witch’s heart under those trees. He could see nothing.
He plunged ahead, squelched through the soft ground, and waded into the knee-high water. Ripples spread across the still surface.
“Freeze!” Shocked by the shout from behind him, Reichardt felt sudden terror grip his heart. It was the woman, Gray. He exploded into motion — surging toward the opposite bank.
Blam.
The bullet caught him in the fleshy part of the left thigh and spun him halfway around. My God. He lurched forward. There was no pain. Not yet. That would come later. He gained firmer footing and stumbled forward, panting louder now.
Blam.
A second bullet hit him, this one in the right shoulder. His own pistol went flying off into the mud and tall grass. Reichardt moaned aloud. No!
Clutching his briefcase tightly to his chest, he limped out of the stream and into the sheltering darkness beyond. He’d gone a few yards when his wounded leg abruptly gave out — dumping him flat on his face in the undergrowth.
Reichardt heard someone else crashing through the woods nearby — on this side of the stream. It couldn’t be that bitch who’d shot him. Could it be Brandt? His probing fingers found the torn and bleeding edges of the exit wound in his thigh and recoiled. It had to be Brandt. Please God, let it be Brandt!
Still holding the briefcase, he dragged himself toward the noise, crawling awkwardly on his stomach. “Johann! Johann!” he whispered harshly, hissing now as the first fiery tendrils of pain coursed through him. “Hilf mir! Hilf mir!”
His scrabbling fingers touched a shoe. A man’s shoe. Reichardt looked up, smiling. His smile faded slowly.
Lawrence Mcdowell looked down at him. A puffy bruise covered half the senior FBI agent’s cheek. He held a pistol — a 9mm SIGSAUER.
Reichardt caught the acrid smell of burnt powder on the weapon. It had been fired recently. He grabbed at the cuff of the other man’s pants, pointing back the way he’d come. “The woman Gray is there! You must kill her, PEREGRINE! It is the only way you can be safe!”
Mcdowell smiled nastily. “I will kill her, Herr Wolf. After I finish my business with you.” He raised the pistol. “I’m canceling my debt, you bastard. Permanently.”
Reichardt saw the muzzle center on his forehead. In horror, he saw Mcdowell’s finger tighten on the trigger.
“Noooooo!”
Reichardt stopped screaming when the bullet tore through his brain and sent him straight to hell.
Helen Gray jumped lightly across the stream, skidded on the slippery ground, and quickly recovered her balance. She’d been tracking Wolf cautiously — aware that, like a wounded animal, even an injured man could still be dangerous. Then she’d heard the voices coming from a thicket a few yards away. Had Wolf’s driver evaded Peter and linked up with his employer? Her mind would not accept the other explanation.
Peter was alive. He had to be alive.
The high-pitched, womanish scream and the echoing gunshot took her by surprise.
She lunged forward through the screening brush and froze — staring in shock at Larry Mcdowell, the gun in his hand, and the twisted, mangled corpse at his feet. Her old boss was still grinning nastily at the man he’d just murdered. Heinrich Wolf, their only link to the smuggled shipment from Russia, and their only hope of clearing their names, was dead.
“You shit, Mcdowell,” Helen said softly. She swung her Beretta on line. “Drop the goddamned gun …”
Mcdowell looked up and seemed to see her for the first time.
An odd, almost maniacal glee danced in his eyes. He shook his head.
“What are you going to do, Helen? Kill me? How are you going to explain that?”
“I’m not kidding, Larry,” Helen said tightly. “Drop the gun.
Now!”
Mcdowell laughed harshly. “Screw you, bitch!” He lifted the SIG-Sauer, pointing it toward her.
Blinded by a sudden wave of cold fury, Helen pulled the trigger.
And again. And again. And again.
Slowly, still shaking, she eased up on the trigger, staring over the muzzle at the carnage her bullets had created. Her first shot had caught Mcdowell low — well below the stomach. Each successive 9mm round had climbed higher — ending in one that blew his face apart.
Helen sank to her hands and knees, retching uncontrollably.
She felt icecold now, too cold ever to be warm again.
When she was done, she rose to her feet, still shivering. She slipped the Beretta back in her holster — succeeding on the second try — and fished out the cellular phone they’d taken off Mcdowell back at the bed-and- breakfast. In a daze, she punched in a number she’d memorized and then heard the phone connect.
“Farrell.”
“Sam,” Helen heard herself say weakly. “I need your help, Sam. Things have gone terribly wrong …”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHOCK WAVE
Helen Gray blotted away some dried blood and dirt with a cotton ball soaked in iodine, finished taping down the gauze pad, and then stepped back to admire her handiwork. “How’s it feel?”
“Ouch,” Thorn said. He raised his bruised right arm, winced, and then gingerly touched the bandaged side of his head. “I’ll live, I guess, but I have a feeling I’m not going to win any beauty contests this year.”
“You’ve got that right, mister,” Helen said — working very hard to keep the same light, cheerful tone.
She was still grappling with the emotional trauma of their bloody early morning gun battle. Losing Heinrich Wolf, their only solid witness to the Caraco-run smuggling operation, was bad. Killing Mcdowell was worse. She was also uncomfortably aware that she’d carried out something very close to an execution on Mcdowell. Once she’d fired that first shot, she’d never even considered trying to take him alive.
But the biggest nightmare of all had been the sudden, blinding fear that Peter Thorn might be dead — torn forever out of her life. They’d faced death twice before in the past couple of weeks, but always together — never apart and alone.
After Helen had made that frantic phone call to Farrell, she’d held herself together just long enough to search Wolf’s and Mcdowell’s bodies for any possible evidence. Then, with tears staining her cheeks, she’d stumbled back through the pitchblack woods to where they’d left the two cars. And there she’d found Peter sitting by the side of the road with his injured head in his hands — blood-spattered, dazed, and furiously angry at himself, but alive.
Mcdowell had hit him over the head with a rock — clearly intending to kill him. Only the fact that he’d reacted fast enough to ward off some of the impact with his arm had saved his life.
That and the fact that the traitorous FBI agent must have rushed off to chase down Wolf without making sure he was dead.
Still tearful, though with relief now and not sorrow, she’d managed to bundle Peter into the back seat of Wolf’s Chrysler, pat down the body of the driver for any more evidence, and then head back to pick up Farrell outside Caraco’s Chantilly complex.
Pressed for time, she’d been forced to leave Mcdowell’s bulletriddled Ford parked out in the open on the shoulder.
Helen had hated to do that. The abandoned car would act as a beacon to the next passing patrol can- signaling that something very wrong had happened along that isolated stretch of road. More to the point, their fingerprints were all over the car, and even a cursory check of the government-issue plates would reveal it had been
