The Manhattan Hunt Club

CHAPTER 36

The hunter called Viper had hardly moved for more than two hours. The activity of brushing bugs away from his face or striking out at any too-curious rats that approached had been sufficient to keep stiffness out of his joints and numbness from his muscles. But while his body had rested, his mind was humming, taking in every bit of sensory information, and analyzing it from every angle.

For Viper, the hours spent on the hunt were the best of his life, far more interesting, far more challenging, than the endless tedium of listening to lawyers debate the arcane trivia of law, precedent, and Supreme Court decisions. Viper had always known what was right and what was wrong. It was why he had become a lawyer in the first place. He hadn't gone to law school out of any interest in arguing cases, but out of the certain knowledge that he had a unique ability to determine right from wrong.

With that in mind, Otto Vandenberg had set out to be a judge, and by the time he was forty, his ambition had been fulfilled. But as the years had gone by, his own satisfaction in his judgments had first been diluted, and then washed completely away-by the steady trickle of decisions from the courts above him, limiting his discretion, establishing maximum sentences, even dictating immediate release for some of the leeches that he believed were sucking the life out of decent men and women.

But the Manhattan Hunt Club had changed all that, and from his first moment in the tunnels, when Vandenberg had shed his judicial robes for hunter's black and the role of the Viper, he'd once again experienced the deep sense of fulfillment that came not only from exercising his perfect judgment, but from having his sentences carried out as well.

Today, two of his sentences were to be enacted, and it was his intention to bag at least one of the trophies himself. Thus, after studying the records of every one of the previous thirty-seven hunts, and tracing the routes the prey had used in their attempts to escape their stalkers, he had settled on this particular spot, a nearly invisible shelf, so well-hidden in the maze of pipes and conduits running through the utility tunnel that he could stay in almost perfect concealment, his senses alert, ready to strike like the snake from which his code name derived.

His weapon was prepared-a 7.62mm M-14A1 that he had acquired directly from a friend at the Pentagon, but to which he'd added a special laser sight himself. His backpack held four magazines for the rifle, each of which contained twenty rounds, but Vandenberg fully expected to come back with three of the magazines full and the one in the rifle less than half empty.

The sporting method of bagging the prey, after all, was with a single shot.

The rest of the magazine was nothing more than insurance.

His night scope lay beneath his right hand, ready if he heard the sound of approaching prey. And his ears would have no trouble distinguishing the sound of the quarry from the background noise that constantly drifted through the tunnel. Vandenberg had long ago learned to tell the scurrying sound of mice from that of rats, the sound of a leaking pipe from that of a derelict pissing on the wall, the moans of a dying man from those of one who was merely ill. He'd learned to sort out the scents as well, sniffing out the smell of an approaching human being as efficiently as a great white shark can catch the scent of blood from miles away.

Now, as he lay concealed, all his nerves suddenly went on full alert. He couldn't have said what it was that set his senses on edge; perhaps it was a whiff of an aroma, or a nearly subliminal sound-or perhaps it was nothing more than the perfectly honed instincts of a predator.

All he knew was that something was coming.

Gotta get rid of her, Jagger thought. Gotta get rid of her before she wrecks everything. He watched Jinx following Jeff through the tunnel. She was ahead of him, but not very far, and she was staying close to Jeff.

He knew why she was doing that-so she could smell him, take his scent deep into her lungs, just the way he had last night and the night before, when he'd watched over Jeff, making sure nothing bad happened to him while he slept. But since Jinx had shown up, he hadn't been able to get anywhere near close enough to Jeff to-

He cut that thought off. He just wanted to take care of Jeff, to protect him, so they could be friends-best friends.

His fist tightened on the railroad spike, and he edged closer.

Otto Vandenberg gazed through the eyepiece of his night scope.

Three people coming.

He recognized two of them immediately-he'd sentenced Jeff Converse only a few days ago, and Jagger just last year.

But the girl…

Who was the girl?

He focused the scope on her, searching his memory.

He had it-a street girl, someone he'd seen in court.

Young, and pretty. Or at least she'd have been pretty if you cleaned her up.

He kept the scope on her until she was so close he could see her features perfectly. If she were alone, if he had more time-

The hunt was far more important than any transient pleasure his body might enjoy, he reminded himself. Plenty of time for girls later…

The trio passed below him, and he shifted silently around, making up his mind.

Converse, or Jagger?

Perhaps both?

His nerves tingled as he set the night scope down and turned to the sniper rifle.

Something had changed.

Jeff could feel it. There was a sense of danger lurking nearby, so close it was palpable. But where?

They'd been moving steadily for almost a quarter of an hour, and their destination wasn't too much farther ahead. Stopping would only serve to alert whatever threat lay in the darkness that he had been discovered, so he kept moving, but increased his pace-not enough to betray his awareness, but enough to get them past the unseen danger more quickly.

Behind him, he sensed that Jinx could feel the danger, too.

And then he realized where the danger was emanating from.

It wasn't the herders at all.

Or the hunters.

No, the danger he was sensing was coming from much, much closer.

It was coming from Jagger.

Jagger was close enough behind Jinx that he could almost feel her. If he reached out, he could touch her, could put his fingers in her hair and yank her back, drag her away from Jeff, twist her neck until he heard the bones pop, then plunge the point of the spike into her flesh.

That would stop her.

That would keep her away from Jeff.

He edged closer, his right hand clutching the spike so tightly his whole arm was trembling.

Otto Vandenberg felt the hypnotic calm of the imminent kill fall over him. His hands were steady, his breathing slow and even. He could feel the calm, rhythmic throbbing of his heart, and began silently gauging the perfect moment, anticipating the instant when his finger would take advantage of the utter stillness of his body when neither his lungs nor his heart could throw his aim off by so much as a millimeter.

He'd made his decision as to which trophy he would take first, and the crosshairs of the night sight were fixed on the spot where the single bullet he would fire would be most lethal but do the least damage to the prize.

Why make Malcolm Baldridge's job any more difficult than it already was?

The moment came-that perfect confluence of lung and heart-and Otto Vandenberg slowly squeezed off the single round in the rifle's chamber.

The soft phut of the silenced shot was barely audible, even to the Viper's sharply honed ears.

Jagger's left hand came up, and he reached toward Jinx's hair, imagining its tangled strands in his fingers. His heart pounded as-

Jeff whirled around to see Jagger looming over Jinx, one of his hands reaching for her, the other clutching the railroad spike, which hovered dangerously above her. Without thinking, he lunged at Jinx, knocking her to the side just as Jagger made his move.

But then he saw a look of utter astonishment on Jagger's face.

Jagger felt as if he'd been struck by a sledgehammer. He stumbled, tried to regain his balance, but something had gone wrong. He couldn't feel anything. He dropped the spike, and his huge body crumpled toward the ground.

What had happened?

As he sank onto the floor, and realized he could no longer move his legs, the truth came to him.

Not a sledgehammer at all.

A bullet.

A bullet had struck him in the back, and-

He looked at his chest and saw blood oozing through his shirt and jacket.

But his mind still refused to grasp the reality of what was happening to him. If he'd been shot, why didn't he feel it?

He tried to speak, but there was no air in his lungs, and when he tried to breathe in, he heard a gurgling sound from somewhere deep in his chest.

And then he heard nothing at all.