Blood Money Read online

  He looked at his watch, saw it was 3:58 AM. Two more minutes until he found out for sure if the house was occupied.

  Kelton visualized the floor plan one final time, then took a deep breath and started to sneak across the grass area that separated the small grove of trees from the house. He arrived at the corner of the house, double-checked to make sure that no cameras had been added recently—there hadn’t—then started creeping towards the door to the east entrance.

  At the door, he dropped to a knee, pulled a pencil-sized flashlight and a set of lock-picking tools from his fanny pack, turned on the light, stuck it in his mouth, aimed it at the lock. There was a moment of relief when he saw that the deadbolt was indeed a Grazer model 2215, just as Walter’s information had predicted, but he shoved the sentiment aside and went to work with his tools.

  Fifteen seconds later, he disengaged the deadbolt, but didn’t yet open the door. This part of the house was isolated from the rest, but Kelton believed in being careful, so he swapped out the flashlight and lock-picking tools for a retractable dentist’s mirror. He lengthened the handle, opened the door a crack, slid the mirror in, and peeked around.

  There were no lights on in this part of the house, but it was bright enough inside for Kelton to see that the immediate area was empty. He opened the door just enough to slip by, entered the house, and softly shut the door behind him.

  Kelton stopped just inside the doorway, making sure that his entry hadn’t been noticed. He could hear the low sounds of people talking, but after a few seconds, he was certain it was coming from a television, even though the glow of it wasn’t visible from his location. Other than the sounds from the TV, the house was silent.

  Kelton had committed the blueprints to memory and was reasonably certain he could reach Jessica without making himself visible to the man watching television, assuming the TV was located in the living room.

  It was dark inside the house, but not pitch black. Kelton made his way through the hallway carefully, his silenced .40 caliber SigPro in front of his chest and his head on a swivel. The black balaclava he wore over his head impeded his peripheral vision a bit, but not enough to be a hindrance.

  He was near the end of the hallway, and still couldn’t see the glow of the television, so he ventured a peek around the corner using the dentist’s mirror.

  Nothing but a big, empty, dark room with a large dining table in the center and chairs surrounding it. The light was brighter however, as the glow from the still-unseen television leaked in from a nearby room.

  Kelton turned the corner and snuck through the room, careful to watch his step in the unfamiliar house. At the end of the room was another hallway, this one branching both ways. Jessica’s room was the second door on the right, just in front of the bathroom. To the left was the living room, where the sound of the television was coming from.

  Kelton again used the mirror to scope out the arrangements.

  The living room was set-up perpendicular to the hall, with the seating in the center, allowing whoever was watching the television to see the entire length of the house with a mere glance to their right. The room held a couch and a large chair, but neither was occupied.

  Kelton could think of no legitimate reason for the TV to be on if nobody was watching it and made a mental note to be extra wary, lest someone be out and about somewhere else in the house.

  Despite the discomfort in the back of his mind, Kelton didn’t want to spend any more time in the house than necessary. He immediately started moving towards Jessica’s door, his steps masked by the carpet in this part of the house.

  After reaching his destination without complications, he glanced around one final time, then put the SigPro into its holster, unlocked Jessica’s door and pushed it open.

  He slipped inside the room, careful not to shut the door completely behind him; it could only be opened from the outside.

  Kelton was surprised to see that a reading light was on. Instead of sleeping, Jessica was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at him over the top of a paperback book--DARWIN’S BLADE by an author named Dan Simmons. Her brows were raised and her eyes were wide but she remained silent, curiously unfazed at having a stranger enter her supposedly secure room at four in the morning.

  Kelton put his finger to his lips.

  Jessica nodded.

  Whispering, Kelton said, “Get dressed. Long pants and long sleeves if you have them. Sturdy shoes. Quickly but quietly.”

  Jessica set the book on the bed, walked over to the closet, slipped on an ill-fitting pair of jeans and an oversized black sweatshirt then put on socks and tennis shoes.

  Kelton watched her every move, unable to take his eyes off her.

  Even though he’d seen her picture in Walter’s information packet, it hadn’t done her justice. Her face had a slightly exotic look to it, as if she came from a mixed background, and despite the cut above her nose and bruised cheek, she was beautiful; gorgeous even. Her green-tinted eyes were fiercely intelligent, her body lithe and strong, her wiry muscles long and clearly defined. Not at all what he imagined an esteemed biologist to look like. Not that he was complaining.

  She walked over to him after she was dressed.

  “Ready?” Kelton said.

  Jessica nodded.

  “Follow my every move,” Kelton said. “If there’s trouble, just stay behind me. I’ll take care of it. And be as quiet as possible.”

  “Okay.”

  Kelton used the mirror to peek out the door, looking both ways as if he was preparing to cross a busy street. He pulled the SigPro out, turned to her and flicked his head towards the door.

  They exited the room, Kelton leading her back out the same way he’d entered.

