Ricci turned slightly, motioned with his chin, and side-stepped.
A burly hand came around Anton’s bloodied mouth from behind, clapped over it, and pulled him back into the rain. Ricci heard the hiss of released aerosol to his left, then a shifting of foliage as Anton was ditched out of sight.
Thibodeau emerged from the wet vegetation, relieved of the unconscious man, slipping a DMSO canister into his belt holder. The rest of the entry team was in position on either side of the door.
Ricci looked at Thibodeau’s bearded face for the barest instant, then turned toward the open door again. Anton had spilled plenty outside the Explorer, and had seemed scared enough to have been telling the truth when he said the Killer was upstairs — which would mean the dogs would be no threat down here. They would do nothing belligerent without his personal command.
“I’m going in,” he whispered and ran into the cabin without a backward look.
Ricci’s estimate of Anton’s honesty under the gun proved right on. The flunky had told him the short spiral staircase would be in the living room, past the archway to his immediate left, and there it was, exactly where it was supposed to be.
His Five-Seven out in his hand, he crossed the kitchen in a dash. Ahead of him, the Killer’s men were springing to their feet, but then Ricci swung toward the stairs, and bounded up onto them, and suddenly the commotion and movement was behind and below him. He took the steps several at time, vaulting up them, knowing he had seconds at best to get to the bedroom. There were shouts, exchanges of gunfire, more shouts, all distant echoes outside the narrow, winding, ascending shaft of his awareness. Behind, below, outside, somewhere in another world. Ricci cared only about getting up to the second floor, and the taste in his mouth, the taste of his want.
And now he was at the upstairs landing and off it into a short hall. He paused a beat. How long since he’d entered the cabin? Five seconds? Ten? Maybe he’d have five more. Tops, five. Four, three…
There were a couple of wide doors along the hallway to his right, adjacent to each other. Another narrower one to his left — a closet. That second door on the right, Anton had told him it was the master bedroom, was where the Killer had her, where the Killer would be…
Ricci made his choice, lunged forward, stopped for half a heartbeat, kicked his foot out against the first door at the point where the latch met the hasp. It flung open, crashed back against the wall, and he burst into the room, his Five-Seven in a two-handed police grip—
His back to the open doors of a terrace overlooking the seaward plunge of the bluff, the Killer stood across the room by a plain wooden chair.
She was in it. Gagged. Trussed. Hands bound behind her with rope, bound to the chair.
Above the gag, on her face, an expression of terror without surrender.
Ricci reached into himself for her name, pulled it through the atavistic howl of rage filling his mind.
Julia.
She. Was. Julia.
The Killer was holding a combat knife to her throat.
“Let her go,” Ricci said. His eyes on the Killer’s eyes. The Five-Seven thrust out in front of him. “Let her go now.”
The Killer did not move.
The blade in his grip, its honed edge against her throat, he did not move.
Ricci unwrapped the fingers of one hand from the gun, reached back, felt for the door, pushed it shut. Somewhere behind it, on the other side, the shouts and gunfire were fading. There were footsteps coming rapidly up the stairs.
The Killer kept staring at Ricci in silence. He did not move the knife from Julia’s throat.
The footsteps had reached the door now. Behind it, an urgent shout:
“Ricci!” Glenn’s voice. “Ricci you in there?”
Ricci didn’t answer.
“Ricci—”
“Stay out,” Ricci said. “Tell everybody to back off.”
Through the door, Glenn said, “What’s happening? Is Julia—?”
“She’s okay,” Ricci said. “Thibodeau and the others will be right behind you on those stairs. Just keep everyone down the hall. Don’t ask questions.”
Ricci looked at the Killer.
“Let her go,” he repeated a third time. “It’s finished.”
The Killer did not move his knife.
“She’s piecework to you. Nothing. Just another job,” Ricci said. His gun remained level with the Killer’s heart. “You do her, I do you, what’s the point? But there’s still something in this room you want. Something you’ve wanted since Khazakhstan. Since Ontario. And I’m giving you a chance to have it. I’m promising you the chance.”
The Killer watched Ricci’s face.
Studied it for another long, long moment.
Then he dropped his knife hand from the soft white flesh of Julia’s throat, went behind the chair, cut the ropes around her wrists with one quick slice, crouched, severed her ankle bindings, and straightened. Only the gag remained uncut.
Ricci nodded slowly.
“There’s been no circulation in her legs,” he said. “Step away from the chair — two steps to your right — so I can help her up.”
The Killer stepped back.
Still covering him with the gun, Ricci moved toward the chair, slipped an arm around Julia, and eased her to a standing position, not letting her stumble, holding her erect with his own strength, gradually feeling her legs take over. Above the gag, her face remained composed.
“You can make it on your own now,” Ricci said to her. Then he tilted his head back toward the door, raised his voice. “Glenn… you hear me?”
From outside the door: “Yeah. Hearing you fine. Sounds like they’ve got things under control downstairs.”
“Good,” Ricci said. “I’m sending Julia out. Stay away, don’t come near the door. Don’t let anybody else get close to it, either. No matter what, got me?”
“Ricci—”
“Got me?”
A pause.
“Yeah,” Glenn said, then. “Yeah, man. I do.”
Ricci backed toward the door, his gun on the Killer, his free hand on Julia, steadying her, guiding her along with him. He reached behind him again, opened the door just wide enough for her to pass through and nodded for her to leave.
She hesitated, looking at him.
“Go,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”
Julia held her gaze on him for another moment. Then she nodded and went through the opening.
Ricci slammed the door shut behind her.
“We’re almost ready,” he said. His weapon pointed at the Killer. “Better slide that chair across to me.”
It was pushed forward. Ricci swept it around his body and leaned it against the door, wedging its back under the doorknob. Then he set his gun down on a small table he’d seen out the corner of his left eye.
Outside the door, he could hear Thibodeau’s voice shouting up from downstairs, then Glenn answering him, telling him Ricci had gotten Julia out, that she was free of any threat. There were some more words exchanged between them, followed by the tread of heavy ascending footsteps.
Ricci saw something like a smile on the Killer’s face as he dropped his knife to the floor, and then pushed it aside with his foot.
“Now,” the Killer said, “we take our chances.”
Ricci nodded.
“Now,” he said.
Kuhl and Ricci advanced on each other, sidling for position as they moved into the center of the room.
His fists clenched, his sinewy arms raised to protect his head, Ricci bounced a little on his knees to loosen them up. His opponent had a good three inches on him, a longer reach. Probably twenty or thirty more pounds of muscle slabbed over his broad frame. He would have to get in close and tight, rely on speed to overcome those advantages.