Trophies (28 page)

I sidled inside, back to the wall, and eased
the door closed behind me. Through the pulse pounding in my ears, I
tried to listen. But nothing short of the neighbor's stereo could
penetrate that internal jungle drumbeat. In front of me, the
drawers in the hall table yawned open. All the little odds and ends
in there were shuffled, but at least weren't on the floor. My pulse
slowed, quieted. This seemed another deliberate search, not a
ravishing of my personal space; a hunt, not a rape. And for some
reason I couldn't pinpoint — perhaps the stuff's settled appearance
— it seemed stale, done a day or more ago and abandoned.

I played it safe, though, and followed our
urban assault training, keeping close to the wall when I rounded
into the living room and ducking down below waist height so if
anyone shot for the center of mass, he'd miss high. No ammunition
flew my way, so I breathed a tad easier.

The first quick, sweeping glance showed my
lovely white living room in controlled chaos. The sofa was tumbled,
its upholstery removed, and the cover of each cushion was unzipped,
all of them piled atop the coffee table. The white swag draperies
lay across the overturned sofa, exposing the French doors of
one-way glass to the balcony. The old videos formed a careful
pyramid on the floor, beside the books. The back was off the
television and the shells off the VCR and DVD players.

I crawled through the kitchen, bedroom, bath,
and study. It was the same in each room. Anything large enough to
serve as a hiding place was stripped down to its component pieces
and left that way. But nothing was deliberately damaged, not even
the ivy in the bathroom, although a residue of dirt coated the sink
from where the plant had been removed from its pot then
replaced.

Most importantly, all the weapons were still
in the gun case in my study, the ammunition drawer gaping beneath
them and the boxes of shells opened on the carpet but not spilled.
And the false bottom to that drawer, where I kept my trophies,
wasn't closed properly.

It would be a job cleaning up. But it could
have been much worse. I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to
the front door. Patricia and Lindsay hadn't listened to my orders
and they crowded together at the far edge of the landing. Patricia
clutched her cell phone to her ear.

"Well?" Her voice hadn't dropped.

"That's Sherlock?"

She nodded. Tension radiated from her in a
shivery stream and her eyes were white-rimmed like a startled
filly's.

"The place has been searched, but there's no
one here and I don't think anything's been taken, not even the
weapons."

She repeated this into the phone, then
listened. "He asks if this is a professional job."

I took the phone. "Yes, boss, it's a
professional job, but it's the oddest one I've ever seen. Someone
searched every hiding place I have and showed me a few new ones.
But nothing's damaged. I mean, he removed the cloth covering from
the box springs, but didn't rip it. And the sheets are folded in
the corner."

He was quiet for such a long moment, I
checked to ensure we were still connected. "Humph," he finally
said. "That's a corker, that is." He paused. "You okay?"

"Of course. Why ask?"

"Is there anything there that can't sit for a
day or two?"

"No. He even watered the ivy. After he
repotted it."

"Damn." Again he paused. "Well, then, let's
let it sit. Grab what we came for and let's get back to your new
digs. Caren waits and I want her alone no longer."

"Especially now." I rang off and handed the
phone back to Patricia. "Come in, then, but don't touch anything.
Keep to the middle of the hallway."

In the bedroom, I pulled the computer's
bright red carrying case from the bottom of the closet and handed
it to Patricia. "Stuff the Mac in that."

She stared. "The casing is off your
laptop."

"And he might have taken each little bit
apart, then put it back where it belonged but perhaps didn't screw
it down. So be careful." I grabbed a backpack and returned to the
study.

Lindsay followed me. I was about to shoo her
out when I noticed she stood in the middle of the room and kept her
hands by her sides.

"All those yours?" She stared at the gun
case.

"Every one of them." The case was unlocked,
which was not how I'd left it. I lifted out the Mauser SR-93 rifle
of infamous past, a sleek killing machine with an old Russian PSO-1
telescopic sight and a nick atop the stock from a machine-gun
round. The bolt ratcheted open smoothly and the firing pin was
intact. The M-16A4, clumsy by comparison but handy in a tight spot,
hadn't been compromised, either. Baffled, I stared at the case,
then around at the room. For an in-depth search of one's home, this
was almost respectful.

