Black Order (38 page)

His fingers clamped on the knob and twisted.

Locked.

“Goddamn it!” he swore.

More of the chair cracked. Behind them, the tromp of boots echoed, coming fast up the stairs. Voices barked orders.

Gray twisted around. “Brace me!” he said to Monk. He would have to kick the far door open.

On his back, legs pistoned up and ready, Gray leaned against Monk’s shoulder for leverage.

Then the exit door simply popped open ahead of him, revealing a pair of legs in camouflaged khakis. One of the walkway patrols must have noted the malfunction and come to investigate.

Gray aimed for the man’s shins and kicked out.

Caught by surprise, the man’s legs went out from under him. He hit his head with a clang against the shutter and landed hard on the planks. Gray dove out and clocked the man again with his heel. His body went slack.

Monk followed, rolling to Gray, but not before kicking the trapped chair free of the shutter. The metal security gate continued its descent and slammed closed.

Gray relieved the guard of his weapons. He used a knife to slice away Monk’s bindings and passed him the man’s sidearm, an HK Mark 23 semiautomatic pistol. Gray confiscated the rifle.

Weapons in hand, they fled down the canopy bridge to the first crossroads. It divided just as the bridge reached the jungle. They checked both directions. So far it was all clear.

“We’re going to have to split up,” Gray said. “Better our chances. You have to get help, get to a phone, contact Logan.”

“What about you?”

Gray didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“Gray…she may already be dead.”

“We don’t know that.”

Monk searched his face. He had seen the monster on the computer screen. He knew Gray had no choice.

Monk nodded.

Without another word, they fled in opposite directions.

6:34
A.M
.

Khamisi reached the canopy walkway, scaling up a tree on the opposite side of the glade. He moved swiftly and silently.

Below, the
ukufa
still circled the tree, guarding its trapped prey. The loud
bang
a moment ago had startled the
ukufa
. It had dropped from the tree, wary and cautious. It stalked around the tree again, ears high. Alarms and klaxons echoed out from the manor house.

The commotion also concerned Khamisi.

Had Tau and Njongo been discovered?

Or maybe their camouflaged base camp outside the estate grounds had been found? Their rallying point was disguised as a Zulu hunting campsite, one of the many such nomadic camps. Had someone realized it was more than that?

Whatever the cause of the alarm, the noise at least had made the giant hyena monster—the
ukufa
—more guarded. Khamisi used its distraction to reach one of the overhead bridges. He rolled onto the planks, freeing his rifle. Anxiety kept his senses sharp. Terror, however, had shed from him. Khamisi had noted the creature’s ambling gait, the soft rattling growl, a few sharp nervous cackles escalating into whoops.

Normal hyena behavior.

Though monstrous in size, it was not something mythic or supernatural.

Khamisi took strength in its flesh.

On the bridge, he hurried along the planks to where it crossed near the boy’s tree. He unhooked a coil of rope from his pack.

Bending over the walkway’s steel cabling, he spotted the boy. He whistled sharply, a bird call. The boy’s attention had remained focused below. The sudden noise above his head made him flinch. But he glanced up and spotted Khamisi.

“I’m going to get you out of there,” he called out in low tones, using English, hoping the boy understood.

Below, something else heard Khamisi, too.

The
ukufa
stared up at the bridge. Red eyes locked onto Khamisi’s. Lids lowered as it studied the man on the bridge. Teeth bared. Khamisi read a calculating attention in its focus.

Was this the creature that had ambushed Marcia?

Khamisi would have liked nothing better than to unload both barrels into its smiling face, but the noise of the large-bore rifle would draw too much attention. The estate was already on full alert. So instead, he placed the rifle at his feet. He would need both arms and shoulders.

“Boy!” Khamisi said. “I’m going to toss you a rope. Snug it around your waist.” He mimed what to do. “I’ll pull you up.”

The boy nodded, eyes wide, face swollen from crying and fear.

Leaning over the edge, Khamisi swung the coil of rope and tossed it toward the boy. The rope unfurled, crashing through the leaves. It failed to reach the boy, nesting up in the branches above.

