He bounded around behind the desk and grabbed the Uzi from the guard’s body, as the door in the back wall was flung open and another Uzi-brandishing guard burst into the room.
Gurney hit him with two center-mass shots just as a third guard appeared in the now-exposed hallway beyond the open door. He fired two more shots, and the man went down hard.
The heavy coils of the partially headless snake were loosening around Gurney’s stomach and descending toward the floor, making it possible to step free of them. He backed away from the larger python-like snake that was moving steadily toward him and aimed the Sig at its head.
“Stop!” cried Valdez. “Leave that one alive!”
That made no sense to Gurney, but he had no time to ask why. A large man in combat gear appeared in the hall and was advancing toward the open doorway with an Uzi in each hand. Gurney dove to the floor. The two Uzis began blasting away simultaneously, the rounds ripping through the wooden desk, inches from Gurney’s body.
“Marko!” shouted Valdez. “It’s me in here, for Christ’s sake!”
The man stopped firing but kept the Uzis pointed at the open door. “Drop any gun you have, put your hands over your head, and step out where I can see you.”
“Okay, Marko, take it easy,” said Valdez in a calming voice. Then he reached around the frame of the door and fired repeatedly into the hallway.
A moment later, the man called Marko was lying on his back, blood pulsing from his throat, the Uzis in his spasming fingers firing into the ceiling.
“How many more guards are there?” asked Gurney, getting shakily to his feet.
“Three more. All upstairs. Trying to figure out what’s going on. Making calls for assistance. We’ve got maybe ten minutes. Watch the hallway, while I take care of something.”
Valdez laid his captured Uzi on the desk and dragged his father’s body out into the middle of the room. One of the tinted lenses in his glasses was shattered. Blood was oozing from the eye socket onto the concrete floor. His head was less than two feet from the slowly advancing python.
“Jesus,” muttered Gurney.
“This is what he has done to many people. It is what he would have done to you. This is justice. I am sorry only that he is not conscious to see what will happen to him. Now, come quickly. They will watch the stairway. We go up in the elevator.”
“You know the code for the keypad?”
“Not needed for going up, only coming down.”
They stepped into the elevator, Valdez tapped a button on the metal wall, and they started ascending.
“Be ready,” said Valdez, holding his Uzi in firing position, aimed at the elevator door.
Gurney checked the magazine in the Sig Sauer and adopted a similar stance.
When the elevator came to a stop and the door slid open, they found themselves pointing their weapons at an empty corridor. Valdez led the way to the garage. The door was open, the fluorescent lights were on, and the Garville police car was gone. Valdez entered first, Uzi aimed at the pearl gray Range Rover. Gurney took up a position to his right.
Valdez pointed to a small metal cabinet on the wall. “Open that and take out the electronic key.”
Gurney did so.
“Now, press the Unlock button.”
Gurney did so and heard an answering mechanical click from the Range Rover.
“Cover me,” said Valdez, “while I check the interior.”
He went to the front passenger door, yanked it open, stepped back, then proceeded do the same with the rear passenger door.
“Clear. Now the luggage compartment.”
Valdez moved around to the back of the vehicle, and Gurney adjusted his own position.
“There’s a liftgate button on the remote. Press it.”
Gurney did so.
The liftgate began to open.
A second later, Valdez staggered backward, dropping the Uzi, letting out a shriek.
A long, thin, violet snake had come flying out from under the rising liftgate and was wrapping itself around Valdez’s neck.
As Gurney rushed over, a black-clad, wild-eyed woman jumped from the back of the vehicle, hissing, teeth bared, grabbing for the fallen Uzi.
She got her hands on it and began pivoting toward him.
“Drop it!” shouted Gurney.
But the muzzle of the Uzi was rising. He fired three times in less than a second. The 9mm rounds slammed her against the concrete floor.
“Kill this fucking thing!” Valdez’s words came out in a rasping, choking rush, as he tried to pry the snake from his throat.
Gurney stepped closer, took careful aim, and blew the snake’s head off.
He looked down at the body on the floor—the body of the bony little woman who’d put the restraints on his ankles. Blood was slowly spreading out from her dress onto the garage floor.
He pictured the giant python making its inexorable, hungry way across that other concrete floor toward the head of the Viper.
It was over.
Exhaustion emptied his mind.
He was aware of nothing but the steady beating of his heart.
EPILOGUE
AFTER A BRIEF DISCUSSION, VALDEZ AND GURNEY AGREED to return to the lodge. With Valdez driving the Range Rover, they arrived at dawn. Before heading to bed in a state of physical and mental exhaustion, his back and neck a mass of pain, Gurney asked the question that had been eating at him.
“How did you know there were blanks in the gun he gave you to shoot me with?”
“I knew he would never hand me a live weapon until he was absolutely sure how I would use it.”
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Valdez asked how the murder of Sonny Lerman fit into the overall scheme of things. Gurney suggested that his own investigation might have so enraged the young man with the thought of losing his insurance payout that he had gone to Valdez’s biological father with his own request for a favor—the elimination of the troublesome investigator.
“But,” said Gurney, “he probably considered Sonny at least as troublesome as me, so he tried to get rid of us both by framing me for Sonny’s murder, just like he framed Ziko for Lenny’s. I’m less sure about the murder of Charlene Vesco. My guess is that she was so shaken by the shooting of her cousin, Dominick, that he doubted her reliability and killed her to avoid further worry.”
AS THE DAY wore on, Gurney commented on the strange absence of anything in the news about the previous evening’s bloodbath. “With deadly snakes, dead bodies, and bullet casings all over the place, it has to be the most sensational upstate crime scene in years.”
Valdez shook his head. “It will not be in the news. Nothing will be known about it.”
“How is that possible? I mean, the gunshots alone . . .”
“The shots were not heard. My father had the house soundproofed many years ago. There were many sounds he wanted no one outside to hear.”
The images that came to mind caused Gurney to fall silent for a long moment.
“And the bodies, the bloody mess—all of that just stays there?”
Valdez shrugged. “When they can’t get in touch with him, the people who rely on my father’s services will realize something has happened. Cleaners will come. Professionals who deal with special situations. Everything troublesome will disappear. Someday the house will be sold. There will be no connection to him.”
“The woman in the black dress,” said Gurney. “Who was that?”
“Serena. His sister.” Valdez’s strained tone implied that there was something sick in the relationship.