“And
you
, and
Bayer
, and
Whitehead!
I know all that, Oliver. I met a couple of crackerjack agents down the hall. Shot ’em dead. That’s why I have to hurry up,
can’t tarry. The game’s on a clock now. Lots of ways to lose.”
“We have to talk, Geoff.”
“Talk, talk, talk.” Shafer shook his head, frowned, then barked out a laugh. “No, there’s nothing for us to talk about. Talk
is such an overrated bore. I learned to kill in the field, and I like it much more than talking. No, I actually love it to
death.”
“You
are
mad,” Highsmith exclaimed, his grayish-blue eyes widening with fear. Finally, he understood who Shafer was; he wasn’t intellectualizing
anymore. He felt it in his gut.
“No, actually, I’m not insane. I know precisely what I’m doing—always have, always will. I know the difference between good
and evil. Anyway, look who’s talking: the Rider on the White Horse.”
Shafer moved swiftly toward Highsmith. “This isn’t much of a fight—just the way I was taught to perform in Asia. You’re
going to die, Oliver. Isn’t that a stunning thought? Still think this is a bloody fantasy game?”
Suddenly Highsmith jumped to his feet. Shafer wasn’t surprised; he knew he couldn’t have committed the murders in London from
a wheelchair. Highsmith was close to six feet, and obese, but surprisingly quick for his size. His arms and hands were massive.
Shafer was faster. He struck Highsmith with the butt of his gun, and Conqueror went crashing down on one knee. Shafer bludgeoned
him a second time, then a third, and Highsmith dropped flat on the floor. He groaned loudly and slobbered blood and spit.
Shafer kicked the small of his back, kicked a knee, kicked his face.
Then he bent and put the gun barrel against Highsmith’s broad forehead. He could hear the distant sound of running footsteps’
slapping down the hall. Too bad—they were coming for him.
Hurry, hurry
.
“They’re too late,” he said to Conqueror. “No one can save you. Except me, Conqueror. What’s the play? Counsel me. Should
I save the whale?”
“Please, Geoff, no. You can’t just kill me. We can still help each other.”
“I’d love to stretch this out, but I really have to dash. I’m throwing the dice. In
my mind
. Oh, bad news, Oliver. The jig is up. You just lost game.”
He inserted the barrel of his gun into Highsmith’s pulpy right ear, and fired. The gunshot blew Conqueror’s gray matter all
over the room. Shafer’s only regret was that he hadn’t been able to torture Oliver Highsmith for a much, much longer time
than he had.
Then Shafer was running away, and suddenly he was struck with a realization that actually surprised him: he had something
to live for. This was a wonderful, wonderful game.
I want to live
.
SAMPSON AND I sprinted toward the secluded wing of the hotel where Oliver Highsmith had his suite. There had been gunshots,
but we couldn’t be everywhere at once. We’d heard the pistol reports all the way on the other side of the Jamaica Inn.
I wasn’t prepared for the bloody massacre scene we found. Two English agents were down in the courtyard. I’d worked with them
both, just as I’d worked side by side with Patsy Hampton.
Jones and another agent, in addition to a team of local detectives, were already crowded into Highsmith’s suite. The room
was abuzz. Everything had turned to chaos and carnage in a burst of homicidal madness.
“Shafer went through two of my people to get here,” Jones said in an angry voice strained with tension and sadness. He was
smoking a cigarette. “He came in shooting, took down Laura and Gwynn. Highsmith is dead, too. We haven’t found George Bayer
yet.”
I knelt and quickly checked the damage to Oliver Highsmith’s skull. It wasn’t subtle. He’d been shot at point-blank range,
and the wound was massive. I knew from Jones that Shafer had resented the senior man’s intelligence, and now he’d blown out
his brains. “I told you he liked to kill. He has to do this, Andrew. He can’t stop.
“Whitehead!” I said. “The end of the game.”
WE DROVE FASTER than the narrow, twisting road safely allowed, barreling toward James Whitehead’s home. It wasn’t far.
We passed a road sign that read Mallard’s Beach—San Antonio.
Sampson and I were quiet, lost in our own thoughts. I kept thinking of Christine, couldn’t stop the images from coming.
