The Warrior (10 page)

There was a call button on the gate that was meant to be used, allowing whoever was at the other end to furnish access. But Dieter didn't intend to announce his arrival.

He popped the trunk lid, then got out. Moments later, he headed toward the gate with his duffel bag in hand. He worked his way into the wiring, bypassed the electronic switch and disarmed it. When he heard it click, he grunted with satisfaction.

Within minutes, he was most of the way up the drive, running a mental checklist of his weapons and what he might need to get Alicia Ponte into his car.

When he turned a curve and saw Nightwalker's black Jeep coming at him at full speed from the house in the background, his mind went into a tailspin. How the hell had the man known? No time for that. He switched into operations mode. He could ram the Jeep, but if the impact disabled his own vehicle, then he couldn't get away. He was grabbing for his handgun as he stomped the brake and jammed the gearshift into Park.

He jumped out, keeping the open door between him and the vehicle coming at him, then hunkered down and fired.

The first shot hit a tire; the second went into the radiator, sending a spew of steam into the air. He expected the man to get out, but he thought the man would run for cover, not come at him with his bare fists. He hadn't planned on leaving a body behind, but Ponte's
orders had been plain: Bring Alicia back at all costs. And now that order was about to cost this big Indian his life.

He stood up from behind the car door and took aim.

“Stop right there or I'll shoot,” he yelled.

But John didn't stop.

Seeing the gun was proof enough to him that Alicia had been right about her father. He wanted her back bad, and he was willing to do anything to shut her up. When Dieter yelled, John knew what was coming. He dreaded the first burst of pain, even while knowing it wouldn't last.

“You're trespassing on private property,” he called as he continued to approach.

Dieter's finger tightened on the trigger. “I came to get Alicia. Turn her over to me now and I'll let you live.”

“No,” John said coldly. “Get off my property now and
I'll
let
you
live.”

Dieter's heart skipped a beat. Why would an unarmed man make such a futile threat? Was there something here he was missing? He glanced nervously from side to side, searching the perimeter of the roadside for the possibility of guards he hadn't taken into account, but no one showed. Convinced he was still in control of the situation, he pointed the gun straight at John's chest.

“I'm warning you,” Dieter said. “Get back. All I want is the girl.”

“Not in this lifetime,” John said, and made a lunge toward the door.

Dieter fired and ducked just as the door slammed into his belly, face and shins. He was so blinded by the blood and pain he didn't see his shot hit John in the shoulder,
didn't see the ensuing stain of red that began to spread across the front of John's shirt.

The shot spun John around, landing him flat on his back in the dirt.

From her chair in the library, Alicia saw it all. The shock of realizing Dieter was willing to kill to get to her was confirmation of how desperate her situation was. When she saw Dieter fire and John fall back into the dirt, she ran out of the house and down the driveway, screaming Dieter's name, begging him to stop and praying the shot wasn't a mortal one.

Dieter staggered out from behind the door with the gun in his hand and his face streaming blood. His nose was broken. His lips had been crushed against his teeth so sharply that the insides felt like raw meat. There was a cut on his cheek and another on his chin, and he was cursing at the top of his voice, nearly blind with pain.

“You sorry bastard! You broke my face! All you had to do was back off, but you didn't!”

He pulled the trigger again, sending a shot into John's leg. The wound in John's shoulder was already closing, and he was halfway to his feet when the next shot dropped him again. In the distance, he thought he could hear Alicia screaming. That meant she hadn't stayed put. It also meant he needed to gain control of the situation before Dieter grabbed her and took off.

He rolled over onto his belly, grabbed a handful of dirt and then gritted his teeth as he pushed himself upright. Before Dieter could register the fact that the man he'd put two bullets in was up, John threw the dirt in his face.

Dieter ducked, but not soon enough. Dirt hit him square
in the face, filling both eyes with painful grit and sand. He clawed at his face as John grabbed him, knocked the gun out of his hand with a hard chop to his wrist, then hit him in the chin with his fist. Dieter went down like a felled oak.

Once John had the man down and out, he gave in to the pain, leaning across the hood of the assailant's car, bent double with the suffering.