“You’ll have to climb to it!”

The boy needed no goading. With a chance to escape, his effort at climbing grew more determined. He scrambled and kicked and got himself up to the next branch. He tied the rope around his waist, shaking it loose from the branches. He showed some skill with the rope. Good.

Khamisi pulled in the slack, bracing it around one of the steel cable posts supporting the bridge. “I’m going to start pulling you up! You’re going to swing out.”

“Hurry!” the boy called out, too sharply and too loudly.

Khamisi pivoted on a hip and saw the
ukufa
had noted the boy’s renewed movement. It drew the monster like a cat after a mouse. It had mounted the tree and was climbing up, digging in its claws.

With no time to waste, Khamisi began wheeling the rope up, arm over arm. He felt the boy’s weight burden the rope as he was lifted free of his perch. Bending to check, he spotted the boy swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

The
ukufa
did, too, eyes tracking the arc. It continued its climb. Khamisi read its intent. It was planning to leap and snag the boy, like bait on a line.

Khamisi hauled faster. The boy continued to swing.

“Wie zijn u?”
a voice suddenly barked behind him.

Startled, he almost let go of the rope. He craned over a shoulder.

A tall, lithe woman stood on the walkway, dressed in black, feral-eyed. Her hair was blond but shaved close to the scalp. One of the senior Waalenberg children. She must have just stepped onto this section and discovered him. She had a knife already in one hand. Khamisi dared not let go of the rope.

Not good.

Below, the boy cried out.

Khamisi and the woman glanced down.

The
ukufa
had reached the boy’s former perch and bunched up for its leap. Behind Khamisi, the woman laughed, a match to the cackle of the creature below. The planks creaked as she stepped toward his back, knife in hand.

They were both trapped.

6:38
A.M
.

Gray knelt at the crossroads. The elevated walkway split into three paths. The left led back to the manor house. The center walkway skirted the forest’s edge and overlooked the central gardens. The path to the right simply headed straight off into the heart of the jungle.

Which way?

Crouched, Gray studied the slant of shadows, comparing it to the pattern he had studied on the LCD monitor. The length and direction of the shadows had offered a general clue to the position of the rising sun in respect to the location of Fiona’s imprisonment. But that still left a large swath of estate to cover.

Feet pounded on the walkway, shaking it slightly.

More guards.

He had encountered two groups already.

Gray shouldered his rifle, rolled to the edge of the walkway, and dropped off its edge. He hung by his arms to the cabling and worked hand over hand to the leafy shelter of a tree branch. A moment later, a trio of guards clattered by overhead, bouncing the walkway. Gray clung tightly, jiggled about.

Once they were past, he used the tree branch to scoot back onto the path. Hooking and swinging his leg over, he noticed a rhythmic vibration in the cable in his hand. More guards?

Flat on his belly on the planks, he leaned an ear against the cable, listening like an Indian tracker on a trail. There was a distinct rhythm to the vibration, audible, like a plucked string of a steel guitar. Three fast twangs, three slow, three fast again. And it repeated.

Morse code.

S.O.S.

Someone was knocking out a signal on the cable.

Gray crouched and sidled back to the branching of the walkway. He felt the other support cables. Only one vibrated. It led off along the path to the right, the one headed into the depths of the jungle.

Could it be…?

With no better clue, Gray set off down the right path. He kept pace near the walkway’s edge, attempting to keep his tread silent and the bridge from swaying. The path continued to diverge. Gray paused at each crossing to find the cable vibrating in code and followed its trail.

Gray was so focused on the path, that when he ducked under the heavy frond of a palm leaf he suddenly found himself staring at a guard only four yards away. Brown-haired, midtwenties, typical Hitler youth. The guard leaned on the cable handrail, facing Gray’s direction. His gun was already rising, as he’d been alerted by the shuffle of the palm tree.

Gray didn’t have time to get his rifle up. Instead, still moving, he slammed his weight to the side—not in an attempt to dodge the coming slug. The guard couldn’t miss at this range.

Gray struck the cabled handrail, jarring it.

