Nest

  As was so often the case, they were not coming to the rescue. They were coming to the aftermath, after the murdering was over and done with. That chilling realization only added to the things that Jack had said, as well as what the sifu had once told her. She shouldn’t depend on anyone coming to help her.

  Flashing lights strobed off tree branches and houses in every direction as the police cars and ambulances raced in. Kate saw a number of people in the distance come out on their front porches to see what the commotion was all about. Fortunately, the distraction of all the flashing lights left Jack and Kate in the obscurity of darkness, and in the opposite direction from the sirens that everyone’s attention was focused on.

  With such a large police response it was only a matter of time before the body of the killer would be found. Forensic evidence, especially blood evidence and DNA, would show him to be the killer. Although they would have no idea how the killer had met his fate, the crimes at the Janek home would be solved.

  But those murders were over and done. The killer hadn’t been stopped beforehand. While it served justice that the killer would be identified, AJ and her family were gone forever; their lives, their world, had ended.

  That thought brought home the significance of what AJ had been doing with John and then with Kate—stopping killings before they could happen. AJ had done that work secretly because such methods would not be officially tolerated. Jack had gone to Israel because those methods would not be officially tolerated. What had happened, had happened to the one person who had been trying to stop these killers.

  Kate knew that she would remember the horrifying murder scene in AJ’s house for as long as she lived. Kate thought that most of those officers who were about to discover it would never forget it, either. A police officer shot in the line of duty was tragic enough, and dead was dead no matter how it happened, but for an officer and her family to be slaughtered in such a gruesome fashion would be viewed on an entirely different level. In a way, it shook the very foundations of law and order, exposing the barbarism that was leaking through the crumbling veneer of civilization.

  Expanding rules and regulations aimed to deny reality. Officials hid comfortably behind those regulations. AJ had instead found consolation in finding a way to stop killers.

  AJ had been interested in protecting her, but the police would not have been so understanding. They didn’t know her the way AJ had. They didn’t know anything about her.

  Jack was the only one who truly understood what was going on and the danger she was in. Kate didn’t even grasp the whole picture, but Jack did. Jack had been the one who was there to help keep her alive. He was the only one who could keep her alive. She was beginning to see his wisdom in getting them away from the scene and staying off the police radar.

  “Why don’t you let me drive,” Jack said. “I don’t think you’re up to it at the moment.”

  “I think you’re right,” Kate admitted as he opened the passenger door for her and let her get in. She noticed for the first time that her hands were bloody. Some of it was from cuts on her hands, but she knew that a lot of it was from the man who had been trying to kill her.

  Once Jack got in and closed the driver’s door, he watched the cross street as ambulances raced by.

  Just then, a man suddenly appeared at the driver’s side of the car. With the light behind him, Kate couldn’t see who he was. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. She didn’t know if he was a cop or maybe a neighbor. Her immediate thought was that he was someone who had seen Jack kill the man and then the two of them go through his pockets, and thought it was a robbery.

  And then the man tapped on the driver’s window with something metallic.

  Kate saw that it was a gun barrel.

  “I saw what you did,” the man’s muffled voice said as he stood outside the car, pointing the gun in at Jack.

  Kate’s heart felt like it had jumped up in her throat.

  The man gestured with a tilt of his head. “I saw what you did to that man back there. I saw you rob him. Now get out of the car and put your hands up.” He leaned down a little and pointed the gun at Kate. “Both of you.”

  Jack already had his hands up. Kate followed his example, holding her hands up where the man could see them.

  “All right,” Jack called out, sounding compliant. “We don’t want any trouble. Take it easy. I’m getting out.”

  With a quick look over at her, Jack whispered, “Stay where you are.”

  Jack kept his left hand in the air as he unlocked the doors and then leaned over and popped open the driver’s door with his right hand. He looked and acted like any terrified victim of a mugging at gunpoint. Looking confident, the man waved the gun, directing him to get out.

  Kate heard a soft, metallic click.

  As Jack carefully pushed the car door open so as not to startle the man with the gun, it forced the man to step back a little to make room. As Jack rose up out of the seat to step out, and as if reaching for the edge of the side window like he meant to close the door, in one smooth motion he instead took hold of the gun hand of the man and twisted it sharply inward.

  The man cried out from the sudden pain of having his hand turned inward in a way it wasn’t meant to bend. He leaned toward the right as his hand was being twisted inward.

  At the same time, before the man had a chance to struggle, Jack calmly swiped something along the exposed left side of the man’s neck.

  Jack stood quietly, holding the man by his bent wrist to keep him from being able to move, to point the gun at them, or put up a fight. The man’s free hand went to his neck as he started to sag. Kate knew that with the way his hand was bent, if he resisted Jack could easily break the man’s wrist.

  Kate saw great gouts of blood pumping out between the man’s fingers as he held the hand against the side of his throat. His knees buckled.

  A few seconds more, and he had slumped quietly to the ground.

