Ogrodnik Interior 2.0c (29 page)

A squeal of tires snapped his attention back to the truck 300 yards away just in time for him to see a pickup truck reverse out from behind a dumpster and T-bone the SUV in a violent crash.

Sammy,
thought Rayce
.
Rayce sprinted down the long driveway with gun in hand. He saw two figures climb out from the SUV from the side that was still intact. Rayce watched as the two jumped from the truck and headed toward the bordering forest. The first figure disappeared into the woods and, behind him limped the glossy pate of Enver Yilmaz.

Rayce watched for movement in Sammy’s truck but kept his gun trained on the SUV as he neared. A quick check of the SUV revealed the body of Head and Shoulders with a bullet hole in the side of his head.

He quickly checked on Sammy, who was only now showing signs of life in the pickup. Rayce pulled the driver door open. “You OK?”

“I’ll live, just a little bump on the noggin. I saw them run into the woods in that direction,” said Sammy pointing to his right.

“You stay here; I’m going in after them.”

Rayce entered the woods where he had seen Yilmaz go. He slowed down to a crawl as he let his eyes acclimatize to the black of the woods. The darkness was complete with only a faint glow from the city shine filtering in through the treed canopy overhead. Not wanting to walk into a trap, Rayce stopped completely to listen for the sounds of escape. His sight, now tuned to the dark as well as they were going to be, was of little value. The areas that were illuminated enough to see into would not be the areas where hiding men would wait. Rayce pulled out a compact package from his pocket and carefully took out a pair of hearing aids. Using hearing aids to find quarry when adequate sight was not available was a trick he had used in Iraq. NVGs were not always available, so alternate means were needed to locate those hiding in darkened caves.

As soon as he put the aids in, his auditory senses were pummeled by a cacophony of sound. It took a long minute for his mind to filter out the extraneous noise created by the wind in the trees and the background sounds of a city. He slowly turned his head searching for sounds that were not innate to the wooded environment. He imagined that his head was like a radar array, slowly scanning the surrounding area in search of sounds that a wounded or running man might make. The sound of a soft gust of wind stopped his movement. No, not a gust of wind, a soft, raspy, breath-like sound, not at all natural, but contrived: not a sound he would normally expect to hear given his locale. It was the shallow, uneven breathing sound that a wounded man might make when trying to be quiet. He moved his head slowly from side to side until he was able to fix the direction of the breathy sound. He determined that the source of the noise was not moving and less than 40 feet ahead.
Not surprising,
thought Rayce. A wounded man trying to make his way through a dark forest would make too much noise to go undetected. He would be lying in wait somewhere directly ahead, waiting for the reckless pursuit of his tracker. Waiting with weapon drawn, waiting for Rayce to walk into a bullet. He would not fall into that trap. He lay down on the ground and advanced slowly in an infantry crawl, always keeping to the shadows where no light existed and used his enhanced hearing to keep the target in front of him.

The raspy sound of breathing was now no more than 20 feet ahead. Rayce picked up a pine cone and flicked it to the side where it landed 10 feet to his right and watched ahead for movement. He saw the movement of a dark form repositioning itself toward the fallen pine cone. Where before only darkness existed, Rayce was now able to make out the indistinct outline of a form before him. The cadence of the breathing was quicker now. Rayce imagined that figure before him was pointing his gun in the direction of the pine cone waiting for another revealing sound. He flicked another pine cone into the same area, and the entire wooded area was instantly lit up from the muzzle flash of Yilmaz’s handgun. Yilmaz fired at the sound twice before he realized he’d been duped. The gun flash illumination allowed him to see Rayce lying 20 feet off to his right, but by then, it was too late. Rayce squeezed off two rounds at Yilmaz’s head. He needed the first shot to kill his quarry and the second shot to light up the results of the first shot. The illumination from the second shot exposed half of Yilmaz’s bald pate still flipping through the air and Yilmaz looking toward Rayce not yet realizing he was dead.
Good riddance
.
See you on the other side, Yilmaz,
he thought to himself.

