Saint (10 page)

Robert walked to his desk, wondering how far he really wanted to go with this.

“You have any reason to believe there might be any connection between Assim Feroz and the X Group?” he asked, facing the man.

Like most politicians, he'd learned to judge people by how they reacted to questions. Being asked this run of questions by the president of the United States was usually disarming even for someone as practiced as the director of special operations. Meyers showed no visible sign of surprise, but his answer was too long in coming. He stared at the president, mute.

Robert pushed. “I have reason to believe that there is a connection. I want to know whether there's any plan on or off the books to deal with Feroz using the X Group.”

A pause. “There's been some discussion. Only that. I'm afraid I simply can't say more.”

“You can't possibly think that killing Feroz would resolve the dilemma we're facing with the Iranian initiative.”

“No.”

“It would only fuel their fires.”

“I agree. But killing a man isn't the only way to remove him from the scene.”

“What, you wound him? Give him a disease that turns him into a vegetable? Poison him?”

“They've all been done, but no.” Frank Meyers averted his eyes. “With all due respect, I really don't know of any operational plan involving the X Group. I've already said way more—”

“Remember which office you're in, Mr. Meyers.”

A direct stare. “That's my point.”

Robert knew he'd pushed the topic to its limits. He already knew more than he wanted to know.

“You're right. I'm sorry, I don't mean to compromise your position. But I assure you that the last thing we need is to make the Iranian defense minister a martyr.”

“Absolutely, I agree.”

But there was still a plan. What then? It would make no sense for anyone to attempt to kill Feroz or him. Or, for that matter, the Israeli prime minister.

“Does Director Carter know about this ‘discussion' with the Group?”

Another slight pause. “I believe he's aware of some things.”

Then a formal plan existed. A plan that was being considered at the highest level. And his spiritual adviser seemed terrified by this business. Which part of it, David himself probably couldn't explain. The man operated on spiritual discernment as much as on facts. Evil was lurking.

Then again, David Abraham had come face-to-face with evil and lived to tell of it. The president of the United States had Gandalf the White as a spiritual adviser.

Robert regarded the director of special operations steadily. “You know that I've decided to oppose the Iranian initiative at the UN summit in two weeks?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please tell whoever you need to that I want no agency involvement in this. Are we clear? If I have to, I'll talk to the director, but the last thing we need is some kind of cover-up in a matter as critical as this.” “Understood, sir.”

“Thank you, Frank.”

9

C
arl lay on his belly in the narrow crate, rifle extended, ready, with the barrel an inch from a small wooden door he assumed would be opened when it was time to shoot. A strong medicinal scent made it hard to breathe.

The implications of his predicament were clear. He was expected to win. Neither Jenine nor Englishman could place five rounds in a target at two thousand yards as quickly as he could.

And if he won, one of the others would hunt him. He would have less hornet venom in his system, but the hunter would have a gun. He wasn't sure which he preferred, to be the hunter filled with poison, or the hunted with far less poison. They both sounded like a kind of death. The thoughts crashed through his mind as he tried to focus.

A gate opened behind him, and a faint, then loud, buzzing swarmed in his ears. Closing his eyes would compromise his accuracy now and his sight later. He wondered briefly if a hornet could sting someone in the eyeballs.

He searched for his tunnel, ignoring the soft bump of frantic hornets along his legs, then up his back. He shut down methodically, easing into the safe place of darkness.

A hornet buzzed past his right ear and slammed into the crate in front of him. For a moment it came into focus. A large black insect with gangly legs and appendages sticking out in every direction. It ricocheted off the wood and struck his right cheek.

The gate slid open in front of him. He peered through his scope at the tiny white target. The hornets were slamming into his shoulder blades now, buzzing loudly around his head.

A sharp pain cut into his neck, and he gasped. This pain had sliced past the wall of protection he'd erected. How?

Panic crowded his mind. He'd felt fear before, and he knew how to shut it down. It had to go first, before he could shut down his nerves. He couldn't hope to hit the target until he'd rid himself of pain.

The buzzing became a roar. Carl reluctantly took his eyes off the target and closed his eyes. He felt another bite, this one on the small of his back.

He disassociated his mind from the pain and let himself fall into a soft black pillow. There he formed his tunnel from the blackness.

Another sting on his shoulder, but this one hurt less. The poison would affect him more than the pain now.

Slowly the sound faded.

Slowly the pain eased.

Then he was in.

He snapped his eyes open and peered through the scope, no longer noticing the blur of insects streaking by. He didn't even know where they were biting him now, only that they were.

Carl found the target as he would on any other day, adjusted for the same range and wind factors he had earlier, and walked the trajectory the bullet would take. Then he squeezed his trigger finger and sent the bullet away.

The report crashed against his ears in the enclosed space, but he took strength from it. His rifle was his savior, speaking to him with undeniable power.

He chambered another round and sent it down the same path. Kissing cousins.

Bullets were his dear friends, following his every instruction until they had wasted all of their energy in his service. There was no loy-alty greater than a bullet's, speeding to a certain and willing death.

The sensation of hornets stinging him felt like popcorn popping on his skin. A dull ache spread beyond the tunnel.

Carl didn't know how long it took him to fire the five rounds; he only knew that he was finished. And that the crate's lid had been pulled off.

He clambered to his feet and handed Kelly his rifle. Pain flared through his body. Kelly was yelling something at the guards. “Two pills only. Handgun, remember.”

She placed a knife in Carl's right hand, two pills in his left. “These won't help the pain, but they'll minimize the swelling and keep you alive. I will go with you.”

