Ice (Alien Breed 3 - English Edition) Read online

  The wealthy widow's villa was a two-hour drive from my apartment. Louisa's late husband had made a fortune in stocks and real estate. He had been killed three years ago in an accident with his sports car. I had no idea how Louisa was related to the Alien Breeds, but she had also attended the press conference ten years ago. There had to be something that connected all victims beyond this conference. But so far I was still in the dark.

  I parked my car a little way up the street. Yesterday, a good friend of mine, with whom I sometimes worked together, had installed two cameras and four bugs in Louisa's villa. The unsuspecting woman had let him in after her cable connection had mysteriously failed. Of course, she had not suspected the nice cable man and so Ted could go to work, while the unsuspecting Louisa had made coffee in the kitchen. What I wanted to know now was if the sinister albino would show up here. I was here to find out. I wore a blonde wig and sunglasses. In addition, I had a little more body circumference than normal. Thanks to the special corset from my friend Gloria. Gloria worked as a costumer for the theater and she got me the disguise. With the corset I was a lot more curvy than usual. With professional make up, all dressed in black and a big hat on my head, I looked a lot older than my twenty-four years. I took a deep breath before getting out of the car and starting strolling down the street. I acted as if I was looking for a specific address, looking around in all directions, keeping my eyes open for the alleged killer. When I saw him, I had a hard time not to show how shaken I was. But my walk was undeniably wobbly after my eyes fell on him. The instinct to stop and flee back to my car was overpowering. Nevertheless, I forced myself to go further. He was sitting in a car, which stood with the front to me, contrary to the direction of travel, parked at the roadside. His eyes fell on me as I approached him. He had lowered the glass and stuck his head out. I suppressed a panicked outcry and forced myself to calm. He couldn’t possibly recognize me.

  "Can I help you, miss? Are you looking for something?"

  I shook my head, heart pounding wildly.

  "I ... I must have the wrong street," I said, trying to adjust my voice so that he didn’t recognize me. "Thank you, for ... trying to help me. Good day!"

  I turned on my heel and walked slowly back to my car. I wanted to run, but that would be too obvious. All the while I tried to convince myself that he had only spoken to me to help a lost woman. He didn’t recognize me! Impossible! He just couldn’t have recognized me! The way to the car seemed endless to me. The whole time I listened intently, if he came after me. When I unlocked the door to my car, I was a bundle of nerves. Hastily I got in and threw an anxious look down the street. The killer's car was still there. I couldn’t tell if he was still behind the wheel, but at least he was nowhere near my car. With a small sigh of relief, I started the engine and made sure I got away safely.

  What should I do? I knew now that I had been right. The albino had to be the killer and Louisa was his next victim. Her life depended on me. I had to report the scary man. Once I made the decision, I turned left at the next intersection to drive to the police station. When I parked the car in the parking lot in front of the six-story house, and switched off the engine, I took a few deep breaths. Then I gave myself a mental jerk and got out. It occurred to me that I still wore my disguise. I tore off my wig and put down my sunglasses to stow the things in the car and lock it. I could do little against my changed figure at this moment in time.

  Nervously flattening non-existent crinkles in my skirt, I made my way to the entrance. The building was cool when I entered. The air conditioning seemed to be running at full speed. I approached the registration and waited impatiently for the young man in front of me to be cleared and the elderly female officer behind the counter to give me a slightly annoyed look. Anxiously, I stepped forward and cleared my throat.

  "I come to give some details about the serial killer you call the Ripper," I finally explained.

  The officer suddenly seemed more interested than a moment before. She gave me a form and a pen.

  "Please enter your personal data here. Can you ID yourself?"

  I nodded and got my driver's license out of my bag. The woman took it and nodded.

  "I'm making a copy while you fill out the form."

  She disappeared into a back room and came back just as I finished filling out. We exchanged drivers license against form.

  "One moment, please," the woman said and picked up the phone to sign me up.

  She turned to me when she had finished the conversation.

  "Take the elevator to the fourth floor. Room four eleven. You are expected!"

  "Thanks," I mumbled and turned to go to the elevators.

  It seemed like an eternity before the elevator finally came and opened its doors. I got in and pressed the four. When I got to the fourth level, I searched for the right room. Finally standing in front of the right door, my courage suddenly left me. What if the killer recognized me? Would he not suspect that I had given him up?

  For that he first needs to know that the police are on to him, my inner voice argued. Once he's caught, it's too late for him to hurt you. In addition, a human life depends on you. Pull yourself together and do your duty!

  Part of me was still undecided as to whether I was doing the right thing, but I reached out and knocked on the door. A little later, a deep voice sounded, "Come in!"

