Sean slowly stood up. Mud and sand clung to his skin. He didn't care. There was only one thing on his mind. It beat like a steady drum. Until he had it, he would think of nothing else.
Revenge.
Chapter 27
Jack leaned over and picked up the cube stone from the rocks. He examined the different sides and pursed his lips in silent consideration. Five other men — Jack's personal henchmen — stood around as Jack turned the object over so he could see the different engravings.
"The big one dropped that when I started shooting," a muscular man with blond buzz-cut hair said. He stood off to the side, allowing his employer to have a look around. His right hand gripped the barrel of a rifle propped against his hip.
Dark droplets of dried blood smattered the loose rocks around the pool. Jack bent down and rubbed a finger on it. The blood was still slightly sticky. He rubbed two fingers together and then moved to the water to dip his hand in.
"Shot her in the chest," the sniper said. "She fell into the water."
Jack stood, washing his hands of the blood. "Where's the body?"
"Washed downstream. She's at the bottom of the river by now. Fish food."
"Where are the other bodies?" Jack asked. His tone had taken on a stern, irritated sound.
"I know what you're getting at," the man said in a sharp English accent. "Don't worry. They're dead too." The sniper lied about that part. He wasn't about to tell his employer — a man who paid handsomely for results — that he'd let his quarry get away. "Fish food, all of 'em."
"Are you sure?" Jack didn't look the man in the eye. He merely stared into the pool.
There was a slight pause before the shooter answered. "Yes. Of course I'm sure. That's why you hired me, right? Because I'm good."
"You know who I work for?"
The question seemed to come from out of the blue. The sniper wasn't sure how to respond at first. After a moment of thought, he said, "Sure, Jack. You work for Mr. Holmes. That's no secret."
"Exactly. And do you know why it's no secret?"
The second question was considerably harder than the first. The gunman clutched the barrel a little tighter, just as a precaution.
"Can't say I do, Jack. If I were a man in your position, I'd probably keep my identification under wraps."
Jack spun around abruptly and faced the sniper. He still held the stone in his hand. His eyes wandered to the gear bags on the shore. "What's this?" he gave a sideways nod at the stuff.
The shooter shrugged. "Just their stuff. It was sitting there when I opened fire. They didn't have time to get it. I guess they figured they didn't need it. They made for the water, I shot 'em in the back, and now they're gone. No worries."
Jack considered the answer for a moment. He rubbed his chin, still staring at the bags. "I want to make sure I got your story straight. You killed the woman, and she fell in the water."
The sniper nodded.
"The other three went in after her?"
"Right."
"And you shot them in the water. Were they trying to save her?"
"Beats me. Alls I know is, they're dead. Just like you wanted."
Jack drew a long breath in through his nose. He let the air seep out of a tight hole between his lips that almost made a whistling noise. "That's true. I did want them dead. And you know what else I wanted?"
The shooter hesitated and then pointed at the cube. "That thing?"
"Precisely," Jack said in a sharp tone.
"So you got everything you wanted. It's like a Christmas a month late for you." The gunman attempted to smile to ease the tension, but it was an unnatural gesture — especially for a hit man.
"Getting back to the question and your answer, I allow people to know my identity because I want them to be afraid."
"Afraid?" The sniper shifted uneasily.
Jack took a step toward him. "Yes. Afraid. You see, I can't have people lying to me. And if anyone fails to do what I ask, it's important they know that there will be consequences. Just like there would be consequences if someone were to try to kill me. I'm one of Mr. Holmes's most trusted friends. Should anything happen to me, he would find out. And then he would find out who did it."
"Good to have friends in high places." The guy tried to sound gruff as he said the words.
"Absolutely."
Jack moved over to the gear bag closest to his feet and bent down. He picked it up and stuffed his hand inside. He pulled out a pistol and gave the weapon a good once over before checking the rest of the bag's contents. Surprisingly, there was a wealth of things inside: passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, a spare magazine, and several other items.
Jack flipped open the passport and held the driver's license inside so the images lined up with each other. "It seems our friend Tommy Schultz won't be needing these again, eh?"
"Not unless he's resurrected."
Jack stuffed the identification and the cards in his back pocket. Then he shoved the pistol into his belt. "Might as well keep this since he won't be needing it. Right?"
"Sure," the sniper agreed.
"You don't happen to know what any of these mean, do you?" Jack held the cube out suddenly, and the hit man jerked back for a second, startled.
His head twitched back and forth. "No. Can't say I do."
Jack bit his lower lip for a second and then pointed at the paw. "You see this paw here?" The sniper nodded. "That's a wallaby."
"If you say so. What does it matter?"
"Well, wallabies are kind of a big deal here in Australia. My guess is, whoever hid this cube here wanted us to know that the next place we should visit has wallabies."
The gunman was totally lost, so Jack kept talking.
"Now, if I was a guy trying to leave bread crumbs for someone else to follow, I'd need to let them know about the general vicinity of where they should go next. That makes me wonder what those letters mean." He pointed at the set of letters cut into the stone. "I don't suppose you have any idea about those either."
"You pay me to kill people, not solve old puzzles for you."
"Fair point. I don't pay you to figure these sorts of things out. Fortunately, I think I have someone who might be able to help me with it. So I really won't be needing you anymore."
"Good, then," the sniper said. "I'll just collect my hundred grand and be on my way."
"The money is in the truck," Jack said, pointing at the trail. "We should get going before any tourists happen to show up. Wouldn't do well for them to find a bunch of guys with guns here, now would it?"
The gunman picked up his rifle and turned toward the trail. He never saw Jack take a big step toward him and raise the cube high over his shoulder. The first blow from the corner of the stone knocked the sniper to the ground, sending a sudden sharp pain through his head from the back of his skull. His vision blurred. He could feel the rocks and dirt under his fingertips. Something in his head told him to grab his gun, but he couldn't feel it.
"I don't deal with liars," Jack said as he crouched over the gunman.
The man didn't feel a thing after the second blow that rendered him unconscious. Jack kept going, driving the now-bloody corner of the cube into the back of the sniper's head until his arm gave out. He stood up, still holding the dripping stone, and then sauntered over to the water's edge to wash it off. When it was sufficiently clean, he tossed it to one of his men.
"Hold onto that," Jack said. "We need to get that back to Sydney so our friend Miss Guildford can have a look at it."
"What about him?" one of the other henchmen said and pointed at the dead sniper.
"Throw him in the water," Jack said. "Let him float downstream with the others."