That was how Alicia found him. The horror in her voice was evident as she arrived, out of breath and screaming.

“Oh my God, oh my God…You're shot. He shot you. You need to sit down.” She started rifling through Dieter's car, looking for his cell phone. She found it on the console and ran back to John's side. “I'll call for an ambulance. Oh…wait…I don't know this address. What do I say?”

The pain in John's leg had subsided to a dull throb. He pushed himself up from the car, took the phone from her hand and laid it on the hood, then grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stop. Look at me. I'm okay, see?”

“You're not okay. You're bleeding.” She yanked at his shirt, pulling it back so she could see the wound more clearly.

John gritted his teeth. Now it would come. He pulled away from her grasp, but she was still staring, her mouth agape.

Alicia could see where the bullet had gone in. Although the flesh looked red and swollen, the tear was almost shut. It didn't make sense. She kept looking from the wound to John's face and back to the wound again. Then he moved, and as he did, he put himself directly between her and the sun. Within seconds, Alicia's view of him changed. All she could see was a dark silhouette, backlit by a halo of light. The skin on the back of her
neck began to crawl as the thought went through her mind that John Nightwalker wasn't human.

It was the only thing that made sense of what she had seen. He'd been shot. She'd seen him fall. The coppery scent of his blood was still strong in her nose, but the hole in his shoulder was almost closed. She looked down at his leg. The bloodstain on his jeans had quit spreading, too.

“How…?”

“It's complicated.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and then took an unsteady step backward, staring at him in disbelief.

John had been there before, watching the looks on people's faces, seeing the doubt, then the fear. Sometimes it bothered him. Sometimes it didn't. Today was one of those didn't-bother-him days, and besides, there were things yet to be done. He glanced down at Dieter's unconscious body, then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Alicia asked, then got her answer when he began to talk.

“Hi, Carl, this is John Nightwalker again.”

“Hey, John. How you doin'?”

“Oh…okay, I guess—although I've had better days. Someone just broke into my property and took a couple of shots at me. Shot out a tire and my radiator, too.”

“For the love of Pete! You don't say. Hang on. I'll dispatch some help right out to you.”

John winced, then shifted the weight from his right leg to his left. “Thanks. I've got it under control, but I want to press charges. Could you send someone out to pick him up? Oh…you'll also need a wrecker for his
vehicle. I'll be needing a wrecker, too, but I'll call Shelby's Garage down in Justice.”

“Consider it done,” Carl said, and then added, “You sure seem to be havin' yourself a run of interesting moments.”

“I guess you could say that,” John said, and then hung up.

As soon as he disconnected, he dialed Information and was quickly connected to Shelby's Garage. After a quick conversation he hung up, then dropped the phone back in his pocket. He spoke without looking at Alicia.

“I need to change clothes before the police arrive, and you need to go back to the house. Keeping you out of the equation means keeping your location secret a little while longer.”

Alicia hadn't moved. She couldn't quit staring at John, and for some strange reason, she felt a horrible sense of loss. This time yesterday, she hadn't known this man existed, but now he'd managed to become an integral part of her safety, which made no sense. Why was he willing to involve himself to this degree in a stranger's plight?

“John…”

He paused, sighed, then turned to face her.

“Yes?”

“Who are you?”

“I'm just a man,” he said, but the weariness in his voice told a different tale.

“No…that's not what I mean,” she said. “Let me put this a different way. Why are you willing to put your life in danger for a total stranger?”

Now it was John's turn to feel a little off center.
Whatever he said next would have to be a lie. He couldn't let it matter.

“Let's just say I live my life the way I do for a reason.”

He didn't elaborate, but Alicia wasn't willing to let it go. She thought of all the scars on his body and wondered if they had anything to do with his lifestyle.

“Like what? What in God's name happened to you, and how does your body do what it does?”

For this, he didn't have to lie. “Life is what happened to me. As for your other question, the honest truth is…I have no idea. Now let it go.”

At that point, Dieter groaned.

“He's waking up!” Alicia cried, her fear obvious.

“He's not going anywhere,” John said, then turned away and headed for his Jeep. He came back carrying a length of rope, bent over, grunting slightly as the muscles flexed in his shoulder, and quickly tied Dieter up.

