He got to his feet and went over to the window. He pulled back the curtains. Outside it was dusk. Enough pale winter light to see the wall of pine trees twenty feet from the window. He was in the middle of a forest. There was a heavy layer of snow on the ground. The window was eighteen inches square under a deeply overhanging roofline; even if he broke the glass there was no way he was going to squeeze through the opening, and it was a good thirty feet to the ground, anyway.
Holliday turned away from the window and went to the door. Locked. He sat down on the bed and looked around the room. Nothing much in the way of weaponry. The cops had been fake, or bought, at the very least. The question was, Who had kidnapped them and why?
The CIA was a good bet, but it was even more likely that it was Kate Sinclair and her religious fanatic friends. Fanatic, perhaps, but like a lot of zealots, Sinclair also had an animal shrewdness that could be lethal. Her Jihad al-Salibiyya had caught the imagination of the dozen or so men and women who chose what went into the news cycle, and by achieving that she was getting to the basic fears of most Americans.
Sinclair was rattling the Muslim sword and doing it extremely effectively. It was the same pattern of guilt by religious association that Hitler had used against the Jews, but it didn't seem as though the cultural history of the United States went back that far. Heaven help the news pundit who pointed out that little bit of history. Holliday was as patriotic as the next guy and had the battle scars to prove it, but sometimes it seemed to him that his country was blind to its own deeply entrenched, xenophobic madness. Who knew? The CIA had been infiltrated by the Soviets; why not by Kate Sinclair's people? Maybe there really was an inner CIA cabal of Rex Deus members steering American intelligence into its own, self-serving waters. After seeing Matoon at Sinclair's vineyard estate he was willing to believe just about anything now.
He looked around the room again. Eventually someone was going to come for him and he had to be ready when they did. He'd probably have only a second or two to make his move and he had to make it count. His chance came sooner than he expected. Someone on the lower floor had clearly heard Holliday walking around and knew he'd risen from his electrically induced slumber.
There was the sound of a key being turned in the lock of the bedroom door and a moment later it opened.
"Vo bist hellwach,"-you're awake-said the man in the doorway. German Swiss, 260 pounds, six-four and built like a linebacker. He had huge feet encased in sturdy hiking boots. In one ham-sized hand he held a chubby little HK P30 9mm, and in the other the door key. He was smiling, thick lips parted to show a single gold tooth in the corner of his mouth. He had brown eyes with eyelashes a debutante would have killed for.
Holliday didn't hesitate for a second.
He took one lunging step forward as he slid the snapped-off TV rabbit ear he'd hidden up his sleeve into his hand and rammed the broken end as deeply as he could into the big man's left eye. The eye burst like a grape, fluid dripping down the man's cheek like a sudden gush of tears, and he made a brief whoof sound as the rough metal end of the stainless steel antenna sliced through his frontal lobe and Broca's area and then slid through the occipital lobe to finally scrape against the back of his skull. There was almost no blood. The man was dead standing up, and Holliday had to act quickly, grunting as he took the full weight of the fresh corpse under the armpits and gently lowered him to the floor. He slid the gun out of the man's hand and checked the magazine. It was fully loaded. He went through the man's pockets. A wallet, a set of car keys, an extra magazine for the HK and an SWR suppressor. He kept the extra magazine and the car keys, and screwed the suppressor onto the barrel of the HK.
Holliday slipped off his shoes and stuffed them into the front of his shirt. As quietly as he could he jacked a round into the chamber of the pistol and opened the door. He found himself in a dark, short hallway. There was a narrow doorway to the left that was either a closet or a bathroom, and a steep flight of stairs.
He went to the head of the stairs and listened. From somewhere he could hear a TV blaring, a news program by the sound of it, and kitchen noises. There was the sudden gassy hiss of a soda can being popped open and then footsteps, the squeak of springs and finally a sonorous belch. The TV channel switched. A game show in French and then a sitcom in German. Happy Days, judging from the music. Somebody was working a remote.
Holliday headed barefoot down the stairs, keeping to the wall, the HK held in two hands at gut level. Eight rounds in the magazine. If he needed more than that he was in serious trouble. He reached the bottom of the stairs and another short hallway. An archway on his left led into a brightly lit kitchen. To the right he could see the jumping shadows of the TV show on the far wall of the living room. He took a step to his right and a floorboard creaked.
"Heinrich? Ist ihm hellwach sein?"
"Ja," said Holliday, unable to come up with something more original. He took a turning step into the living room. In front of him was a leather couch. The man seated on the couch half turned his head. At the sight of Holliday with a gun in his hand the man's eyes widened and he struggled to get up and haul his weapon from its shoulder holster. On the big plasma screen, the Fonz was flirting shyly in German with Mrs. Cunningham.
Holliday shot him in the right shoulder. The silenced pistol made a sound like somebody bursting a paper bag. The man screamed. Holliday fired again, this time shattering the right elbow, the bullet exiting in a blur of blood and tissue, finally hitting Henry Winkler right in his leather jacket. The plasma-screen image blurred, then dissolved like melting candle wax. A can of Fanta grape soda dropped from the man's hand and he sagged back onto the couch, moaning. No one else appeared. Leaving the wounded man where he was, Holliday checked the kitchen and the dining room. No one. He turned his attention back to the wounded man.
"Konnen Sie Englisch?" Holliday asked.
The bleeding man shook his head, his teeth clenched. "Only a little." He was about the same size as poor, dead Heinrich upstairs, but his face was pocked and scarred by the memory of a bad case of adolescent acne.
"There was a young woman and a priest. Ein Pfarrer."
"Ja."
"Where are they?"
The man gave him a hard scowl and sneered.
"Mach es dir Selber, Mutterficker."
That wasn't hard to figure out. He shot the man in the left kneecap.
"Wo sind Sie?" Holliday asked a second time. The man was turning pasty white, the blood literally draining out of his face. The man was silent. The holstered gun at his shoulder was an MP5. The man could see it but with his useless arm he couldn't get at it. The little machine pistol could have turned Holliday into hamburger. Holliday shot him in the right ankle. "Der Pfarrer und der Fraulien. Wo sind sie?"
"Die anderen Haus," screeched the man on the couch. The other house.
"Was andere Haus?"
"Die Strasse."
"Vas?"
"Aussensite! Die Berg Strasse." The mountain road outside.
"Nach oben, oder unten?"
"Oben!" grunted the man. Up the mountain road. Another house.
"Wie viele Wachen?" How many guards?
The man said nothing. He stared up at Holliday, sweat beading on his forehead. The man gave his best imitation of a resolute scowl again. A name, rank and serial number type of guy. Holliday didn't believe it for a second. The wounded man was beginning to shake as the pain took over. Another few seconds and he was going to pass out.
"Wie viele Wachen?" Holliday repeated. He put the muzzle of the suppressor against the man's left eye and pushed a little.