The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(81)

Two hours ago he had found Harold’s telephone company van parked along a side street in White Rock, apparently undisturbed since Harold had left it, indicating that Harold had left on foot to go somewhere. The odd thing was that his street clothes were left neatly folded on the passenger-side floorboard.

So Harold had been wearing something that he expected to change out of upon his return—a sweat suit, perhaps. It wasn’t like Harold to go jogging from a location where he had parked for surveillance. And his weapon was gone. That meant the jog was strictly business.

Harry, old man, where were you jogging to?

Jack parked his car several blocks away and then returned to Harold’s van on foot. This location would have given Harold access to the houses of several of the Rho Project scientists, as well as a couple of the technicians, so it made a good spot to do a little telephone line snooping.

Jack ran through the list in his mind. The closest houses were the least likely to have been of interest: the McFarland and Smythe homes, which were only a couple of blocks from where the truck was parked. Normally he would have ignored this line of inquiry.

But why had Harold gone for a jog? He must have been tailing someone whom he knew would have been jogging. The McFarland and Smythe houses sat very near a spot where several trails led off into the woods.

Of course Harold could have been jogging along city streets, but that wasn’t likely. If he was tailing someone, he would have stood out like a sore thumb in these close-knit neighborhoods as he followed along behind a local. This was no hotel district where a stranger could go unnoticed.

Jack glanced at his watch. Pressing a button on the side sent off a faint indigo light from the digital readout. 23:24. A little over thirty minutes to midnight. He moved off the road, cutting through a gap between houses, and entered the moonlit woods. Jack wasn’t quite sure what he hoped to find, but he had stayed alive this far through his instincts, and right now his inner voice said this was the place.

A sudden movement where the trail crossed a meadow, several hundred feet from where Jack stood, caught his eye. His head swiveled like an owl spotting a field mouse. The person moved fast, disappearing into the woods on the far side of the clearing in seconds, but those seconds were long enough to get Jack moving. The running man had been carrying a body over one shoulder.

Jack ran swiftly and silently through the semidarkness, every sense attuned to his surroundings, his nerves so finely monitored that he felt like a tuning fork struck by a rubber mallet. His body hummed.

For over half an hour Jack gradually closed the distance between himself and the man running ahead of him, and in each spot where the moonlight made its way through the trees, Jack could clearly see sign of his quarry’s passage, periodically spotting him through the gaps.

At first he thought perhaps it was Harry’s body over the man’s shoulder, but it soon became obvious it was much too small. The body appeared to be struggling, although with little effect. Anger had bubbled up within Jack at the thought that the man had killed Harry, but the suspicion that now arose within his mind clouded his vision with a red haze. As time passed, his intuition told him the man he chased was the one the McFarlands had called the Rag Man. That left little doubt as to who was draped over his shoulder. Although Jack had already been racing along the rough trail, he pressed himself, jacking up the pace another couple of notches.

Suddenly Jack came to another of the clearings, and he slid to a stop as he gazed out at the broad, open space. There was no sign of the Rag Man. Glancing down, Jack carefully examined the ground all around the spot where the trail exited the woods. There were no tracks, no broken twigs, overturned stones, or twisted blades of grass to indicate that anyone had passed this way within days.

Jack reached into the pouch strapped firmly beneath his left shoulder. From a spot just below where his 9mm Berretta hung, he extracted a set of goggles. Not the bulky night-vision goggles that were standard soldier issue. These were top-of-the-line, barely larger than sunglasses.

He flipped on a switch by his right temple, and the scene around him shifted colors. Another switch shifted the view to black hot as he began walking back down the trail the way he had come. In his left hand he held something that looked like a penlight, although the beam from this one was invisible to the naked eye. With the special lenses, the surrounding ground looked like it had been bathed in a black-light search lamp.

It did not take Jack long to find the last spot where the trail showed signs of the runner. Unfortunately, despite his skill, there was no sign at all of where the Rag Man had gone from here.

Jack cursed inwardly. To find the trail again he would have to cut a wide circle through the woods, spiraling outward until he crossed it. If he didn’t get very lucky soon, the crazy perp was probably going to kill that sweet girl before Jack could get to her.

Taking a deep breath, Jack began moving outward in a wide spiral around the spot. It would be all right. He would find them. He had always had a knack for this kind of thing, and he wasn’t about to start doubting that knack now. And when he found them, Jack was certain of one thing. The Rag Man would never bother anyone ever again.





Chapter 60





Mark slept fitfully, his muscles twitching involuntarily in accompaniment to the REM movements of his eyes. Soundless words formed on his lips, the same words over and over and over again.

“Mark! Please help me!”