When he stepped back and realized Alicia was still standing there, watching, he pointed up the road.

“The house. Hustle. I'll be right behind you.”

Before she could move, John began taking off his shirt. She turned on her heel and started walking. When she heard the sound of his footsteps close behind her, she began moving faster, then faster again, until she was running. She didn't look back until she reached the house, only to discover that John was no longer following her. She stood in the doorway, trying to figure out where he'd gone, when he suddenly appeared in the front yard in clean clothes and began jogging back down the driveway. He'd obviously taken a different route and gone in the back way.

As she watched, she heard the sound of sirens in the
distance. She remembered John's warning and stepped inside, quickly closing the door behind her.

The quiet inside the house was balm to her shaken senses. She turned, taking in the serenity of what she saw and felt, but her thoughts wouldn't turn off.

God in heaven, what did I just see?
She put her hands over her face, stifling the urge to scream.
What is John Nightwalker? Is he real, or is he an angel who appeared in my life to help me out of this mess?

The sirens were louder; then suddenly they stopped, shifting reality to the here and now. John Nightwalker was not an angel, and she was out of her mind. Curious as to what was going on down the drive, she moved to the window, pushed a curtain aside and peered out.

A police car was there, and Dieter was on his feet and in handcuffs. She felt a spurt of satisfaction in watching him climbing into the back of the cruiser. John was still talking to the police when a wrecker arrived, soon followed by a second. She watched both cars being towed away; then the police car followed, leaving John alone in the middle of the drive.

Then he turned around and looked toward the house.

Alicia shivered. Now what?

When he started walking back, she knew she wouldn't have long to wait.

J
ohn told the authorities the truth, up to a point. Yes, Dieter Bahn was a stranger to him. No, he didn't know why the man was on his property other than to take stuff that didn't belong to him. All true, in a way. What had surprised John was that when Dieter came to, he didn't explain himself or deny anything John said.

To John, that said a lot about Richard Ponte's power. A flunky working for some average businessman would want to clear his name quickly and would claim he was only following orders. But Dieter not only took the blame for being on John's property unlawfully, he didn't deny trying to kill him.

And neither man mentioned Alicia Ponte's name, even though she was the only reason he'd been there at all.

John's attitude toward his enemy was taking on new ramifications. Richard Ponte had to be a fearsome man in his own right to demand and obtain such total allegiance. Dieter's behavior also gave further credence to Alicia's fear that her father would be willing to kill her
to shut her up. It remained to be seen if Ponte's power reached far enough to get Dieter out of jail. The law didn't take kindly to attempted murder.

John watched the wreckers leave, then headed back toward the house. He needed to get some tools and repair the lock at the gates. And then there was Alicia. She'd seen his “abilities” firsthand. Would she let it go as he'd asked, or would he have to face another round of questions? He wasn't all that optimistic, but telling her the truth was not an option.

He was less than a hundred yards from the house when the cell phone in his pocket began to ring. He was about to answer it when he realized it was Dieter's cell, not his own.

His first instinct was to ignore it, and then he saw the caller ID. The opportunity to talk to his nemesis was almost irresistible, even though it would alert Ponte to the fact that, once again, his plans to take care of his daughter had failed. But John would know when he heard the voice if this was the man he sought, and the urge to confirm his beliefs was strong.

The phone kept ringing.

If he answered it, he would reveal the fact that Alicia was still in motion, still able to turn on her father, not to mention where she was.

The phone rang again.

He flashed on White Fawn's throat, gaping wider than her mouth, itself frozen in a death scream.

The next ring broke him.

His instinct to protect lost out to his need for revenge.

“Yes?”

The deep, angry voice was not the subservient tone
Richard Ponte expected from Dieter, but the thought that someone else might have answered the phone never entered his mind.

“With a tone like that, you better have a positive report to turn in,” he growled.

The moment John heard the voice, his ears began to roar, as if he were standing in the middle of a hurricane. He felt the blood draining from his face, leaving him disoriented and light-headed. Afraid he was going to be sick where he stood, he bent double, trying frantically to clear his mind.

