Part 16 (2/2)
Cross listened closely, taking it all in. Then he whispered back: ”This ... thing, it's not new. Been around since forever, like you said. Signature kills, but all over the globe, so it can't be any single one of ... whatever the h.e.l.l they are.
”No pictures. No forensics. And no survivor testimony, either. When they hit, whoever's around that they don't kill, those people never see anything. No game-they actually don't see anything.
”But I already might know something, something you might want to throw into those computers of yours. There was a three-man kill in here just a little while ago. All in the same crew. All blacks, all sitting together. One of them, guy named Camden, he wasn't touched. But he didn't see anything. And, you know what? I believe that.
”What a sucker you all turned me into, huh? None of you have ever managed to even see one of them, never mind kill one for the autopsy table. And I'm supposed to capture one alive?”
”That's what Blondie wants,” Tiger corrected him. ”He thinks interrogation is the only way we'll ever find out whoever they are. And why they're doing what they do.”
”You trust him?”
”Get real. We all know his backup plan is not leaving witnesses. But he's the only way Tracker and I could get a shot at the vengeance we swore. We're outsiders ... like you.”
”Didn't you say there's a rumor that a couple of them did get killed?”
”Yeah, but, like I also said, we don't have any idea if it's true. There was a report out of Africa, claimed two of them took an anti-tank round dead-center, blew them into little pieces. But, whoever they are, they always come for their dead, and they come fast. All we have is that one radio transmission. By the time a team got to the spot, it was nothing but fried earth.”
”What else?”
”They're hunters, that's all we really know. And they only seem to hunt hunters, if that makes any sense.”
”Maybe it does. But I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what kind of sense it could make.”
”I know. It's not like anyone was hunting them. All we can figure is that this is like what would have happened if some UFO dropped down and rescued the Roman gladiators. But it rescued them too late-the gladiators had too much blood in their mouths to spit it out, use a toothbrush, and start over again as regular people.
”It's not like they took a vote and decided fighting was more fun than farming. It's like they were ... transformed into something. And killing, that's just ... that's just what they do, you know?”
”You sound like you don't hate them.”
”Why would I?”
”Then, if they just do it because that's what they are, why are you and Tracker going after them?”
”Because that's what we do,” Tiger said.
Cross lit a cigarette. ”They really came to the right place this time, huh? They want human-hunters, this joint's full of them.”
”I know. We figure that's why they hit that serial-killer freak....”
”Yeah ...” Cross mused. Then snapped his fingers. ”Maybe that's it.”
”What?”
”There's been a couple of their kills in here. On the surface, they look the same as all the others. But on two of them, they let someone go, let them just walk away, like that Camden guy I told you about. They gave the same kind of pa.s.s to some white kid, too.”
”Oh, both of them got interrogated, trust me,” Tiger says. ”Blondie pulled them right out of this place. But they don't even remember being where it happened, never mind seeing anything. And that squares with other stuff we have. Like doing their number on a whole safari, but letting the natives go. Still, even that much, it's only talk.”
”The stuff in here wasn't talk,” Cross told her. ”That white kid was about to be raped. Camden, the black guy, I'm not sure what the deal with him was, but the grapevine says he's innocent, shouldn't even be here in the first place. And his charge was rape. How could this ... thing tell if a man was innocent?”
”Maybe they can smell it or something,” Tiger guessed. ”Maybe that's why dogs can smell them, I don't know. But whatever they are, they're not animals. At least not any animal anyone's heard of. It's like they kill for some reason, only we don't know what that could be. Maybe it's a ... game or something, like that big-bucks consultant told us. And if all they count are the hardest targets, what's harder than humans?”
”Yeah,” Cross thought aloud. ”But if a killer's kills belong to whoever kills him, maybe the goal was to get the highest body count.”
”So killing a serial killer-?”
”You're sure it's set up with Nyati?” Cross cut her off. He knew that, even with greasing the guards, surveillance was extra-high, and the warning knock on the door was going to come soon.
”Yes. But confirm over the transmitter first.”
”Sure. But tell your team there isn't a whole lot of time left. Whoever they are, whatever they are, they've been going through this joint like pigs on pie.”
NIGHT FOUND Cross lying on his bunk, eyes closed, the earplug from his inst.i.tutional radio inserted. Not an uncommon sight: a lot of cons used their radios as noise-blockers to let them sleep.
Behind his eyelids, Cross watched the limousine carrying the toadish man drive away. And saw the explosion that followed. His mind was working the logic string, doing the death-math.
Maybe they were there. Right in the middle of the blast. If that's true, we can't kill them no matter what we use. You can't kill ”kill.” But if they can get ... splattered, maybe they have to rea.s.semble before they can work again.
Cross nodded, as if something he suspected had just been verified. He pulled the earplug free and got to his feet. Silently, he twisted the heel off one shoe and removed the wire inside, working in complete darkness.
At the wire's end was a tiny bulb. A closer look would have revealed that the wire itself was divided into several sections, each one no more than a few inches long.
Cross wrapped individual pieces of wire around the base and top of each of the bars in his cell window. He then connected the ends of all the wires into the one anch.o.r.ed by the bulb. He squeezed the bulb and stepped back. A faint hissing sound accompanied the just-released acid as it ran through the hollow wires into the bars.
Less than a minute later, Cross pulled the still-smoking sections of bars away from his cell window. He opened a carton of cigarettes and removed packages of dental floss braided into a thick strand. From the heel of his other shoe, he removed a center-weighted, tri-barbed plastic hook, folded flat. Released from the pressure that had kept it folded, the hook opened fully.
Cross tied one end of the braided floss around his waist, and looped the other around the chain holding his bunk to the wall. Then he reached out the window, supported himself with one hand, and used the other to fling the weighted hook up over his head. It took four attempts before he could feel the hook lock solidly into place.
His next step was to put on his shoes. Pulling at the side of each sole exposed another, much thinner one underneath. Those undersoles were coated with a sticky compound. Climbing gear, originally developed to give second-story men an edge, it had later been perfected by Buddha, to keep the crew ahead in the permanent arms race always running through the underworld.
Cross worked his way up, planting each sole securely, moving without haste. The rooftop was various shades of black: from the shadow-pools just past the rooftop to the faint glow from the surrounding lights, and the occasional penumbra from the bright swathe cut by tower searchlights.
Cross saw three figures, standing as if they had been waiting for him. He approached with deliberation, hands held away from his body in the universally understood gesture.
Two black men stepped forward. One carried a heavy shank, the other a much heavier lead pipe.
Cross put his hands up, stood still for their thorough search.
”Clean,” one said.
Nyati stepped forward. ”Take off your s.h.i.+rt,” he said. ”I want to see something for myself.”
Cross obeyed. He didn't move as Nyati used a pencil flash to zero in on the tattoo. ”Yeah. It's exactly like Butch described it.”
Together the two men walked into a pool of total blackness, leaving the other two standing guard.
Nyati faced Cross. ”I told Butch I'd meet with you. One time. There ain't gonna be no more, so say everything you got to say.”
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