Ripper

  “You put that rifle down, mister, ’less you want me to come take it off of you. Pedro Alarcón told you I’d be coming. I’m Denise West.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” he growled.

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “You got what’s mine?”

  She passed him the envelope that Pedro had given her. The man counted the bills slowly, and when he was satisfied he put two fingers to his mouth and let out a loud whistle. A few moments later two well-built young men arrived, carrying a pair of big canvas sacks, which they dumped unceremoniously in the back of the vehicle. Just as Denise had feared, the truck had sunk into the mud; but the three men didn’t dare refuse her when she told them to get behind it and push.

  Denise got home at dusk, by which time Ryan had carefully packed his gear, just as he used to for his missions as a Navy SEAL. He felt as confident as he did in those days, too—even though he didn’t have his brothers from SEAL Team Six with him, or a choice of forty different weapons. He had memorized the floor plans of Winehaven. The winery had been founded after the 1906 earthquake, when Point Molate was populated only by a handful of Chinese families who fished for shrimp and were quickly evicted. Grapes would arrive on great barges from the vineyards of California, to be processed by more than four hundred permanent workers. They had to produce half a million gallons of wine per month just to quench the immense thirst of the rest of the country. The business was promptly closed down in 1919 on the passage of Prohibition, which would last thirteen years. The fortress lay abandoned for more than twenty years, until the navy converted it into a military base, whose plans Ryan had obtained without difficulty.

  Denise and Ryan hauled the sacks down from the truck and opened them on the terrace. The first contained the frame, the second the hull, of a Klepper kayak—a direct descendant of the canoes used by Inuits. Instead of wood and sealskin, though, its folding hull was made of plastic and aluminum, and covered with waterproof canvas. There was no boat more light, quiet, or practical than that Klepper, which was ideal for Ryan’s purposes—he had often used it in his time in the navy, and in choppier waters than the San Francisco Bay.

  “Pedro sent you this,” Denise said, handing Ryan the packet she had taken from the Uruguayan’s car.

  Inside was a harness for Attila, and the beige cashmere sweater Alan Keller had given to Indiana a few years ago. Pedro had found it in Ryan’s truck and decided to keep hold of it when he got rid of the vehicle, as Ryan had told him to. He had left the truck in a garage, hidden in the abandoned shipyards of Hunter’s Point, where a gang of highly skilled criminals would give it a makeover before selling it in Mexico.

  The time had come to put the sweater to use.

  “You already know what I think of all this,” said Denise.

  “Don’t worry, there’s good visibility.”

  “And quite a wind.”

  “In my favor,” parried Ryan, but he avoided mentioning the possible risks.

  “This is some show you’re putting on, Ryan. Why are you going alone into the Wolf’s mouth? Quite literally, in fact—”

  “Male arrogance, Denise.”

  “You mean you’re a maniac,” she murmured.

  “You don’t get it. The truth of it is, that heartless bastard has Indiana, and the only way of getting her out alive is to take him by surprise, without giving him time to react. There’s no other way.”

  “What if you’re wrong, and your friend isn’t sitting hostage in the winery like you think? Or maybe the Wolf will kill her the moment you come close—if he hasn’t done it already, that is.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Denise. The Wolf is ritualistic: he’s going to wait until midnight, like he did with all the other murders. This is going to be easy.”

  “Compared with what?”

  “He’s a paranoid psychopath working alone, armed with a Taser, some narcotics, poison, and a few arrows. I doubt he can use an air rifle. And come on: the guy dresses as a woman.”

  “Sure, honey, but he’s committed eight murders.”

  At 6:00 p.m., the games master told the Ripper players that they had found the Navy SEAL, and outlined the plan, which was met with enthusiasm by Sir Edmond Paddington, and with doubt by Sherlock Holmes. Abatha was even more incoherent than usual, being psychically whacked out by the strenuous effort of reestablishing telepathic communication with Amanda’s mother. There was some interference, she explained, and the messages she was getting were very vague. In the first few days she had visualized Indiana floating in the sidereal night, and they were able to talk, but Indiana’s spirit was no longer moving freely through space. It was her own fault too, Abatha admitted, or at least the fault of the five hundred calories she had eaten the day before, which had bent her aura out of shape and set her stomach on fire.