  Kate sprang out of the car and ran around the front. “What in the world did you do? The guy was probably an innocent bystander who saw us picking the dead man’s pockets.”

  By the time Kate knelt down beside the man, she could see that he was no longer breathing.

  Still holding the man’s gun hand back, Jack clicked on his little flashlight, shining it at the man’s face.

  “Look at his eyes, Kate. Look at his eyes and tell me if you think he’s just some innocent witness.”

  With a finger on his chin, Kate turned the man’s head toward her a little so she could see his eyes. The blood that had been gushing out in spurts only moments before had slowed until it merely oozed. She knew that his heart had stopped.

  The man’s eyes were open. The sight of those eyes gave Kate an icy jolt of fear.

  They were the eyes of a killer.

  She looked up at Jack as he clicked off his flashlight. “What in the world …”

  “Like I said, it’s not over.”

  “You mean he was with that other man? How did you know he wasn’t just some innocent witness who saw you kill that other guy and go through his pockets?”

  “Experience, the way he moved, the look on his face, the way he held the gun. I can’t see in his eyes what you can see, but looking up at him made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Doesn’t that ever happen to you?”

  “Yes,” she said, “as a matter of fact it does.”

  Jack had just killed two men, swiftly, and with a minimum of fuss. With the second man, he hadn’t even looked like he was trying. It seemed as if he had done nothing more than step out of the car and hold the man’s hand, helping to ease him to the ground.

  Kate now understood what she had seen the first moment she had looked into Jack’s eyes. If she had killed the first man, when she looked into a mirror would she see the same thing in her own eyes that she saw in Jack’s?

  Jack was already going through the man’s pockets. He pocketed a few items and then stood in a rush.

  “We’ve
already spent too much time here. Let’s get going.”

  Kate gestured down at the dead man lying at the curb. “Where did he come from? What’s going on? Was he working with the other one?”

  “Now is not the time. We need to leave. Get in the car, Kate.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  Jack pulled away from the curb in a relaxed manner, as if he were just going out to the store to get a few groceries. Kate knew that with all the police cars descending on the neighborhood, he was trying to maintain a low profile and not attract attention. The police would soon have the entire area cordoned off as they started frantically looking for the killer. She knew that Jack wanted to be gone before they were caught up in that net.

  Kate understood his reasons, but she couldn’t help having mixed feelings. It went against the grain of how she had been raised, how she lived her life, and how she always tried to be completely professional in her job.

  She realized that she didn’t know where they were going; he seemed to be simply driving, simply covering ground to get out of the area.

  “We can go to my house,” she suggested.

  “No, we can’t.”

  “But we should be safe there, now.”

  “I wish it were that easy, but it isn’t. For now it’s too dangerous to go to your place. Are you forgetting the second guy who showed up out of the blue? The first guy you knew was looking for you. He killed your brother and came looking to kill you. You didn’t realize there was a second man hunting you. You don’t know who else might be hunting you. If there are others, and there will be, they will look for you at your house.”

  “I don’t understand. Who was that second man? There was just one person John hit over the head and chained in his basement, and that’s the guy who killed him. That guy had my photos. So who is the second guy? Who are these other people you’re talking about?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Kate’s head and neck were throbbing in pain. She was rattled and losing her patience. “What’s complicated?”

  Jack glanced over at her after going around a corner toward a main street. “I’ll need a computer to show you.”

  “I brought my computer. It’s in my carry-on bag in the trunk.”

  Jack shook his head. “We can’t use your computer. We need to use a computer that can’t be traced to us.”

  “Traced?” Kate wiped both hands back across her face. “Who would trace it? How would they? You mean you think these predators could somehow track me through my computer?”

  “In this case it’s not the people intent on murder I’m concerned about. The government traces everyone who goes where I need to take you online. We need to use a computer that can’t in any way be linked to either of us.”

  “I sometimes work with the government,” Kate said. “They already know all about me. I have a security clearance. I learned about your work for the Mossad from them. Maybe I could get my contact to help us.”

  Jack shook his head emphatically. “No. This is different.”

  “Why? What is it you need to show me?”

  “I need to take you into the darknet and show you the face of evil.”

  Kate had only vaguely heard about the darknet. Brian had mentioned it in passing once or twice, but she had no idea what it was. As unnerved and shaken as she was, she tried to think of a way that wouldn’t link them to a computer.

  “I’ve heard Brian at work, my computer expert, say that hackers sometimes use college computer labs as a way to use a computer without anyone being able to tie it back to them. Our computers at work are under continual attack. Brian says they sometimes try to hack into KDEX from school computer labs or internet cafés.

  “I think we could bluff our way into a college computer lab. Once we’re in there, we watch when people are about to leave and then I could sweet-talk some guy into letting me get onto a computer before he logs out.”

  “College computer labs are a risky way to do what we need to do. There are too many ways to get caught.”

  “Not if we’re careful.”