He shoved the pills into his mouth and stumbled forward, glancing back at the other two crates. The buzzing inside would cover any sound he made now, but it wouldn't take either assassin long to find his tracks.

He cleared his head, turned to the north, and ran into the compound with Kelly close behind.

THE SUN would be down in three or four hours
. Nothing matters
more than survival
. This one thought hung before Carl, calling him forward. A buzz lingered in his mind, not from the hornets, but from their venom.

He understood less of the world than he once had, but some things he understood better, and one of them was survival.

The other was killing.

Kelly ran lightly on her feet beside him, trusting him completely. At one time she would have offered him advice, but those days were behind them. He could now survive by instinct.

“Do you have the key to my pit?” Carl asked.

“Yes. Do you think—”

“To the door in the wall behind my chair?”

Hesitation. “Yes.”

The guns were still booming behind them. Carl veered west and ran for his bunkhouse.

“Carl, are you sure—”

“We have to get in before they're out. Faster.”

They sprinted the last hundred yards, then flew up the steps and into the concrete barracks. The air was suddenly quiet. One of them, likely Englishman, had completed the task.

Carl spun back to be sure they'd left no marks on the cement steps. None. He closed the door.

“Into the pit,” he whispered. They descended the stairs on the fly.

Kelly didn't need her key for the pit; it was open. But the small door at the back was secured tightly with a dead bolt, which he assumed could be operated from either side of the door.

“Where's the key?”

She pulled out a small ring of keys from her pocket. “I hope you know what you're doing.”

“I do.”

He pulled the door open, revealing a dark earthen tunnel reinforced with wooden beams. He stepped in and pulled her in behind him.

“Do you know where this leads?” she asked.

“No. Lock the door.”

“There's no light. The door on the other end is locked.”

“Hurry, please. Lock it.”

Kelly pushed the door shut, fumbled for the lock, and engaged the dead bolt.

“Is there anything in this tunnel?” he asked.

“No. It's for emergency evacuation. Leads to the hospital.”

“It's a direct path? Straight?”

“Yes.”

Carl turned and walked into the darkness.

“I can't see a thing. Where are you going? There's nowhere to go.”

He reached back for her, felt her stomach, then her hand. Together they walked into the inky blackness. “Tell me when you think we've reached the halfway point.”

She stopped him in twenty seconds. “Here.” He knew that they were nowhere close to halfway, but he decided it was far enough, so he stopped. Released her hand.

Silence engulfed them. He listened for any sound of pursuit but expected none. Even if Englishman or Jenine stumbled into his pit, neither had a key to the tunnel. There was no way they could verify his presence here.

“Now what?” Kelly whispered after a minute.

A tension in her voice betrayed her insecurity. She'd been through training similar to his own, but he didn't know how far they'd pushed her. And she hadn't been in a pit since his coming. Perhaps that explained her fear of it.

“Now we wait,” he said. “Please don't talk.”

Carl squatted. And waited. Home.

“HOW LONG are we going to stay in here?” Kelly whispered.

They'd only been in the tunnel for an hour.

“Until I've rested and have the advantage,” he said aloud, thankful for the dirt walls that absorbed the sound of their voices.

He could hear Kelly moving toward him. Only now had she realized that he'd moved away from her during the last hour so that he could hear above her breathing. It occurred to him that he was her protector here. In the tunnel, he was the master and she was the student. It made him proud.

Do you believe?

The soft voice echoed through his mind. Believe in what? In the Group, of course. His belief in everything he'd learned here was the fabric of his survival. He'd actually lowered the temperature in his cell! Imagine that.

“Why did you move away from me?” Kelly asked, closer now.

“I wanted to be able to hear,” he said, standing.

“And?”

“They entered my pit, walked around, and then left.”

“This is like your mental tunnel,” she said.

“Yes.”

Her hand felt for him, touched his chest, his neck, and then drew back.

“How are the bites?”

He hadn't given them much thought, but he felt his neck now. “Gone mostly.”

For a long while they stood in silence.

“When do you think you will have the advantage?” she asked.

He shrugged in the darkness. “A day.”

“A day? That long?”

“Patience is always—”

“I know about patience. I taught you that, remember? But how will a day help you?”

“Do you want to leave now?”

“I'm only the observer. I stay with you.”

“Maybe it'll be less than a day,” he said.

He really was in complete control, not only of her safety, but in some ways of how she felt. Kelly settled to the ground, and he joined her.

For several hours neither of them spoke. Carl was doing what he did best. He didn't know what Kelly was doing.

“Do you mind if I touch you?” she finally asked. “As much as I hate to admit it, the darkness is a bit disorienting.”

“Okay,” he said.

She felt for his knee, then found his hand. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

They held hands in the dark for a while.

“Do you know what's so special about you?”

He didn't answer.

“Your innocence. You're like a child in some ways.”

A child? He wasn't sure what to think about that.

“But there's a man inside, waiting to be set free,” she said. “I'm very proud of you.”

Her statement confused him, so he still said nothing.

“Do you remember Nevada?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I've always wanted to go to the desert. It's so vast. Uncaring of the rest of the world. It's just there, no matter what else happens. Golden sands and towering rocks. Coyotes that roam the land, free. When this is all over, I think I'd like to go to the desert in Nevada.”

“When what is over?” he asked.

She didn't answer for a while. “It's just a fantasy,” she said. “Something stuck in my head. I can imagine you and I walking into the desert like this, hand in hand, away from all of this. Do you ever think about leaving?”

“To the desert?”

“Not necessarily. Just leaving this place.”

“I can't leave.”

“I know, but if you could. If you didn't have the implant, would you go?”

“I don't know. It's not so bad here.”