Chapter LXXXIII
CHAPTER LXXXIII
Night fell. In the woods, and now with us for company, the Fulcis had made themselves comfortable with a flask of fresh coffee, some candy, and a variety pack of Reese’s Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treats. The elderly birdwatcher was still seated in her car with the Triton compound in sight.
“How long do we stay here?” asked Angel, who had always regarded the great outdoors as unpromising, if only because there was traditionally nothing in it worth stealing.
“Until they come for Triton,” I said, “or the feds take over, whichever is first.”
I could just make out the shape of the birdwatcher, real or pretend, behind the windshield of her car. The interior light was off but the dashboard radio was glowing. My nose was hurting again, and my ribs too. I swallowed more painkillers and leaned against a tree, because standing was more comfortable than sitting. Perhaps whatever was going to happen wouldn’t occur tonight, but the figure in the car said otherwise. If Triton had intended to move the child, he’d have done so already, and the woman would have been elsewhere. She wasn’t just watching; she was waiting.
An hour passed, then two, then three. The lights were on in the Triton house. Through my Bresser night vision binoculars, I could see three people by the front door, one of them the small, silent man in the Alpha Industries jacket. Two more joined them, a man and a woman. The woman was Zetta Nadeau, and the man, unless I was mistaken, was Wyatt Riggins. He lit a cigarette and said something to Zetta, who left him to walk down the driveway toward her home, entering through the back gate. I tracked her until she was lost from sight. No lights went on in the cottage so she must have been going to her studio. A few minutes later she returned to the main house and went inside. Riggins and the others didn’t pay her any further attention.
Below us, a car started up. The birdwatcher was leaving, but instead of heading toward the main road, she stopped at the front gate of the compound and flashed her headlights. One of the guards began walking in her direction.
“You see that?” I asked Louis.
“Maybe we were mistaken, and she was one of Triton’s people all along,” said Angel.
But I didn’t think so. I shifted the binoculars back to the house. Riggins and Alpha Industries were no longer in sight, but the guard approaching the gate was keeping his body turned slightly to hide his gun and make himself a smaller target. Whoever the woman might be, she wasn’t known to them. Another guard descended to a spot halfway down, where a stone bench offered a modicum of cover.
The first guard was almost at the gate when the car suddenly reversed and shot left, speeding away from the property. The guard paused, staring after it in puzzlement, before spotting an object on the ground in front of him. He bent down to peer more closely at it.
When it came, the explosion caused a flare in my lenses that left me blinking away stars, even as the sound of the blast was oddly muffled. When my vision cleared, I didn’t need the binoculars to see that the guard by the gate was down, and within seconds, we heard the first of the gunfire. I remembered my promise to Macy.
“Give us time to get down there and find Zetta,” I shouted to Tony Fulci, “then call nine-one-one.”
Angel and Louis were already on the move. Despite my busted ribs warning me against it, I went after them.
THREE OF TRITON’S MEN were already lying dead by the time Seeley approached the house. Two of Urrea’s gunmen walked ahead of him, another alongside. The Mexicans on point had taken hits to the torso—Seeley saw them buck at the impacts—but the body armor had held up as they returned fire. Of la Senora, there was no sign. As soon as the device at the gate had gone off, she’d slipped over the low boundary wall and vanished into the shadows. Now, as Seeley reached the first of the dead guards, he saw he had been gutted. Urrea’s gunmen might have killed the others, but this was the woman’s work.
A pair of patio doors stood open before Seeley. The first of Urrea’s men entered, the second close behind. The third was about to follow when a fragment of his skull separated from the rest and he dropped to the patio, taking a chair with him. Nearby, Seeley saw a black-jacketed man only a few inches taller than himself pointing a pistol in his direction. Seeley had just enough time to reflect that this was not how he would have wanted things to end when he heard a click but no discharge. The guard didn’t panic at the misfire, just tossed the gun and reached behind him for a second, but by then Seeley was advancing. He fired and fired until the guard went down, and kept firing until his own weapon clicked empty and he had brought himself back under control.
Seeley followed the others, reloading as he moved into the house, but there was no more gunfire to be heard. Of Urrea’s surviving men, Matías was positioned by the front door, while the second, Rubén, held a Native American woman by the hair. The woman was on her knees and bleeding from a cut to her forehead.
“Who are you?” Seeley asked.
“My name is Madeline Rainbird.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m a conservator. I’m advising Mr. Triton.”
“Where’s the child?”
“I don’t know.” Rainbird was scared, but she wasn’t crying. Seeley regarded this as admirable under the circumstances. “She was there earlier.”
Rainbird pointed to the living room, where Seeley saw an empty display case on a heavy console table. The glass front of the case had been shattered. “I swear she was, and now she’s gone.”
Seeley spoke to Rubén.
“?Dónde está la Senora?”
“Arriba. ?Y esta chica?”
Rubén tugged harder on Rainbird’s hair.
“ Mantenla viva ,” Seeley told him, “ por ahora .”
Seeley ascended. In the first bedroom, he found la Senora. She was kneeling over Triton, who lay spread-eagled on the bed. La Senora’s face was red with blood, most of it probably Triton’s, a stream still bubbling from the gash in his neck. La Senora was working at his chest with the curved blade of the tumi, but Seeley could tell that she was struggling. Her strength was almost gone.
“The child,” Seeley asked her, “do you have it?”
She shook her head. With a final effort, she pushed the blade down, twisted, then pulled it free. Triton shuddered as she reached into the hole she had made.
“Find her,” said la Senora. “Don’t make me return.”
Seeley heard both a plea and a warning, and knew la Senora would not be leaving this house. He turned away as her right hand arose from Triton’s concavity clutching a reddish-black mass.
Seeley hurried downstairs, where Madeline Rainbird remained on her knees before Rubén.
“Riggins and Nadeau,” he said, “where are they?”
“At the cottage, maybe,” Rainbird replied. “That’s where Nadeau lives. Don’t hurt me, please. I’ve told you all I know.”
“I believe you.”
Seeley looked at Urrea’s men. If he walked away now, the Mexicans would kill her. It would solve the problem she presented, but not in a way that sat comfortably with him. Seeley ordered Rainbird to be secured, hand and foot, and dumped on the lawn. There might yet be more killing, but he saw no reason to add her to the number. Acrement was parked on the road, ready to receive the final child. Seeley ordered Rubén to retrieve his fallen comrade’s body and join Acrement in the van.
“ ?Qué pasa con la Senora? ” asked Matías.
“ Ella no va a volver con nosotros .”
Matías accepted this without comment.
“ Venga conmigo ,” said Seeley.
Together, he and Matías descended toward Zetta Nadeau’s home.