Swimsuit - James Patterson [91]
Blood spurted and poured everywhere. On Henri. On his killer. On the camera lens.
“ Onnnn-reee. Henri. Can you hear me?” asked the executioner. He brought the severed head on a level with the camera.
I backed away from the glass, but I couldn’t stop watching the video. It seemed to me that Henri was making eye contact with me through the monitor, through the glass. His eyes were still open — and then he blinked. He actually did that — blinked.
The executioner bent to the camera, his chin dripping sweat and blood, smiling with satisfaction, as he said, “Is everybody happy?”
Chapter 122
GORGE ROSE IN MY THROAT, and I was trembling horribly, perspiring heavily. I suppose I was relieved that Henri was dead, but at the same time my blood was screaming through my arteries. I reeled from the sickening, indelible images that had been freshly branded on my brain.
Inside the silent interrogation room, Horst Werner’s unfeeling expression hadn’t changed, but then he looked up and smiled sweetly as the door opened, and a man in a dark suit came in, put a hand on his shoulder.
My interpreter confirmed what I’d guessed; Werner’s lawyer had arrived.
The conversation between the lawyer and Captain Voelker was a short, staccato volley that boiled down to one unalterable fact: the police didn’t have enough to hold Werner at this time.
I watched in shock as Werner strolled from the interrogation room with his lawyer, a free man.
A moment later, Captain Voelker joined me in the observation room, told me emphatically that it wasn’t over yet. Warrants for Werner’s bank and phone records had been obtained. Alliance members around the world would be squeezed, he said. It was just a matter of time before they had Werner locked up again. Interpol and the FBI were on the case.
I walked out of the police station on unsteady legs, but into clean air and daylight. A limo was waiting to drive me to the airport. I told the driver to hurry. He started the engine and raised the glass divider. But still, the car took off and maintained only a moderate speed.
Inside my mind, Van der Heuvel was saying, “Be afraid of Horst Werner” — and I was. Werner would find out about my transcripts of Henri’s confession. It was admissible evidence against him and the Peepers. I had replaced Henri as the Witness, the one who could bring Werner and the rest of them down on multiple murder charges.
My brain sped across continents. I slapped at the divider, shouted to the driver, “Go faster. Drive faster.”
I had to get to Amanda, by plane, by helicopter, by pack mule. I had to get to her first. We had to draw the walls around us and stay hidden, I didn’t know for how long, and I didn’t care.
I knew what Horst Werner would do if he found us.
I knew.
And I couldn’t stop myself from wondering one other thing. Was Henri really dead?
What had I just watched back there at the station?
That blink of his eye — was it a wink? Was the film some kind of video trick he’d played?
“Drive faster.”
Epilogue
By Benjamin Hawkins
A letter to my readers.
When this book came out, the sales far exceeded my publisher’s expectations, but it had never occurred to me that it would be in thousands of bookstores around the world — and that I would be living in a shack on the side of a mountain in a country not my own.
Some would say, “Be careful what you wish for because you may get it.” And I would answer, “I got what I wished for in a way I could not have imagined.”
I am with Amanda, my love, and she has adapted easily to the breathtaking beauty and solitude of our new life together. She is bilingual, and has taught me to speak another language, and to cook. From the start, we planted a vegetable garden and took weekly hikes down the mountain to a charming village for bread and cheese and supplies.
Amanda and I were married in this village, in a small church made by devout hands, blessed by a priest and a congregation of people who have taken Amanda and me into their hearts. The Foozle will be baptized here when he comes into the world, and I can