  Sighing, I reached for the knob and opened the door. An elderly officer was sitting behind a mountain of files and looked up at me as I entered. He made a gesture with his hand to tell me to sit in one of the three chairs in front of his desk. I closed the door behind me and sat down.

  "Well, Miss, what do you have for me? It's about the Ripper, if I'm properly informed?"

  I nodded. Then I began to tell how I had seen the albino in front of Romanov's office building until my meeting with him in the street where Louisa, probably the next victim, lived. The officer was taking notes all the time but didn’t say a word. When I finished, the officer leaned back in his chair and looked at me.

  "An albino, right? What else can you say about the man?"

  "He's huge, I guess six feet ten. He is very muscular, wears sunglasses and has scars on the back of his head. Oh, right! He is bald. He has no hair at all. His face ... his face is pretty distinctive. Edged. Full lips. High cheekbones and a straight nose. The car in which he was sitting had been a dark blue BMW, but I do not know what kind. I ... I'm not an expert in these things."

  "Hmmm. An albino, plus one that is nearly seven feet tall, should actually attract attention everywhere. Thank you very much, for the information. However, I have to say that it was very reckless of you to go to Louisa Montiago’s house. You should have come to us after the murder of Romanov with your guess. We would have put up surveillance for Louisa Montiago’s house ourselves. You also should have told us about your suspicions about the connections of the victims. This is about more than just writing the story of your life! It's about murder!"

  "I ... I know," I said meekly. "But I really didn’t think the man was the killer at first. I thought he was one of Romanov's thugs."

  "Is there anything else you may have forgotten to mention?"

  I shook my head.

  "No! That's all I noticed."

  "Well! It is very likely that we will contact you again. In case of his arrest you will certainly have to identify him and give another statement."

  "Yes. Yes of course!"

  "Then I wish you a good day, Miss."

  "Thanks. Goodbye," I muttered, getting up to leave.

  When I left the room and closed the door behind me again, I took a deep breath. I had done it, but I still had a strange feeling in my stomach.

  As I hurried across the parking lot to my car, I saw a tall figure out of the corner of my eye. Automatically my heart began to race. I changed the angle only slightly to see the person better. The shock hit me so deeply that I froze and stared at him. Like before, he wore sunglasses, but I could still feel his gaze resting on me. Goose bumps
crept over my back. What should I do? He’d apparently followed me and knew that I had reported him to the police. Panic was spreading in my chest. I was doomed. I had just signed my own death warrant. Slowly I opened my mouth for a scream, but no sound came out. I could not say how long we stared at each other before I broke away from my trance and fled back into the building.

  "He's out there!" I exclaimed.

  The woman at the registration looked at me stunned, then reached for the phone. A few officers stormed in minutes later.

  "What happened? Have you seen the man you consider the Ripper?" An older officer asked.

  "Yes. Yes, he was ... in the parking lot," I stammered.

  "Grab him," the officer said to the police officers present, six in number. The men stormed out of the building and the officer touched me gently but firmly by the arms. "You come with me now."

  An hour later, a police escort took me to my apartment. The police hadn’t been able to find the albino. He seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Two officers would keep watch outside my house until morning, just in case the killer knew my address. I didn’t dare thinking about it. Would I ever feel safe again? Probably not before the killer was caught.

  Chapter 2

  ICE

  Cursing inwardly, I ran down the stairs to the video room. X would not be pleased with what I had to tell him. If the little woman had really given me up to the police, there would be no opportunity to execute the convicted person any time soon. I could not withhold the information from X, though. He would find out sooner or later. I wasn’t worried about the punishment I had to expect. Much more, I feared that he would order the execution of the woman. Why did she have to get involved? Damn it!

  I entered the video room, where I kept in touch with X. I had never seen my mentor in my life. I didn’t even know his true voice because it was blurred by a voice-distorter. I sat down in the chair in front of the camera. Although I could not see X, the camera transferred my picture to my mentor. Inwardly counting up to three, I reached out a hand and pressed the green button that would connect me to X. It was not long before his voice came over the speakers.

  "What do you have to report, Ice?"

  "There is a problem," I said with some discomfort.

  "What kind of problem?" The voice of my mentor sounded clearly pissed despite the voice distortion. X didn’t like complications.

  "A woman saw me monitoring the house of the condemned and went to the police. I assume that she knows about the upcoming execution and reported it to the police."

  "Whaaaat? Are you completely incompetent? How could you let this happen? And why is she still alive? Take her out!"

  "Her house is under police surveillance."

  "I will do something about that. I want you to keep an eye on her, but do not let the police catch you. Use your brain, Ice. Darcy will come to you in an hour and dress you up a bit, so you draw less attention to yourself. I want the woman killed! As quickly as possible! Watch her and if there is an opportunity, then DO YOUR JOB!"

