way.”
“Are you sure?” says Joselyn to me. “Maybe Herman doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
I shake my head. “He wrote it out.”
“It’s not too late,” says Joselyn. “It would take Liquida a while to get there.”
“Not if he left yesterday.”
“Oh, God!”
A second later the elevator doors open. Just as I’m about to jump in, Thorpe steps out. “What’s going on?”
The abrupt motion startled Sarah. She saw him flash in front of her. The evil in his eyes caused the blood to drain from her head. The fleeting electric impulse of having flushed some homeless vagabond living along the creek instantly evaporated. In the split second before they collided, Sarah knew she was in trouble.
She reached up with both hands toward his shoulders, trying to ward off the collision as she screamed, but it was too late. His clenched hand came up fast from underneath, catching her low in the abdomen, driving powerfully up into her stomach. The blow collapsed her diaphragm, forcing the air from her lungs.
The impact of his punch stopped her forward motion in midstride. He pushed again, another shot, jammed up under her ribs, leaving her feet to grapple for traction in the soft mud along the edge of the water. Sarah stepped back with one foot, turned it on a rock, and fell backward into the creek.
Chapter Seven
The instant the blade went in, Liquida knew something was wrong. The sharp point hit a hard surface as if it had glanced off a bone. It penetrated maybe two or three inches before the blade stuck as if it were caught in a vise. He pulled back and the stiletto moved as if it were free, but it wouldn’t come out.
His upper body was up against the girl’s. He couldn’t look down to see the blade. He was in too close.
Instinct flexed his right arm in the sling as he tried to reach out to hold her in place so he could force the stiletto up into her body. But the burning pain under his arm reminded him not to do that. He punched again with the handle, this time harder.
The girl stepped away from him, lost her footing, and tumbled backward into the creek. As she fell she ripped the stiletto from Liquida’s grip, taking it with her into the water.
Liquida took one faltering step toward her when he heard barking in the distance.
The girl was crawling on her hands and knees in the water, whether wounded or stunned he couldn’t tell.
He retreated a few steps up the embankment so he could see over the top. Two hundred yards away the Doberman was coming this way across the open field, devouring the ground ahead of him like a jet on afterburners. He must have heard the girl’s scream. Puppy or not, he had sharp teeth.
Liquida looked back at Sarah Madriani. She was lying dazed in the water. She was defenseless. A couple of shots with a heavy rock and he could crack her skull like a walnut.
By the time Liquida looked back, the Doberman had closed half the distance to their location on the creek. He considered the equation for a nanosecond, then turned on his heels and ran.
I catch Thorpe as he steps out of the hospital elevator. I tell him about Herman’s message that Liquida knows the location of the farm and that Sarah is there. Before I am finished, Thorpe has his cell phone out.
“Do you know the area code for the farm?” he asks.
I give it to him. “But the number’s unlisted.”
“Relax.” He punches in the area code and the number for information. “What’s your brother-in-law’s name?”
I tell him and give him the rural mailing address. In less than a minute, Thorpe has a supervisor on the line. He identifies himself and a few seconds later has the number at the farm. He dials it.
“Hello, is Sarah Madriani there? My name is Zeb Thorpe. I’m with the FBI.”
He listens for a moment. “Is she all right? Why can’t she come to the phone?” He lifts the phone away from his ear for a second. “What’s Hinds’s first name again?”
“Harry…” My heart is pounding so hard it feels as if it’s going to penetrate the wall of my chest. “Here, give it to me.” I rip the phone from Thorpe’s hand. “Hello-who is this? Fred, this is Paul. Is Sarah there? Is she OK?”
Before Fred can answer, Harry is on the line. “Where the hell have you been?” he says. “We’ve been calling your cell, but there has been no answer.”
Sarah was conscious of movement behind her, thrashing in the brush, and the shallow water washing around her body. She was able to breathe again. She rolled over. The shock of the ice-cold water on her back sharpened her senses. The tight pain in her stomach began to ease.
She came to just as Bugsy streaked past her, shot across the creek, and up the embankment on the other side. In the flash of an eye he was gone, heading at the speed of light toward the road.
Sarah struggled to her feet, stumbled around the rocks in the creek half dazed, and slowly made her way up the path in the direction of the dog. When she reached the top, she saw Bugsy in the distance. He was racing toward the embankment leading up to the road.
Before he reached it, a small sedan parked on the other side started up, turned on its lights, and skidded in the gravel along the shoulder as it pulled away. Sarah watched as the car’s taillights disappeared around a bend. When she looked back, Bugsy’s lean militant body stood silhouetted in the middle of the highway.
Only then did she look down and notice the steel handle and the narrow blade of the stiletto dangling from a hole in her fanny pack. She unzipped the top of the bag and found the point of the blade embedded in the aluminum water bottle. Like a cork on the tip of a knife, it had saved her life.
“Liquida paid us a visit,” Harry says, “earlier this morning.”
“Sarah…?”
“She’s all right, shaken up, but no serious wounds. She had a very close call. She was lucky. If she had nine lives, eight of them are gone now. I’ll tell you what happened when we see each other. If you have a god, you’d be wise to thank him tonight,” says Harry.
“Liquida?” Thorpe is over my shoulder.
I nod.
“Is she all right?”
I nod again.
“How long ago?” says Thorpe.
I shake my head. I don’t have a clue.
Thorpe grabs the phone from the nurses’ station and dials a number. Within seconds he is talking to someone on the other end.
“Liquida is in Ohio, a place called Groveport.” He gives them the farm address. “He hit the place earlier this morning. He’s on the run again. Contact the nearest field office. It’s probably Columbus. Tell them to get some agents out there ASAP. If they need to use a chopper, do it. Get whatever information they can. Put out an APB. Just a second.”
I am listening to Harry with one ear and Thorpe with the other.
Joselyn is back from Herman’s room. She leans in over my shoulder and whispers in my ear, “The doctor has stabilized him.”
I look at her and nod.
“Do we have a vehicle description, license number, anything?”
“I don’t know… Harry, listen, can you put Sarah on the phone?”
“She’s pretty upset. Shaking like a leaf,” he says.
“I understand.”
