The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

the blinding ice storm. He had become lost in the moment. He looked to his right again, but nothing seemed at odds with nature now. It was quiet. Almost too quiet. As if something or someone had scared the animals away, long before they had arrived.

13

 

“We are here,” Lena announced. She stopped walking and pointed across the clearing.

King nodded and looked around the clearing. “Show me,” he said.

Lena studied the area. She looked uncertain. The trees all looked the same and the ground was white. She turned her back to him and King saw her remove a glove, hold it between her teeth and check her phone. She looked up decisively and led the way across the clearing. She stopped when they reached a series of ice ridges.

“Over there, by that tree,” she said, pointing to a large spindly spruce. The branches were thin and did not start until they were eight-feet from the ground.

King walked to the tree. He could see the scarring from a bullet. It had chipped off a chunk of bark and driven a groove through the wood. He looked at Lena, but she was staring at the ground. The squall had blown off the dusting of ice and there were blood stains in the snow. King looked back at Lena again, but she was studying the belt of trees at the edge of the clearing. She had the rifle gripped firmly in both hands.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I thought I saw a wolf,” she replied. “But it’s gone now.”

“How was the body when you found it?”

“I…” she shrugged. “Horrible,” she said. “Torn to shreds.”

King stood up. “Did you notice the bullet strike?”

“He wasn’t shot,” she said.

“In the tree.”

“What? No.”

“It’s as clear as day,” he said. The irony that it was not yet three-PM and the darkness was fading rapidly. He pointed at the mark, a four-inch diameter piece of bark missing, new yellow-white wood underneath with a channel cut into it and lead colouring where the copper coating of the hunting bullet had split, and the soft lead underneath had deformed and left a tell-tale mark. To those who knew about such things.

“I must have missed that,” she said.

King scanned the clearing, looked back at her, but focused on the rifle. It was pointed at his stomach, her hands unwavering.

“You never saw Fitzpatrick’s body before this morning, did you? No, don’t answer that. You hadn’t.” King watched her eyes, saw indecision in them. He thought of her reaction in the morgue. It had been a terrible sight, but if she had been at the crime scene, then she would have known what to expect. “You’re not even a police officer. Who are you? And where is Senior Constable Mäkinen?”

She looked at him and smiled. “How did you know?”

“Where is she?”

“Dead, of course.”

“And the doctor that Engelmann replaced? You killed him too?”

“Not me, personally. But yes, he was killed.”

King looked at her, she had been playing a role. And she had immersed herself totally. Only her reaction inside the morgue over Fitzpatrick’s body and her indecision out here had given her away. He wondered how much of what she had told him was the real Lena Mäkinen’s life, or whether she had adlibbed the whole thing. Perhaps she used her own experiences. Either way, she had been utterly convincing. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Not your concern.”

“Russian?”

She smiled. “Not your concern.”

King looked at the rifle. It was still pointing at him.

“Who are you waiting for?”

“Someone to take care of you.”

“The same person who killed Lena and the other doctor?”

“I imagine.”

“And you don’t do that sort of thing in the FSB?” She sneered, and he said, “GRU, then?”

She shrugged like it was no matter. “I could do that sort of thing. But that wasn’t my orders.”

“Don’t be so sure. You almost threw up over Fitzpatrick’s body,” he said, taking off his gloves methodically and tucking them under his left armpit. He gripped them into fists and blew on them, warming them up and bringing some life back to them. “That’s why I knew you hadn’t seen it before. But I only knew for sure when you needed your phone to find the site. What was it, a text or GPS?”

“Clever man,” she said quietly. “GPS. But not so clever with a gun aimed at him.”

“So, tell me about the good doctor. One of Russia’s finest sent to cover incidents like Fitzpatrick? Or to smooth over the crime scene of any potential defector who meets a vicious end out in those woods?”

“Both counts, I suspect.”

“So, Russia knows it has people who want out, who want to sell what they have to the West. So much so, they put a team in to block their way, clear up the fallout.”

She shrugged. “We think of everything,” she said. “If we can manipulate a man into the White House from behind our computer terminals, we can get ahead of a few traitors.”

“Well, looks like they thought of everything,” King said sardonically. “Except for sending an amateur like you to do a professional’s job.”

“You don’t look like such a professional from where I’m standing.”

King dropped the massive brass cartridge onto the ice between them. She stared at it, but when she looked back up at him, he had the Walther in his un-gloved hand. She looked confused, hurt even. Like he had betrayed a trust and couldn’t see the irony in that. Her expression changed to anger and the click of the bolt releasing and the rim that housed the firing pin striking the neck of the empty chamber sounded loudly in the stillness of the clearing. Even so, King flinched at the sound, relief that his gamble had played out. She glared at him and