  “Your mom is still alive, but she’s getting desperate. In those conditions, I can’t enter her mind.”

  “Is she suffering?”

  “Very much, Master,” replied Abatha, while Amanda could only sob.

  “Have you thought about what will happen if Miller fails?” Esmeralda interrupted.

  For a long minute, nobody replied. Amanda could not consider the possibility of Ryan failing; there would be no second chance. As night closed in, her doubts grew, stoked by her grandfather, who was starting to seriously consider calling up Bob Martín and confessing everything.

  “This is routine stuff for a Navy SEAL,” said Denise West in her role of Jezebel, although her tone lacked conviction.

  “The plan is a good one from a military point of view,” said Paddington firmly. “But it’s risky, and should be monitored from the ground.”

  “Miller’s friend Pedro Alarcón will do that with his cell and a GPS,” Kabel pointed out. “He’ll just be a mile away, ready to intervene. The games master and I will stay in close contact with him.”

  “And how can we help?” asked Esmeralda.

  “Well, you can pray,” said Abatha, “or else send positive energy to Winehaven. I’m going to try again telepathically. I need to tell Amanda’s mom to hang in there and be strong, that help is on the way.”

  The remaining hours of daylight passed at a torturously slow pace for everyone, but especially for Ryan. Through his telescope he watched the fleet of sailboats on the bay, counting the minutes until they would set course for their docks. At nine, when there was no traffic left on the water and the last ferry had left for Vallejo, Denise West dropped him, along with Attila and the kayak, at Sonoma Creek, a tributary of the Napa River. It was a starless night, but with a full moon—a brilliant disc of pure silver rising slowly over the hills in the east. She helped him get the kayak into the water and then said an unemotional farewell, wishing him luck. She had already told him what she thought about his plan. The Navy SEAL felt well prepared: he had a Glock .45 semiautomatic, the best possible handgun for this mission. He had more lethal weapons hanging on the wall of his loft, but he didn’t miss them; none would have been as much use as the Glock for rescuing Indiana. He also had his KA-BAR service knife—the same model that had been used since World War II—and his standard-issue first-aid pouch, more out of superstition than anything else, since a tourniquet had stopped him bleeding to death in Iraq (Attila did the rest). He had asked Denise to buy the best night-vision goggles on the market, costing a mere thousand dollars—he would depend on them entirely once he was inside Winehaven. He’d dressed all in black—trousers, T-shirt, sweatshirt, and shoes—and smeared his face with black boot polish. In the darkness, he was all but invisible.

  He had calculated that if he rowed at a speed of four to five knots, it would take him a few hours to cross to Point Molate. That left him a good margin before midnight. He trusted in the strength of his muscles, his experience as an oarsman, and his knowledge of the bay. Pedro had inspected the surroundings of Winehaven and warned him that there was no beach or pier, that he would have to climb a rock face to get to the property, but it wasn’t
too steep, and he thought Attila could do it too, even in the darkness. Once inside the old winery, he would have to move quickly and stealthily or he would lose his advantage.

  He went through the plans of Winehaven again in his head as he paddled the calm waters of the strait. Sitting in the bow of the kayak, upright and attentive, Attila scanned the horizon like any good sailor would.

  Fifteen minutes later, the kayak was entering the San Pablo Bay and heading south. Ryan needed no compass: he oriented himself by the faraway lights of the shores on both sides and the navigation buoys that marked the routes for ships and tankers. The kayak could move through shallow waters, which would allow him to carve out a direct route to Point Molate without fear of running aground, which is what would have happened with his motorboat. The day’s pleasant breeze had become a north wind, and it was at his back, although that was of no help to Ryan; because the tide was coming up strong with the full moon, and the wind cut against the direction of the water, stirring it up into waves. As a result he had to paddle harder than that stretch of water would normally have required. The only other vessel he saw for the whole of the next hour was a cargo ship heading toward the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean.