The guard, braced against it, bobbled. The muzzle of his rifle jittered too high. Gray closed the gap in two steps, getting under the rifleman’s guard, the pilfered dagger already in his hand.

Gray used the man’s imbalance to silence his scream, planting the dagger through the man’s wind box, severing his larynx. A twist and the carotid spurted. He’d be dead in seconds. Gray caught his body and heaved it over the rail. He felt no remorse, remembering the guards laughing as Ryan had dropped into the monster’s den. How many others had died that way? The body fell in a shushing whisper of leaves, then crashed into the grassy underbrush.

Crouched low, Gray listened. Had anyone heard the guard’s fall?

Off to the left, surprisingly near, a woman shouted in accented English. “Stop kicking the bars! Or we’ll drop you now!”

Gray recognized the voice.
Ischke.
Isaak’s twin sister.

A more familiar voice responded to the woman. “Sod off, you bony-assed prat!”

Fiona.

She was alive.

Despite the danger, Gray grinned—both in relief and respect.

Staying low, he snuck down to the end of the walkway. It dead-ended at a circular path that edged an open glade. The one from the video. The cage was suspended from the elevated walkway.

Fiona kicked the cage’s bars.
Three fast, three slow, three fast.
Her face was a mask of determination. Gray felt the vibration under his feet now, transmitted along the cage’s support cables.

Good girl.

She must have heard the alarms from the manor house. Perhaps guessed it might be Gray and sought to signal him. Either that…or she was just damned pissed. And the pattern was just an annoying coincidence.

Gray spotted three guards at the two-, three-, and nine-o’clock positions. Ischke, still dazzling in her black and white outfit, stood on the far side—at twelve o’clock—both hands on the inside rail, staring down at Fiona.

“A bullet through your knee might quiet you down,” she called to the girl, placing a palm on a holstered pistol.

Fiona paused in midkick, mumbled something under her breath, then lowered her foot.

Gray calculated the odds. He had one rifle against three guards, all armed, and Ischke with her pistol. Not good.

A spat of static sounded from across the glade. Garbled words followed.

Ischke unhooked her radio and lifted it to her lips.
“Ja?”

She listened for half a minute, asked another question that Gray couldn’t make out, then signed off. Lowering the radio, she spoke to the guards.

“New orders!” she barked to the others in Dutch. “We kill the girl now.”

6:40
A.M
.

The
ukufa
let out a trebling series of yips, ready to leap at the dangling boy. Khamisi sensed the approach of the woman at his back. Hands on the rope, he couldn’t go for any of his weapons.

“Who are you?” the woman asked again, knife threatening.

Khamisi did the only thing he could.

Bending his knees, he threw himself over the cabled railing. He clenched hard to the rope as he tumbled. Overhead, the line whistled around the steel support post. As Khamisi fell earthward, he caught a glimpse of the boy being dragged skyward, flailing with a long scream of surprise.

The
ukufa
leaped at its fleeing prey, but Khamisi’s falling weight zipped the boy straight up to the walkway, banging him hard against it.

The sudden stop ripped the rope from Khamisi’s grip.

He fell, landing on his back in the grass. Overhead, the boy clung to the underside of the walkway. The woman stared down at Khamisi, eyes wide.

Something large crashed to the ground a few meters from him.

Khamisi sat up.

The
ukufa
bounded to its feet, throwing ropes of saliva, furious, growling.

Its red gaze fell heavily upon the only prey in sight.

Khamisi.

His hands were empty. His rifle still rested on the planks above.

The creature yowled in bloodlust and anger. It leaped at him, intending to tear out his throat.

Khamisi fell to his back, lifting his only weapon. The Zulu assegai. The short spear was still strapped to his thigh. As the
ukufa
dropped onto him, Khamisi shoved the blade up. His father had once taught him how to use the weapon. Like all Zulu boys. Before they left for Australia. With an instinct that crossed deep into the past of his ancestors, Khamisi slipped the blade under the creature’s ribs—one of flesh, not myth—and drove it deep as the hyena’s weight fell atop him.