The Second Ship Read online

  As Priest reached for it, an athletic shoe caught him full in the midsection, the kick launching him up over the railing to land headfirst on the floor of the den, twelve feet below the top of the stairs. The shock of sensations that accompanied the loud crack from his neck gave ample evidence that it had broken, severing the spinal column high enough to block his lungs. Just before Priest allowed his eyes to slip closed, he had the oddest thought. He had never seen the middle of his own back before.

  Priest stilled himself, not that it was difficult, since he was disconnected from control of the vast majority of his body. Still, it was important that the kid, or whatever he was, thought he was dead. Priest had no doubt that the regenerative powers of his own body could heal this set of injuries as thoroughly as they had healed the brain and eye injuries inflicted by Janet. But it wouldn’t do to give the kid reason to hang around and watch the process.

  Within seconds, he heard the footsteps on the upstairs landing move down the hallway to the room where he had left Janet drugged, bound, and gagged.

  Good.

  He could already feel the restorative process at work, rebuilding connections in his severed spinal cord and allowing sensations to flood in from his lower body. A red storm of pain clouded his vision as nerves, sinews, and bone were knitted back together. The muscles in his neck pulled his head back into the proper position, allowing the spinal column to be re-connected. Although Priest couldn’t be sure, it seemed that his body was healing itself better each time.

  As often as Priest had cursed Dr. Stephenson, he had to give the man credit. The gray goo that he and Dr. Rodriguez had pumped into Priest in the basement laboratory below the Rodriguez guesthouse was good stuff. Not that he had appreciated the act at the time.

  Stephenson had contacted him through surreptitious channels and had set up a meeting to discuss the acquisition of Priest's special services. But Priest had screwed up, never suspecting that the famous deputy director of the Los Alamos National laboratory would slip a Mickey into his drink.

  The next thing he knew, he was strapped to a hospital bed as Drs. Stephenson and Rodriguez fed the gray goo through an IV into his veins. They had been quite excited about it, their first human trial of the formulation.

  The pain flooding through him now was nothing compared to the liquid fire that had coursed through his veins that day. As Priest rose slowly to his feet and loaded a new dart into his tranquilizer gun, he smiled. Indeed, he had been to hell and back, and he had to admit, the trip was worth the price of admission.

  Priest had intended to take only Janet back alive to his special place, but this kid moved like no human could move. And Priest wanted to find out where that difference came from. Besides, nobody gave him an ass whipping like that and failed to pay the price, a price extracted in pain. With careful packing, the compartment below the truck bed should be able to hold two.

  The dart, fired from a semi-prone position as he peered around the banister at the top of the stairs, struck squarely between the kid's shoulder blades as he bent over Janet, removing the last of the tape from her ankles. But instead of slumping forward as Priest expected, the kid spun to his feet, reaching back over his shoulder to pull the dart free.

  Too late. It had deposited its full load into the kid's bloodstream upon impact. The kid staggered, then righted himself, shaking his head as if to clear it. Unbelievably, he began advancing down the hallway toward Priest, and Priest rose to meet him, pulling his other gun from its shoulder holster, just in case.

  Once again the kid staggered, this time dropping to his hands and knees, although he continued to crawl forward. Priest moved in rapidly, swinging a beefy right hand that connected with the side of the kid's head, sending him sprawling against the hallway wall. With one last effort to rise, the kid's eyes lost all focus, his limp body slumping to the floor.

  Priest moved forward to gaze down at him, the Beretta aimed directly at the young fellow's head.

  “Kid, you’re one hell of a specimen. I think Doctor Stephenson is going to want to find out just what makes you tick.”

  Grabbing a foot, Priest dragged the kid down the hall, back to the room where Janet’s prone form lay. Within moments he had both bodies bound and gagged with duct tape. Then, moving back downstairs, he took out his Beretta once more and moved to a spot beside the front door to wait.

  “Come on, Jacky boy. Time for confession. You wouldn’t want to keep the Priest waiting, now would you?”