  Ryan was unable to see the pair of rocky outcrops peppered with gulls’ nests that marked the point where the San Pablo Bay gave way to the San Francisco Bay, but he intuited where they were because the waters were even choppier. Continuing a little farther, he saw before him the lights of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, which seemed much closer than they in fact were and which he would use to orient himself, and the glow of the old lighthouse on one of the two Brothers islands, which had become a boutique hotel for adventurous tourists. Winehaven would lie to his left a little before he got to the bridge, and as there were no lights, he would have to stick close to the shore so as not to overshoot. He carried on paddling into the waves, indifferent to the strain on the muscles of his arms and back, the steady rhythm of his oar strokes never faltering. He only stopped once or twice to wipe off some of the sweat soaking his clothes and to drink a bottle of water. “We’re doing good, boy,” he assured Attila.

  The SEAL felt the familiar heightened state that comes before a fight. When he said good-bye to Denise West, he had given up any illusion that he was in control of his circumstances or that he had foreseen all the possible risks. A battle-hardened soldier, he knew that escaping a combat situation unharmed was a matter of luck, and that the most highly trained fighter can be killed in an instant by a stray bullet. During all his years at war, he’d been aware that he could be injured or killed at any moment; he woke up grateful every morning, and at night he bedded down prepared for the worst. But this was not the high-tech, abstract, impersonal sort of war he was used to: this would be a brief skirmish, an idea that increased his excitement and anxiety. He wished for it now—he wanted to see the Wolf face-to-face. He was not afraid of him. In fact, there was no civilian he feared. He could not have been better prepared. He had kept in good shape, and that night he would be facing a man on his own—he was sure of that, because no serial killer ever uses accomplices. The Wolf was like something out of a storybook—he was absurd, deranged, and certainly no match for a Navy SEAL. “D’you think I’m underestimating the enemy, Attila? Sometimes I get too proud, too arrogant.” The dog didn’t hear him, but stayed rigidly in his position, his one eye fixed on their goal. “You’re right, buddy, I’m getting distracted.” He focused on the present—on the water, on the rhythm of his arms, on the plan of Winehaven, on the luminous dial of his watch. He did not think about the engagement, or run through the risks again, or recall his brothers from SEAL Team Six, or consider the possibility that Indiana was not in the air-raid shelter. He needed to get Indiana out of his head: distraction could be fatal.

  The moon was already high when Ryan brought the kayak up in front of Winehaven—a hulking mass of brick with thick walls, turrets, and crenellated parapets. It looked like a castle transplanted from the fourteenth century into the placid San Francisco Bay, and in the soft white glow of the moon it had a gloomy, ominous look. It was built on the hillside, so from where Ryan stood, the facade looked twice its real height. The main entrance, on the side where the road was, went straight on to the second floor. There was one floor above that, another below, and the basement.

  Ryan jumped into the water, which came up to his chest, and tied the fragile vessel to a rock before taking out his weapon, his ammunition, and the rest of his equipment. He put on his sneakers, which had been tied around his neck, signaled for Attila to follow him, and helped the dog up the slippery rocks. Once the two were on dry land, they ran the forty yards that separated the building from the water. It was 11:35 p.m. The crossing had taken longer than expected, but if the Wolf was faithful to his habits, time was on Ryan’s side.