Rayce stayed where he was, his ears now ringing because of the amplified sound of gunshots. Whatever advantage the hearing aids had given him was now gone as he could now hear only a shrill tinnitus like ringing caused by the discharges of the recent gunfire. He didn’t move while he waited for the ringing in his ears to fade knowing that his position was now compromised and that there was still another soldier in the woods close by. He started getting up when he felt the cold end of a gun barrel press against the back of his head. He turned his head carefully to look at the gun holder and was greeted by the shadowed face of the mustached man from the subway photos. Rayce couldn’t hear his words clearly but saw him mouth the words “drop your gun.” He did.

The merc dropped down with a knee on Rayce’s back and brought his hands behind his back to bind them. Rayce knew that the merc would want to use him as his ticket out of this mess; he’d have done the same. With hands now securely bound behind him, Rayce was dragged up to his feet, the gun still pressed into his head and pushed forward, back the way they had come.

They made their way through the woods, and gradually the light from the open parking area started filtering in enough so that they could see where they were walking. A flash of color off to their left startled them both, and Moustache swung his gun around ready to shoot. He held off in time to see it was only one of Sammy’s beach balls that had become untethered. Moustache looked at Rayce and cracked a smile that said, “Too bad for you, soldier. The beach ball cannot save you.” The smile was still on his face when the metallic glint of a large blade flashed downward and severed his gun hand at the wrist. The smile turned into a look of disbelief as Moustache watched his hand, still clutching the gun, fall to the ground.

Sammy raised the cleaver again and delivered a hard blow to the head with the flat of the cleaver that sent the merc to the ground.

“Remember me, dickface? Yeah, that’s right. The fat cook is here, and it’s payback time; too bad for you that my fuckin' people invented an eye for an eye.”

Sammy kicked the gun away from the writhing merc and then cut Rayce’s binds with the left-handed cleaver. Rayce didn’t waste any time picking up the gun. He threw the hand back at the merc and aimed the gun at his head.

“Time to answer for Sarah,” he said as he fired a round into Moustache's protesting mouth. Rayce tossed the gun back at the now lifeless body and turned to Sammy.

“Thanks again, Sammy. Is your truck still running? I need another favor.”

“Yer damn right the truck still works. That ain’t no foreign jobby. 100% built in the U.S. of A. Whatya need?” he asked as they emerged from the wooded area.

“Forsman needs me. He’s out there chasing a monster. I need two things: I need your truck, and I need you to go back into the building and retrieve a duffel bag. It’s got my night silk and NVGs. Those items could be traced back to me. You’ll find the duffle on the roof by the door. There’s a truck in the basement you can use. The keys are in it,“ said Rayce as he took off his gloves and handed them to Sammy.

“Wear these until you can ditch the truck somewhere. We don’t want to leave any evidence.”

“No problem, big guy.”

Rayce climbed into Sammy’s truck and raced off toward the highway.

Rivka lay on the mattress looking at the ceiling far above. Her efforts to find escape were abandoned the previous day. The walls were constructed with framing timbre at least four inches thick, and a heavy duty steel door guarded the entrance. Even if her hands and feet were not bound, she did not think there was a way out. The heel scuff marks that covered the wall near the door told her that she was not the first person to be held in this room. The thump of a closing door told her that Ogrodnik had come back. She wriggled back, away from the entrance, in anticipation of the big man’s return.

The door swung open, and Ogrodnik reached in and picked Rivka up in a single arm and carried her underneath his arm, much like an American football player might carry the ball.

“I hope your day has not been too unpleasant. I apologize for keeping you locked up like a caged animal,
but circumstances dictated my actions. I’ve been busy accelerating my plans and making arrangements for my departure,” he said as he set her down on the couch gently.

“You’re not leaving without me, are you?” Rivka jibed trying to get a rise from her captor.

“Ha-ha. I’ve always said that a sharp wit is an indicator of a quick mind. And you have both. No, my dear, a large portion of my planning was to ensure your death will not be in vain. Together we will get our revenge on that fool Amyot. Vengeance will be yours, even if it comes from the hereafter.”

Rivka had already determined that whenever possible, she would get him talking. She guessed that he didn’t have much opportunity to converse and relished the chance to advertise his genius. Perhaps in his blathering, he would reconsider his plans for her. “What are you rambling about?” she asked.

