Free Mark of the Devil by William Kerr Page B

the passenger seat. He followed the short line of cars as they split in different directions at the intersection of Middle Ridge and Melville Lane, then followed the car in front of him as it turned left.
    It had been years since Striker had been to northern Virginia, a lifetime ago it seemed. So much had changed. He frowned at the thought. Outside Washington’s Capitol Beltway and past the suburbs where open farmland had been now stood shopping malls, sprawling subdivisions, four-lane highways, and—worst of all—people. Hundreds of thousands of people. For all he knew, probably some of them were ones who had taunted him in his early years. Progress—it stretched almost to the Shenandoah Foothills, their rounded tops silhouetted in the afterglow of the sunset now visible in his rearview mirror as the car neared the top of the hill. It was, however, the memory of those foothills and their people that still made him angry.
    Communist-controlled Poland. After the death of his father at the hands of the government, Karol Strzelecki and his mother were smuggled out of the country by members of an underground worker’s group with the help of a sympathetic couple visiting from East Germany. First, they stopped in a small town just over the East German border, then in Berlin, and finally, hidden beneath the false floorboard of a truck, they passed the “Wall” and entered the city’s American sector.
    Who had helped them get to the United States? He had been too young to remember, but he did remember the farm just outside Middleburg, Virginia: its rolling hills, the small cottage near the main house, and his mother cooking meals and cleaning for the family. He could smell the stables he’d mucked; the horses, his only friends.
    Those were the good memories, but the teasing he’d borne during his school years because of his accent and poor English still rankled. The fights and early losses later became victories as he grew older and stronger. But it was the school principal who had become the focus of his hatred; the man who, in the privacy of his office, called him a stupid Polack Jew; the man who crushed those victories, always blaming and punishing him. He’d never been accepted and, filled with the venom of forced loneliness and bitter frustration, he’d hated them all.
    But finally, he had found his niche in life. The Army’s Special Forces taught him what he was capable of achieving: how to survive, but more importantly, how to kill He could strike without warning and without mercy. They called him the Striker, a name much easier on the tongue than Strzelecki and a name he took for his own. With those rolling hills still reflected in the rearview mirror, the sound of bitter laughter rose in Carl Striker’s throat as he muttered, “To hell with all of you.” He was back, but this time doing what he was trained to do. Doing what he did best.
    As he reached the top of the hill, Striker turned the leased Chevy Monte Carlo onto Moylan Lane, immediately slowing to see the house numbers. And there it was: 4410, first house on the left. The two-story Cape Cod was tucked in behind a cluster of red maple and ash trees, their leaves deep with autumn red and gold. He turned into the drive, backed out, and parked the car against the curb fronting the house within a few feet of the intersection.
    Striker sat for a moment, shifting one way then another to take in his surroundings. If he cut across the front yard beneath the trees, it would be almost impossible for anyone in the neighboring homes to see him, certainly too difficult to describe him in the future. He lifted the armrest, slid across the passenger seat, opened the door, and got out into the chill of early evening. Moving as quickly as he could without drawing attention, he hurried beneath the trees and to the front door.
    He pushed the tiny, lighted button for the doorbell, but there was no response. Again he tried, but this time he held his finger to the button and