  "Understood!"

  "I give you three days. If you haven’t done it by then, you will get a punishment that you will never forget!"

  I nodded.

  There was a crackling sound in the line and I knew that X had ended the conversation. I ran my hand helplessly over my skull. What should I do now? I had to complete my assignment. My job was important. I executed the bad guys. But something told me that the little woman didn’t belong to the bad guys. It was hard for me to take her out. I shook my head helplessly. Then I got up and went to my room. I would wait for Darcy.

  Miriam

  I was nervous when I went to the office the next morning. I kept looking around, expecting to spot the killer somewhere. Although I had a car with two officers in civil following me who would accompany me to work, it didn’t really reassure me. When I parked my car in the parking garage, two officers escorted me to the elevator and waited patiently for me to get in.

  "At five o'clock, two new officers come to escort you home," one of the men said. "Don’t worry. I am sure that we will have the guy soon. A man with that description cannot go unnoticed for long."

  I nodded and grabbed my shoulder bag tighter.

  "Have a nice day, Miss."

  "Thanks, you too, Officer."

  I pushed the button for the eleventh floor where the editorial staff had their offices. I waited for the doors to close and the elevator to start moving.

  My thoughts went to the eerie albino. Despite my fear of this man and the knowledge that he was an unscrupulous killer, I felt a strange fascination. In his own, unusual way, he was undoubtedly a very attractive man. I wondered what his eyes looked like. I had always found it unnerving not to be able to look someone in the eye. You could read so much in the eyes of a human being. But the albino had always worn those damn sunglasses when I saw him.

  A quiet ping made me startled from my thoughts. The elevator had stopped and the doors had opened. A look at the display showed me that I was only on the sixth floor. I looked out the open doors and out into the hallway, but there was no one who could have stopped the elevator. My heart started to beat faster. The sixth floor housed almost exclusively archives. There was hardly ever a human soul here. Only at the very end of the corridor was there an office with three employees of a law firm. I reached out to press the button, which would close the doors again. Suddenly someone stepped from the right in front of the open elevator. I screamed in panic and automatically pressed my back against the wall of the elevator.

  "Something wrong, Miss?" The man in front of the elevator asked worriedly.

  "I ... I was just scared. I didn’t expect anyone else to come. There didn’t seem to be anyone there who stopped the elevator ... "

  The man smiled apologetically.

  "That was me. I'm sorry if I scared you," said the man, squeezing the files in his arm tighter against his corpulent body and climbing into the elevator. "I pushed the button, but then I remembered that I hadn’t closed the archive and so I went back quickly. I am really very sorry. It was not my intention to scare you. I did not expect anyone to be in the elevator either."

  "Alright. You couldn’t know I would react like a frightened mouse. I was just so in thought and didn’t expect that someone would suddenly stand in front of me."

  The elevator stopped on the tenth floor and the man said goodbye. I still felt a slight unease when I finally reached the eleventh floor and got out of the elevator. I wondered nervously how likely it was that the killer would enter the building here. Did he know where I worked? Did he even know who I was?

  "Good morning Miri," Sandra, the receptionist, greeted me.

  "Good morning, Sandra."

  "You look a little pale today. Are you alright?" Sandra eyed me worriedly.

  "Yeah, I just didn’t sleep well last night," I said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, because I slept really badly.

  "It's getting close to a full moon, so I often sleep badly," Sandra said sympathetically. "Shall I make you a strong coffee?"

  "That would be nice," I replied. "I'll be in my office then."

  The day dragged on seemingly endlessly. I ordered something for lunch because I did not dare to leave my office. When it was finally close to five o'clock, I hastily started to grab my things. My cell phone rang and I accepted the call.

  "Yes?"

  "Miss McDonald? Officer Barnes here. We'll wait for you in the garage below," a male voice sounded.

  "Oh! Yes! Thank you very much. I'll be down in a few minutes. See you soon!"

  I finished the conversation, grabbed my bag and left the office. Sandra gave me a smile.

  "You made it through the day. If I may give you some advise: drink a glass of warm milk with a dash of brandy or some other high percentage alcohol before you go to sleep. And no television before sleeping. It's also good to take a hot bath; it will calm you down and make you tired."

  "Thanks," I replied with a forced smile. I doubted
that her well-intentioned advice would make any difference in my case.

  In the elevator, I took a relieved breath. The police would escort me home and my house was still under surveillance. Nothing would happen to me. At some point, they had to find the guy. As the officer had correctly said this morning, a man with a distinctive appearance like the albino could not hide for long. He just had to stand out, no matter where he showed himself.