Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

The two Labs suddenly jerked into a frenzy. The trackers simultaneously drew their guns, Heck thumb-cocking his. The men exhaled long as the animal-a raccoon fat on village garbage-jogged away from them, the concentric rings of its tail vanishing into underbrush. The indignant animal reminded Heck of Jill’s father, who was a small-town mayor.

Heck, lowering the prominent hammer of his old German pistol, downed Emil and waited while Charlie Fennel futilely scolded the Labs and then refreshed their memory with Hrubek’s shorts. As he waited Heck gazed around him at the seemingly endless fields. They’d come five miles from the shack where Hrubek had stolen the traps, and the dogs were still scenting on the asphalt. Heck had never pursued an escapee who stuck so persistently to the road. What seemed like blood-sure stupidity now looked pretty smart: by doing just the opposite of what everybody expected, Hrubek was making damn good time. Heck had a vague thought, which lasted merely a second or two, that somehow, they were making a very bad mistake about this fellow. This impression was punctuated by a shiver that dropped from his neck to his tailbone.

Charlie Fennel’s dogs were soon back on the trail and the men hurried along the deserted strip of highway under a sky black as a hole. To stem his own uneasiness Heck leaned over and said, “Know what’s coming up this week?”

Fennel grunted.

“ St. Hubert ’s Day. And we’re going to be celebrating it.”

Fennel hawked and spit in a long arc then said, “Who’s we?”

“Emil and me. St. Hubert ’s Day. He’s the patron saint of hunters. St. Hubert hounds-that’s what he bred-”

“Who?”

“ St. Hubert . This is what I’m telling you. He was a monk or something. He bred the dogs that eventually became bloodhounds.” Heck nodded at Emil. “That boy goes farther back than I do. Part of St. Hubert ’s Day is a blessing of the hounds. Aren’t you Irish, Charlie? How come you don’t know this stuff?”

“Family’s from Londonderry.”

“You’ve got those Labs there. We ought to get a priest to bless our dogs. What do you think about that, Charlie? How ’bout over at St. Mary’s. Think that priest’d do that for us?” Fennel didn’t answer and Heck continued, “You know bloodhounds go back to Mesopotamia?”

“Where the hell’s that?”

“ Iraq.”

“Now that, ” Fennel said, “was a stupid little war.”

“I think we should’ve kept going, tromp, tromp, tromp, all the way to Baghdad.”

“I’ll second that.” Then Fennel laughed.

Heck, grinning, asked, “What’s so funny?”

“You’re a crazy man after a crazy man, Trenton.”

“Say what you will, I think I’m going to find me a priest and get Emil blessed after this is over.”

“If he catches the guy.”

“No, I think I’ll just do it anyway.”

The road down which they now pursued Hrubek was a dark country highway, which threaded through a string of small towns and unincorporated portions of the county. If Hrubek had Boston in mind he was taking the long route. But, Heck concluded, it was also the smarter way to travel. Along these roads there’d be hardly any local police, and the houses and traffic would be sparse.

They followed the dogs, still short-lined because of the traps, only three miles east before Hrubek broke away and turned north, onto a small dirt lane. A hundred feet away they found a filthy roadside diner, which looked bleaker yet because of the sloppily taped X’s on the windows.

Thinking that Hrubek might be inside, Fennel sent the Boy around back and he and Heck snuck up to the windows of the streamlined, aluminum-sided restaurant. Cautiously they lifted their heads and found themselves gazing straight into the eyes of the cook, waitress and two diners, who, forewarned by the baying Labradors, were staring out the windows.

Heck and Fennel, feeling somewhat foolish, stepped through the door, bolstering their guns.

“A posse,” the waitress exclaimed, drops of viscous gravy falling from the tilting plate she held.

But, no, nobody here had seen Hrubek, even though to judge by Emil’s scenting he’d passed within feet of the window. Without an explanation, or a farewell, the men and the dogs vanished as quickly as they’d come. Emil picked up the scent once more and led them northeast along the dirt road.

Not two hundred yards from the diner they found the spot where Hrubek had taken to the fields. “Hold up,” Heck whispered. They stood beside a small grass-filled path-an access road for mowing tractors. The drive darkened as it passed through a dense stand of trees.

Fennel and Heck tied back the track lines until they were shorter than pet-store leads. They found, however, that they didn’t need the animals any longer; not more than fifty yards into the woods they heard Hrubek.

Fennel gripped Heck’s arm and they stopped short. The Boy dropped to a crouch. They heard a mad moaning rising from the trees.

Heck was so excited to have found Hrubek that he forgot he was a civilian. He began communicating to Fennel and the Boy with the hand signals law enforcers use when they silently close in on their quarry. Up went his finger to his lips and he pointed toward the source of the sound then motioned Fennel and the Boy forward. Heck bent low to Emil and whispered, “Sit,” then, “Down.” The dog eased to the ground, obedient but irritated that the game was over for him. Heck loose-tied him to a branch.

“I’ll take over from here, you want,” Fennel whispered in a casual way but with enough timber to remind Heck who was in charge. Heck was of course willing to yield the role of commander, which was never his in the first place, but no way was he going to miss the hogtying party; he didn’t want any argument about the reward money. He nodded toward Fennel and unholstered his Walther.

The Boy, who with his fiery eyes and a big automatic in his fingers didn’t look so boyish anymore, circled around to the side, north of the trees, as Fennel had indicated. Heck and Fennel went up the middle of the road. They moved very slowly; they couldn’t use their flashlights and the grove was darkly shadowed by the hemlocks, whose branches were dense and lay upon one another like ragged petticoats.

The moaning grew louder. To a man, it chilled their hearts.

When Heck saw the truck-a long semi, parked cockeyed in the shadows-he felt a burst of queasiness, thinking that the moaning was not Hrubek at all but the driver, whom the madman had attacked and gutted. Perhaps he was listening to a sucking chest wound. He and Fennel glanced at each other, exchanging this identical thought in silence, and continued their cautious approach.

Then Heck saw him, an indistinct shape not far away.

Michael Hrubek, so thick around the middle he seemed deformed.

Moaning like a moon-crazed dog.

He lay on the ground, trying to get up. Perhaps he’d fallen and hurt himself, or had been hit by the massive truck.

Maybe he’d heard the Labs and was feigning injury, waiting for his pursuers to get close.

Opposite Heck and Fennel, on the other side of the clearing, the Boy appeared in a crouch. Fennel held up three fingers. The young trooper responded by mimicking it. Then Fennel clicked the safety off his gun and lifted his hand above his head. One finger. Two fingers… Three… The men jumped into the clearing, three dark pistols pointed forward, three long flashlights pumping their dazzling halogen light onto the massive body of their quarry.

“Freeze!”

“All right, don’t you move!”

For the love of Mary, Trenton Heck thought, his legs weakening in shock, what’s happening here?

The madman, lying on the ground in front of the three lawmen, was shrieking like a bluejay. He suddenly split clean in two, half of him leaping into the air, white as death.