3
Those eyes.
They were a part of the Ripper's legend: the way the light refracted in his oddly shaped pupils whenever he was angry, so that they seemed to burn with an inner flame. Those who had seen that red glint and lived to tell about it thought that it was like peering into the depths of hellfire itself. The flames behind those pupils leaped and danced, as if to a tune that only Beelzebub and Jack Gregory could play.
But Janet knew. Lucifer might rule in hell, but here on planet earth, Jack Gregory was the reigning killer angel.
As she looked into Jack's face, a chill ran up Janet's spine all the way to her scalp, leaving in its wake a tingle reminiscent of the aftereffects of a jolt from a Taser. Amazing. There was no thrill on earth quite like what she got from staring into those eyes. God, it made her hungry. It made her want to wrap her legs around him and dig her long fingernails into the skin of his bare back. But that would have to wait.
“So we have confirmation?” Jack's voice disrupted her reverie.
Janet nodded. “Yes. The refrigerated truck will depart the special medical lab at Kirtland Air Force Base at midnight, get up on I-25, and head directly back to Santa Fe before turning off toward Los Alamos. It looks like they are going to turn the body over to Dr. Stephenson at Rho Division sometime before dawn, right back here at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.”
Raymond Bronson leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table. “It sure didn't take long after Riles' death for the powers that be to get Priest's corpse transferred to the control of the Rho Project team.”
Jack shrugged. “They are in full-blown cleanup mode. That's why tonight we are going to dirty things up for them.”
Bronson frowned. “Jack, you know I never question your judgment. But don't you think we are really stepping out on the ragged edge on this one?”
“No more than we already are. We are completely out in the cold now. All our government contacts are cut, and we have to make damn sure to keep it that way. Somehow, Jonathan Riles managed to limit knowledge of our involvement to a group that apparently only included himself and David Kurtz.
“If that knowledge hadn't died with the two of them, you can be very sure we would have already had to deal with people sent to make us just as dead. Whoever betrayed Jonathan has to know that Riles had a special field team deployed, but they will assume the team will be doing its best to disappear.”
Bronson shook his head. “Which sounds like a damn good plan to me.”
“Maybe so, but we aren't going to be that cooperative.”
Bobby Daniels, a tall, lanky man with a head as bald as a cue ball, stepped out of the shadows near the window. “I'm game, as always, Jack. We can't live forever.”
Seeing Jack staring at him, Bronson shrugged. “Of course I'm with you. Just thought I'd offer you one last chance to take the easy way out.”
“I'd rather be the hunter than the hunted,” Jack said. “And I want that body.”
Leaning over the table with the one to fifty-thousand scale military maps of the target area spread across it, Jack stuck a pin in a spot on the highway, sticking two others at locations where the terrain contours indicated that line of sight back to the first point terminated.
“Bobby, you'll wait right here, just at this bend in the highway, about a half mile before the ambush point. Bronson, you’ll take the other spot, blocking the highway approach from the opposite side. Remember, when Bobby gives the signal, it'll take between thirty and forty-five seconds before the truck reaches me and you hear me take it down. There shouldn't be much traffic there that time of night, but if there is, you get it stopped.”
“And if a car is too tight to the truck and makes it through before I can get the police detour set up?” Bobby asked.
“I'll deal with that on my end. Let's hope it doesn't come to that though.”
Turning to Janet, Jack continued. “How's the Abdul Aziz recording coming?”
“I've still got about an hour's work left to do. I have the available recordings of his voice, and I'm using as many of his natural phrasings as possible. But for part of it I have to synthesize the vocal patterns in order to create the extra words we need and to keep a natural sounding sequence. By the time I route it through the disposable cell phone, the best analysts in the business won't be able to say for sure whether or not it was manipulated.”
“That's good because even the local nine-one-one operations record everything. And we damn sure want the call recorded.”
“And the chopper?” Bobby asked.
“I'll be appropriating one of the forest service birds from the site just outside Taos. Janet and I will be in it. You two get your hands on a couple of fast dirt bikes.
“Remember, you are going to keep the road blocked for exactly five minutes while Janet and I deal with the truck and its contents. After that, haul ass along this dirt road to the rendezvous point. Dump the bikes into the canyon. We'll be waiting with the chopper in this clearing right here.”
Jack straightened up, handing a marked copy of the map to each of them. “Any questions?”
“Just the usual.” Bronson's cocky grin had returned. “How'd I get so good-looking?”
“Just don't be late,” said Jack. “We'll give you fifteen minutes to reach us before we leave.”
“Wouldn't think of it,” said Bronson as he and Bobby turned to the door.
As soon as the other two had left the house, Jack walked to the closet and retrieved a large box full of personal effects and other items of interest that they had purloined from Carlton “Priest” Williams' house. Two large files of information on Jack and Janet Johnson were among the contents, but it was not these that attracted Jack's attention.
Finding what he was looking for, Jack held up a skull-shaped key ring.
“I think it's time we paid one more visit to Priest's old haunt.”
Janet nodded, her right hand subconsciously checking the Heckler & Koch 9mm Compact strapped beneath her left armpit. The Los Alamos high country was about to heat up.