The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(109)
Priest began to count backward in his head, comparing his mental estimate of how long it would take Jack to free Priest’s two captives and examine them for wounds to how long the progress of Priest’s own healing process was taking. The muscles along his arms, back, and legs tensed. He waited. A lion amidst the tall savannah grass. His prey only a few feet from where he coiled for the strike. Almost ready.
The ferocity and speed with which Priest propelled his body forward caught even the dreaded Ripper by surprise. He was, after all, supposed to be dead. Priest thrust the wicked tip of the SAF survival knife down into the Ripper’s back with all the force his two hundred and ten pounds of lean muscle and bone could deliver.
It was the slightest of moves. A bare adjustment in the angle of the back of the Ripper’s left arm that caused the blade to glance off the man’s elbow and miss the rear of his torso by a fraction of a centimeter.
Priest screamed in frustration as the Ripper’s body spun beneath him, using Priests own momentum to flip him into the side of the oak desk.
Then The Ripper was behind him, his left arm encircling Priest’s throat as the right pumped his knife into Priest’s right kidney with three staccato thrusts. The Ripper’s legs were moving now, driving Priest’s body forward, directly back down the hallway, into the bathroom, and then down into the bathtub, facedown.
Priest felt the hard, cold porcelain rise up to meet his face an instant before both of The Ripper’s knees landed on his back, hard. A strong hand grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking Priest’s head back with a violence that was only surpassed by that of the knife that cut his throat, then continued to saw at his neck.
As his head came free of any connection to the rest of his body, Priest found himself wondering if perhaps he had achieved immortality. His eyes locked for one last time with those of The Ripper, as his glimpse of immortality, along with the last of his life force, drained away.
And as Priest’s eyes continued to stare outward, they acquired a look almost as dead and cold as the eyes of the man who held his head.
Chapter 84
Jack watched as the head of Carlton “Priest” Williams swung by the hair from his hand, the blue eyes momentarily locking with his own. Then the life in those eyes drained away.
Jack looked down at the bloody mess in the bathtub, a mess that extended in a rapidly coagulating trail out into the hallway. As his eyes shifted back to the headless body beneath his knees, his fascination grew.
Even in death, some vestiges of the unreal healing powers that had manifested themselves in Priest were apparent, trying to seal off wounds, working to repair torn tissue and broken bone. But those attempts at regeneration were now rapidly fading.
Whatever had been done to Priest, he had still retained the basic mortality that made him, at least marginally, human. Jack didn’t know what Priest’s blood workup was going to show, but he was quite sure Jonathan Riles would find the results more than mildly interesting.
Pulling the shower curtain from its hooks and laying it on the floor, Jack placed the body on it, rolling it into a tight bundle. The head he left in the bathtub.
Jack glanced at his watch, wiping it on his blood-soaked shirt to remove enough blood for the display to be readable. 17:35. He had placed the call to the rest of his team in Santa Fe as soon as he had gotten the message from Janet. That had been almost an hour ago. That meant they should be here to set up the fake federal crime scene lockdown at any time.
Moving to the sink to wash the slathering of Priest’s blood from his hands and arms, Jack was surprised to see his left elbow showed no sign of a laceration. He could have sworn that Priest's knife had cut into it as he had spun to deflect the knife attack.
Shaking his head, Jack walked back to the room where Janet and young Mark lay bound. Except for the gentle rise and fall of their chests, they had not moved since he first saw them, sleeping the untroubled sleep that only true innocence or tranquilizing drugs can bring.
Within seconds, he removed the tape that bound and gagged them. Then, removing his own blood-soaked shoes and socks, Jack carried first Mark and then Janet down to the den, laying Mark on the couch and Janet on the love seat.
Jack’s eyes lingered on Mark. What had the lad been doing here, and how much had he seen? Well, time enough to ask those questions once the drug wore off. In the meantime, he would leave the two of them sleeping comfortably while he got to work upstairs. It would certainly help the rest of his team if he got a head start on some of what needed to be done.
The first thing on Jack’s to-do list was to get his own blood sample from the thing that had once been Priest Williams. Getting the kit from his closet, Jack withdrew a needle and an empty plastic syringe. Stripping off the plastic covering, he fitted the needle on the end of the syringe, walked to the bathroom, partially unwrapped the body, and inserted the tip into Priest's left arm. A slow pull filled the syringe with blood.
Jack carried the blood sample downstairs to the kitchen, where he discarded the needle in the garbage, wrapped the syringe in a freezer bag, and placed it at the back of the freezer beneath several packages of hamburger and steak.
Then he moved to the second item on his mental checklist, getting himself cleaned up. By the time he finished his quick shower and got dressed in fresh clothes, Jack heard two cars pull up outside.
He met his three team members at the front door.