terror, Julia was beginning to realize who this was. James had told her about the German who had nearly killed him and Miles in East Texas. This was the same man. “Herr Heller, you don’t need to do this.”
“You know of me? From where do you know of me?”
Julia did not want to turn the attention to James, but she had no choice. “From my husband.”
He taunted her. “And where is James now?”
She didn’t want to answer but anything that kept him here away from her baby was preferable to what might happen if he was allowed to enter the room next door where Simon was sleeping. “He’ll be back any moment.”
Heller squeezed more tightly on her throat. “Don’t lie to me, Frau Blake. Don’t ever lie to me.”
The pain was intense. He would not stop unless she told the truth. “He’s in Italy.”
“At last we begin to understand each other.”
He released her, forcing her to sit down in the wingback chair as he loomed over her.
Her throat was burning. He’d come close to killing her. “You won’t escape. There are people around here, guarding us.”
“Us? Tell me who else is here?”
A sound came from the next room.
The sound of a baby crying.
Heller taunted her again. “So, you have a baby?”
Julia shook her head.
He held Julia’s arm in a vice-like grip and twisted. “In that case, I must take a look myself.”
Chapter 95
Looking down on the baby asleep in the crib, Wolfgang Heller was aware of the conflict invading his mind and his body.
He was shocked he had not been warned about this by Cleary. He knew the way the man operated – tell them just enough to get the result. Do not tell them how the information was obtained. Do not complicate matters with information like the fact that the target has a three-week old baby.
It was a struggle to hide his annoyance.
His thoughts were back at Town Lake as he prepared to arm the bomb that would blow the compound apart. He was talking to thirteen-year-old Jenny Ravitz who was telling him how excited she was to have met a boy. The turmoil now invading him centered on the realization that the baby before him would one day become just the kind of boy who would have delighted the young Jenny.
Digging his fingernails deep into his wrist, he drew blood. The pain did not stop the anguish. He thought he was over this. If people were foolish enough to place children in the way of the goals he was destined to achieve, then so be it. It would be their fault if the children suffered. It was none of his business.
Then why did he still feel like this? Why were the days of meditation on this now as nothing when confronted with the simple view of the baby lying before him, helpless?
The Blake woman placed herself between him and the baby. She was pleading. “Go. Please don’t harm my child. He has nothing to do with anything you are interested in.”
Perhaps, after all, in itself the threat of harm to the child would be enough.
The Blake woman was close to hysteria. “Please don’t hurt my baby. I’ll do anything you say, but please don’t hurt him.”
Chapter 96
This was the worst moment of Julia Blake’s life.
Worse even than the kidnap and rape she had endured at the hands of Alfieri Lando in Florence. That had been her own pain, her own isolation, her own fear and self-loathing. This was worse.
Heller would kill her; there was no doubt. And when he’d finished with her, he’d kill her child.
No pain, suffering or isolation she had experienced before could prepare her for the prospect of that.
She was desperate to find a weakness, any point of vulnerability she might be able to exploit in this man who had brought such terror into her life.
She had no weapon but she knew that in the kitchen drawer was a set of carving knives. If she could get to the drawer without his seeing she could perhaps be quick enough with the knife to slash him at the throat. But he was not going to let her out of his sight. She would never get to the kitchen without his knowing and even if she were to get the knife and try to use it, the risk that he would harm her child was too great.
She thought about poison. There was rat poison under the kitchen sink. How long did Warfarin take to act? How could she administer it to this man? He would taste it, even if she could contrive a situation in which he would drink anything she set before him. Even if there was a chance of making this work, she did not know how long this man intended to delay the inevitable attack on herself and her baby. There may not be time for the poison to take effect.
She wished now she’d used the mobile phone when she’d been concerned about the silence of the dogs. She should have trusted her intuition. Heller had not thought to ask her about the phone. Perhaps she could find a way to call James. He would alert the police.
Heller must have been reading her thoughts. “I forgot to mention, Frau Blake. Please give me your phone.”
He held out his hand.
“I don’t have a phone. We only have a landline here.”
He took a step towards the baby’s crib. “The phone. I will not ask again.”
Julia removed it from her bag and handed it to him.
He looked at her long and hard. “I thought you had agreed not to lie to me. You must not lie to me. Do you understand?”
Julia nodded.
“Say it.”
“I understand.”
Julia was certain she had to stop this man no matter how weak she felt. She made an excuse to go to the kitchen. “The baby needs feeding.”
“You are not doing this as in nature?”
She shook her head.
He followed her into the kitchen as she began preparing the baby bottle. If all along he was going to kill her, what kind of perverse pleasure made him want to demonstrate his control and draw her end out like this? Why wouldn’t he let his attention slip for just one moment so she could open the kitchen drawer and pull out the carving knife?
Next door, the baby began to cry once more.
Heller turned his head to look.
This was Julia’s only chance. She pulled open the drawer behind her and slipped her hand in. Where was the knife? The long one with the serrated edge.
Her fingers gripped the handle. She pulled the knife from the drawer and held it behind her back.
Heller had resumed his attention on her.
She walked towards him. He would notice her arm behind her back but could she get to him and use the knife before he could respond?
It was always going to be futile but what else could she do to save her baby?
He’d seen her coming and had drawn the pistol from his waistband before she could reach him.
It was too late to stop now. Julia raised the blade and rushed at Heller as he prepared to fire. When the bullet hit she would be gone but she would have done all she could.
There was the explosive sound of a weapon going off. Too loud to be Heller’s weapon. Then another deafening detonation.
Heller fell backwards. The pistol fell from his hand as he hit the floor and began convulsing.
Julia turned.
Behind her Faith Webster
’s hands shook as she pointed the emptied double-barreled shotgun to the floor. “We only ever kept it for scaring rabbits, Julia, you know that. And I never did get on with that cousin of mine.”
Chapter 97
Nico Ferrara sought to comfort me as we staggered away from the ruins of San Berado, heading for warmth and light.
“We need to find if there was a word of truth in what Lando told you about Julia. He was trying to hurt you, to use despair to demoralize you.”
I couldn’t agree. “I wish I could share the same optimism, Nico. I don’t believe Lando was lying. There was too much delight in his desire to want to tell me the worst of what was going to happen. I have to tell you, Nico, there’s so little left of me to doubt that everything is lost.”
“You can’t allow yourself to believe that.”
We made our way over halfway down San Berado hillside before we came to anywhere that looked as if normal life had resumed after the earthquake. It was a trattoria, one of those small places used by locals. Most were standing outside, looking in awe at the destruction higher up the hillside, discussing how lucky they were their lives and property had been spared.
Inside we found the patron was still attempting to maintain some semblance of normality and he asked if we required drinks or a meal as we came in. Ferrara explained our need for the use of a phone and, when the patron offered use of his and told us it was still working, Ferrara turned to me. “Make the call, James. The time is long gone when you could place Julia in any more danger than she may already be in. If you are so convinced you have nothing left, you have nothing to lose.”
Without his insistence I would not have been able to find the will to pick up the receiver and dial.
As the call went through, I could feel the last reserves of strength about to drain from my body. Time stretched out once more. My own heartbeats sounded in my head. There was an eternity between each one.
