SOMETHING SLAMMED INTO THE BACK OF HIS HEAD…
Kreiger couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. He was lying on his back on the kitchen floor, his arms behind him.
Somebody had slapped him as he entered the kitchen, he realized, then tied him up. Tight!
He heard something…a slight noise above. Somebody was here with him.
Terror struck him and made his eyes bulge. His chest heaved, his heels hammered. Very cold liquid—gasoline!—splashed over his body.
When he opened his eyes he saw something dark mushroom above him. An umbrella! And then light, impossibly bright, and exquisite pain.
The scream echoing inside his skull carried him like a dark bird into death.
The Torcher backed from the kitchen. As always there would be no fingerprints. The flames were high. Though the sprinkler system sprayed water, Kreiger lay under the umbrella, burning steadily.
Everything was as planned.
The Torcher took the elevator downstairs, walked slowly through the lobby, and went out.
Into the dark. Alone. Smiling.
THE NIGHT WATCHER
JOHN LUTZ
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
For
Bob Murray
When you walk through the fire you will not be burned, The flames will not set you ablaze.
—Isaiah 43.2
Yet from these flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.
—Milton, Paradise Lost
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
ONE
January 2002
It had been gusty as well as bitterly cold most of the day in New York, but by nightfall the wind no longer blustered and danced through the canyons of Manhattan. The cold remained.
Hugh Danner had decided to stay in tonight. He’d stopped at the deli down the street from his apartment in the Ardmont Arms and bought a dozen eggs. He’d hard-boil a couple of them to eat with some cut vegetables he already had in his refrigerator. That, along with some dietary yogurt dip, would be his dinner. Danner was determined to lose a few pounds so his suits fit better.
Halfway to the Ardmont, he stopped walking and ducked into a doorway, where he removed a straight-stemmed meerschaum pipe from a pocket and stuffed its bowl with tobacco. He tamped the tobacco firmly with his thumb, added a bit more, and repeated the process. Smoking a pipe wasn’t all that pleasurable to Danner, who’d quit smoking cigarettes two years ago, but he was trying to get used to it as a career move. Most of the senior partners at Frenzel, Waite and Conners smoked pipes in the firm’s air-purified conference room, while associates and lesser employees had to elevator to the lobby and huddle outside the building if they wanted to smoke. Danner much preferred the conference room and concluded a pipe might be a valuable aid to promotion and access.
He decided he liked this latest brand of tobacco, which burned with a somewhat sweet taste. He was already enjoying the necessary constant tinkering with a pipe. It brought him attention and could be used to good advantage in a courtroom—provided the pipe was never lit.
He struck a match and stared hypnotized into the flame as it flared and sank, flared and sank, while he held it over the bowl and sucked on the pipe stem. Best not to make too many wheezing, lip-smacking sounds, like old Vickers. An art, Danner decided. There was definitely an art to pipe smoking, and he would master it.
Finally the tobacco was burning well, and he flicked away the paper match and stepped from the shelter of the doorway. Though it was cold, he’d stroll around the block and finish this smoke before going home. He was tightly bundled against the weather, liked to walk, and there was something comforting about the pipe’s glowing bowl nestled between his thumb and forefinger, a tiny, tamed, and fiery force he possessed almost as if it were a pet.
After returning to his apartment fifteen minutes later, Danner hung up his coat with the dead pipe in its right side pocket. He’d just started the eggs on the stove when there was a slight sound behind him. Like a sudden intake of breath.
He didn’t have time to turn around before an explosion of pain behind his right ear made him bunch his shoulders and bend forward at the waist, almost as if he were taking a bow. When he attempted to straighten up, everything around him suddenly started whirling with dizzying speed. He was vaguely aware of his left leg buckling.
He knew nothing more until he regained consciousness.
Danner lay quietly with his eyes closed, disoriented rather than afraid, trying to put the pieces together. Did I have a stroke? A cerebral hemorrhage like my father?
He couldn’t be sure. He did know he couldn’t move his body. It felt as if he was tightly bound. His arms were twisted around behind him, and with one exploring fingertip he could feel