He crouched, still watching the brush ahead. He slowly moved to the corner of the house to get a view to his left. It seemed that the place where Prescott had been was not quite visible from here, but once he was out a few paces, it would be. He would try the quiet, invisible way. He went to his belly and began to slither across the back lawn, his eyes on the row of bushes, waiting for movement.
There was a loud crack as a bullet broke the sound barrier over his head. He was up and sprinting, gaining speed as he dashed toward cover. There was no reason to stay on the grass now, so he let his feet take him toward the paved patio, where he could make better time.
One foot hit the patio and the ball of his foot pushed off, and he knew it was all wrong. There was a spongy feel to it. The other foot hit and the pavement sank. He saw a section of the stones ahead buckle and fold. The patio wasn’t stone slabs laid in the ground; it was just sheets of artificial masonry, made of drywall with a plastic veneer. He had broken through. He had to control the fall. He did not impede his forward motion, because he had to keep from dropping vertically. He flopped forward, both arms extended, slapping the next section of artificial stones, pushing down with arms and legs, scrambling ahead on the fragile surface to keep the drywall falling below him. He felt himself going through, then heard the first end of a section hit with a hollow echo. With the sound, he knew there was concrete, he knew it was about ten feet down. He hit, letting his feet break a sheet of drywall wedged beside another, and directing his body onto the next section of drywall.
His fall was jarring, but he felt no sharp pain, and he was on his feet. He could tell he was in an empty swimming pool, and he knew he had to get out. He ran up the steep concrete slope toward the shallow end, where the fragile sheets of drywall overhead still formed a roof to shield him from Prescott’s sights.
Varney reached the end, came up without pausing, his head lifting the end of the drywall enough to free him, and he was out and running again. He found himself heading back the way he had come, but for the moment he had no choice. He had to get out of Prescott’s view.
As he approached the side of the house, he was beginning to get past the pure anger at what Prescott had tried to do to him, and had begun to wonder at what Prescott had not done. There had been only one shot, and it had gone high. Prescott had had time to fire again. He could have put ten rounds through the half-inch drywall on top of the empty pool, let them bounce around in the dark concrete basin, and probably clip Varney on a ricochet. He must have known that Varney would come out at the shallow end, and should have leveled his weapon on it. Was he that slow? He couldn’t be. He had fired his one shot only to make Varney run and fall into the pool. He had to be at the wrong angle, too low and far away to fire downward into the pool, and too far to the left to have the shallow end in view. He must still be across the lawn from the pipes, where Varney had seen the bushes move.
Varney had one clear, simple idea and it would work only if he used it before Prescott did. When Varney reached the house, he kept running along the side. He had to take the chance that Prescott would still be aiming at the back corner of the house, waiting for him to show himself there. Varney came around the front, running harder now. He ran past the front porch, keeping his feet on the grass, where his steps would make no noise. He could see the start of the row of bushes now. It was not neat and thin like a hedge, but deep and unruly, planted there as a barrier to the wind in the summer, when the dust blew off the fields, and probably in the winter a snow fence to catch the drifts before they piled up on the side and front of the house.
He did not pause but moved immediately among the thick bushes, making his way toward the spot where he judged Prescott must be. His ears were sharp. He could hear insects take flight as he came close, hear a leaf fall from the tree above him, but he could not hear his own movements. He had practiced the skill of motion through foliage at night all summer long, and he knew he had gotten better at it. He began to feel the old excitement return, anticipating the sudden, brief, sweet moment when he would emerge from the bushes. He would take Prescott through the head. Prescott would have just enough time for the meaning of it to reach his brain before the bullet punched through it.
He stepped steadily, placing each foot tentatively, to feel the texture under the sole before he eased his weight onto it. He kept going, watchful and eager at the same time. When he reached the spot where he had expected to find Prescott, he was disappointed. He told himself that Prescott had simply moved onward toward the back of the lot, where he would have a better view of the corner of the house. He had no choice but to keep going. He quickened his pace. Then he was near the end of the bushes. Could Prescott have gotten this far?
He crouched, planted his feet, checked his gun to be sure he had not pushed the safety on while he was handling it. Finally, he took the cell phone out of his pocket.
The telephone was his advantage. Prescott had put it in his hands so he could rattle him, make him feel weak and hesitant and afraid. But Varney had immediately seen the potential. Varney’s reflexes had been too quick to let him fall across the sabotaged staircase, his body too agile to be trapped in the empty pool, too fast to be picked off on a run across the open. He had fooled Prescott each time, made the house he had booby-trapped into a joke. Now he was going to finish him. Varney held the phone at his side, pressed the power button, pressed 1, set the phone on the ground, and crawled quickly into the brush. Varney heard the ring, and began to hurry toward it. He had been right. Probably Prescott had planned to do this very thing to Varney, maybe even provided the phone in the belief that Varney would wait too long, and let Prescott use it to find him in the dark. Prescott might have planned, but Varney had done it.
The telephone rang a second time, and Varney held his head slightly to the side, so the wind blowing across his ears would not distort its sound. He was getting closer. He was sure, and then his mind settled on precisely the spot. He popped up to his feet and fired three times, his silenced weapon making a harsh spitting sound, then dropped down again.
He carried with him into the darkness a sight imprinted on his memory like a snapshot. It was Prescott’s cell phone, the tiny lights behind the keys flickering as it rang, then going out again to wait for the next ring, as it lay abandoned on the ground.
36
Prescott gave a disappointed, sad shake of his head. “So much for that.” As he stood up, he began the quiet process of clearing his mind. He had always seen the telephone as the last, surest sign. If this guy had carried it and never pressed the key, Prescott would not have been sure. Only if he used it as a way to surprise Prescott and kill him would Prescott be certain.
Prescott could have ended this an hour ago, when his night scope had detected the bright glow of another human being’s heat moving through the woods. He had predicted, in a general way, each move that this man would make. Prescott had placed in his path some signs to suggest that Prescott might be too much for him, and pointed him toward the way to survive.
He supposed it had always been this way. He had wasted his advantages and held back each time since he was a kid. An unexpected memory that was more physical than mental gripped him. There was Anthony Meara in the street with his friends already moving to block Prescott’s way on the sidewalk. Meara had been a senior, and Prescott was two years younger. It was not the sort of fighting that had gone on in earlier years, two boys engaging in the series of elimination matches that established each grade’s male hierarchy. This had been something else.