“Answer me!” Ponte shouted. “By God…I need to know. Do you have Alicia?”

It was the shout that brought John out of his fugue. He straightened slowly, battling the weakness with all his strength. His fingers clenched around the phone as the muscles in his jaw tensed. The same fury was in him now that he'd felt the day he stood in his village amid the carnage of all those he knew and loved. His voice was dark, loud, angry.

“Yes, I have Alicia,” he said. “And your flunky is on his way to jail for attempted murder.”

Ponte gasped. “What do you mean…you have Alicia? Who are you? A kidnapper? Name your ransom. I want my daughter back.”

“You aren't listening to me,” John said. “Dieter is on his way to jail for trying to kill me. The authorities are already getting involved in your business, as am I.”

“Where? What do you want? Name your price and—”

John interrupted, his voice softening to a frightening whisper. “You want answers? Then shut up and listen.
I know who you are. I know what you did. And I've waited more than five hundred years to make you pay.”

Something floated in and out of Ponte's mind so fast it didn't have time to register. It wasn't anything tangible—just a feeling that he'd heard this voice before. But the timeline was a joke.

“I don't know who you are, but you're obviously a lunatic. Five hundred years? I wasn't alive five hundred years ago, so whatever you think I did, I didn't. Got it?”

“Richard Ponte might not have been there, but you have a soul, and it was there. It's been recycling for centuries, and I've been chasing it for just as long. Now I've found you, and I intend to make you pay.”

Richard was staggered by the venom in the other man's voice, and a little frightened of the crazy talk. Insanity was impossible to fight.

“Pay how? By claiming my soul? Who do you fancy yourself to be? The devil?”

“The devil wouldn't want you—but I do. Look over your shoulder, woman killer. I'm coming for you.”

Ponte's belly rolled. Woman killer? This must have to do with the guns he was running. “Who are you? Some loony Afghan? Some pissed-off Iraqi? If so, don't blame me. Blame your crazy leaders and your ancient religions. This is the twenty-first century. Get with the program.”

By now John was shouting. “The twenty-first century, the seventeenth century, the thirteenth century…they're all the same to men like you. You take what you want without thought for anyone else and leave death in your wake. You brought your men to my land in your ship, looking for gold. When you didn't find it, you killed them. You killed all my people. You killed my
wife
. You
cut her throat as she screamed for mercy. You took her necklace. When I found you, you were clutching it like a trophy. You tried to kill me, but I didn't die. I
can't
die—not until I watch you take your last fucking breath.”

When the man began to shout at Ponte in some foreign language, the skin on Ponte's face began to tighten and burn, and though he had no idea what he was hearing, he wanted to throw up.

John was out of control. Almost six hundred years of frustration—of waiting—were boiling up in him. Richard Ponte had been a killer then, and from what John could tell, his enemy was repeating the cycle again and again. John kept reciting the curse in his native language, the same one he'd invoked centuries earlier, cursing his enemy's soul through eternity until his demand for retribution had been met.

 

Richard Ponte could hear the stranger screaming at him, although he still didn't understand what the man was saying. The longer he stood with the phone frozen to his ear, the more certain he became that he was experiencing something entirely outside his frame of reference.

There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his muscles were beginning to give way. He staggered across the room, then dropped into the chair behind his desk to keep from falling. All the while, the stranger's words drummed through his mind, accusing him of something he didn't understand but couldn't find the words to deny.

He felt his throat tightening—closing—as if he were being choked, then a burning sensation in his chest. He
tried to turn loose of the phone, but he couldn't feel his fingers. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there before he realized the line was dead.

He stared at the phone, then dropped it suddenly, as if he'd been holding a snake, and jumped up from his chair. He strode to the window, desperate to center himself. The view was the same view he'd had of Miami ever since he'd set up offices here. The skyline was familiar. Outside, the traffic in the streets was no better and no worse than usual.

So why did he feel like a stranger in his own skin?

Why this overwhelming sense of despair?

Was it because Alicia had eluded his capture and was about to bring him down, or was there another older—darker—sin that was about to do him in?

