The Pardon

“Roger,” replied Kimmell. He punched a button on his terminal. In seconds, it would pick up the signal from Jack’s pulsating transmitter. At least it should have picked it up. He punched it again. Still nothing. Again. Nothing.

“Dammit, I’m not getting a reading,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s not coming through.”

“How can that be?”

Kimmell shook his head, trying to think. “I don’t know-maybe, maybe he lost the transmitter? I’m sorry, Governor. I can’t find him.”

The words cut to Harold Swyteck’s core. “God help him,” he uttered. “Dear God in heaven, please help him.”

Chapter 55

A determined Esteban stepped quietly down the staircase, beneath Rebecca’s dangling corpse. He’d left the flashlight on the top step, pointing into the stairwell. He needed light, but he didn’t want to reveal his whereabouts by being its source. In the eerie yellow glow, his tall, lean body cast a lengthy shadow into the living room. His movements were quiet as a snake’s. The gun felt warm in his hand. His heart actually beat at a normal pace-just another day at work for an experienced killer. He could either wait for Jack to come out of hiding, or he could go and get him. The choice was easy. Esteban loved flushing his quarry out of the bush.

Behind the staircase, at the end of the long. Dark hallway, the heat in the tiny bathroom was nearly suffocating Jack. Sweat poured from his body. The bulletproof vest cloaked him like a winter parka, but he didn’t dare take it off. It had saved his life once already-though a constant sharp pain told him the blow from the bullet had probably cracked a rib. He drew shallow breaths to minimize the pain. But pain was the least of his problems. He had no gun, no flashlight, and no contact to the outside world. He’d lost everything in the tumble down the stairs, and the gunshot had destroyed Kimmell’s transmitter. Surprise was his only weapon. He stood perfectly still, hiding behind the open bathroom door with his back against the wall. He listened carefully for his stalker and accepted the brutal fact that only one of them would walk out of the house.

Leading with his gun, Esteban crept down the hall behind the stairway, one slow and silent step at a time. The fuzzy light from the stairwell grew dimmer with each step, but this was familiar territory. He had walked the entire house several times before Jack’s arrival. He knew that just a few feet ahead, just beyond the faint glow from the flashlight, there was a bedroom on the right and a bathroom straight ahead. He moved closer to the wall and stopped just five feet away from the open bathroom door.

Jack was in total darkness, but his eyes were adjusting. From behind the open door he peered with one eye through the vertical crack at the hinges. There was light in the living room at the other end of the hall, but the hallway itself was barely illuminated. Jack’s night vision improved with each passing second. Finally, he could see Esteban-a black silhouette with a gun in its hand.

Jack could feel his hands shaking and his heart pumping even more furiously. He could taste his own blood from a cut on his lip. The shadow slowly inched closer. He couldn’t see his eyes or the features of his face. But there was enough light in the background to know he was right there. He was staring into the face of the enemy- but the enemy was a shadow. He wondered whether Esteban-or whoever he was-could see him, whether he was toying with him, knowing that his prey was unarmed and defenseless. Jack would find out in a moment. Esteban had two doors from which to choose-the bedroom or the bathroom. Jack held his breath and waited.

Go into the bedroom, he prayed.

Time stood still. Then Esteban moved-just a few inches. He was coming closer. He’d chosen the bathroom.

Jack could hear Esteban breathing. Jack’s own lungs were about to explode, but he didn’t dare take a breath. He was frozen against the wall. The open door was in his face. Esteban was at the threshold. His hand had crossed the imaginary plane. Another step and he’d be inside.

Suddenly, Jack pushed against the door with all his might, slamming it shut Esteban cried out. His wrist was caught in the door, and his hand with the gun was in the bathroom. A shot roared in the pitch-dark bathroom, shattering the mirror. Another shot exploded the basin. Esteban was firing wildly. Jack put all his weight behind one last shove, and then he heard the sound of metal crashing on ceramic tile. The gun was on the floor. And Esteban was pinned.

Still braced against the door, Jack groped with one foot in the darkness, searching for the gun. He found it. His foot was right on it He heard a piercing sound above his head, like a nail puncturing wood. Another piercing sound, and Jack cried out with pain as the point of Esteban’s switchblade passed through the door and punctured his forearm. Jack dove to the floor and grabbed the gun, expecting Esteban to come crashing through. He pointed and shot twice in the darkness. But no one fell. Through his terror, he registered the sound of footsteps in the hall. Esteban was running. Jack opened the door and fired another quick shot, but his target had already turned the corner.

Jack dashed from the bathroom and followed in Esteban’s footsteps. He heard a crash in the kitchen. The killer was escaping. Jack sprinted to the kitchen just as the back door slammed shut, then ran out to the porch. He looked left, then right. He saw a man dressed in black running down the sidewalk toward Duval Street. Jack knew Esteban would disappear forever if he made it back to the madness at Fantasy Fest. Jack’s ribs were sore from the gunshot, his forearm had a puncture wound, and he was bleeding badly from the forehead, but his fall hadn’t broken any bones in his legs. So he tucked the gun into his belt and began sprinting.

He was running faster than he had ever run, despite the vest, and he was gaining ground. As they drew closer to Duval, they started passing peacocks, tin men, and drunks who’d spilled over from the crowded street festival. Rock music rumbled in the night. A sudden burst of firecrackers drew piercing screams and a round of laughter.

“Hey, watch it!” a woman dressed as Cleopatra shouted, but Esteban plowed through her like she didn’t exist, then plunged into the safety of a shoulder-to-shoulder parade of costumes on Duval. Jack followed right behind, trying desperately to keep his target in sight as he weaved his way through the heaving mass. He could hardly breathe. All at once the sea of beads and feathers and painted faces swallowed him up, and when he broke free Esteban was gone.

“You stupid jerk!” he heard someone shout. He looked ahead in time to see Esteban dashing through the middle of a long and twisted Chinese dragon, ripping it right in half. Esteban wasn’t just trying to vanish in the crowd, Jack realized. He was going somewhere specific. He was headed north, toward the marina off Mallory Square. Jack had a sudden flash. A boat! Esteban was going to escape by boat Jack hesitated only a second-just long enough to think of Cindy. Then he darted in the same direction, bumping into the Beatles and Napoleon, pushing aside Gumby and Marilyn Monroe.

Esteban was untying a sleek racing boat from its mooring just as Jack reached the long wooden pier at the end of Duval. The triple outboard engines cranked with a deafening blast. Jack stopped short, pulled out his gun, and took aim. A clown screamed and the crowd scattered, since Jack’s gun looked too real, even for Fantasy Pest. A caveman suddenly turned hero and whacked the pistol from Jack’s hand with a quick sweep of his club.

“No!” Jack shouted as his weapon skidded across the dock and plunked into the marina.

Esteban’s boat drifted away from the dock, slowly at first, until it was clear of the other boats. Instinctively, Jack sprinted ahead and leaped from the dock to the covered bow of the boat just as Esteban hit the throttle. The powerful engines roared, and the bow rose from the water, knocking Jack off balance as he landed. He scrambled to his feet on the wet fiberglass as the boat cut through the darkness.

Realizing that Jack was aboard, Esteban kept one hand on the steering wheel and with the other slashed at his unwanted passenger with a long fishing gaff. The engine noise grew deafening as the needlelike boat shot from forty, to sixty, then seventy miles per hour, bouncing violently on the waves. Jack fell to his knees as the hull slammed through a big whitecap. With a quick jerk of the wheel, Esteban shifted the boat to the right and Jack tumbled across the bow. In a split second he was overboard, head over heels, bouncing like a skipping stone across