  Pressing himself to the wall, he waited a few minutes to make sure everything was calm. The only sounds were the hooting of an owl and some wild turkeys moving in the grass—he wasn’t surprised to hear them, as Pedro had warned him about the flocks of these big clumsy birds on the grounds of the estate. He crept forward in the shadow of the fortress, rounded the turret to the right, and came out in front of the southern wall, which he had chosen, looking at one of Pedro’s photographs, because it could not be seen from the path the guard walked along. At its lowest point, the wall was between forty-five and fifty feet high, and an iron drainpipe channeled water down it from the roof. When Ryan strapped Attila into his service harness—an improvised jacket with holes for the dog’s legs and a hook at the back—he felt the animal’s nervous tension. Then he understood: the dog had a memory of wearing another harness just like it. “Easy boy, this is gonna be nothing compared to a parachute jump,” he whispered, as though the dog could hear him, and stroked his head. “Wait for me here, and don’t even think about going after the turkeys.” He hooked the rope that hung from his waist to Attila’s harness and signaled to the animal to wait.

  Praying that the drainpipe would hold his weight, Ryan started to climb, propelling himself with the muscles in his torso and arms and balancing his body with his one leg, as he did when he swam. The prosthesis was no help at times like this. The pipe turned out to be firmly attached—it creaked but did not yield to Ryan’s weight. He quickly got to the roof. From here he could take in the immense surface area of the building as well as a spectacular moonlit view of the bay, with the lights of the bridge off to his right and the distant glimmer of the city of San Rafael ahead. He gave a short tug on the rope to alert Attila, then started to raise him slowly, being careful not to knock him against the wall. As soon as he could reach the dog, he lifted him over the lip of the wall and unhooked the rope, though he left the harness on. In that brief climb, Attila regained the courageous spirit that had won him his medal. No longer nervous, he was ready for orders and bursting with energy, with a look of wild anticipation that Ryan had not seen in him for years.

  On the surface of the flat roof, Ryan could see three glass domes, one for each part of the building. He would have to enter by the first one, slide down to the upper floor of Winehaven, and find the elevator shaft that ran through all the floors to end down in the air-raid shelter. He silently thanked Pedro for his attention to detail—his friend had sent him shots of the exterior, including the skylights. Removing a few thin metal slats from the ventilation grille at the bottom of the glass dome was easy, as they were rusted and loose. Sticking his head in so he could light up the opening with his flashlight, which he had decided to use as little as possible, he calculated a distance of about five meters. He dialed Pedro and spoke to him in a whisper.

  “All good. I’m on the roof with Attila—we’re about to go in.”

  “You’ve got about fifteen minutes.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Be careful. Good luck.”

  Ryan put Attila’s night-vision goggles on him; he had kept them as a memento after the dog wore them in the war, never suspecting they would be put to use aga
in. He could see Attila was uncomfortable, but as he’d worn them before, he suffered in silence. They would not make much difference—the animal had poor eyesight—but he was going to need them. Ryan hooked the rope to the harness, stroked the noble beast, gave him a signal, and proceeded to lower Attila into the dark space that opened up before them.

  As soon as he could feel that Attila had touched the ground, Ryan tied the other end of the rope to the metal frame of the skylight and used it to go down himself. “Okay, buddy, we’re inside,” he murmured, pulling on his new goggles. It took his eyes a few seconds to get accustomed to the shifting, shadowy images he could see in red, yellow, and green. He turned on the infrared flashlight strapped to his forehead and was able to get more of a feel for the enormous room he now found himself in, which was something like an airplane hangar. He took the harness off the dog—it would be useless from now, as the rope was still hanging from the skylight. From here on in he would have to trust to the accuracy of the plans drawn up in 1995, to his experience, and to luck.

  The goggles allowed him to move forward, but they provided no peripheral vision. The dog would use his instinct and sharp sense of smell to alert Ryan to any danger. He went deeper into the room, avoiding the debris scattered over the floor; about ten yards farther on, he could make out the large metal cage where before there would have been a service elevator like the one in his loft. Next to the elevator shaft was a small iron staircase, just as he had pictured. He assumed that the Wolf’s hideout would not be on this floor, or on the one below it, as they both received some light during the day—from the skylights, the elevator shaft, and the gaps in the boarded-up windows. His cell had no coverage now; he’d lost contact with Pedro. They had foreseen that possibility, but he cursed under his breath all the same; the only support he had now was his dog.