  83

  Priest heard the car pull into the driveway, his senses heightened from anticipation so that the crunch of gravel under the wheels sounded like rock under the treads of an M1 Abrams main battle tank.

  A car door opened, then slammed shut again. Footsteps. Coming closer. An even, confident stride. The faint rasp of the doorknob as a hand gave it a twist.

  Then a brief pause, so slight that someone without Priest’s training probably would not have even noticed it. But Priest did.

  The silencer-fitted Beretta was just rising into firing position when the door slammed inward, catching him in the side as he attempted to jump back out of the way. The gun coughed, sending a slug high into the ceiling as the door knocked Priest backward.

  Rolling with the impact, Priest came up with the weapon leveled, spitting another three rounds at the doorway. They passed out harmlessly through the empty opening as the door bounced off the wall and swung shut once again.

  What the hell? Jack was gone. Priest spun in a tight circle, the weapon following his eyes as he turned. There was nothing—no sign of the man.

  He didn’t know how Jack had sensed his presence, but some little something, below the awareness of most people, had given him away. And now the one that the covert ops community had nicknamed “The Ripper” was out there, circling.

  Priest cursed under his breath. He had lost the element of surprise he had been counting on. Oh well. He still had a surprise or two waiting for his old friend, Jacko.

  A sound from the kitchen put Priest into motion. Shit. The Ripper must have run around the back of the house to get there that quickly. A lightning-quick glance around the corner revealed the kitchen door open wide but nothing else. An empty kitchen and closed pantry.

  Priest leaped into the kitchen, the Beretta ejecting empty shell casings out the side as he pumped rounds into the pantry door. Glancing out through the kitchen door as he passed, Priest moved to follow the slugs, jerking open the pantry door, firing off two additional rounds as it opened. Except for the slow gurgle of a damaged soup can, there was nothing there.

  Priest ejected the magazine from the weapon, slapping a new one into place in the same motion. He moved back toward the den, kicking the kitchen door closed as he came, his eyes and his weapon searching for the target along his direction of travel.

  That was funny. He thought that the front door had banged closed before he had charged into the kitchen. But perhaps the latch had been damaged. Or maybe The Ripper was already inside the house.

  This was stupid. He was playing into The Ripper’s hands by hunting for him. Priest needed to get back to the original plan. Make the man come to him. After all, he had the perfect bait.

  Having made a decision, Priest did not hesitate, his stride carrying him up the stair steps, two at a time. Not wanting to remain exposed in the hallway for more than an instant, he raced down its length, pausing only briefly outside the open doorway. Just long enough to check that the kid and Janet lay bound, undisturbed, on the floor. Priest stepped through the opening.

  Almost, it didn’t surprise him when a knife blade thrust through his gun hand, sending the weapon spinning under the desk. Or when The Ripper glided out from his spot behind the office door. It fit with how his luck was running today. Jumping back into the hallway, Priest refilled his injured hand with his own knife.

  “Surprised to see me, Jack?”

  The Ripper showed no reaction, his dark eyes as unblinking as those of a shark as he moved forward. For the briefest o
f moments, it seemed to Priest that those eyes glinted red.

  Priest feinted with the knife, delivering a low kick at the man’s knee. He pulled his foot back with a howl of pain as another thrust of The Ripper’s knife punched a hole through his arch.

  Priest stumbled backward before the other killer’s quick strikes, each one opening a new wound on his extremities. The damned man was playing with Priest, carving him up as calmly as if he was whittling on a stick outside some hick drugstore.

  As a growing desperation rose up to overcome his newfound fear, Priest lunged in, absorbing a deep puncture to his abdomen in an attempt to drive his SAF knife into the other man’s throat. But once again, The Ripper was just a little quicker, catching Priest’s knife hand in an off-hand grip that wrenched it around, snapping the wrist with a loud pop.

  The Ripper’s knife flashed in an arc, the blade cutting a new mouth into Priest’s neck, just below the chin. Priest pitched forward facefirst, the arterial fountain of his blood drenching The Ripper in red as he tumbled to the floor.

