He turned to leave but froze as he saw the woman who’d answered the door, standing in the entrance. Her eyes showed fear and uncertainty.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I came for these men, and now I want to leave. You’re safe.”
Tears were streaming down Lindsay Sheridan’s face as she asked, “Safe?”
Will nodded. “Safe.”
“Safe… safe…”
Will watched the woman.
Her voice strengthened. “You’re the man on the news. I thought they killed you today.”
“Not yet.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I took your husband away. He killed a woman I cared about.”
Lindsay moved into the room, picked up her husband’s brandy glass, sipped from it, and spat the liquor into the fire. The flames roared up from the fuel as she said, “He killed me a long time ago.” She moved back toward the door. “I saw an intruder enter my home this evening. He wasn’t Caucasian, over six foot, or English. And I’ll stick to that version until my dying day.”
“Why?”
Lindsay shrugged. “Because you’ve done what I didn’t have the courage to do. I’m going out now — late-night shopping — and I won’t be back for a few hours. That’s when I’ll discover that my husband and Jellicoe were murdered by a burglar who was still ransacking the place and fled when he saw me. In the meantime, I suggest you make a mess of my house and steal something.” She nodded toward a side table containing the dead men’s car keys. “Maybe something you can use.”
Lindsay Sheridan left the room, feeling that finally someone had made the decision for her.
No more bastard husband.
And a future that was hers.
Two hours later, Will drove Sheridan’s car very slowly along a farm track, headlights off, before bringing the vehicle to a halt and getting out. Most of the remote farmstead’s buildings were in darkness, though lights were on in the barn and the main house. The barn had a large annex alongside it, and Will could hear snorting and grunting coming from inside. The noises had to be from the huge boars Sheridan had told him about; their sulfurous stench poisoned the forest’s air. As Will walked silently past the annex, the boars sounded agitated and anxious.
It was, after all, nearly eight P.M., meaning they were desperate to be released into their feeding pit where the twins would drop their delicious mix of scraps, blood, and flesh.
He drew nearer to the farmhouse and could see the twins in the kitchen, standing at either end of a large table, chopping vegetables into chunks with meat cleavers before tossing the food into a barrel of blood. The twins’ long black hair thrashed in time with each downward stroke of the blades.
He knew it was impossible for them to see him or anything else outside the brightly illuminated room, but nevertheless he moved cautiously in case an external security light came on, or he accidentally made a noise that would alert them.
Everyone Will had killed during his career had been given a quick death, because he took zero pleasure from that side of his job. On the contrary, it gave him great sadness and guilt, which is why he let the souls of his victims waft around him, sometimes to torment him, other times to forgive him. But he never forgot that they were there.
Yet these mad men in the kitchen had no souls.
They were rabid beasts.
Murderers who relished their job.
Foul demons who were willing to desecrate something pure and lovely.
Right now, Will was about to cross the line that divided right and wrong.
And he didn’t care.
Couldn’t care.
Avenging Ellie Hallowes was all that mattered to him right now.
He had to make the twins’ evil savagery pay in a way that was fitting.
He pulled out his handgun, walked to the kitchen door, opened it, and held his weapon at eye level. He stood stock-still as Augustus and Elijah ran toward him, shrieking some kind of war cry, their eyes wild and crazy, their meat cleavers held high. His first shot struck Augustus in the arm, causing him to drop his weapon and scream. His second shot did the same to Elijah. Both stopped dead in their tracks, their good arms clutching their burning injuries. But Will knew they were still dangerous, and so shot their good arms as well.
As he drew nearer to them, they spat, uttered obscenities, and tried to kick him before realizing the sudden movements were causing them agony.
Will pocketed his weapon and withdrew from his jacket two lengths of rope, at the end of which were choker nooses. He placed the loops over the twins’ heads and said, “Let’s go.”
As he dragged them out of the kitchen and headed toward the barn, their legs moved fast to avoid strangulation and their arms were limp and useless by their sides. Will pulled them into the barn and opened an inner door that led to a pit surrounded by an eight-foot concrete wall. In the center of the pit was the steel stake that the twins used to tether live animals. Will lashed the ropes around the stake, so that the twins couldn’t escape.
He looked down at them.
Their eyes were still wide with astonishment.
And now they had grins on their faces, continuing to spit and curse.
Will ignored them as he ripped off their upper garments, exposing their blood-covered torsos. “You’re monsters.”
Augustus laughed.
Elijah’s expression was intense as he said, “And right now, what are you?”
“I don’t know.” Will walked to the door leading to the pigpen, slid back bolts, pulled the door open, and sprinted to the pit’s exit as he heard the boars charge in, their grunts replaced by shrieks of ecstasy.
When Will reached his car, he heard another sound rising over the noise of the boars.
Two men screaming.
Will drove off the road, ten miles away from Arlington, and gripped the steering wheel tight. The vehicle shuddered while it moved over rough land and into a wooded area of deserted countryside. When he was satisfied he was far enough in, he stopped the car in a clearing. From the trunk, he removed two jerricans of spare fuel he’d stolen from Sheridan’s garage, doused the gasoline over the inside and outside of the vehicle, removed the car’s gas cap so its fuel tank was exposed, and tossed an ignited Zippo lighter onto the passenger seat.
He ran fast.
In part to get away from the burning vehicle in case it exploded.
But far more important, he needed to cover ten miles on foot to finish a journey that had started in Norway.
THIRTY-SIX
Although it was five minutes after midnight, Ed Parker had no thoughts of going upstairs to join his wife in bed. In less than two and a half hours, it would be noon in Afghanistan.
The time when Cobalt would be blown to pieces.
A defining moment in history.
The CIA director turned the TV off and rubbed his clammy face, feeling restless and impatient, willing time to move more quickly. A glass of milk, he decided, might calm him down. He went into the kitchen opened the large refrigerator door, withdrew a milk carton, shut the door, and dropped the carton.
Will Cochrane was standing before him.
His pistol held in two hands and pointing at Ed’s face.
Ed showed fear but also resignation. “Looks like you struck a deal with Marsha Gage. And in order for you to get her to agree to that, you must have told her the truth.”
Will nodded. “Sit at the table and put your hands flat over it.”
Ed did as he was told. “My wife’s asleep upstairs. Please don’t let her see anything… bad.”
“I won’t kill you unless I have to.” Will stood on the opposite side of the table, keeping his gun trained on Ed. “You’re Ferryman. Antaeus’s spy. And your treachery is about to trigger something that will devastate the United States.”