“We have her.”
Was that still true?
I didn’t know, and only Shafer, or possibly Whitehead, could give me the answer. I wanted to keep both of them alive if I
could. Everything about the island, the exotic smells and sights, reminded me of Christine. I tried, but I couldn’t imagine
a good conclusion to any of this.
We headed toward the beach and soon were skimming past private houses and a few very large estates, some with long, winding
driveways that stretched a hundred yards or more from the road to the main house.
In the distance I could see the glow of other house lights, and I figured we had to be close to James Whitehead’s. Was War
still alive? Or had Shafer already come and gone?
Jones’s voice came in spits over the radio: “This is his place, Alex. Glass and stone house up ahead. I don’t see anybody.”
We pulled in near the crushed-seashell driveway leading to the house. It was dark, pitch-black and satiny. There were no lights
on anywhere on the property.
We jumped out of our cars. There were eight of us in all, including one team of detectives from Kingston, Kenyon and Anthony,
both of whom were acting nervous.
I didn’t blame them. I felt exactly the same way. The Weasel was on a rampage, and we already knew he was suicidal. Geoffrey
Shafer was a homicidal-suicidal maniac.
Sampson and I ran through a small garden that had a pool and cabana area on one side and an expanse of lawn and the sea on
the other.
We could see Jones’s people beginning to fan out across the grounds.
Shafer came into the hotel with guns blazing
, I thought.
He doesn’t seem to care whether or not he survives. But
I
do. I need to question him. I have to know what he knows. I need all the answers
.
“What about this prick Whitehead?” Sampson asked as we hurried toward the house.
It was dark near the water, a good place for Shafer to attack from. Dark shadows stretched out from every tree and bush.
“I don’t know, John. He was at the hotel briefly. He’s a player, so he’s after Shafer, too. This is it:
Endgame
. One of them wins the game now.
“He’s here,” I whispered. “I know it.”
I could definitely sense Geoffrey Shafer’s presence; I was sure of it. And the fact that I
knew
scared me almost as much as he himself did.
Shots sounded from the darkened house.
My heart sank, and I had the most disturbing and contradictory thought:
Please don’t let Geoffrey Shafer be dead
.
ONE MORE TARGET, one last opponent, and then it would be over. Eight glorious years of play, eight years of revenge, eight
years of hatred. He couldn’t bear to lose the game. He’d shown Bayer and Highsmith a thing or two; now he’d demonstrate to
James Whitehead which of them was truly “superior.”
Shafer had noisily crashed through thick foliage, then waded waist deep into a foul-smelling swamp. The water was distressingly
tepid, and the oily green scum on the surface was an inch or two thick.
He tried not to think about the swamp, or the insects and snakes that might infest it. He’d waded into far worse waters during
his days and nights in Asia. He kept his eyes set on James Whitehead’s expensive beach house. One more to go, just one more
Horseman.
He’d been to the villa before, knew it well. Beyond the swamp was another patch of thick foliage, and then a chain-link fence
and Whitehead’s manicured yard. He figured that Whitehead wouldn’t expect him to come through the swamp. War was cleverer
than the others, though. He’d been committing murders in the Caribbean for years, and not even a blip had shown up to suggest
a pattern to the police. War had also helped him in the matter of Christine Johnson, and that had gone perfectly. It was a
mystery, inside a mystery, all inside a complex game.
Shafer lost track of everything real for a moment or two—where he was, who he was, what he had to do.
Now,
that
was scary—a little mental breakdown at the worst possible time. Ironically, it was Whitehead who had first gotten him dependent
on uppers and downers in Asia.
Shafer began to slosh across the fetid swamp, hoping the water wouldn’t be over his head. It wasn’t. He came out and climbed
over the chain-link fence on the far side. He started across the back lawn.
He had the most powerful obsession about destroying James Whitehead. He wanted to torture him—but where would he find the
time? Whitehead had been his first handler in Thailand, and then in the Philippines. More than anyone, Whitehead had made
Shafer into a killer. Whitehead was the one he held responsible.
The house was still dark, but Shafer believed War was in there.
