“Double Baker to Tempest. Receiving you now, Tempest. Message begins.”
“Message ends,” said Jeff Thomas, giggling at his own macabre sense of humor.
He moved three quiet steps to stand immediately behind Bradley, who was leaning forward over his equipment.
Jeff adjusted his hold on the black hilt of the knife, pausing to wipe his hands on his own pant legs, making sure they wouldn’t slip.
Bradley must have somehow sensed movement, because he turned at that moment, pulling off the earphones. He immediately saw his wife’s body, the eyes still opening and shutting, blood soaking away from her.
Saw Jeff Thomas.
Saw his own death.
“You’re one of them, the Hunters,” he said quietly, “How did you guess?”
“Big antenna for a little house.”
Sitting down, Bradley was helpless, but he still made a try for it. He half rose from the chair, but he got no farther.
It was so easy. The razored steel edge drawn across the exposed throat, while Jeff grabbed at the man’s flailing hands. More blood fountained, brighter than Norma-Jean’s, the two shades of red mingling in the gold light of the big brass oil lamp on the baize-covered table.
“Bast—” But Dave Bradley could say no more. He was choking, drowning in his own spurting blood.
Jeff swiftly stabbed him three times, then lowered the body to the floor.
Meanwhile, the tinny little voice kept chattering from the earphones. “Tempest to Double Baker…do you read? Do you read, Double Baker? Is there something wrong?”
Jeff padded across the room, unable to avoid the soles of his boots sucking in the lake of crimson. He reached for the door handle and silently closed it. Then he went to the radio set and sat down at the cane-back chair, pushing the body of Dave Bradley out of his way. He put on the warm cans and started to turn the illuminated dial, looking for a wide frequency.
When he found one, he turned the power to full, knowing that at that level and broad focus it would be audible to anyone within a two-hundred-mile radius. Zelig would hear it, just the same way he’d been listening in to Dave Bradley’s broadcast. But that didn’t matter. That wasn’t Jeff’s idea.
“Calling the Hunters of the Sun. This is Jeff Thomas, calling the Hunters of the Sun. I got news for the Hunters and their Chief. Big news—about the biggest there is—and I want a big reward for it.”
Jeff had his .38 laid on the desk, alongside the blood-slick knife. All around him the house was silent. Not a creature stirring.
“I’ll only say this one time, so listen good. Rilkeville in Oregon. Look it up on your Rand McNally if you don’t know where it is. There was Bradley and his wife. They’re done. I’m Jeff Thomas and I’ll be gone in a few minutes. But there’s also Captain James high-and-fucking-mighty Hilton, late of the United States Space Vessel Aquila. Biggest fish in the small pool. There’s his prissy daughter Heather and a thick stupid kid called Sly. Carrie Princip. She was second navigator. Frigid bitch. Henderson McGill. Astrophysics was his specialty. Antique fart.”
“I’m not staying around here for long. Gotta move on. Just one more job I need to take care of, then I’m outta here.”
Somewhere in the old frame house, a board creaked. Jeff froze, hand grabbing for the gun, waiting. Beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead, streaking his cheeks. He listened for fifty beats of the heart, but the sound wasn’t repeated.
“Sorry for the break, friends and neighbors. Nearly done, Chief. So get your ass in gear and your Hunters up here. You should know that the little prick Zelig is on the move, somewhere not too far away. He knows this information like you do. Apart from McGill, there’s a scrawny bitch who was his first wife. Son of around twenty with the brain of a gate hinge. Two little girls. All of them here and waiting, like ripe peaches for you to come and pluck ’em.” He grinned at his own verbal cleverness.
ZELIG HAD already given orders for Rilkeville to be traced on their maps. And for the whole convoy to be rousted out and gotten on the road in fifteen minutes.