Sepulchre (21 page)

'Liam . . .' she began to say, but he shook his head and smiled.

'No need, Cora. We'll talk tomorrow. Tonight just think about what's happened between us.' He stroked her body, fingertips tracing a line over her breasts down to her stomach, running into the cleft between her thighs.

Her arms went around his shoulders and she studied his eyes, her expression grave. 'I need to know more about you, can't you see that?'

'In time,' he said.

'Is it possible for me to trust you? There's something . ' she frowned, struggling to find the word '. . . dark about you, Liam. and I can't understand what it is. There's a remoteness in you that's frightening. I felt it the first time we met.'

He began to rise, but Cora held on to him.

'I told you yesterday,' he said. 'I'm what you see, no, more than that.'

'It's what I feel in you that scares me.'

'I often deal with violent people, Cora. It can't help but have an effect on me.'

'You've become the same as them? Is that what you're saying?'

He shook his head. 'It isn't that simple.'

'Then try to explain.' There was exasperation in her demand.

He began to rise again and this time her arms dropped away. 'In my trade violence usually has to be met with violence,' he said, looking down at her. 'It's sometimes the only way.'

'Doesn't that corrupt you? Doesn't that make you the same as them?'

'Maybe,' he replied.

She pulled at her robe, covering her nakedness.

Halloran walked to the door and paused there. 'It's when you start to enjoy the corruption that you know you're in trouble.' He went out, quietly closing the door after him.

Leaving Cora to weep alone.

Halloran washed himself in a bathroom along the hall before returning to his room. Once there, he hung his jacket over a bedpost and took the gun from its holster, placing it on the bedside cabinet. He removed his shoes this time, set the small alarm clock, and lay on the bed. The curtains were apart, but moonlight was feeble again that night and barely lit the room. Despite the fact that there was an extra bodyguard on duty inside the house, Halloran would only allow himself four hours' rest, intending to check on Monk and Palusinski during their individual watches, scouting Neath and the immediate outside area in between. Cora had taken up nearly an hour of his rest period. And a lot of energy.

He shut his eyes and remembered the hurt on her face as he'd left the room.

A brightness flashed beyond his eyelids.

Halloran opened his eyes again. The room was in darkness. Had he imagined the sudden flare?

It came once more, filling the room like a lightning flash. Yet no rumble of thunder followed.

He quickly moved from the bed, going to the window. He peered out into the night. A muted white glow marked the moon's presence behind a bank of clouds, the ragged-edged, mountainous shapes barely moving, the landscape below blurred and ill-defined. The lake was a huge flat greyness that appeared solid, as if its depths were of concrete.

Halloran blinked as the light flared again. The source was the lake itself, an emanation from its surface. And in that brief light he had seen forms on the water, black silhouettes that were human. Or so he assumed.

He rolled back over the bed, pulled on his shoes, and grabbed his gun. Halloran headed for the stairs.

25 LAKE LIGHT

Monk should have been on guard duty. But the main hall was empty.

Halloran wasted no time searching for him; he switched off the hall lights, then opened one side of the frontdoors just enough to slip through. He was disturbed that the door had been left unlocked. His steps were barely audible as he hurried through the stone-floored porch, and he stopped only briefly once out in the open.

The lake was nothing more than a broad expanse, slightly lighter than its surrounds.

Halloran holstered the Browning and moved off, quickly edging along the frontage of the house, using it as a dark backdrop against which it would be difficult to be seen, his intention being to approach the lake from an angle rather than in a direct line from the main door. Once at the corner he made a crouching dash towards the lawn. Instinctively he dropped to the ground when light flared from the lake again. He blinked his eyes rapidly, feeling conspicuous and vulnerable lying there on the damp grass. But imprinted on his mind was the image the sudden brightness had exposed.

There was a boat out there, three or four figures huddled together in its confined space. They were watching something that was outside the boat, on the lake itself. Something that was not in the water but on the surface.