  For several seconds, Priest lay still at The Ripper's feet before the other man turned away and strode back into the office where Janet and the kid lay bound.

  As Priest lay there listening to his enemy cut the bonds of his victims, he could not keep a slow smile from spreading across his face. Yes. The healing was definitely happening faster now. Already the wounds in his throat and abdomen were closing, the bones knitting together in his wrist.

  All he needed was a few more seconds and he would introduce Jack to the same sort of unpleasant surprise that the other two had already received. But there would be no tranquilizer dart for Jack. He didn’t have a dart loaded, and there would be no time for loading one. If the Beretta had not been flung under the office furniture, Priest would have certainly used that.

  His hand flexed around the SAF knife. The knife and massive surprise would have to do the job.

  Priest began to count backward in his head, comparing his mental estimate of how long it would take Jack to free Priest’s two captives and examine them for wounds to how long the progress of Priest’s own healing process was taking. The muscles along his arms, back, and legs tensed. He waited. A lion amidst the tall savannah grass. His prey only a few feet from where he coiled for the strike. Almost ready.

  The ferocity and speed with which Priest propelled his body forward caught even the dreaded Ripper by surprise. He was, after all, supposed to be dead. Priest thrust the wicked tip of the SAF survival knife down into the Ripper’s back with all the force his two hundred and ten pounds of lean muscle and bone could deliver.

  It was the slightest of moves. A bare adjustment in the angle of the back of the Ripper’s left arm that caused the blade to glance off the man’s elbow and miss the rear of his torso by a fraction of a centimeter.

  Priest screamed in frustration as the Ripper’s body spun beneath him, using Priests own momentum to flip him into the side of the oak desk.

  Then The Ripper was behind him, his left arm encircling Priest’s throat as the right pumped his knife into Priest’s right kidney with three staccato thrusts. The Ripper’s legs were moving now, driving Priest’s body forward, directly back down the hallway, into the bathroom, and then down into the bathtub, facedown.

  Priest felt the hard, cold porcelain rise up to meet his face an instant before both of The Ripper’s knees landed on his back, hard. A strong hand grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking Priest’s head back with a violence that was only surpassed by that of the knife that cut his throat, then continued to saw at his neck.

  As his head came free of any connection to the rest of his body, Priest found himself wondering if perhaps he had achieved immortality. His eyes locked for one last time with those of The Ripper, as his glimpse of immortality, along with the last of his life force, drained away.

  And as Priest’s eyes continued to stare outward, they acquired a look almost as dead and cold as the eyes of the man who held his head.

  84

  Jack watched as the head of Carlton “Priest” Williams swung by the hair from his hand, the blue eyes momentarily locking with his own. Then the life in those eyes drained away.

  Jack looked down at the bloody mess in the bathtub, a mess that extended in a rapidly coagulating trail out into the hallway. As his eyes shifted back to the headless body beneath his knees, his fascination grew.

  Even in death, some vestiges of the unreal healing powers that had manifested themselves in Priest were apparent, trying to seal off wounds, working to repair torn tissue and broken bone. But those attempts at regeneration were now rapidly fading.

  Whatever had been done to Priest, he had still retained the basic mortality that made him, at least marginally, human. Jack didn’t know what Priest’s blood workup was going to show, but he was quite sure Jonathan Riles would find the results more than mildly interesting.

  Pulling the shower curtain from its hooks and laying it on the floor, Jack placed the body on it, rolling it into a tight bundle. The head he left in the bathtub.

  Jack glanced at his watch, wiping it on his blood-soaked shirt to remove enough blood for the display to be readable. 17:35. He had placed the call to the rest of his team in Santa Fe as soon as he had gotten the message from Janet. That had been almost an hour ago. That meant they should be here to set up the fake federal crime scene lockdown at any time.

  Moving to the sink to wash the slathering of Priest’s blood from his hands and arms, Jack was surprised to see his left elbow showed no sign of a laceration. He could have sworn that Priest's knife had cut into it as he had spun to deflect the knife attack.

