At the last moment, the man began to turn, whether by instinct or chance or because Manus had made some sound, Manus neither knew nor cared. He clamped his left hand around the man’s mouth and nose, swept him back onto his heels, and plunged the point of the nearly eight-inch stainless steel blade into the right side of the man’s neck, driving it all the way past the front of the cervical vertebrae and out the opposite side, then punched it edge-forward, transecting the man’s larynx, both carotid arteries, both jugular veins, and pretty much everything else in the neighborhood, too.
A geyser of hot blood erupted from the wound. The man’s hands came up, scrabbled spasmodically at Manus’s forearm, and then fell away as oxygenated blood plummeted out of his brain. Manus waited until the pressurized spray had ebbed, then stepped back and carefully laid the man out on his back. He stayed down, watching to see if the other man offered any reaction. He saw nothing.
He wiped the knife and his wet hand on the grass, then eased back to the tree line. Once clear of the mulberry bushes, he could see the other man again. He was still focused on the entrance.
Manus moved laterally until he was directly behind the man, then began to ease forward. Something about the man’s posture, his attention, sharpened. Manus froze. He looked to the entrance and saw Evie and Dash coming through it, Dash wearing a backpack, Evie holding an overnight bag. Fuck, he was out of time.
He moved more quickly, trading stealth for speed. The man must have heard him because he turned, turned and saw Manus. It was too dark for Manus to make out his expression, but there was recognition in his posture, in how quickly he was reaching inside his jacket, in the way he was moving offline to buy time and distance.
Manus charged forward, took hold of the man’s right hand just as it closed over the butt of a side-holstered pistol, and speared the Espada straight up under his jawline, driving it with such force that the man’s feet left the ground. For a moment, the man dangled and danced as though skewered on a pike, supported only by a blade buried in his brain and a fist in his throat, blood spraying from his neck, tongue protruding, eyes bulging and fixed on Manus’s face. Then his body sagged, his eyes drifted skyward, and Manus could no longer hold him aloft. Manus lowered his arm and stepped back, and the man folded onto his knees. Manus took him by the hair, jerked out the knife, and let the body spill facedown onto the grass.
For a moment, his vision blurred and his eyes stung. Blood, he realized. He swiped an arm across his face and accomplished nothing — the sleeve was soaked. He used the other arm, and that worked better. He wiped the Espada on the dry sleeve, folded it, and clipped it back in place. Then he stripped off his shirt and used it to clean his face and arms. He could feel his tee shirt had gotten blood on it, too, but it was dark blue, and in the low light he didn’t think the blood would show up right away. If it did, he’d think of something.
He looked through a break in the foliage and saw Evie and the boy. They were thirty yards away and hadn’t seen anything — the bushes were too thick.
He balled up his shirt and crept along until he could see the Suburban. He didn’t think there was anyone else inside, but it wasn’t impossible, either, and he didn’t want to take the chance. He considered slashing a tire, but if there were someone in there, they might feel that and emerge while he was out of position. So instead, he moved forward in a crouch until he was directly behind the vehicle.
He eased out the Force Pro, took a deep breath, stood, and hammer-fisted the butt into the rear window. Glass exploded inward and he saw two men in the middle seats flinch and start to turn. Muscle, waiting in the car to help secure whoever the other two brought back from the apartment. Manus shot the one on the left in the face. The other was quick, ducking down as Manus tracked back to him. Manus adjusted and fired four times through the seatback. He saw blood and brain matter explode onto the back of the front seats, and knew the man was done.
Had anyone heard? The gun had been inside the vehicle, which might have muffled the sound at least somewhat. But he had no way of knowing.
He holstered the Force Pro and jogged back to the pickup. Evie and Dash were just walking up the passenger side. Dash waved hello and gave Manus a big smile. He looked around, wrinkled his nose, and signed, What’s that smell?
The answer, of course, was blood, which Manus knew had a different scent by the liter than it did in whatever sorts of cuts and scrapes Dash might have experienced during a blessedly innocent childhood. Other than the question, the boy seemed untroubled, and Manus assumed Evie had dreamed up a comforting story about why they had to run out.
Someone hit a deer, he signed. I tried to help, but there was nothing I could do.
Can I see? Dash signed.
Manus shook his head. You don’t want to see that. Come on, we should go. He opened the passenger door and Dash got in.
Evie looked in the direction of the Suburban and said, “Was that… shooting?” It wasn’t easy to make out the words in the dim light, and Manus wondered why she hadn’t signed. Then he realized: she didn’t want Dash to know.
He opened the pickup’s toolbox and tossed in the bloody shirt. Later, he signed. Did you leave the phones?
She nodded.
All right. Let’s go.
Evie got in and he closed the door behind her. Manus moved toward the back of the truck, yanked off his tee shirt, tossed it on top of the other shirt, then grabbed a fistful of hospital bleach wipes from a canister and cleaned his hands and arms and face. The dirty wipes went on top of the dirty shirt. He’d get rid of it all somewhere safe, and bleach down the toolbox, too. But distance first. He pulled on a clean shirt and got in.
They sat three across, with Dash in the middle. As he drove, Manus caught snatches of the two of them signing. The boy wanted to know where they were going. Evie was telling him Mr. Manus was helping her fix a big problem at work and that she’d explain more just as soon as she could.
Manus drove northwest, keeping to secondary roads. He couldn’t go north to his apartment, and while the urban density of Baltimore to the east and the District to the south were tempting, there were also too many license plate readers in the cities, too many cameras, too many cops. All of which rendered west or northwest a possibly predictable choice, but on the other hand, there were innumerable state and regional parks, forests, and campgrounds in the area. Not to mention cheap motels — the nearby Civil War battlefields were popular attractions. He’d always kept the toolbox well stocked as a bugout kit. He hadn’t planned on using it for three people, but they’d manage. He’d get them somewhere safe, and then they’d figure out what to do.
He just hoped they could agree on what that might consist of.
CHAPTER
39
They drove along dark roads in silence, their surroundings becoming more rural and remote as the night deepened, the headlights of the truck picking up nothing but trees and the odd grain silo and occasional modest houses. Dash was slumped against Evie, asleep. Evie wished she could nod off, too. But she was too terrified by everything that was happening, and everything that had happened before.
When she had awakened in the van, she’d first thought she’d been in some kind of accident and was now in an ambulance. Someone was asking her if her head hurt. But she couldn’t move… had they strapped her to a gurney?
Then she had seen that man — Delgado — and the way he was looking at her, like she was something he was planning to cook and eat. And she remembered Marvin, outside the supermarket, and it all came back to her in a sickening rush.