The vision dissolved as his eyes adjusted to the darkness once more. He stiffened when a howling came from the shoreline to his right, an eerie, desolate cry in the night. It was followed by a collective ululation, the baying of wolves - or jackals - a fearful sound wending across the water. He narrowed his eyes, hoping to see them among the indistinct shapes of trees and shrubbery that edged the side of the lake.

He thought he could make out the jackals, although it might only have been a clump of low foliage, for there was no movement. Halloran rose to one knee.

And again was temporarily blinded by a fulguration from the lake.

It had come from below the water, expanding across the surface, a silvery-white luminance swiftly expanding across the flat surface, its extremities shading to indigo and the deepest mauve. The illumination lasted only a second or so, but there was time for Halloran to observe the jackals gathered there at the water's edge. The glare had frozen them. Their heads, with long pointed muzzles and erect ears, stood high from their shoulders, cocked in alertness and perhaps puzzlement. At least a dozen pairs of glowing orbs, set in irregular pattern, reflected the light.

Darkness, total after the glare. But again an impression lingering. Halloran had seen someone standing among the beasts. A bent figure, a cowl concealing its features. Whoever it was had been watching the lake.

Halloran heard a voice - no, laughter - and his attention was diverted to the boat. He had recognised the dry cackle of Felix Kline, the sound amplified across the water. Halloran rose to his feet and moved forward at speed, keeping low, taking the gun from its holster as he went.

He could make out the landing jetty ahead and noted that the boat he and Kline had used that morning was no longer moored there. Did Kline enjoy a night-time boat-ride as well as an early morning one? Or had he been forced into a trip not of his choosing, the lake making an obvious route to avoid the guard dogs? But he had heard Kline laughing, hardly the attitude of someone being kidnapped. Nevertheless, Halloran did not relax. If they moved any further away he would get to a car and be ready to meet them on the opposite bank at the estate's border. He would also have a chance to call in back-up on the journey.

There was no cover this close to the shoreline, so Halloran moved back a ways, then spreadeagled himself on the ground, his gun pointing towards the dull shape on the lake. He waited and yet again was dazzled by another vast spasm of light. The intervals between had not been regular in length, so there was no way of preparing himself for each surge. The light vanished instantly, neither fading nor receding, snuffed like a candle flame. He rubbed at his eyelids, disbelieving what he had seen, telling himself there had to be a simple explanation, that he hadn't been able to take in everything during that short burst of light. Reason reassured him, but the after-image refused to compromise.

Halloran had seen four men in the boat - Palusinski, Monk and the two Jordanians. Kline had not been with them.

He was several yards away. He had been standing on the calm surface of the water.

Halloran shook his head, resisting the urge to laugh at the absurdity. There had to be something else out there just below the water level, a sandbank, a submerged platform, perhaps even a large rock. There was a logical explanation. Had to be. It was in Kline's nature to play such childish games. But surely they would have come across such an obstruction when he, himself, had rowed out there that very morning?

In the distance the jackals howled, the sound further away this time, as though they were leaving the shoreline to slink back into the wooded slopes. He heard oars swishing on water. Voices. Drawing close to the jetty. He waited for them all to disembark before getting to his feet and going towards them.

Moonlight squeezed through the merest rent in the clouds and the group came to a halt when they caught sight of Halloran.

'No need for weapons,' Kline said, humour in his voice. 'No enemies among us tonight, Halloran.'

'What the hell were you doing out there?' The question was quietly put, Halloran's anger suppressed.

'I'm not a prisoner in my own home,' Kline replied jovially. 'I do as I please.'

'Not if you expect me to protect you.'

'There's no danger tonight.'

Moonlight broke through with greater force and he saw that Kline was grinning at him.

'The light from the water . . .?'

Khayed and Daoud, dressed in the robes of their country, grinned as broadly as their master, while Palusinski glanced anxiously at Kline. Monk remained expressionless.

Kline's eyebrows arched uncomprehendingly. Then: 'Ah, the lightning flashes. Yes, there seems to be quite an electrical storm raging above us tonight. With thunder soon to follow, no doubt. And then, of course, a deluge. Best not to linger out here, don't you agree?'

