Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers (37 page)

They pulled into the Stop & Shop, the closest supermarket. A Grand Union was cross island in the town that cozied around the harbor. Someday this week he'd get downtown and do some wandering. They'd passed through it on their way from the harbor and it looked quaint and friendly.

The Stop & Shop seemed fairly crowded. The low, leaden, late-morning sky and the promise of a big snow on the way probably had something to do with that.

He grinned and nudged Grell, a tall, gangly redhead with a long reach. "Storm coming. Better stock up before the hoarders grab it all."

He nodded. "Good idea."

Cal sighed. Sailed right over his red head.

"I need a Pringles fix," Novak said.

Cal eyed the stocky man's expanding waistline but said nothing.

"You guys do your thing. I'll wander."

He'd have preferred to do his wandering outside, explore the island a little, but the icy, straight-razor wind robbed the outdoors of any appeal. Maybe some other day.

He grabbed a little shopping basket and picked out a few things for personal use. He liked food that crunched, so he picked out bags of carrots and celery. He liked to dip his crunchies in guacamole, but the store had only Marie's guacamole dip. Well, that would do in a pinch.

He saw newspaper racks ahead and made a beeline for them. Today's papers should have reached the island by now. News-wise, the satellite TV at the house offered only the national channels and Boston locals. He wanted to keep an eye on the goings-on in New York, especially for news about eight mutilated bodies being found. Did
not
want to hear that.

The headline of the
Post
stopped him dead in his tracks. Even at ten feet the stunner headline screamed at him.

YENIÇERI? WHO DAT?

And then the
Daily News
:

"HEIR" TO WHAT?

What the hell?

He hurried to the rack and grabbed a copy of each, found a ledge by the front window, and sat down to read. His fingers trembled as he turned the pages.

The stories were pretty much the same. Someone had reported a body alongside the FDR Drive. The man had been shot once—in the heart, they suspected—but his heart was missing. He carried no identification but was short, slight of build, with dark hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information should call the given number. Then the reporter got to the puzzling note found pinned to the body.

"
I
♥
yeniçeri
♥
s. The collection is 8 and growing. The Heir"

The
News
asked, "Is the Heir a new serial killer?"

Cal sagged back against the window. The Heir… Jack… yeah, he might be just that.

Zeklos… the dead man had to be him. Poor Zek, his heart ripped out like the rest…

Cal shook his head. He'd liked Jack, hadn't had an inkling he would or could do something like this. Especially to someone as innocuous as Zek.

And then to be so blatant about it, to announce it to the world. And announce to the yeniçeri that he was the one who'd killed their brothers.

Rage surged but quickly died. Something about this didn't sit right. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something seemed askew.

"Davis!"

He looked up and saw Novak giving him the high sign from one of the cashier lanes.

He'd have to tell them. He fought an impulse to buy all the New York papers and throw them away. They had to know. They had a right to know. Even though Zeklos was on the outs, they'd be enraged.

And Miller… Miller would go ballistic.

2

"It's terrible, Jack. Terrible. So awful I can't believe. Like a knife in the heart it hurts. And you… how you must feel… unimaginable."

Jack could only nod.

Exhausted, he leaned on the scarred counter at the rear of the store, with Abe seated across from him. In a way he didn't understand, he took comfort in the familiar clutter, in the sound of Abe's voice, his proximity, his uncharacteristic mother-henning. This was a side of his old friend he'd never seen.

"Also you look terrible. You should be resting. And eating. Are you eating?"

Jack shrugged. "Not hungry."

"You must eat already. You'll collapse if you don't. I have cake. I'll make us some coffee and—"

"Food is the furthest thing from my mind, Abe."

"Some chicken soup then? I can go around the corner—"

"Please, Abe."

Silence hung between them.

Finally Abe said, "And the latest report?"

"Deepening coma for Gia, Vicky's still seizing off and on. And it wasn't an accident."

Abe's pale, never-seen-the-sun skin blanched further.

"They were targeted? No, you've got to be wrong. Why on Earth should anyone want to hurt those two sweet people?"

Jack explained what he'd learned from Rasalom and the Lady.

Abe's expression went slack during the telling. He rubbed a pudgy-fingered hand over his face and continued on to the balding pate above it.

"All this time you've been blaming the other side, this Otherness thing."

"Exactly what the Ally wanted me to do. It wasn't just stripping my branches, it was heating me to the point where I'd do anything to get back at the Otherness."

"When all the while…"

"Yeah. My side was doing the shafting. But wait. It gets worse."

He pulled the NATO round from his pocket and set it upright on the counter.

Abe stared at it for a few seconds, then picked it up for a closer inspection. An instant later he stiffened, his head snapped up, and he stared at Jack with wide eyes.

"LaGuardia? These yeniçeri schmucks did LaGuardia?"

Jack nodded. "That's where all the signs are pointing."

"But it's
meshuggeh!

"No. It's pragmatic."

God, he'd come to hate that word.

"The Ally has worked all this circumspectly, so much so that I still don't know how it managed Kate's and Tom's deaths. The Ladies know. I wish I could sit down with one of them for a couple of hours and find out."

"How would that help?"

