Her father’s bedroom door opened without a sound. There was a
night light on in the connecting bathroom off to the left. All the
draperies were open, beams of the scant moonlight coming in
through the balcony windows. There was no movement on the bed.
“Wake up, you butchering bastard,” he said, one eye on the balcony
windows.
There was still no movement on the bed.
She heard his breathing quicken, felt the knife move slightly
against her neck. “No, you don’t move, Rebecca. Just one little slice
and your blood will spew like a fountain all over the floor.” Suddenly,
he said, nearly a yell, “Thomas Matlock! Where are you?”
“I’m right here, Krimakov.”
He whirled Becca around, facing Thomas, who was standing,
fully dressed, in the lighted doorway of the bathroom, his arms
crossed over his chest.
“It’s about time you got here,” Thomas said easily, his eyes on the
knife that was pressing into Becca’s neck. “Don’t hurt her. We’ve
been waiting for you. I was starting to believe you’d lost your
nerve, that you’d gotten too scared, that you’d finally run away.”
“What do you mean? Of course I got here quickly, at least as
quickly as I wanted to. As I told Rebecca, your defenses are laughable.”
“Get that knife away from her neck. Let her go. You’ve got me.
Let her go.”
“No, not yet. Don’t try anything stupid or I’ll cut her throat. But
I don’t want her dead just yet.”
Thomas saw that he was dressed in black from the ski mask that
covered both his face and his head to the black gloves on his hands.
“You’re the one who’s lost,” Thomas said, and he saluted him.
“There’s really no need for you to wear that black mask over your
head anymore. We all know who you are. As I said, we’ve been
waiting fourteen hours for you to finally show up.”
Adam spoke quietly into the wristband. “He can’t see me. I’m
only a shadow at the corner of the balcony door. I can’t get him.
He’s got Becca plastered against the front of him, a knife against her
throat. I can’t take the risk, even this close. They’ll keep him talking.
Thomas is good. He’ll keep control.”
And he prayed with everything that was in him that it would
be so.
“Just keep alert,” Gaylan Woodhouse said. “The minute he
makes a move toward Thomas, he’ll ease up on her. Then you take
him down.”
“Damn,” Adam said, “now the bastard’s pulled a gun out of his
jacket pocket. It’s small, looks like a Colt, the Compact .45. He’s
pointed it straight at Thomas. Oh God.” And he concentrated,
readied himself, saying over and over, Let Beccago, you crazy fuck. Just
twitch.
“Turn on the bedside light, Matlock.”
Thomas walked slowly into the bedroom, leaned over, and
switched on the light. He straightened.
“Now, don’t move. Those draperies are open. There’s probably a
sniper out there, and I don’t want the bastard to have a clean shot.
He’ll get you, Rebecca, if he pulls the trigger.”
Thomas said, “I wanted very much for you to be my old enemy,
but you aren’t. You’re something far more deadly than Vasili, something
deadly and monstrous that he spawned. Perhaps after he
brainwashed you, he realized what he’d produced, realized that he’d
unleashed uncontrolled, unrelenting evil, and that’s why he kept
you away from his new family. He didn’t want the evil he’d
spawned and nurtured to live in his own house, to be close to all
those innocent, pure lives. Pull off the mask, Mikhail, -we know
who you are.”
Stone-dead silence, then, “Damn you, you can’t know, you can’t!
No one knows anything about me. I don’t exist. No records show
me as Vasili Krimakov’s son. I’ve covered everything. It isn’t possible.”
“Oh yes, we know. Even though the KGB tried to erase you, to
protect you, we found out all about you.”
“Damn you, pull those draperies closed, now!”
Thomas pulled them closed, knowing that now Adam was blind
to what was going on in the room. He turned and said slowly,
“Take off the mask, Mikhail. It really looks rather silly, like a little