Once again his manner had changed. Kline's disposition had become that of an older, more reasoning man, the insidious mocking still in his voice, but his tone softer, less strident. His persona was vibrant, as if brimming with energy, though not of

the nervous - and neurotic - kind that Halloran had become used to.

'You weren't in the boat,' Halloran said almost cautiously.

There was elation in Kline's laughter. 'I'm not one for moonlight dips, I can assure you.'

Palusinski snickered.

'I saw you . . . on the water.'

'On the water?' Kline asked incredulously, continuing to smile. 'You mean walking on the water? Like Jesus Christ?'

Halloran did not reply.

'I see you've been hallucinating again, Halloran. Something in this lake obviously doesn't agree with your mental processes.'

The Arabs chuckled behind their hands.

'I really think you should be resting,' Kline went on in mock-sympathy. 'The strain of the last couple of days is apparently affecting your judgement. Or should I say, your perception? I can't say I'm not surprised, Halloran. After all, you did come highly recommended as a bodyguard. I wonder if your employers realise that stress is getting the better of you.'

At last even Monk smiled.

The clouds resumed their dominance and the landscape darkened once more.

'I think we should talk,' Halloran said evenly, ignoring the stifled sounds of mirth coming from Kline's followers (for that was what they were, he had decided, not just employees, but in some way, disciples of this strange man).

'But you should be sleeping. Isn't this your off-duty period? That's why we chose not to disturb you - we are perfectly aware that someone under your kind of pressure needs his rest.'

'Monk and Palusinski had instructions to alert me to any activity, no matter what time it was.'

'A late-night excursion on the lake was hardly worth rousing you for.'

'I gave them orders.'

'And I countermanded those orders.'

'My company can't function under those conditions. Tomorrow I'll recommend the contract is cancelled, or at least that I'm taken off the assignment. There's too much going an here that I don't like.'

'No.' At least the mood had been broken; Kline's tone was sharp, urgent. 'You mustn't do that. I need you with me.'

'You might need Shield, but you don't need me. There are other operatives equally as goad.' He tucked the automatic back into its holster and turned to walk away.

'Wait.' Kline had taken a step after him and Halloran paused.

'I suppose I'm being a little unfair,' the smaller man said, and immediately something of his 'other' self was in evidence, almost as though it were another guise. 'You're right, we should have let you know we were coming out here, should've brought you along for safety. But it was a spur of the moment thing, y'know, something I felt like doing. I didn't see any need to worry you.'

'That doesn't explain why you went on the lake. Nor does it explain the light. Or what I saw.'

'Look at those clouds. Just study them for awhile.'

'That isn't nec = A flash of light stopped him. He gazed skywards. Another, fainter, discharge of energy, but enough to throw the tumbled cloud into relief. 'That isn't what happened before. The light came from the lake.'

'Reflections, that's all. It bounced off the water's surface. The lake's calm tonight, just like a big mirror.'

A stuttered glare from above lit the group of men standing before him, hardening them into statues, bleaching their faces white. In the distance, as if to confirm Kline's explanation, came a deep rumbling of thunder.

'Let's get inside before the rain comes,' Kline suggested.

'I saw -'

'You were mistaken.' There was a firmness to the statement. 'We'll go back to the house, Halloran, and I'll tell you a few things about myself, about this place. You'll find it interesting, I promise you that.'

Halloran was tempted to advise his client to go to hell, but part of him was intrigued. The man was an enigma, and unlike any person he'd had to protect before. 'One condition,' he said.

Kline lifted his hands, palms towards Halloran. 'Whatever.'

'You answer all my questions.'

'Can't promise you that.'

Light blazed the land again.

'I'll answer as many as I can, though,' Kline added, and the thunder was nearer this time.

'Tell your Arab friends to go on ahead.' Halloran indicated Monk and Palusinski. 'You two follow behind. And don't watch us - keep your eyes on those slopes and the road.'

'Ain't nothin' here to worry us,' Monk protested.