  “And how would you explain a surveillance video of us going into a college computer lab? Those places are monitored, and if anyone checks into us for some reason, we have no legitimate excuse for being there. We couldn’t explain what we were doing there.

  “That alone is a big red flag to the police. Once they could see what computer we were on, they would look into what the computer visited. The government would get involved. If you want to stay alive, for now you need to be invisible.”

  Kate couldn’t imagine that Brian didn’t know the best way to be clandestine with the use of a computer. She didn’t know if Jack was just paranoid, or if he had legitimate reasons for his concern. So far all of his warnings had proven well founded.

  “So then what do you suggest?”

  “I have a way that no one will know what we’re doing and it’s a lot simpler,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll show you tomorrow. Right now we need to get you somewhere safe. Do you know a nice motel not too close to here?”

  “Sure. Lots of them.” Kate looked at her bloody hands. Her face hurt in earnest. Her lip was throbbing. “I must look a mess.”

  Jack stole a quick look over at her. “I think you look beautiful, but we do need to get you cleaned up and I need to get a better look at those wounds. They need to be cleaned and treated. We need to get somewhere safe and alone where you can get cleaned up before anyone sees all that blood on you.”

  Kate flipped down the sun visor and opened the lid on the mirror. “Jeez,” she said under her breath at the sight of herself in the mirror. He was right. If anyone saw her the way she looked, they would probably call the police thinking she was an abuse victim.

  Kate pointed off to the right. “Go that way at the intersection.”

  Jack drove for a time in silence. He seemed preoccupied. Kate certainly was. She was still unnerved by how easily, how casually, how quickly Jack had killed the man with the gun. If she hadn’t been paying attention, she would have thought that he was merely getting out of the car and had done nothing more.

  She was even more unnerved by what would have happened had Jack not been there, and that man had her at gunpoint. By the look in his eyes, her fate would have been no better than it would have been in the hands of the first guy.

  Kate stared ahead out the windshield, watching the sparse traffic. “How did you kill that last man so quickly? What did you use to cut him?” she finally asked. “And what was that sound I heard just before?”

  “You heard that?” When she nodded, he said, “Good observation.”

  Jack held up his right fist. She could tell he was holding something, but she couldn’t see it. He flicked his thumb and a blade popped out of his hand as if by magic, accompanied by the soft metallic click she had heard before. The blade wasn’t very long—it was so short it was almost triangular-shaped, kind of like a box-cutter blade, but a little longer. It was the same blade he had put against her throat in her bedroom.

  “Like I told you, inside twenty feet a blade is your best bet.”

  “But it’s so small….”

  “The guy’s dead, isn’t he? It doesn’t take a big blade to cut the carotid artery. That cuts blood to the brain. The person loses consciousness in seconds. Death follows quickly. The fight is over.”

  Kate stared out the window again, feeling a little sick.

  “That’s what you want to teach me?”

  “I want to teach you to stay alive. The world is becoming a treacherous place, Kate. I just want to give you a chance to be safe.”

  She rode in silence for a time before asking him another question. “What are we going to do?”

  “Go to a motel, let you get cleaned up, give you some first aid, and then you need to get some rest.”

  “No, I mean what are we going to do after that. In general. Longer term,” she said, staring out the side window at the dark b
usinesses along the street. “You said the threat isn’t ended. I presume you mean that there will be more men like those coming after me.”

  “I’m afraid so. Has anything else suspicious happened lately?”

  “There was a man arrested near where I work,” she said. “He attacked a woman a few days before I got back to town. He hit her in the side of the face just for the fun of it. She died.

  “When they arrested him, he had a piece of paper in his pocket with my name on it. From his description, he wasn’t that second man. Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s in jail. With everything that’s happened, it seems pretty clear he was coming to kill me as well.

  “That makes three men—that I know of—hunting me. How do I end this? How do I make it stop?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’m sorry, Kate, but I don’t know yet. We need to get more information. Let’s take it one step at a time, okay? Tonight we get you some rest, then tomorrow I need to get onto a computer to find out how serious the threat is in your particular case.”

  “That killer had my photos on him.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s part of the reason I need a computer that can’t be traced to us.”

  There were so many thoughts crashing around in her head that Kate decided she didn’t need any more confusing or frightening things to think about, so she didn’t press him. Instead, she simply gave him directions of where to turn to get them back onto the interstate.

  She figured he wanted to be a good distance from the scene of the murders. The interstate was the best way to cover ground quickly and get them farther away. After a time she finally had him take an exit to a nice motel in a good part of town. He pulled up under the portico and put the car in park.

  “I’ll get us a room.”

  “Us?” Kate gave him a look. “We’re staying in the same room?”

  He looked suddenly embarrassed. “No, I didn’t mean … I’ll get us adjoining rooms, okay?”

  Kate realized that she really didn’t want to be alone. Jack’s calm presence helped her to keep herself under control. She was afraid that if she was left alone she would break down in tears and not be able to stop.