  Shaking his head, Jack walked back to the room where Janet and young Mark lay bound. Except for the gentle rise and fall of their chests, they had not moved since he first saw them, sleeping the untroubled sleep that only true innocence or tranquilizing drugs can bring.

  Within seconds, he removed the tape that bound and gagged them. Then, removing his own blood-soaked shoes and socks, Jack carried first Mark and then Janet down to the den, laying Mark on the couch and Janet on the love seat.

  Jack’s eyes lingered on Mark. What had the lad been doing here, and how much had he seen? Well, time enough to ask those questions once the drug wore off. In the meantime, he would leave the two of them sleeping comfortably while he got to work upstairs. It would certainly help the rest of his team if he got a head start on some of what needed to be done.

  The first thing on Jack’s to-do list was to get his own blood sample from the thing that had once been Priest Williams. Getting the kit from his closet, Jack withdrew a needle and an empty plastic syringe. Stripping off the plastic covering, he fitted the needle on the end of the syringe, walked to the bathroom, partially unwrapped the body, and inserted the tip into Priest's left arm. A slow pull filled the syringe with blood.

  Jack carried the blood sample downstairs to the kitchen, where he discarded the needle in the garbage, wrapped the syringe in a freezer bag, and placed it at the back of the freezer beneath several packages of hamburger and steak.

  Then he moved to the second item on his mental checklist, getting himself cleaned up. By the time he finished his quick shower and got dressed in fresh clothes, Jack heard two cars pull up outside.

  He met his three team members at the front door.

  “Glad to see you, Bronson,” said Jack, shaking hands with the barrel-chested man in the lead. He nodded to the other two men wearing FBI windbreakers. “Bobby, George.”

  “What have we got here, Jack?” Bronson asked.

  Jack led the way, his briefing succinct as he showed the team through the house. The tour ended at the upstairs bathroom.

  “Well, Jack, it might be possible for you to make a bigger mess of a man, but you’d really have to work at it.”

  “Let’s just say the situation was…unusual. I want the body and head bagged separately and shipped back to the lab in separate containers. Take a couple of blood samples before you bag it and sen
d those via a separate shipment.”

  Bronson raised an eyebrow. “What was the guy on? Some new kind of drug?”

  Jack nodded. “One we are very interested in analyzing. That’s why I don’t want to take any chances with this shipment.”

  As Bronson turned to get the rest of the team started, Jack placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Be thorough, but be quick. I want the body out of here and the cleanup finished before the kid wakes up. You’ve got the cover story ready?”

  “All set.”

  “Good. Then I’ll get out of your way.”

  The speed with which the team cleaned the upstairs, carried several bags out to the waiting unmarked cars, and departed was impressive, even to Jack. By six o’clock, only Bronson remained on site to pretend to conduct interviews with Janet and Mark. But his real purpose was to plant the cover story.

  Mark was the first to come out of the drug-induced sleep, although it took several minutes before he was sufficiently coherent to carry on a conversation. Somewhere during that time, Janet joined him in the land of the conscious.

  Jack moved over to sit with them. He took Janet’s hand.

  “Hey, babe. How you feeling?”

  Tears welled in the corners of her eyes so convincingly Jack thought she could have had a brilliant career on Broadway had she not had a taste for a more dangerous pastime.

  “Oh, Jack. Thank God you’re here. I was so frightened.”

  “It’s okay, darling. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I didn’t see much. I was dropping off papers in the office. A man was hiding up there, and he shot me with some sort of dart. I don’t remember anything else.”

  Jack turned toward Mark. “Mark, what brought you here?”

  The young man’s face grew red as he fumbled his words. “Ah, I came by to ask Mrs. Johnson a question about tomorrow’s assignment. The front door was open, so I stuck my head in. That’s when I heard someone fall. I called out, but when there was no answer, I ran upstairs. The man with the gun was waiting for me. I guess I was lucky it was only a tranquilizer gun.”