John Saul - The Manhattan Hunt Club

Now, as he lay concealed, all his nerves suddenly went on full alert. He couldn't have said what it was that set his senses on edge; perhaps it was a whiff of an aroma, or a nearly subliminal sound-or perhaps it was nothing more than the perfectly honed instincts of a predator.

All he knew was that something was coming.

Gotta get rid of her, Jagger thought. Gotta get rid of her before she wrecks everything. He watched Jinx following Jeff through the tunnel. She was ahead of him, but not very far, and she was staying close to Jeff.

He knew why she was doing that-so she could smell him, take his scent deep into her lungs, just the way he had last night and the night before, when he'd watched over Jeff, making sure nothing bad happened to him while he slept. But since Jinx had shown up, he hadn't been able to get anywhere near close enough to Jeff to-

He cut that thought off. He just wanted to take care of Jeff, to protect him, so they could be friends-best friends.

His fist tightened on the railroad spike, and he edged closer.

Otto Vandenberg gazed through the eyepiece of his night scope.

Three people coming.

He recognized two of them immediately-he'd sentenced Jeff Converse only a few days ago, and Jagger just last year.

But the girl…

Who was the girl?

He focused the scope on her, searching his memory.

He had it-a street girl, someone he'd seen in court.

Young, and pretty. Or at least she'd have been pretty if you cleaned her up.

He kept the scope on her until she was so close he could see her features perfectly. If she were alone, if he had more time-

The hunt was far more important than any transient pleasure his body might enjoy, he reminded himself. Plenty of time for girls later…

The trio passed below him, and he shifted silently around, making up his mind.

Converse, or Jagger?

Perhaps both?

His nerves tingled as he set the night scope down and turned to the sniper rifle.

Something had changed.

Jeff could feel it. There was a sense of danger lurking nearby, so close it was palpable. But where?

They'd been moving steadily for almost a quarter of an hour, and their destination wasn't too much farther ahead. Stopping would only serve to alert whatever threat lay in the darkness that he had been discovered, so he kept moving, but increased his pace-not enough to betray his awareness, but enough to get them past the unseen danger more quickly.

Behind him, he sensed that Jinx could feel the danger, too.

And then he realized where the danger was emanating from.

It wasn't the herders at all.

Or the hunters.

No, the danger he was sensing was coming from much, much closer.

It was coming from Jagger.

Jagger was close enough behind Jinx that he could almost feel her. If he reached out, he could touch her, could put his fingers in her hair and yank her back, drag her away from Jeff, twist her neck until he heard the bones pop, then plunge the point of the spike into her flesh.

That would stop her.

That would keep her away from Jeff.

He edged closer, his right hand clutching the spike so tightly his whole arm was trembling.

Otto Vandenberg felt the hypnotic calm of the imminent kill fall over him. His hands were steady, his breathing slow and even. He could feel the calm, rhythmic throbbing of his heart, and began silently gauging the perfect moment, anticipating the instant when his finger would take advantage of the utter stillness of his body when neither his lungs nor his heart could throw his aim off by so much as a millimeter.

He'd made his decision as to which trophy he would take first, and the crosshairs of the night sight were fixed on the spot where the single bullet he would fire would be most lethal but do the least damage to the prize.

Why make Malcolm Baldridge's job any more difficult than it already was?

The moment came-that perfect confluence of lung and heart-and Otto Vandenberg slowly squeezed off the single round in the rifle's chamber.

The soft phut of the silenced shot was barely audible, even to the Viper's sharply honed ears.

Jagger's left hand came up, and he reached toward Jinx's hair, imagining its tangled strands in his fingers. His heart pounded as-

Jeff whirled around to see Jagger looming over Jinx, one of his hands reaching for her, the other clutching the railroad spike, which hovered dangerously above her. Without thinking, he lunged at Jinx, knocking her to the side just as Jagger made his move.

But then he saw a look of utter astonishment on Jagger's face.

Jagger felt as if he'd been struck by a sledgehammer. He stumbled, tried to regain his balance, but something had gone wrong. He couldn't feel anything. He dropped the spike, and his huge body crumpled toward the ground.

What had happened?

As he sank onto the floor, and realized he could no longer move his legs, the truth came to him.

Not a sledgehammer at all.

A bullet.

A bullet had struck him in the back, and-

He looked at his chest and saw blood oozing through his shirt and jacket.

But his mind still refused to grasp the reality of what was happening to him. If he'd been shot, why didn't he feel it?

He tried to speak, but there was no air in his lungs, and when he tried to breathe in, he heard a gurgling sound from somewhere deep in his chest.

And then he heard nothing at all.

Jeff had Monsignor McGuire's rifle already raised. When he saw Jagger fall, his first thought was that Jagger had tripped while lunging at Jinx. Then he saw the blood oozing from the wound in Jagger's chest, and was about to go to Jagger's side when Jinx shoved him against the wall. As she did, a bullet ricocheted off the opposite wall, a few yards away.

"It's one of them!" she whispered. "He's gonna get us!"

Jeff rose to his knees and raised the rifle again, jamming the stock against his shoulder as he fumbled with the safety. Peering through the scope, he saw nothing, but pulled the trigger anyway.

The rifle came to life, pouring a stream of lead into the far reaches of the tunnel and shattering the underground silence with its roar. The gun vibrating in his hands, Jeff sprayed the tunnel with bullets until the magazine was empty, its twenty rounds fired in less than a second. The chatter of exploding cartridges died suddenly away. He groped in the priest's backpack for another magazine, but Jinx was jerking at his arm.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered. "They'll all be here in a few minutes!" She darted away into the darkness.

Instead of following her, Jeff crouched down next to Jagger's unmoving form. "Jagger?" he said softly. "Hey, Jag…" His voice trailed off when he saw there would be no response. He reached down and took Jagger's wrist, feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

For a long minute Jeff stayed where he was, hunkered down next to Jagger's body.

He thought of the onrushing train that would have crushed him if Jagger hadn't hurled him aside. And of the man they'd come across in the depths of the tunnels, the man Jagger had killed, certain he'd intended Jeff some kind of harm.

How could he leave Jagger here? He knew what would happen as soon as he was gone. First the rats would come, and then the flies and ants and cockroaches.

But what choice did he have? Even if he could have carried Jagger, where could he take him?

From somewhere in the shadows, he heard Jinx's voice. "Hurry! They'll find us!"

Still he lingered, and finally lay his fingers on Jagger's forehead. "Thanks," he whispered in the darkness. "You were my friend."

Picking up Jagger's railroad spike from the floor, Jeff gazed down at Jagger once last time. Then, staying low to the ground, he turned and hurried away.