P Deutermann - Nightwalkers

I got to the river end of the tree line, where it merged into the general scrubland along the banks. I turned left, uphill. I kept Frick close in, worried now as much about loose Dobes as making noise. When I got to a tractor break in the line, I hunched down and texted Tony.

STATUS?

No answer.

Not good.

I had a frightening vision of him fighting off two Dobermans in the springhouse while my ghost watched from the lawn. Should I create a distraction? Fire off a gun?

Then the phone vibrated. It was Pardee.

WHERE TONY?

NOT ANSWERING. GOING TO SPRINGHOUSE.

NOTHING HERE. I'LL MAKE NOISE ON DRIVEWAY-DRIVE HIM INTO YOU.

AGREED.

Pardee had the right idea. He'd always been the tactician on our MCAT cell. If he came up the driveway in my Suburban, lights on, gunning it up the hill, whoever was in the house might bolt in my direction.

Along with his toothy friends?

I took a deep breath. Well, somebody has to deal with them, I thought. I patted Frick on the head and then scooted across the tractor break and back into the cover of the tree line, which now featured a tumbled-down stone wall. It wasn't a fancy wall, more like an organized pile of unwanted field rocks, but I got on the side away from the house for additional cover.

When I finally made it to the top of the hill, and about fifty yards from the springhouse, I tried texting Tony again. Still no answer. The springhouse was just a dark blob on the lawn under the big trees. The lattice showed gray in the moonlight. The tiny brook generated by the spring passed under the stone wall right in front of my feet. I waited. If Pardee thought no one was out there, he would make much faster time getting back to the Suburban.

Ten minutes later, I heard a vehicle out on the two-lane. It slowed down and then accelerated noisily onto the gravel driveway. Pardee had the high beams on and was coming as fast as the rutted road allowed. I chose that instant to make my dash for the springhouse, hoping that whoever was in the house would be looking out the front windows or headed for the basement.

The basement, where we'd left that door unlatched.

I veered away from the springhouse and ran across the back lawn to the smokehouse. Just outside was a stone bench next to a sundial garden. I dropped behind the bench and pulled Frick in close to me. I sighted my. 45 at the smokehouse door and waited.

Pardee arrived at the front of the house and shut down the engine but kept the high beams pointed into the windows on the ground floor. The light was strong enough that I could see right through the house.

I texted him: STAY PUT, SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

Then I waited.

Absolutely nothing happened. No one came bursting out of the smokehouse door. There were no shadows moving in the house. Tony still wasn't answering. I got a whiff of road dust as the cloud Pardee had generated swept around the house in the night breeze.

Where was Tony?

I turned around slowly, keeping my back firmly against the stone bench, so that I could examine the utility buildings and barn area behind me. There were no black torpedoes headed my way, and Frick seemed relatively relaxed, although alert to the tension I was exhibiting.

I texted Pardee: GONNA SHOOT, SEE WHAT MOVES.

R, for roger.

I made Frick lie down and then pointed the SIG at the barns. I fired four careful rounds, aiming low at each building so as to blow wood bits onto anyone hiding back there. My ears rang when I was finished, and I had to pat Frick on the head again. She hated gunfire.

Then from the area of the springhouse I heard someone making the noise of a submarine Klaxon. A moment later, a dripping wet Tony climbed out of the springhouse and called my name.

We regrouped at the cottage a half hour later. Tony sat in the living room in a bathrobe while the ancient dryer restored his clothes to usefulness. He had a glass of some kind of horrible dago grappa, while Pardee and I had Scotch.

Tony had filled us in on his excellent adventures. He'd seen a dark shape move past one of the windows in the back of the house, on the main floor. He'd gotten off that last text message and then moved to one end of the springhouse to get a better look.

"You said they'd come fast, but you failed to define fast," he'd said. "Those bastards came in like bullets."

"And everything I told you went right out of that pointy little head."

"No," he said. "It went right out my bunghole. Thought I heard something. Turned my head around. Saw two sets of teeth coming through the darkness about a foot above the ground. Coming from the house. Point and shoot, you said. My grommet did just that. I damn near fainted."

What he'd actually done was to push backward through one of the lattice panels and fall into the spring pool. Fall was the wrong word: Reverse belly flop was more like it, as the pool was only three feet deep, at most. He'd heard the Dobes slam into the lattice, and then the whole panel disintegrated and fell into the pool on top of him. He lay on his back in the pool, gripping the lattice with his fingertips to keep his nose and mouth above water.

"Guess what?" he said. "They don't like water. They knew I was down there, and I sure as hell knew they were up there, but they ran back and forth along the stone edge, whining like frustrated puppies."

"No bad guy?" Pardee asked.

"Fortunately, no. I had my gun out by then, but I wasn't sure if the barrel was clear. The dogs stayed around for a minute, then both of them looked across the yard at something and took off in the direction of the house. I stayed at periscope depth until I heard you shooting."

"Water cold, was it?" Pardee asked.

"That's an icehouse, not a springhouse. Considering the alternative, though, it felt wonderful."

The dryer buzzed, and Tony went into the laundry alcove to retrieve his clothes.

"Well," I said. "It's good to know they don't like water."

"It's not so good to know that he was out there tonight, with his assassins, and in that house."

"He seems to be comfortable in that house," I said.

"Yeah, he does."

"So maybe the thing to do is to set up some kind of trap in there."

"Or at least some kind of surveillance system. Some minicams on a twenty-four-hour loop, maybe."

"Can those be detected electronically?"

"Only if we make them wireless. Hardwire the network, and he'd have to dig around in the woodwork to physically find them."

I'd put all three dogs outside when we got back to the cottage. One of them whoofed from the front porch. Pardee turned off the standing light by the couch while I went to the window. Tony came back into the sitting room with his gun drawn.

Out on the dam a familiar sight materialized. The major on his horse came at a slow trot across the dam, passing the cottage without so much as a glance, and then disappeared up toward the manor house.

"Awfully late for that theater, isn't it?" Pardee said softly.

"I'll bet he knows that property over there like the back of his hand," Tony observed.

"And that house, too," Pardee said.

I didn't know what to say. It surely was quite a coincidence that the major was out and about this late at night, just an hour after Tony saw someone in the house and then was attacked by the pair of Dobermans. Cubby had said they didn't let him out at night, hadn't he?

"It doesn't compute," I said finally. "I saw that masked face-wrong shape. I heard his voice. Wrong voice. That wasn't the major."

"Maybe somebody working for the major, or the whole family?" Pardee said. "Don't want you there. Don't want anyone there. They like things as they are and as they always have been."

"That computes, sort of," I said, "but then why let me stay here? Why encourage me to proceed with the purchase?"