Suddenly a gun fired from the house.
War
indeed.
Shafer began to zig and zag like an infantryman thoroughly trained in combat. His heart was thundering. Reality came in odd
stop-and-go movements. He wondered if Whitehead had a nightscope on his gun. And how good a shot he was.
Whether he’d ever been in combat.
Was he frightened? Or was he excited by the action?
He figured that the doors to the house were locked and that War was crouched low, hiding inside, waiting to take a shot without
too much exposure. He had never done his own dirty work, though; none of them had—not Whitehead, not Bayer, not Highsmith.
They had used Death, and now he’d come for them. If they hadn’t agreed to meet in Jamaica, he would have come after them one
at a time.
Shafer broke into a full sprint toward the house. Gunshots exploded from inside. Bullets whizzed past him. He hadn’t been
hit. Because he was so good? Or because War wasn’t?
Shafer threw both arms up in front of his face. This was it. He dived through the large picture window in the loggia.
Glass exploded everywhere as the window blew into a thousand small pieces. He was inside!
War was here, close by. Where was his enemy? How good was James Whitehead? His mind was filled with important questions. A
dog was barking somewhere in the house.
Shafer tumbled across the tile floor and hit the leg of a heavy table, but came up firing anyway.
Nothing
. No one was in the room.
He heard voices outside, in front. The police were here! Always trying to spoil his fun.
Then he saw War trying to run. Tall, gangly, with longish black hair. War had blinked first. He was heading toward the front
door, looking for help from the police, of all people.
“You can’t make it, Whitehead. Stop! I won’t let you get out! Stay in the game.”
Whitehead apparently realized he couldn’t get out the front door. He turned toward a stairway, and Shafer followed, only a
few steps behind. War turned sharply and fired again.
Shafer flicked his hand at a wall switch, and the hall lights flashed on.
“Death has come for you! It’s your time. Look at me! Look at Death!” he screamed.
Whitehead kept moving, and Shafer calmly shot him in the buttocks. The wound was large, gaping, and Whitehead screamed like
a stuck pig. He whirled and fell halfway down the stairs. His face slammed against the metal railing as he fell.
He finally lay writhing at the foot of the stairs, where Shafer shot him again, this time between the legs. War screamed again.
Then he began to moan and to sob.
Shafer stood over him, triumphant, his heart bursting. “You think sanctions are a game? Is this still a game to you?” he asked
in the softest voice.
“I
believe it’s great fun, but do you?”
Whitehead was sobbing as he tried to speak. “No, Geoffrey. It’s not a game. Please stop. That’s enough.”
Shafer began to smile. He showed his enormous teeth. “Oh, you’re so wrong. It’s lovely! It is the most amazing mind game you
could imagine. You should feel what I feel right now, the power over life and death.”
He had a thought, and it changed everything, changed the game for him and Whitehead. This switch was so much better than what
he’d originally planned.
“I’ve decided to let you live—not very well, but you
will
live.”
He fired the semiautomatic again, this time into the base of Whitehead’s spine.
“You will never forget me, and the game will continue for the rest of your life. Play well. I know
I
shall.”
THE MOMENT WE HEARD the gunshots, we ran toward the main house. I raced ahead of the others. I had to get to Shafer before
they did. I had to take him myself. I had to talk to him, to know the truth once and for all.
I saw Shafer slip out a side door of the house. Whitehead must be dead. Shafer had won the game.
He was running toward the sea, moving fast and purposefully. He disappeared behind a small sand dune shaped like a turtle.
Where was he going? What was next for him?
Then I saw him again. He was kicking off his shoes and getting out of his trousers. What was he doing?
I heard Sampson come running up behind me. “Don’t kill him, John! Not unless we have to,” I yelled.
“I know! I know!” he called.
I plunged ahead.
Shafer turned and fired off a shot at me. The distance was too great for any real accuracy with a handgun, but still, he was
a good shot, and he came pretty close. He knew how to use a gun, and not just from a few feet away.
I glanced over and saw that Sampson was kicking off his sneakers, pulling away his pants. I did the same with my sweats and
T-shirt.
I pointed out to sea. “He must have a boat out there. One of those.”