Chapter 83
Priest heard the car pull into the driveway, his senses heightened from anticipation so that the crunch of gravel under the wheels sounded like rock under the treads of an M1 Abrams main battle tank.
A car door opened, then slammed shut again. Footsteps. Coming closer. An even, confident stride. The faint rasp of the doorknob as a hand gave it a twist.
Then a brief pause, so slight that someone without Priest’s training probably would not have even noticed it. But Priest did.
The silencer-fitted Beretta was just rising into firing position when the door slammed inward, catching him in the side as he attempted to jump back out of the way. The gun coughed, sending a slug high into the ceiling as the door knocked Priest backward.
Rolling with the impact, Priest came up with the weapon leveled, spitting another three rounds at the doorway. They passed out harmlessly through the empty opening as the door bounced off the wall and swung shut once again.
What the hell? Jack was gone. Priest spun in a tight circle, the weapon following his eyes as he turned. There was nothing—no sign of the man.
He didn’t know how Jack had sensed his presence, but some little something, below the awareness of most people, had given him away. And now the one that the covert ops community had nicknamed “The Ripper” was out there, circling.
Priest cursed under his breath. He had lost the element of surprise he had been counting on. Oh well. He still had a surprise or two waiting for his old friend, Jacko.
A sound from the kitchen put Priest into motion. Shit. The Ripper must have run around the back of the house to get there that quickly. A lightning-quick glance around the corner revealed the kitchen door open wide but nothing else. An empty kitchen and closed pantry.
Priest leaped into the kitchen, the Beretta ejecting empty shell casings out the side as he pumped rounds into the pantry door. Glancing out through the kitchen door as he passed, Priest moved to follow the slugs, jerking open the pantry door, firing off two additional rounds as it opened. Except for the slow gurgle of a damaged soup can, there was nothing there.
Priest ejected the magazine from the weapon, slapping a new one into place in the same motion. He moved back toward the den, kicking the kitchen door closed as he came, his eyes and his weapon searching for the target along his direction of travel.
That was funny. He thought that the front door had banged closed before he had charged into the kitchen. But perhaps the latch had been damaged. Or maybe The Ripper was already inside the house.
This was stupid. He was playing into The Ripper’s hands by hunting for him. Priest needed to get back to the original plan. Make the man come to him. After all, he had the perfect bait.
Having made a decision, Priest did not hesitate, his stride carrying him up the stair steps, two at a time. Not wanting to remain exposed in the hallway for more than an instant, he raced down its length, pausing only briefly outside the open doorway. Just long enough to check that the kid and Janet lay bound, undisturbed, on the floor. Priest stepped through the opening.
Almost, it didn’t surprise him when a knife blade thrust through his gun hand, sending the weapon spinning under the desk. Or when The Ripper glided out from his spot behind the office door. It fit with how his luck was running today. Jumping back into the hallway, Priest refilled his injured hand with his own knife.
“Surprised to see me, Jack?”
The Ripper showed no reaction, his dark eyes as unblinking as those of a shark as he moved forward. For the briefest of moments, it seemed to Priest that those eyes glinted red.
Priest feinted with the knife, delivering a low kick at the man’s knee. He pulled his foot back with a howl of pain as another thrust of The Ripper’s knife punched a hole through his arch.
Priest stumbled backward before the other killer’s quick strikes, each one opening a new wound on his extremities. The damned man was playing with Priest, carving him up as calmly as if he was whittling on a stick outside some hick drugstore.
As a growing desperation rose up to overcome his newfound fear, Priest lunged in, absorbing a deep puncture to his abdomen in an attempt to drive his SAF knife into the other man’s throat. But once again, The Ripper was just a little quicker, catching Priest’s knife hand in an off-hand grip that wrenched it around, snapping the wrist with a loud pop.
The Ripper’s knife flashed in an arc, the blade cutting a new mouth into Priest’s neck, just below the chin. Priest pitched forward facefirst, the arterial fountain of his blood drenching The Ripper in red as he tumbled to the floor.
For several seconds, Priest lay still at The Ripper's feet before the other man turned away and strode back into the office where Janet and the kid lay bound.
As Priest lay there listening to his enemy cut the bonds of his victims, he could not keep a slow smile from spreading across his face. Yes. The healing was definitely happening faster now. Already the wounds in his throat and abdomen were closing, the bones knitting together in his wrist.
All he needed was a few more seconds and he would introduce Jack to the same sort of unpleasant surprise that the other two had already received. But there would be no tranquilizer dart for Jack. He didn’t have a dart loaded, and there would be no time for loading one. If the Beretta had not been flung under the office furniture, Priest would have certainly used that.
His hand flexed around the SAF knife. The knife and massive surprise would have to do the job.
Priest began to count backward in his head, comparing his mental estimate of how long it would take Jack to free Priest’s two captives and examine them for wounds to how long the progress of Priest’s own healing process was taking. The muscles along his arms, back, and legs tensed. He waited. A lion amidst the tall savannah grass. His prey only a few feet from where he coiled for the strike. Almost ready.
The ferocity and speed with which Priest propelled his body forward caught even the dreaded Ripper by surprise. He was, after all, supposed to be dead. Priest thrust the wicked tip of the SAF survival knife down into the Ripper’s back with all the force his two hundred and ten pounds of lean muscle and bone could deliver.
It was the slightest of moves. A bare adjustment in the angle of the back of the Ripper’s left arm that caused the blade to glance off the man’s elbow and miss the rear of his torso by a fraction of a centimeter.
Priest screamed in frustration as the Ripper’s body spun beneath him, using Priests own momentum to flip him into the side of the oak desk.
Then The Ripper was behind him, his left arm encircling Priest’s throat as the right pumped his knife into Priest’s right kidney with three staccato thrusts. The Ripper’s legs were moving now, driving Priest’s body forward, directly back down the hallway, into the bathroom, and then down into the bathtub, facedown.
Priest felt the hard, cold porcelain rise up to meet his face an instant before both of The Ripper’s knees landed on his back, hard. A strong hand grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking Priest’s head back with a violence that was only surpassed by that of the knife that cut his throat, then continued to saw at his neck.
As his head came free of any connection to the rest of his body, Priest found himself wondering if perhaps he had achieved immortality. His eyes locked for one last time with those of The Ripper, as his glimpse of immortality, along with the last of his life force, drained away.
And as Priest’s eyes continued to stare outward, they acquired a look almost as dead and cold as the eyes of the man who held his head.