  Everything was going better than he could have hoped. Even though the television still bothered him slightly, it appeared that there was nobody on watch. A sliver of satisfaction wormed into his skull as he realized they were about to get out of the house without alarming anyone.

  Then he heard a toilet flush, the sound coming from the bathroom located opposite the hall from Jessica’s room.

  Fighting a surge of panic, Kelton considered trying to turn the corner into the next room before the bathroom door opened but instinctively knew they wouldn’t make it. Instead, he spun towards the door, raised the SigPro to a firing position and stepped in front of Jessica.

  The bathroom door opened. A tall, wiry man wearing only boxers and a T-shirt came walking out into the hall.

  The man was in the middle of a half-awake yawn when he realized he wasn’t alone. He froze.

  For the second time in the last 90 seconds, Kelton put his finger in front of his lips and shook his head, slowly, from side to side.

  The man shifted his eyes to the gun for a moment before returning to lock gazes with Kelton. He nodded as though he was going to comply with Kelton’s request for silence, then yelled, “INTRUDER!!!”

  Kelton thought about shooting him but quickly realized it would do far more harm than good in the long run. Instead he spun around, grabbed Jessica by the arm, and said, “Come on.”

  The house filled with the sounds of people shouting and banging around as Kelton took off down the hall, cut a quick left at the dining room, and raced towards the back door, hoping for Jessica’s sake that she would be able to keep up with him.

  He threw the back door open and ran out of the house, his shoulders tensing in anticipation of rounds being fired into his back as he crossed the 35 feet of lawn separating the house from the dense wilderness beyond.

  Kelton hit the tree-line without incident and slammed through the bushes, not caring how much noise he made. He continued pushing forward for another fifteen seconds before he came to an abrupt stop. He turned around quickly and was pleasantly surprised to see Jessica just a few yards back. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

  Turning his attention to the ground, Kelton shifted a couple of branches and picked up a daypack he’d concealed on the way in. He opened the backpack a
nd pulled out a handheld monocular with night-vision capabilities, then turned towards Jessica and handed her the backpack.

  “Can you see all right?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s a small clearing about two hundred yards away, straight ahead. Pick a good hiding spot behind some of the bushes near the outskirts and wait for me. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to go see if anyone decided to follow us outside.”

  “And if they did?”

  “Then I’ll try and change their mind,” Kelton said.

  “How? By shooting them?”

  “Only as a last resort.”

  “What do I do if you don’t show up?”

  “Don’t worry,” Kelton said. “I’ll be there. Now go.”

  Jessica’s gaze lingered for a moment before she took off. Kelton watched her go, impressed to see that she was picking her way along carefully and making very little noise.

  He circled back towards the house once she’d disappeared from view.

  Kelton carefully picked his way through the dense trees, his progress made easier by the light provided by the recently illuminated house. He was just shy of 50 yards away when he heard voices. He ducked behind a tree, knelt down, and used the monocular to get a better look.

  Two men were standing near the back door of the house. One was the man that had come out of the bathroom; he was still wearing only his boxers and a white T-shirt.

  The pant-less man was pointing at the tree line where Kelton and Jessica had entered, a good twenty yards to the right of where Kelton was currently positioned.

  “They went in right there,” he said to his partner, a short, heavy-set man with wild eyes dressed in a windbreaker with FBI stenciled on the front.

  “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go after them.”

  “We will,” the pant-less man replied. “As soon as Michael brings the rest of my clothes out.”

  The heavy-set man looked at his partner and barked out a short laugh. “Yeah, I guess some pants would help.”

  “You think?”

  A few seconds later, another man came out to join them. He wasn’t carrying an extra set of clothes, leading Kelton to presume it wasn’t Michael.

  The third man was an older, more distinguished looking fellow than the other two. The way he held himself, combined with the tone of his voice suggested that he was the one in charge. “Where do you guys think you’re going?” he said.

  “We’re going after them,” the pant-less man replied.

  “Like hell you are,” the older man said.

  “What, you just want us to let him go?” said the heavy-set man.

  “That’s exactly right.”

  “Screw that,” the pant-less man said. “They couldn’t have gotten very far.” He turned towards the back door and yelled, “Hurry your ass up, Michael. We’re wasting valuable time.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” the older man said. “This is my operation; you’re just here for security. And you will stand the fuck down, do you understand me?”

  The pant-less man looked at him without even bothering to disguise his disgust. “Yeah, I understand.”

  The heavy-set man shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re just gonna let them waltz on outta here.”

  “They’re not going anywhere,” the older man said. “I’ve already called in the situation. The sky will be full of choppers in twenty minutes and every road out of the area will be blocked within half an hour. There’s no way they’ll make it out of the valley. Now let’s go back inside. It’s cold as hell out here.”

  Kelton made it back to the clearing five minutes after he and Jessica had split up. He saw her squatting near the ground behind a small bush and headed towards her.

