The Heaven Trilogy (124 page)

“I've given my life to becoming a doctor. You're not actually suggesting—”

“I'm suggesting that you need a rest, Sherry. At least three months. We're talking about the lives of patients here, not your precious little ego. You missed a call last week, for goodness' sakes!”

Sherry felt a chill wash over her skin. Three months for what? To see one more quack? She stared at the man for a full ten seconds, thinking she was losing her mind. When she spoke, her voice held a tremor.

“Do you have any idea how many hours of study it takes to finish at the top of the class, Mr. Piper? No, I suppose you wouldn't because you finished near the bottom, didn't you?”

A twitch in his right eyebrow indicated she had struck a chord there. But it didn't matter now. She had gone too far. Sherry stood to her feet and turned to Moreland. Every bone in her body wanted her to scream, “I quit!”

But she couldn't, not after seven years in the books.

She drilled him with flashing eyes, spun on her heels, and strode from the room, leaving all three doctors blinking.

CHAPTER NINE

THERE WAS only one living soul who knew of Shannon Richterson's true fate. Only one man who knew how he'd really died eight years earlier. He knew because he, too, had come from Venezuela, farther down the same river that Shannon had fallen into after being shot. What he knew about the killers who had attacked the jungle that fateful day might have done wonders for Sherry Blake.

There was only one problem. Even if he had known about Sherry, he was not exactly the sensitive kind of guy who cared. In fact, he himself was a killer.

His name was Casius, and while Sherry was stomping out of Denver Memorial, he was standing at the end of a CIA conference table in Langley, Virginia, glaring at three seated men, suppressing a sudden urge to slit their throats.

For a brief moment, Casius saw a familiar black fog wash into his vision, but he blinked and it vanished. If they'd noticed, they hadn't shown it.

They deserved to die, and one day they
would
die, and maybe, just maybe if things fell his way, he would do the killing. But not today. He was still playing their game today.

That was all going to change soon.

He turned away from them. “Let me tell you a story,” he said, walking toward the window. The thin one, Friberg, was the director of the CIA. He wore thin lips under a bald head. His eyes were dark.

Casius faced the group. “Do you mind if I tell you a story?”

“Go ahead,” Mark Ingersol said. Ingersol, the director of Special Opera- tions, was a heavyset man with slick, black hair. David Lunow, Casius's handler, just stared at him with an amused glint in his eye.

Casius met Ingersol's gaze. “Last week you sent me to kill a man in Iran. Mudah Amir. He lived in a rural house and spent most of his time with his wife and children, which made the task a challenge, but—”

“He was a monster,” Ingersol said. “That's why we sent you.”

Heat flashed up Casius's spine. Ingersol was right, of course, but he had no right to be right. Ingersol himself was a monster. They were the worst kind of monsters, the kind who killed without bloodying their hands. “Excuse the observation, but I don't think you know what a monster is.”

“Anyone who blows up one of our embassies is a monster, in my book. Get on with it.”

“You send me to kill. Does that make you a monster?”

“We don't send you to kill innocent—”

“The innocent always die. That's the nature of evil. But it doesn't take a man foaming at the mouth to fly a plane into a building. It takes a man dedicated to his war. An evil man, maybe, or a godly man. But evil is not exclusive to the Mideast. The monsters are everywhere. Maybe in this room.”

“And
I'm
a monster?” Ingersol said.

Casius ignored him. He turned from them and closed his eyes. “I had to wait two days for the wife and children to leave before I killed Mudah Amir, but that wasn't the point.”

He took another deep breath, calming himself. In truth if Mudah was a monster, then so was he. Yes, a monster.

“Mudah didn't die quickly.” He turned back and stared at them for a few seconds. “Do you know how easily a man can be made to talk when you've removed a finger or two?” Casius asked.

“Mudah told me of a man. An Abdullah Amir—his brother, in fact. He spit in my face and told me that his brother, Abdullah, would strike out at America. And he would do it sooner than anyone might suspect. Not an unusual threat from a man about to die. But what he told me next did catch my attention. Mudah insisted that his brother will strike at American soil from the south. From Venezuela.”