"What?" Lindsay asked.

"This is just unbelievable. I've never seen
nor heard of anything like this."

She shuffled her feet, just as I do when
confronted. "I'm sorry, though. Trés once trashed my room and I
hated it."

I looked at her. "What did you do in
return?"

She shrugged. "Creamed him."

And Trés two years her senior and male to
boot. Why wasn't I surprised? "Look, go help Patricia, will you?
Make certain she doesn't leave the power cords or something. I
don't know how computer literate she is."

"You don't know how computer literate I am,
either." But she did leave.

I left the rifles in the relocked case but
took my old Gold Cup Match .45, a twin to Sherlock's cannon, in
case we needed additional heavy artillery; the "Spandau" Luger P-08
from the First World War, which was simple to operate and could be
effectively used by anyone; and, for Bonnie, my Walther PPK, the
weapon Ian Fleming preferred for the original James Bond
novels.

To keep Sherlock happy, I threw in enough
ammunition and magazines to choke an elephant. I also took the time
to don another hidden holster inside the front of my fatigue pants
and installed the Colt, now loaded, in its place, even if it would
make me nervous sitting down.

The women still fussed with the computer, so
I opened the false bottom to the ammunition drawer, scooped out my
trophies without looking, and dropped them in the backpack, too,
then zipped it closed and left my brown study. I couldn't help but
wonder when I'd return.

Patricia zipped the red canvas case on the
MacBook Pro as I entered the bedroom. "All ready."

I shrugged the case's handle over my right
shoulder atop the backpack; I felt better but not yet good enough
to want to carry anything with my left arm. "Remember, this is my
condo and I can leave fingerprints with impunity. You two, touch as
little as possible, especially you." I pointed at Lindsay.

"What do you care?" She led the way to the
front door. "I mean, do you intend to tell the police about
this?"

Patricia jostled me from behind. "What have
you been telling her?"

"The truth." I paused and glanced back at
her. "For once."

From the look she gave me, I could have left
off that last bit.

I set the bags down to lock the door behind
us, despite thoughts of stable doors and absent horses. No sense
bothering with the alarm.

At the top of the stairs going down, I paused
and glanced, deliberately casually, around the visitors' parking
lot. The Impala was parked out on the street. Most of my neighbor's
cars weren't yet in from work — we were going to be caught in
rush-hour traffic heading back to Cambridge — and the Camaro was
conspicuous among the few cars there.

So was the Suburban, backed into a space on
the far side of the lot, behind the management company's sign. It
hadn't been there when we went inside. It was a recent model, gold
in color, with a luggage rack and running boards. Even from that
distance, the passenger side was clearly crumpled and crudely
repaired, transparent plastic sheeting across the window. And
Sherlock would have to force that little sports car past it to
escape.

I stepped back from the stairs. Adrenaline
roared through me, so high I could taste its bitter edge. My heart
sought to explode from my chest and I couldn't contain my
breathing. Time slowed to a crawl, as if I forced a path through a
jungle of nerves and ganglions.

I reached for my cell phone to ring Sherlock.
But surely he'd already seen it. And we were in plain sight. I let
my hand drop.

The civilians stared at me, Lindsay with open
curiosity but neither alarm nor understanding. Patricia's eyes were
wide and getting wider, her lips parted and her hair drooping
behind her ears. Doubtful they'd seen it yet. I had to keep this
peaceful. But no matter how hard I wrestled for focus, this time my
thoughts refused to follow a straight path; they insisted on
flitting about; but my options were limited. There was only one
plan that made sense.

No matter what, I had to protect my
girls.

"Charles?" Patricia's voice rose again.

I handed her the backpack and Lindsay the red
computer case. If we survived, my favorite mouse could brutalize me
later for making her carry the guns. "Take these down to the car,
would you?" I kept my voice as casual as I could with my pulse
about to spray out of my ears. "Have Sherlock get out and help you
put them in the trunk."

