Ulrich reached the corner and maneuvered to the house directly next to Tommy’s. There, he crouched behind a wooden fence and waited next to a small gate. He reached up and cautiously unhooked the latch, careful not to make any noise. The last thing he needed right now was a dog to wake up. Fortunately, no canine appeared.
Keeping close to the back wall, Ulrich moved closer to his target. He could see the silhouette of what had to be a cop standing on the back porch smoking a cigarette. Amateurs. Any moron could have seen the guard from a mile away. The man was pacing back and forth, obviously bored with his assignment for the night. As he turned the opposite direction, Ulrich silently scuffed under the porch, squatting as he moved. Fortunately, the porch was about five feet high. Crickets chirped their night songs loudly. Hardly enough sound cover, but he didn’t need much. To get in the house, he would have to take out the guard. Maybe he didn’t need to kill the man. Knocking him unconscious could have the same effect. Ulrich preferred not to leave loose ends, though. Killing was something he’d been doing a long time, and through the years he had become quite proficient at it.
Above him, through the cracks of wood, the guard stopped his movement and spun slowly back the way he’d just come. His moment at hand, Ulrich was on the steps flying up them in twos, careful not to trip. Unfortunately for the police officer, none of the planks made a sound and in one swift motion, the long blade was pushed through the back of the cop’s neck and out the front of his throat. A sickening gurgle was the only noise he made before falling to the deck, shock imprinted lifelessly in his wide eyes. Blood poured freely from the wound and oozed in between the gaps in the wood to the ground below.
Ulrich wiped the blade clean on the man’s shirt, then took a quick inventory, making sure there was no one standing directly inside. There wasn’t. He stepped to the door. It was unlocked. He imagined if he had shown up thirty minutes later the “guards” might have been discovered passed out on the couch with ESPN playing in the background. Little wonder crime was so rampant in parts of the city.
Carefully opening the door, he slipped into what seemed to be the dining room. The house was dark with the exception of a fluorescent light in the kitchen casting a pale glow into the adjoining rooms nearby. Ulrich moved stealthily across the hardwood floor. Rounding the dining room corner, he could make out the shape of the other officer through the front window, standing obliviously unaware to what had just happened to his partner. A few quiet steps up the stairs and Ulrich was standing in Tommy’s study.
He had to search quickly. It would only be a matter of time before the other police officer would go back to check on his partner. Schultz had said there was an envelope on his desk that contained what he needed.
Ulrich scanned the workstation for the parcel. He’d taken a big chance coming here. It was fortunate that Atlanta’s finest had never received a level of training to deal with his skills. Still, had there been a larger force things may have gotten sticky.
A stack of envelopes sat at the edge of the desk. Setting the blade down on the black wooden surface, he picked up the letters and shuffled them through his gloved fingers, not sure for what he was looking. He arrived at the bottom of the stack having found nothing but ordinary junk mail and statements from various service institutions. Frustrated, he let the bunch fall back to the surface of the desk next to his knife.
Had he been tricked? He’d considered the possibility that Schultz had sent him here knowing full well there would be police around the area. Perhaps the archaeologist had underestimated the talents Ulrich possessed. Then again, surely his captive would not be so foolish as to trust that the police would be able to subdue him. No. It had to be here. He picked up the envelopes again and scanned them more meticulously. About half way through the pile, he stopped at one that seemed peculiar. It was from a financial institution he’d never heard of. Granted, there were a million financial advisors out there but this one struck him as odd. It had already been opened where as the rest were still sealed. Unconsciously dropping the other mail, he removed a piece of paper from within the frayed top. At the bottom of the correspondence he recognized the name of the professor he’d killed a few nights before. It was a letter from Dr. Borringer and on it were the translations of the disc Schultz had found in North Georgia. The words were still in the form of a riddle: “The chambers will light your path.” A chill went up his spine as he read the last few words. This had to be it.
Suddenly, a noise came from downstairs. The front door closed. Ulrich tucked the letter into a cargo pocket in his black pants as he shifted over to the door of the study. Below, he could hear the careless footsteps of someone who had no idea what had happened and what was about to. As the sound of the shoes on the hardwood moved toward the kitchen, Ulrich took a few precipitous steps downward, pressing close to the wall. Even though this flatfoot beat cop was surely no match for his level of talent, the blonde assassin still preferred to always use the element of surprise if it was available, a policy that had probably saved his hide more than once.
In the kitchen, the refrigerator door opened, the light flooding the kitchen with a mixture of natural and florescent light.
“Hey Billy!” The gruff voice of the cop froze Ulrich on the bottom step of the staircase. “This guy’s got some cokes in here. You want one?”
The Southern accent grated against Ulrich’s European ears. The hapless cop, probably about five foot ten inches looked more like a reject from a junior varsity offensive line. Ulrich judged his weight to be around two hundred fifty pounds and from the looks of it. He watched as the chubby man reached into the refrigerator and grabbed two red cans from the bottom drawer. Receiving no response from his partner on the back porch, he called out again, “Hey Billy! You thirsty?” Silence.
Setting down the cans, the cop stalked towards the dining room where the door to the back deck was located. “Dad gum it Billy! If you’re on that cell phone again I’m gonna kick your…” The officer stopped in mid sentence as he stared out through the glass door at the prostrate body on the other side. “What the…Billy?!” Panic flooded his face as he reach for the handle of the sliding door.
Abruptly, he felt something thin and cold run across the breadth of his neck.
With fleshy hands, the blubbery cop clutched his throat and turned around to see a tall blonde-haired man holding a knife. Blood gushed from the open artery and vein, his fingers doing little more than filtering the flow. The man’s beady eyes quickly clouded and the room began to spin. Finally, his heavy body crashed to the floor, torso and head leaning up against glass. After only a few seconds, the head toppled onto a shoulder, lifeless.
Ulrich simply stood for a moment watching the last few ounces of life spurt from the wound. Then, turning, he strode swiftly towards the front of the house, concealing the blade in its jacket sheath. He closed the front door of the house casually and returned to the quiet suburban sidewalk, unaware of the eyes that watched him from a black luxury sedan nearby.
Chapter 17
Allyson handed the envelope to Sean. “Would you like to do the honors?” She smiled at him like a kid who’d just found the last Easter egg.