If he spoke to them before Kuhl’s men were able to take care of him, the time left until he needed to head out to the fallback might very well be limited to hours, if not minutes. And though the storm would make travel there difficult, he had ordered Anton and Ciras out to fill the Explorer with basic supplies — water, protein bars, first aid — so that he might vacate the cabin as soon as possible.
After all Kuhl’s preparation, it staggered him to think the success of his task might be threatened by a simple miscalculation of how the greyhound would react to his forced entry of the rescue center.
Kuhl turned from the terrace to his captured robin. He looked into her eyes over the cloth gag knotted around her mouth. That particular restraint had been unnecessary except as a precaution, he mused. Realizing she was in a place where cries for help would be of no use, she had held a silence Kuhl found admirable. She had showed no frailty, done no pleading save for the lives of the woman and infant at the rescue center, and the dog that attempted to protect her.
Even now, Kuhl thought, her steady gaze did not present him with any sign of weakness.
He moved away from her, went to the desk where he had sat long nights at his computer, and looked inside its top drawer. Waiting there was the tool steel combat knife he would use when the moment to dispose of her finally came.
Her head pulled back from behind without warning, a deep cut across the throat…
In his admiration, Kuhl would give Julia Gordian as sudden and painless a death as his expert hand could render.
It was, he thought, the very least she deserved.
The clouds had reasserted themselves throughout the morning to form a massive gray band that stretched along the coastline from Half Moon Bay southward to Point Conception and was widest from the Santa Lucia Mountains on east across the Ventana wilderness and Los Padres National Forest. By midday, rain was falling heavily again, the charcoal gray sky cat-clawed with lightning, thunder rumbling like great millstones in its turbulent lower and middle altitudes.
Ricci and Glenn watched two men exit the cabin and stride toward a white Ford Explorer parked only a few straight yards from where they were crouched side by side under cover of the trees. One of the men carried a portage pack, his companion a couple of nylon zip duffels.
Ricci’s eyes briefly went to Glenn.
“I’m betting that’s survival gear,” he whispered.
Glenn nodded.
“Looks to be,” he said.
Water spilling from the porous roof of leaves above them, they observed the pair in silence. In what had seemed almost a reenactment of their previous night’s work at the animal hospital, they had left their car about a half mile back and then climbed the rest of the way up the hillside on foot. The thick frock of woodland on the slope offered vital concealment and also made for some tough going — steep grades, impassable thickets, streams swollen by the unrelenting rains, and patches of soggy ground with unsafe footing had forced several detours. But they’d pushed forward and were mostly able to stay within eyeshot of the paved road, sticking close whenever possible. After about an hour’s hike, they had finally seen one of the huge limestone gateposts described by Anagkazo off to their left, picked up the dirt route that led to the crest of the bluff, and then stolen alongside it to their present spot.
Now they continued to watch as the two figures from the cabin strode around back of the SUV, keyed open its hatch, raised it, loaded the bags inside, and then pulled the cargo shade over them.
Ricci unholstered his sound-suppressed Five-Seven from his belt.
“You set?” he said.
Glenn took a breath and gave him another nod. He had a leather slapper flat against his palm, preferring its directness to the DMSO spray.
They shuffled over several feet to put themselves behind the Explorer, then waited a moment. Ricci pointed to the man on the left, pointed to himself, and got a final affirmative nod from Glenn. He held up three fingers and started to sign the count.
His third finger ticked down and they sprang.
Though large and muscular, Glenn was clear of the dripping brush and on top of Mr. Right in a flicker. He struck the back of his head with the sap, his blow pounding onto the base of the skull, and the man buckled in a heap.
Ricci had simultaneously rushed out behind Mr. Left, locked an arm around his throat, and put the bore of his gun against his temple. The guy snapped back his head, trying to butt him hard under the chin despite the choke-hold and pressure of the nine mil — guts, good reflexes. Ricci slipped the move, spun him around by his shoulder, and brought a knee up into his middle below the diaphragm.
Mr. Left sagged back against the Explorer, the wind knocked out of him.
This time Ricci got the nine right into his face, pressed its barrel to the side of his nose, right about at the nub of the tear gland. Quickly patting the guy down, he found a Sig.380 in a concealed shoulder holster and a card wallet in the back pocket of his slacks.
Ricci tucked the Sig under his belt and flipped open the wallet’s ID window.
“Barry Hughes,” he said, glancing at the driver’s license. “That who you are?”
As Mr. Right started to nod against the upward pressure of his gun, Ricci tossed the wallet into a puddle and drove a fist into his cheek. Something gave at the hinge of the jaw.
“Give me your real name,” Ricci said.
The guy was silent, blood overspilling his lower lip.
“Your name.” Ricci stared into his face, pushing his Five-Seven deeper into the corner of his eye. He could see the skin below the socket crinkle under the end of its barrel. “Let me hear it or I’ll kill you.”
The guy looked at him without answering for perhaps three more seconds.
“Anton, you fucker,” he said at last, front teeth smeared red, his speech already distorted from the fractured jaw. It came out sounding like Antunnn yfuker.
Ricci nodded. At the periphery of his vision, he saw Glenn unlock the Explorer’s passenger door with the key he’d pulled from its hatch, reach in to give the ignition a quarter turn, then lower the window and cuff the other guy’s wrists around the vertical bar of its frame.
Grabbing his man by the shirt collar now, Ricci pulled him off the flank of the vehicle with a sudden wrench.
“Anton, I know your mouth hurts, but you’ll need to talk to us about a few things before giving it a rest,” he said.
There was a door at the side of the cabin that offered admittance to the kitchen and, directly beyond it, the living room.
Ricci had Anton lead the way to the door at gunpoint, one hand clamped over his shoulder, the other holding the Five-Seven to his ear behind the loose, misshapen swell of his jawbone. Behind them, Glenn had the stock of his VVRS cradled against his upper arm as he held it forward at the ready.
“Open the door,” Ricci said. He nudged Anton with the gun. “No surprises.”
Anton turned the knob, pulled. The rain was a constant susurrus that muffled the sound of its opening. Listening carefully, however, Ricci could hear a faint rustling in the brush to his right.
Okay, he thought.
Standing at an angle to the door, hidden from within behind the outer wall of the house, Ricci flung a glance around Anton through the small unoccupied kitchen. Past the living-room archway, three men were at a table playing cards. A fourth seated on a sofa to the extreme right seemed to be dozing there, arms folded behind his head, his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. The sables were lying at rest on the carpet between them. One of the dogs raised itself a little at the sound of the opening door, recognized Anton’s familiar presence across the length of the two rooms, then lowered its shaggy head back onto the floor.