Director Friberg's eyes flickered, but he held his tongue.

Casius walked back to the table and rested a hand on the back of his chair. “I wouldn't bother you with the sole confession of a man about to die. But I have more.”

Casius took a settling breath. “You know of a man named Jamal Abin, I'm sure.”

The name seemed to still the room. For a moment they replied only with their breathing.

“It's our business to know about men like Jamal,” Ingersol finally said. “There's not much to know about him. He's a financier of terrorism. What does he have to do with this?”

David spoke for the first time. “I believe Casius is referring to the reports circulated that Jamal was behind the killing of his father in Caracas.”

“Your father was killed in Venezuela?” Ingersol asked. It hardly surprised Casius that the man didn't know. His history was known only by David, who'd first recruited him.

“My father was a mercenary employed in the drug wars in South America. His throat was slit in a Caracas nightclub, and yes, I believe Jamal was ultimately responsible for his death. Not personally, of course. Jamal isn't one to show his face much less kill someone himself. But now he's left a trail.”

They sat there, not comprehending.

“After I killed Mudah, I searched his flat. I found a safe stashed under the bed in his room with evidence that ties Jamal to him and his brother, Abdullah.” Casius pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and slid it across the table.

“What's this?” Ingersol asked.

“A receipt for a million dollars delivered to Mudah, earmarked for Venezuela.”

They studied the wrinkled sheet and passed it around. “And you're saying this
J
is Jamal's signature.”

“Yes. It ties Jamal, the ‘financier of terrorism' as you call him, to Mudah's brother, Abdullah. I would say that this lends some credibility to our dying man's confession, wouldn't you?”

No one responded.

“It's not really that complicated,” Casius said. “Jamal is a known terrorist. I'm holding evidence that ties Jamal to Abdullah, who evidently has a base in Venezuela. I say that's a pretty strong case.”

Ingersol frowned and nodded. “Reasonable.”

“There's more. The safe also contained a document that detailed the location of Abdullah's base. Interesting enough by itself. But the location in question, an old plantation, was overrun by an unidentified force roughly eight years ago. A Danish coffee farmer, Jergen Richterson, and his family were killed along with some neighboring missionaries.” Casius fed them the classified details and watched Friberg's eyes narrow barely.

“According to your own records, there was no formal investigation into the attack. Of course there were no survivors to push the matter either. Unusual, don't you think? I believe the information I have leads to Abdullah Amir, and I believe that Abdullah will lead me to Jamal.”

Casius paused. “I want Jamal.”

“Do you snoop around our files on a regular basis?” Friberg asked quietly. “Where's this document that supposedly shows Abdullah's base?”

“I have it.”

“You'll turn it over.”

“Will I? I want the mission.”

“I'm afraid that's out of the question,” Friberg said. “The fact that Jamal may have been involved in your father's death creates a personal link that precludes your involvement.”

“Yes, that's your policy. Still, it's what I'm demanding. You either assign me to run a reconnaissance mission to the region, or I do my own.”

“You do nothing on your own, boy.” Friberg's neck flushed red. “You do what we tell you or you do nothing. Is that clear?”

“Crystal. Unfortunately, it's also unacceptable.”

Casius faced Friberg down. He'd thought that it might come to this and a part of him welcomed it. He had hoped they would let him go—Jamal was a high-profile threat. But if they refused he would go anyway. That was the plan. That had always been the plan.

“Do you have the location with you?” Friberg asked.

Casius smiled, but he said nothing.

“Then you have twenty-four hours to turn it in. And don't push us.”

“Is that a threat?”

“That's an order.”

He had done well up until now, playing by their rules. But suddenly the heat in his head was mushrooming and the black fog was swarming. Casius felt a small tremor race through his bones.

