Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [124]
Gruber, in the front seat, had been desperately scraping glass from his bloody face and eyes. At the sound of the gunshots, he thrashed wildly at his door, unable to find the latch. At last he began climbing over the door instead.
Younger got hold of Gruber’s ankles and stood up on the front seat of the car, holding Gruber upside down. Gruber’s hands scraped at the flagstone like the paws of a rodent trying to burrow into the earth. Younger lifted him several feet off the ground and dropped him, face-first, onto the stone.
The blow stunned Gruber, but didn’t knock him out. Younger saw on the dashboard the steel shaft that had separated the two panes of the windshield. He grabbed it, jumped over the door, and hoisted Gruber off the ground, holding him up against the car. Gruber’s face was bloody, his eyes frightened. Colette, prying herself loose from between the two dead men, climbed out of the car as well.
“I guess the engagement’s off,” Younger said to Colette, without looking at her.
“He wasn’t my fiancé,” she answered. “He—”
“I know what he is,” said Younger.
“No,” said Colette, “he—”
“I know,” repeated Younger.
“Luc,” cried Colette. The boy was standing only a few feet away, lit up by the car’s headlamps.
Younger looked at the cowering Hans Gruber. “I’m trying to think,” Younger said to him in a low voice consisting mostly of breath, “of a reason to let you live.”
“It wasn’t me,” said Gruber. “It was all of us. Everyone did it.”
“That’s not a reason,” said Younger in the same unvoiced voice.
“They ordered us to do it,” said Gruber imploringly.
“I don’t believe you,” said Younger.
“Stratham—” said Colette.
“The only thing I can think of is your cravenness,” Younger observed, studying Gruber’s pleading face. Younger thought it over. Then he said, “But that’s not a reason either.”
Younger ran the steel windshield shaft through the underside of Hans Gruber’s chin straight up into his skull. The blue eyes froze. Younger looked at those eyes for a long moment—then let the corpse slump to the ground.
“We’ll take his car,” said Younger.
Dragging the other two bodies out of the backseat, Younger left all three corpses in a heap. Luc gazed down at the dead men. Then he took his sister’s hand, and the two of them got into the vehicle. As they crossed a bridge over the Vltava in their windshield-less vehicle, sirens and alarms began to wail.
Several hours later, Younger opened a sleeping compartment aboard a rumbling train. A single candle cast an unsteady light. On the lower bunk, both Luc and Colette were stretched out. The boy was sleeping.
“Is that you?” Colette whispered in the darkness.
“Yes.” Younger loosened his tie, went to the washbasin, rinsed his face. They had just crossed into Austria. He had waited in the corridor to see if any police boarded. None had.
“You’re a good killer,” she said unexpectedly.
He picked up Luc and laid him in the upper bunk. The boy stirred but didn’t open his eyes. Colette, startled, sat up, and pulled the sheet protectively up to her neck. She was afraid, evidently, that he was going to lie down next to her.
He was about to reassure her that he had moved the boy only because he had found another compartment for himself, so that she and Luc didn’t have to share a bunk. But the words didn’t come out. Instead he was seized with fury. He tore the sheet from her. Dressed only in a slip, she drew her knees close to her and encircled them with both arms, green eyes sparkling faint and anxious in the candlelight.
He shook his head. “What does a man have to do before