John Hawks - The Traveler

Boone motioned to Loutka and the Serb. The two men dragged the Magyar’s body out to the living room.

“The long war is over. The Travelers have vanished and the Harlequins have been defeated. I could kill you right now, but I need your help to finish my job.”

“I won’t betray anyone.”

“Cooperate and we’ll let Maya live a normal life. If not, then she’ll have a very unpleasant death. My mercenaries spent two days raping that Chinese Harlequin when we captured her in Pakistan. They liked the fact that she struggled and fought back. I guess the local women just give up in a similar situation.”

Thorn stayed silent, and Boone wondered if he was considering the offer. Did he love his daughter? Were Harlequins capable of such an emotion? Thorn’s arm muscles tensed as he tried to rip apart the restraining straps. He gave up and slumped back into the wheelchair.

Boone switched on his headset and spoke into the microphone. “Mr. Harkness, please come upstairs with your materials. The area is secure.”

The Serb and Loutka pulled Thorn out of the wheelchair, carried him into the bedroom, and dumped him on the floor. Harkness appeared a few minutes later, struggling with the unwieldy carrying case. He was an older Englishman who rarely spoke, but Boone found it difficult to sit beside him in a restaurant. There was something about the man’s yellow teeth and pale complexion that suggested death and decay.

“I know what you Harlequins dream about. A Proud Death. Isn’t that the expression? I could arrange that for you-a death that was noble and that gave some dignity to the end of your life. But you’d have to give me something in return. Tell me how to find your two friends, Linden and Mother Blessing. If you refuse, there’s a more humiliating alternative…”

Harkness placed the carrying case in front of the bedroom doorway. There were airholes on top, covered with a thick wire mesh. Claws scratched the metal floor of the case and Boone heard a raspy breathing sound.

He took the razor out of his pocket. “While you Harlequins were trapped in your medieval dreams, the Brethren have gained a new source of knowledge. They’ve overcome the challenges of genetic engineering.”

Boone cut into the skin beneath the Harlequin’s eyes. The creature inside the case could smell Thorn’s blood. It made an odd laughing sound, then banged against the side panel and tore at the wire mesh with its claws.

“This animal has been genetically designed to be aggressive and fearless. It’s compelled to attack without thought for its own survival. This won’t be a Proud Death. You’ll be eaten like a piece of meat.”

Lieutenant Loutka left the hallway and went back to the living room. The Serb looked curious and frightened. He stood a few feet behind Harkness in the doorway.

“Last chance. Give me one fact. Acknowledge our victory.”

Thorn rolled into a new position and stared at the carrying case. Boone realized that the Harlequin would fight when the creature attacked, trying to crush it with his body.

“Think anything you wish,” he said slowly, “but this is a Proud Death.”

Boone went back to the doorway and drew his gun. He would have to kill the animal after it finished with Thorn. The laughing sound stopped and the creature assumed the silence of a hunter, waiting. Boone nodded to Harkness. The old man straddled the case and slowly pulled the panel upward.

By the time she reached the Charles Bridge, Maya realized that she was being followed. Thorn once said that eyes projected energy. If you were sensitive enough, you could feel the waves coming toward you. When Maya was growing up in London, her father occasionally hired street thieves to follow her home after school. She had to spot them and hit them with the steel ball bearings she carried in her book bag.

It got darker after she crossed the bridge and turned left onto Saská Street. She decided to go to the Church of Our Lady Beneath the Chain; there was an unlit courtyard there with different ways to escape. Just keep walking, she told herself. Don’t look over your shoulder. Saská Street was narrow and crooked. The occasional streetlamp glowed with a dark yellow light. Maya passed an alleyway, doubled back, and stepped into its shadows. She crouched behind a trash dumpster and waited.

Ten seconds passed. Twenty seconds. Then the little troll taxi driver who had taken her to the hotel came down the sidewalk. Never hesitate. Always react. As he passed the mouth of the alleyway, she pulled out the stiletto and came up behind him, holding his shoulder with her left hand and pressing the knife point against the nape of his neck.

“Don’t move. Don’t run away.” Her voice was soft, almost seductive. “We’re going to step to the right now and I don’t want any trouble.”

She pulled him around, dragged him into the shadows, and pushed him up against the dumpster. Now the blade was pointed at his Adam’s apple.

“Tell me everything. No lies. And perhaps I won’t kill you. Do you understand?”

Terrified, the troll nodded his head slightly.

“Who hired you?”

“An American.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. He was a friend of Police Lieutenant Loutka.”

“And what were your instructions?”

“To follow you. That’s all. Pick you up with the taxi and follow you tonight.”

“Is someone waiting for me at the hotel?”

“I don’t know. I swear that’s true.” He started to whimper. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Thorn would have stabbed him right away, but Maya decided that she wasn’t going to give in to that madness. If she murdered this foolish little man, then her own life would be destroyed.

“I’m going to walk up the street and you’re going to go the other way, back to the bridge. Do you understand?”

The troll nodded quickly. “Yes,” he whispered.

“If I see you again, you’re dead.”

Maya stepped back out onto the sidewalk and headed toward the church, then she remembered her father. Had the troll followed her all the way to Thorn’s apartment? How much did they know?

She hurried back to the alleyway and heard the troll’s voice. Clutching a cell phone, he babbled to his master. As she stepped out of the shadows, he gasped and dropped the phone onto the cobblestones. Maya grabbed his hair, pulled him up straight, and inserted the point of the stiletto into his left ear.

This was the instant when the blade could pause. Maya was aware of the choice she was making and the dark passageway that opened before her. Don’t do this, she thought. You still have a chance. But pride and anger pulled her forward.

“Listen to me,” she said. “This is the last thing you will ever know. A Harlequin killed you.”

He struggled with her, trying to break away, but she drove the knife down the ear canal and into his brain.

MAYA LET GO of the taxi driver and he collapsed in front of her. Blood filled his mouth and trickled from his nose. His eyes were open and he looked surprised, as if someone had just told him unpleasant news.

She wiped off the stiletto and concealed the weapon beneath her sweater. Staying in the shadows, she dragged the dead man to the end of the alleyway and covered him with garbage bags taken from a dumpster. In the morning, someone would find the body and call the police.

Don’t run, Maya told herself. Don’t show that you’re scared. She tried to look calm as she walked back across the river. When she reached Konviktská Street, she climbed a fire escape to the roof of the lingerie shop and jumped over the five-foot gap to Thorn’s building. No skylight or fire door. She’d have to find another way in.