The .45 in my hidden holster no longer made
me nervous at all. If the Suburban budged before they escaped
across the lot to safety, I'd use it. I'd conquered enough
stressful situations over the past day and a half to know my hands
wouldn't start shaking until it was over; until then, I'd hold
myself together and give them a field of covering fire.

What might happen after that, I couldn't
begin to guess. The pounding in my ears, in my veins and soul and
stabbing now into my brain, this time was reaching an entirely new
order of magnitude. This time, it was bad.

Lindsay started to say something but Patricia
cut her off. "Come on, Lindsay."

I stood on the landing, clutching the railing
with one quivering hand, the other resting on my belt buckle beside
the .45's grip, and watched their progress across the lot. Sherlock
knew me; he'd figure out something was wrong.

He did. Before they reached the Camaro, he
climbed out. The scars on his face, bright as the computer case
Lindsay carried, were visible across the parking lot in the July
sunlight. He stared at me — his cobra stare? I didn't doubt it —
then walked about the car to the trunk. For once I blessed his
uncanny instincts — well, for once they worked to my advantage —
and I started down the stairs.

Across the lot, the Suburban's engine snarled
as soon as my foot hit the first stair. Sherlock glanced up. For a
long moment he stood motionless, the remote in his hand. Then he
popped the trunk open, took the case from Lindsay, stowed it
inside, and shut the lid. As I reached the foot of the stairs, he
herded the women into the back seat, handed the backpack to
Patricia, and shut the door.

I dropped off the last stair and stepped onto
the lot. The Suburban crawled toward me at a walking pace. There
was no cover here, nothing to duck behind and no tree to climb,
just a big flat open expanse of ugly concrete as naked as the moon.
The only cover I had was Sherlock, armed and dangerous as he was,
but his location was too near the women inside the car for my
comfort. In my soul, I willed him to draw that cannon he loved so
much and most importantly, to step away from the Camaro.

But Sherlock stood motionless. The shock hit
me so hard, it was almost a physical blow: he wasn't even looking
at me, nor at the Suburban, but seemed mesmerized by the Impala as
it slid from its parking spot on the empty back street and
accelerated away. If he ignored my predicament, I had no cover
whatsoever. It was just me against the machine. Again. Like Aunt
Edith, I had to run the gauntlet to reach safety.

The Suburban seemed bigger than ever as it
crawled across the lot. The radiator grille looked like teeth. It
looked hungry. I couldn't force my hand to the holster. At some
point I'd quit walking but hadn't noticed. Sunsparks flashed from
the windscreen—

—I ignored the background
crump
of
artillery fire and panned the rifle's scope along the enemy
emplacement, atop the ridge overlooking our sandbagged trench.
Beneath the camouflage netting and wilting tree branches I made out
one big field gun with its muzzle recoiling, another, a third—

—the enemy spotter stood contemptuously in
full view, binoculars to his eyes, gazing off to my left but
sweeping this way. The rangefinder showed the distance at eight
hundred meters. I set the elevation turret and aligned the sight's
upper chevron on his center of mass, drifting aside by one hash
mark to compensate for the gentle flow of air across my right
cheek. Binocular lenses flashed sunsparks. His lips moved as I took
up the initial pressure on the trigger—

—a line of machine-gun fire stitched across
the sandbags below my perch. Whines ended in hard thuds, felt more
than heard. Dark dust puffed out and billowed in the breeze, into
my face, carrying the acrid tang of gunpowder. I recoiled, jerking
the Mauser to my chest like a shield. Behind me Sherlock swore and
someone screamed, a shrill sound that went on and on and on—

—the dust and gunpowder caught at the back of
my throat. My innards contracted at the piercing smell of blood.
Had I been hit? I felt nothing, but they say it sometimes happens
that way. On the ridge, the machine gun chattered again. The
spotter, my intended target, had spotted us and his gunners were
getting our range—

—it was my job to protect the troops. I threw
myself atop the sandbag and raised the Mauser, locating the spotter
through the scope within seconds, and he lowered the binoculars and
stared right back at me, lips moving. Again the guns rattled—