  Jessica spotted him and stood up. “How’d it go?”

  “They turned around on their own,” he said. “I didn’t even have to make my presence known.”

  “So we’re in the clear?”

  “Not quite,” Kelton said. “They’ve already called in the situation, which means we don’t have long before we’re going to have choppers looking for us from the skies and soldiers behind us, tracking our path from the safe house.”

  “Then how the hell are we going to get out of here?”

  “By moving very quickly,” Kelton said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  They had been moving non-stop for nearly ten minutes before they took a break. So far, Kelton hadn’t heard the sound of choppers, or anything else to indicate they had company, but he knew they wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

  “How are you doing?” Kelton asked. He was down on one knee, digging in his daypack.

  “Fine,” Jessica said. “Just catching my breath.”

  Kelton grabbed a bottle of water and a nutrition bar and handed them to her.

  She tore open the wrapper with her teeth, took a huge bite, and started to chew.

  “What, didn’t they feed you back there?”

  “I refused to eat their damn food,” Jessica said between swallows. She twisted the cap off the water, drank half the bottle, then held it out to Kelton.

  “No thanks,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Jessica wolfed down the rest of her food and drained the water, then shoved the wrapper into the empty bottle and handed it back to Kelton. He stuffed it into the daypack and they started moving again.

  “I assume you know where we’re going?” Jessica said.

  “I marked my path on the way in.”

  “Is that why you look through that scope every once in a while?”

  Kelton nodded. “I splashed a tree with reflective paint every hundred yards or so. We’re just following the breadcrumbs out.”

  “And where are we heading, exactly?”

  “Towards a Piper Cub.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A little plane,” Kelton said.

  “You mean we’re going to fly out of here?”

  Kelton opened his mouth to utter a smart-ass comment, but caught himself and just answered with a quick, “Yes.”

  “When are we going to be at this plane?” Jessica said. “I haven’t slept in two days, and I’m not sure how much farther I can go on foot.”

  “We’re about halfway there,” Kelton said. “Another ten minutes or so, if we—”

  He froze in his tracks, straightened up abruptly, cocked his head.

  “What is it?” Jessica said.

  “A chopper,” Kelton said.

  Jessica looked up into the night sky before realizing her folly and bringing her gaze back to Kelton. “Where is it?”

  “Still a ways off,” Kelton said. “And coming in from the other direction. Probably heading toward the house to drop off a team to follow our tracks.”

  “Will they be able to?”

  “Eventually,” Kelton said. “But they won’t have time to catch up with us. We’ve got too big of a head start and not much further to go.”

  “So we should be safe?”

  “For now. But I’m sure there’s more choppers on the way. It’s just a matter of time until we have one over our heads. And they’ll be equipped with infrared, among other things. If they end up within a few hundred yards of us while we’re still out in the open, we’ll be in big trouble.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Not be out in the open when they show up.”

  “And how are we going to manage that?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kelton said. “I’ve got it taken care of. You just focus on conserving your energy and trying to keep up.”

  They heard the chopper less than two minutes later.

  Kelton looked up and saw it heading directly towards them. It was still a ways out but moving quickly. Kelton figured they had about 45 seconds before the chopper would be close enough to identify them. Just enough time to get where they needed to go.

  “We’r
e screwed,” Jessica said.

  “Not yet. But we have to move fast. Come on.”

  He took off in a dead sprint, weaving around the light brush that littered the ground. There was no tree cover in this part of the valley, but that didn’t matter at this point. They had another important ally close by.

  Jessica struggled to keep up, her breath loud and ragged in the early morning air.

  The sound of the chopper filled the air, growing louder with every passing second. Fifteen seconds left, twenty tops.

  Breathing heavily himself now, Kelton recognized the shaggy, shoulder-high line of brush ten yards away and plowed through it. The branches grabbed his shoulders, bounced his head around, and scratched at his face, but he pushed forward, hoping that Jessica still had the strength to negotiate it too.

  Then he broke through.

  In front of him was an eight-foot drop into a wide creek bed full of gently-flowing water. The sound of the chopper roared in his ears, filling his entire universe with its rhythmic thumping. For the moment, they were still outside of its range. But they didn’t have much time left. Ten seconds, maybe.

  Kelton looked back just as Jessica made it through the brush. Her face was scratched up a little, but otherwise she seemed okay. She caught up with him a moment later.

  “What now?” she said, her voice barely audible above the din of the chopper.

  “Jump,” Kelton said.

  “What?” Jessica said. “Why the hell would we—”

  “Just shut up and do it,” Kelton said. He turned and jumped.

  Kelton knew that the creek was fairly shallow in this part of the valley, but he was still surprised when his feet hit the bottom immediately after his head went under the water.

  Jessica landed in the water next to him. He was prepared for the warmth of the water, but knew she’d be surprised, so he reached out and grabbed her while they were still beneath the surface. He pushed up slowly, trying to keep both of them under control as they surfaced.