"I guess you're right. The
how
doesn't really matter. It's the
what
that counts. And what the Ally has done is backfiring. Now I want to get back at it. Now I hate it more than the Otherness. I'm crazy mad enough to sign up with the Otherness."

"No."

"I need to get back at it, Abe. But how?"

Abe shrugged. "I should know how to take revenge on an amorphous cosmic entity? Like fighting air already. Besides, the rest of us need the Ally to keep out the Otherness."

Jack knew he was right.

"It's really got me, hasn't it."

"Yes. You can't join the other side, you can't even declare yourself a non-combatant, because you're not the type to sit idly by and watch everyone and everything you know destroyed."

Trapped. He wanted to scream, throw things, break things. But he held back. For Abe's sake. Not fair to decimate his stock.

"We may not like this
farkuckt
Ally, but we need it. And it needs you."

It needs you
… that struck a chord in Jack. He'd been thinking along similar lines…

He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Abe.

"How much of these can you get me?"

Abe scanned the list, nodding. "Some I have here, some I can get without too much trouble." He looked up at Jack. "You planning on starting a war already?"

"Yeah."

"You think you can beat this Ally?"

"No. But I need to get its attention."

"For what?"

"To make a deal."

3

Miller surprised Cal. He'd expected a wild outburst, but instead he handed the paper to Geraci and stared into space. He remained that way as the papers circulated among the others.

Cal heard cries of rage and alarm from the other yeniçeri, but nothing from Miller.

Cal found that unsettling. He'd have preferred a foot-stomping, arm-swinging rage. This was kind of scary.

The uproar from the yeniçeri escalated, and still Miller remained silent.

Cal walked to one of the big windows and stared out at the harbor. The safe house's design was what the locals called "upside down." Unlike most two-story houses which have the living room, dining room, and kitchen on the first floor and the bedrooms on the second, upside-down houses reversed that. The living area was up and the bedrooms down.

It made sense in a location like this. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor offered magnificent views of the surging, gray Atlantic to the east, and the harbor—mostly frozen at this end—to the west. A huge great room, including the kitchen and a dining area, dominated the center of the level. The master bedroom—given to Diana—occupied the south end, while a sunroom filled the north.

The whole deal sat on pilings to protect it from storm flooding. Wouldn't help in something like a tsunami, of course. The place would be washed away with most of the rest of the island. But though an Atlantic tsunami was supposedly possible, Cal wasn't going to lose any sleep over it.

Cal gave his brother yeniçeri some time for venting, then turned and raised his hands.

"All right, everybody. Let's settle down."

It took them a while but eventually the room was silent.

He cleared his throat. "From the nature of the note and since we haven't heard a word from Zeklos, I think it's obvious to everyone that he's the dead man."

More rumblings.

"What's less obvious—to me, at least—is who killed him." He held up his hands again to cut off any outcry. "Yeah, I know the note is signed by 'The Heir,' but anyone could write that. Could have been the Adversary himself, for all we know, trying to turn us against the Heir."

"And the Heir could have been the Adversary," Portman said.

"I'm not denying that possibility, but think about it: The O sensed his identity. And then we had to
drag
him into the Home. He fought like a tiger, as some of you well know."

He nodded toward Jolliff.

"So what?" Jolliff said and rubbed his still-swollen nose.

"So, whoever could kill the O and our brothers, without them firing a shot, has powers way beyond human. Anyone or anything with that kind of power didn't need to trick us."

"Maybe he's like a vampire and has to be invited in," Novak said.

"Let's be serious. I think even Miller would agree: We know from the time we spent with him Sunday night that the guy is very human."

"Maybe you do," Miller said. "I don't. Told you from the start I thought the guy was playing us."

"Yeah, you did. But step back and look at the situation. We sent Zek in to finish the job. Only we knew about that. But he winds up dead—
before
he completes his mission."

Geraci frowned. "How do you know that?"

"Because two comatose patients being hit in a major New York hospital would have pushed everything else off the front pages. But just to be sure, I called the hospital soon as I got back. They're listed as no change: still critical."

"What the hell's going on?" Hursey said.

"I don't know any more than any of you, but I think what's gone down is a pretty good sign that this woman and child are very important to the Adversary and the Otherness. The Ally wants them gone, and the Adversary is protecting them."

Silence as they absorbed this. No one could argue the logic.

"So Zek walked into a trap," Hursey said.

Call nodded. "Yeah. And we sent him."

"What about this Heir guy?" Grell said. "Where does he fit in?"

"As far as I can see, he's a wild card. He's got no connection to the woman and the girl—"

"None you know of," Miller said.

"Right—none any of us has even a hint of. So despite what the note said, I don't see how he's got any reason to off Zek and cut out his heart."

Miller said, "Does if he's working for the enemy."

Cal turned to him. "Makes no sense if you remember what Zek said yesterday. The Heir had dropped in on him. They were talking, then he ran out. If he had Zek on a hit list, why wouldn't he do it then and there?"

Miller shook his head. "Poor Zek."

Everyone in the room stared at him, a few with dropped jaws.

'"Poor Zek'?" Cal said. "You couldn't stand the guy. You made his life hell."