Part 15 (2/2)
”Jack is Alex's pilot,” Eva explained to Judd.
They set the backboard on the floor.
Bosa went to stand beside the window.
Judd stepped into the locker room, peeled off the green sweatsuit, and put on his own clothes. Then he hesitated, realizing his hands were shaking. He held them up, empty, and stared at them, the big knuckles, the large palms. His hands were shaking just as they had when he'd had the chance to shoot Chapman and decided not to. But this time he had given himself no time to reconsider.
Shaking his head, he b.u.t.toned his peacoat and strode back into the hall.
Eva was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Tucker, her head bowed over him as she wiped blood from his face. The entry and exit wounds were leaking now, not flowing. Tucker was motionless as a gravestone.
Judd looked down at them, feeling his love for Eva. He admired the tenderness she showed Tucker, her bravery and daring. There was something about her that connected with something inside him that made it hard for him to be away from her, and painful to be with her.
Bosa opened the door. A cold wind swept in. ”The SUV is in sight,” he announced. ”Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here.”
”Are you going to hunt down Krot after you drop off Tucker?” Judd asked.
”Yes,” Bosa said. ”Want to join me? I could use the help.”
”Tucker believed that whatever was going on with you and the other a.s.sa.s.sins had to be about more than an ancient tablet,” Judd told him. ”Was he right?”
”Of course.”
”I'll make you a deal like the one you made Eli Eichel,” Judd decided. ”Fill me in completely, and I'll go with you.”
Bosa crouched to pick up his end of the makes.h.i.+ft stretcher. ”Agreed.”
Judd crouched over his end. ”To Marrakech?”
”To Marrakech,” Bosa confirmed.
Carrying Tucker, the men went out into the bitter cold.
KROT.
For secret a.s.sa.s.sination ... the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it ... is only casually investigated.
-CIA a.s.sa.s.sination Manual, 1954
39.
The night wind numbed Eva's cheeks and burned her nose. To the north, the parking lights of the Carnivore's plane glowed across the snow. The SUV arrived, white clouds of steam billowing from its tailpipe.
As ch.o.r.eographed as a ballet, Bosa's two men-the driver and a pa.s.senger-jumped out of the vehicle, opened the tailgate, slid the boards holding Tucker inside, and closed up. The driver and Bosa sat in front, while Eva and Judd took the bench seat behind them. In the far back was Bosa's second man, checking Tucker.
All of this was accomplished in less than sixty seconds.
About Bosa's age, the two men were bundled in thick coats and armed with AK-47s. Bosa, Judd, and Eva still had their M4s.
The driver threw the SUV into gear, hit the accelerator, and the vehicle rushed off. He glanced at Bosa, who sat beside him. ”Christ, Alex. You really can pick 'em. That was one h.e.l.l of a hike from the plane to the garage. We sweltered in the heat.”
”Sure you did.” Bosa waved a hand from the driver back to Judd and Eva. ”This malcontent is George Russell.”
His eyes on the driveway, George spoke over his shoulder: ”Good to meet you.” He had a muscular face and gave off of a sense of restlessness, a man who liked to be working his body, on the move.
Bosa indicated the man who was examining Tucker's wound. ”And this is Doug Kennedy.”
Doug peered up briefly and nodded. A gray-streaked brown ponytail dangled from beneath his black watch cap. He had a high forehead, wore nickel-rimmed eyegla.s.ses, and shot them a warm smile.
As they drove past the garage, Judd told Bosa, ”I left my cuneiform pieces in a delivery van we hid in the trees. We need to go back to get them.”
”You mean the ones you put inside the bottle of ice?”
Judd did not change his expression. ”So you found them.”
”I couldn't figure out why you'd be carrying it around, so I turned on the engine and melted the ice. Not too bad a hiding place. Found this in the delivery van, too.” He gave Judd his backpack.
”How did you get onto Chapman's property?” Judd asked. He went through the backpack. All of his belongings were there.
”One of my compadres discovered a map from the 1950s. It showed a concrete culvert. For some reason, the culvert fell out of use, and over the decades nature hid it. So I simply located it again. Not hard, with a GPS.”
The SUV hurtled into the parking lot and accelerated across it.
Eva had been watching Doug inspect Tucker. Deathly pale, Tucker's skin resembled crepe paper, an old man's skin. His slender body was limp, fragile-looking.
”How is he?” she asked anxiously.
”I've been palpating his skull to check for instability, and it feels normal.” Doug reached inside a bag near his feet and took out two sterile packets. He ripped one open. ”His facial bones seem stable, too.” He applied a bandage to the front of Tucker's head and another to the back. ”Has he said anything or moved?”
”No.” Eva's throat tightened.
”He's breathing on his own, and there's no drainage from the ears, nose, or eyes. Both are good signs.”
”I've heard that ninety percent of gunshot wounds to the head are fatal,” she said evenly. ”Is that true?”
”Yes, but that doesn't mean Tucker isn't going to be among the ten percent who survive.”
They were silent. Moonlight shone through the window, illuminating Judd's face as he peered off into the distance. She found herself studying his intensity, the bunched muscles in his jaw, the steady gaze. The cold had made his skin ruddy, deepening the fine lines on his forehead and around his eyes, too many lines for a thirty-four-year-old, but they were earned, and she liked that. She liked the thick unruliness of his hair, and his hazel eyes-they could be brown one moment and blue the next. Now his face was like marble, hard, emotionless, but when he allowed himself, it softened and she could see a gentle man, a man who was unafraid of himself. She liked that complexity, but the man she saw gun down Martin Chapman was new to her, and she did not know yet what to think of him.
”What sort of evidence does Bridgeman have against Tucker?” she asked.
<script>