The Dark at the End

11

After wiping down the O’Donnell place as best he could, he went to the garage and opened his trunk. He stared at all the ordnance he’d acquired and might never get a chance to use.

The octol and the copper cones-what good were shaped charges now? The double-whammy roadside IEDs were out. Even if Rasalom decided to return to the mansion on his own, Jack would have no idea how he was arriving. If he rented a car, Jack wouldn’t know what it looked like. He couldn’t simply incinerate the first car that passed between the charges. And if he took a taxi, he’d have somebody driving-Jack had had no qualms about Georges, but he wasn’t about to kill an innocent cabbie.

He grabbed the golf bag and checked inside: the M-79 nestled among the clubs. Easy enough to use. He leaned that against the wall and pulled out one of the two carpet-clad Stingers. He unwrapped and inspected it. The missile and its launcher ran about five feet long and weighed north of thirty pounds. Not exactly a concealable weapon. He’d never fired one, but Abe had included instructions. He’d have to read up on the procedure if he was going to use it.

A big if.

He leaned the Stinger next to the golf bag and stared at the makings for his shaped charges. He’d had big plans for those-taking out Rasalom before he made it to the house. Now, if he showed up at all, Jack would have to try to take him down on his own turf.

He stepped out the side door and stared at the mansion. Launch a grenade and missile attack on the place once he was inside and reduce it to rubble? A possibility.

But first Jack had to get him out here. How to do that? How to explain Georges’s no-show at the airport without arousing suspicion? Couldn’t send a stand-in driver-he’d never go for that. Had to be a way.

Jack made a mental list of the elements he had to work with-all the people and things that involved Rasalom’s life in Nuckateague: Gilda, Georges, the baby, the car, the house. Some combination of those might provide the key.

First thing he needed was a plausible reason for Georges not to show up at JFK… and for both him and Gilda to be incommunicado. And he needed a way to get that information to Rasalom.

Did Rasalom carry a cell phone? Well, why not? Glaeken carried one, no good reason Rasalom wouldn’t.

He ducked back into the garage and made a beeline for Georges. He’d left the guy’s phone with his corpse. Yep, there it was. Jack flipped it open, found the address book, and began going through it. He tried “Osala,” “Boss,” even “Rasalom,” but no luck. He did find “One.” A New York City code. Pretty good chance that was it. But just to be sure…

He had to roll Gilda over to check her pockets. He’d placed her facedown to hide her gory front from Weezy. He’d found only one knife, and he doubted that Dawn had stabbed herself, so the most logical scenario was that Gilda had found the baby gone, grabbed a knife, and run over here to stop Dawn. Dawn had somehow disarmed her and given her a dose of her own medicine. Many doses.

He shook his head at the butchery. Dawn had continued stabbing long after Gilda was gone. Weezy wouldn’t want to believe that her Dawn was capable of that.

He found Gilda’s cell in a pocket of her coat. He searched for “One” first this time but came up blank. No luck either with “Osala,” “Boss,” or “Rasalom.” While searching he noticed a number of texts from “Kris” and a reply to each. So, the murderous old broad liked to exchange texts with her equally murderous son. How sweet. The family that kills together, what?-chills together?-heads for the hills together?-stomps anthills together? He wondered if they discussed their favorite blades for cutting off eyelids.

Gilda didn’t seem to have many names in her address book so he went through them one by one. He stopped when he reached “Master.” That number matched the one in Georges’s.

Got it.

A phone number for Rasalom… how weird that seemed.

But then he remembered Glaeken’s warning of a few weeks ago: Rasalom was human. He had a few enhancements that weren’t standard equipment in the off-the-rack members of the species, but he wasn’t a god-not even a demigod. Another thing he wasn’t was telepathic, so he had to resort to prosaic methods to stay in contact with his minions.

The number glowed on the displays of the two phones. Great.

Now what?

An idea, barely formed, began to tickle his brain. He didn’t jump on it. That might scare it away. Better to leave it alone and let it develop on its own.

He’d need some luck-the good kind. Plenty of bad luck today… he was due for some good. Yeah, with a little luck and a lot of fancy footwork, there might, just might be a way.