He shuddered. Impossible. This whole scenario was ridiculous. Why had he let the ravings of a lunatic bother him for even a moment? He had to put a spin on Alicia's disappearance, and he thought he knew how. If he let it leak that she'd had a mental breakdown and had been kidnapped on the way to treatment, then Dieter's transgressions could be explained. Shooting at a kidnaper to get the boss's daughter back was definitely justified. A satisfied smile broke across his face just as there was a knock on the door.

He turned, grateful for the interruption, just as Charlotte, his secretary, walked in with an armful of mail.

“It's sorted as usual, Mr. Ponte. The small stack on top is your personal mail, and remember, you have an early lunch appointment with Mr. Carruthers at eleven before his flight back to D.C. this afternoon.”

Something inside Richard shifted again as his composure strengthened.

“Thank you, Charlotte,” he said, then strode to his desk and began to go through the mail. “Before you leave, would you please bring me a fresh cup of coffee…and some painkillers. I have the beginnings of a headache.”

“Yes, sir…right away, sir.”

By the time Charlotte shut the door, Richard's emotions were completely under control again. The longer he sat, the more he convinced himself that what he'd experienced was a momentary panic resulting from Dieter's failure. It was time to implement the backup plan.

First thing was to leak a story to the media that his daughter had suffered a mental breakdown and that he'd received a ransom demand. He knew she had no proof for what she'd heard, and maybe, if he destroyed her plausibility before she spilled her guts, he could effect some successful damage control. It would also put an end to whoever it was he'd just talked to on the phone. If the man was identified as a kidnaper, then he, too, would be neutralized.

Ponte grinned, pleased with his plan, and began flipping through his Rolodex as his secretary returned with the requested painkillers and a fresh cup of coffee. By the time his call was answered, he had his story in place.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation. How may I direct your call?”

“This is Richard Ponte. I want to report a kidnapping.”

 

Once Alicia saw the sheriff driving away with Dieter Bahn in handcuffs, she began to relax. She was still watching John's approach when she saw him pause, then take a phone out of his pocket to answer a call. That
in itself was of no consequence. Cell phones were a part of everyday existence. It meant nothing—until she witnessed what came next.

He was some distance from the house, but close enough that she could see his expression change from calm to enraged. She couldn't hear anything he was saying, but she could see that he was shouting. She ran to the door and out onto the landing, not sure what she could do, but fearing the trouble might involve her.

Once outside, she heard him shouting. The tone of his voice was frightening—filled with a rage she'd never seen. But it was when he shifted from English to a language she didn't understand that she saw something in him that made her afraid. Afraid of him. Afraid for her life.

She watched until he suddenly disconnected in anger, dropped the phone onto the ground and stomped it to pieces. When he looked up, she panicked. What if she was next?

His body language alone was frightening. His hands were curled into fists. His shoulders stiff with tension. When he threw his head back and screamed, she bolted. Going back into the house would be like shutting herself in with a mad dog. She headed for the bluff.

John didn't know Alicia was anywhere around until he saw her leap from the landing and realized she must have seen everything, or at least enough to scare her. He could only imagine what she was thinking, seeing him lose control as he'd just done. He would like nothing better than to be rid of her, but he needed her. She was bait—bait he needed to get to Ponte. Ponte had to want her silenced, and he wouldn't stop until she was, which meant he, or some of his minions, would come after her,
and when they did, then John's quest would be over. He knew how to get information out of an unwilling man. He'd had an eternity to learn from the best. Someone would tell him where Ponte was. At that point, Alicia Ponte would be on her own. Until that happened, he couldn't let her go.

When he started after her, his healing muscles protested. She was all the way down the bluff and on the shore, running for all she was worth, when he caught her.

 

The pounding rhythm of Alicia's heartbeat was so loud in her ears that she didn't hear anything, not the roar of the surf, not the jarring thud of her own footsteps as she ran. She didn't know John Nightwalker was right behind her until he grabbed her arm and yanked her off her feet, then hauled her against his chest.

At the moment of contact, she screamed, then began pummeling him with her fists.

Instead of fighting her, John just held on, letting her fear run its course until she was weak from fighting. Only after she collapsed against him, weak and weeping, did he begin to talk. The tone of his voice revealed his anger, as well as confusion.