“Did you know I took souvenirs from the victims?“

Rivka shook her head no.

“Yes, I took a tuft of hair from each. It was discrete, just a few well-placed snips from the hairline in the back where it wouldn’t be noticed. My intent was not that they are used as trophies; I have no need for such things. The truth be told, I had no plans for the snips of hair. I took them and hid them and haven't thought of them again until recently. It was done on the spur of the moment for the first victim to establish a serial killer MO, so I continued doing it for all the victims. I had never intended to need or use them. And now, as fate has delivered you to me, I have a plan for them, a plan that will allow for a settling of scores. I plan to cast Amyot into the spotlight for not only your murder but for all the Stungun murders.”

“I’m listening,” said Rivka.

Ogrodnik smiled. “Amyot walks his dog early every morning before the joggers and cyclists have hit the road. He drives to Bois de Liesse Park
up in St Laurent near his house where he parks and then takes the dog out for a thirty-minute stroll in the woods. It is in this park where I will dump your body tonight. I have already paid a man handsomely to a plant a jewelry box in Amyot’s cottage up north in St Adele. Hidden inside that box, the police will find the trophy locks from the victims. They’ll also find trace evidence of you in a rolled-up mat at the bottom of his home garbage can. All it will take is an anonymous tip tomorrow saying that someone saw Amyot putting something large and bulky in his trunk at 5:00 in the morning. The camera at the entrance of Bois de Liesse Park will confirm his presence at the scene. The rest will fall into place. He lives alone, and thus will have no alibi. Another call to the press will have them circling like sharks; his life will be ruined.”

“You said you had feelings for me. Why kill me?”

“I do have feelings for you, but I am not delusional. A union between us is not possible. I am, as you have said in the past, a monster, a freak. Whatever intellectual gifts I was born with are countered by my physical form. I see the repulsion in people’s faces when they look at me. The way they cross the street in order to avoid coming close to me. It’s who I am and have always been. There is no place for me in this society. And for those few that I have had feelings for in my life, there can be no place for them either. If I can’t have you, nobody can.”

Ogrodnik waited in silence as he perceived that Rivka was forming the next question in her mind. “I don’t understand the connection between the Stungun Killer and Biovonix.”

“Ahh. Well framed. We are running out of time, but I can afford you the answer to this one last question,” said Ogrodnik as he leaned back in his chair.

“There is an entire sub-society that exists to service the needs and wants of men with power and money. These people often look for services that cannot be found in the want ads of a newspaper or on
a website
. I thrive in this arena and have an established presence as someone who is capable and willing. When someone like Alex Banik started looking for such a person, our union was a natural. I had the skills he was looking for, and he had the financial means I was seeking. Because we were both originally from the old country, this cemented the relationship. He pays me enough to do his wet work that I can overlook the un-pleasantries of working for such a supercilious ass. I have now fulfilled all my obligations to Banik and have no desire to work for him again. And, to answer your question, Banik has no idea that I was the Stungun Killer. I was completely "off the reservation," as they say. There are only two connections between the two—me
and
you, Ms. Goldstein. You were lucky enough to be a primary on both investigations.”

With that Ogrodnik rose from his chair and advanced toward Rivka. ‘The witching hour has arrived. It is time to set my plan in motion. And unfortunately for you that starts with your death. I don’t want to see you suffer, Ms. Goldstein. I would prefer to just kill you quickly, but I need to revive the Stungun MO.“

Ogrodnik pulled a Taser and a roll of tape from his pockets and advanced. He pressed the Taser to the back of her neck and then re-applied the tape across the mouth of the now stunned Rivka Goldstein.

Rivka’s muscles were jelly and of no use to her, but she remained fully conscious this time. Ogrodnik picked her up easily with one large arm across her chest and laid her face down on the couch with her legs hanging off the end. She heard the snapping sound of a folding knife opening and felt a tug at her waist as he sliced her belt off from the back. She could feel the life coming back into her legs and was gathering herself into one final revolt: one last desperate surge of effort that might be enough to alter her fate. She sensed he was bending down to slice the nylon restraint from her ankles but had paused.