Stealth

61

Roger Fife-Simpson could hear people on foot nearby now. He abandoned the van and melted into the woods. Then it occurred to him that the safest place for him might be near the house, since the police had, apparently, completed their search there.

Stone had reached the second floor, right behind Felicity and Rose, who had begun to unzip things, when his phone rang. “Yes?”

“Stone, it’s Holmes.”

“Yes, Chief Inspector?”

“My people have found a van in the woods across the road from your house, which shows signs of having had something stuck to it. There’s also been a small fire, where something cotton was burned. It occurs to me that our man may still be around and that you should be on your guard.”

“Thank you, I’ll have a look around,” Stone said. He fetched his shotgun. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said to Felicity and Rose. “I have to take a walk around the house.”

“It’s all right, darling,” Felicity said, “we’ll still be here when you get back. May we start without you?”

“Of course,” Stone said with a sigh. He got out of his dinner jacket and black tie and into a barn coat. Then he dropped a flashlight into a pocket and held the shotgun crooked in his arm as he trotted down the stairs and down the hall to the kitchen — the door of which was still open — then out into the garden. Some fruit trees stood in rows on one side of the vegetable garden, providing cover for an intruder. He checked the shotgun, found it still loaded, and began walking toward the little orchard. He could hear the voices of policemen and the barks of dogs from across the road.

He walked to the end of each row of trees and looked down the furrows, finding nothing, then he turned back to check the other side of the garden. Someone could hide by lying on the ground between rows of plants. Nothing.

He walked over to the stables; the grooms were long in their beds, but the horses snuffled as they became aware of his arrival. There was a loud noise from down the row of stalls, as if someone had knocked something over. He checked each stall carefully, playing his flashlight around the corners, as he moved down the row.

He checked the tack room and found everything neat and undisturbed, then he started back toward the main stable door, moving past some stacked bales of hay and straw. He heard something like a foot scraping the concrete floor and turned to look behind him. As he did, a pitchfork flew past him and impaled itself in a bale of hay. Before he could move, the shotgun was knocked from his hands.

“Now,” a voice to one side of him said. He turned again to find a man dressed in black and wearing a black mask, standing in something like a combat position. Why hasn’t he shot me? Stone asked himself. Then he saw that the man had other plans: he was holding something in his hand. Then Stone heard the release and snap of a switchblade opening.

There was something familiar about the figure. “Hello, Roger,” he said.

“Good evening,” Roger replied, ripping off his mask and casting it aside. “I’ve longed for this moment.” He lunged at Stone’s ribs.

Stone sidestepped, took hold of the pitchfork handle, and wrenched it from the bale of hay. He liked his chances better now, but as he turned, something sharp raked across his back, bringing a short cry of pain.

“First blood,” Roger said. “More to come.”

Stone stabbed at him with the pitchfork but came up short. Roger grabbed a tine and yanked the tool from his hand.

Stone backed away, looking for another weapon or a place to hide, and the blade swished past his head, the tip slicing his cheek. Now he was bleeding on both sides of his body. He tried to remember what he had been told about defense from a knife at the police academy all those years ago. Step into the swing of the blade, not away from it. He tried that, holding up his left arm in defense, and felt a hot cut as the blade went through his canvas jacket and caught his forearm. He was losing this fight.

He remembered something else from some forgotten weapons instruction. He snatched the SureFire flashlight from his pocket, held it in his fist, and pointed it at Fife-Simpson, pressing the On switch with his thumb.

Roger’s eyes were open when the incredibly bright beam hit him, and he staggered backward, momentarily blinded.

Stone went for the pitchfork on the floor between them and got a grip on it with his weakened left hand. He wasn’t giving up the flashlight, though; he slipped it back into his jacket pocket and got both hands on the pitchfork’s handle. He thrust at the man’s chest, but the tines didn’t have the desired effect. Roger was wearing some sort of ballistic garment, Stone decided. Stone’s thrust had knocked him to one knee, though, and the next thrust was at his face.

Roger jerked his head aside in time, but a tine caught his ear, causing him to scream and back away. He came to a stop against a bale of hay, blood streaming down his neck.

Stone thought he had one more good thrust left in him before he bled out, and he drew back with his right, prepared to throw the thing at the man’s head.

“No!” Roger shouted, then threw away the knife.

Stone heard it clatter across the concrete floor.

“No more!”

Stone’s foot kicked something, and he knew what it was. Keeping the pitchfork aimed at its target, he bent down and scooped up his shotgun. He dropped the pitchfork, pointed the shotgun upward, and pulled the trigger. The blast nearly deafened him, and Roger slipped down the side of a bale of hay onto the floor.

“One more round left,” Stone said, pointing it at him.

“You can’t,” Roger said. “That would be murder.”

“I suppose it would be,” Stone said, aiming at his head.

Then a light hit him, and a voice yelled, “Drop the shotgun! Hands up!”

Stone froze, then slowly bent and laid the fine weapon on the floor. “I’m Barrington!” he yelled. “And I’m fucking bleeding to death!” He sank onto the floor and leaned against a hay bale.

“It’s Barrington!” someone shouted. “Don’t fire! Medic, medic!”

Then Stone passed out.

He woke on a stretcher in an ambulance van, half naked, held in position on his side by a policeman, while an EMT attended to his back.

“He’s conscious,” someone said.

“I’m a surgeon,” a female voice said. “I’ll deal with this.”

Then Stone passed out again.