“Good. Then I won't threaten you either.” His voice was shaky and his face had grown red—he could feel it. “Just a word of caution. Don't push me, Director. I don't do well when pushed.”

Silence engulfed them like hot steam. David glanced nervously at Ingersol and Friberg. Ingersol looked stunned. Friberg glared.

Casius turned and headed for the door.

“Twenty-four hours,” Friberg said.

Casius walked out without responding.

It had started. Yes, it had definitely started.

CHAPTER TEN

Tuesday

ON MOST nights, Sherry read until one or two in the morning, depending on the book, depending on her mood. She would then nibble on some morsel from the kitchen and climb into bed, prepared to endure the last waking hour before sleep introduced the evening's haunting dream—the same one that had presented itself to her every night for the past eight months. The beach one.

But not tonight.

Sherry's roommate, Marisa, had come home at eight and heard an earful about Sherry's review before the board. After storming out of the hospital, Sherry had roamed the park, trying to make sense of this last wrench thrown into her cogs. She'd nearly called her adopted grandmother, Helen, but then she discarded the idea. There was no living soul wiser than Helen, but Sherry wasn't sure she was ready for a dose of wisdom.

All in all, the day had been a disaster, but then so were most of her days.

Marisa had gone to bed at ten and Sherry had curled up with a novel just after that. But that was where the familiar ended and things started going topsy-turvy.

The room lay quiet below her. That was the first topsy-turvy thing. Not that it lay quiet, but that it lay
below
her.

The second topsy-turvy thing was the figure sprawled on the armchair, with arms and legs flopping over the sides like some couch potato who'd passed out after one too many beers. But the figure was no couch potato. It was her. She was sleeping on the armchair, her chest rising and falling in long draws, her mind lost to the world. A blue blanket lay across her waist. She didn't remember anything about getting herself a blue blanket.

The third topsy-turvy thing was the clock. Because it read eleven o'clock and that figure there on the couch—Sherry—was indeed asleep. At eleven o'clock. Which was impossible.

Then another tidbit struck Sherry: She was floating above it all, like a drifting angel looking down on herself, like a bird soaring overhead. Like a dove.

Like eight years ago in the box!

A warm glow surged through her belly at the thought. If she really was sleeping and not dead from a heart attack, then this episode must be a vivid dream of some kind. Most definitely not a nightmare, which was another topsy-turvy thing, because she didn't know how to dream without having a nightmare.

And yet here she was, floating like a dove over her slumbering body at eleven o'clock in the evening!

Topsy-turvy.

Then suddenly she wasn't floating like a dove over her slumbering body. She was soaring through a bright blue sky high above an endless forest like a bat out of hell. No, like an angel from heaven. Most definitely an angel.

Wind streamed past her eyes. She heard nothing, not her own breathing, not the wind. Then she was above a jungle paradise. Flocks of parrots flapped silently, several hundred meters below.

Parrots. Jungle. And then Sherry knew that she was in Venezuela again, flying over the tropical rain forest. Her heart rose to her throat and she dipped closer to the trees. Memories flashed through her mind. Images of jogging through this forest, of swimming in the rivers and running hand in hand with Shannon over the plantation. A warm contentment rushed through her veins and she smiled.

Below her, the jungle yielded to fields and she pulled up, startled. It
was
the plantation! She recognized the rows of coffee plants as if they were still there, a week before harvest, beaded red under the sun. To her right the old mansion rose white from the fields; as she swooped to the left, she could see the mission station resting in the afternoon sun, undisturbed. Neither clearing showed any signs of life.

The sight made her tremble, hanging in the air like a dove on a string. What was this? The beginning of a nightmare after all? But even her nightmares had never played this vividly.

Then a sign of life twitched at the corner of her vision and she turned toward the shed topped by the rooster Shannon had shot. The weather vane still graced the metal building, pierced head and all. But it wasn't the rooster that had moved; it was the door that now swung open, pushed by a young man who stepped out into the sun.

Sherry spun to him and immediately drew back, stunned. It was Shannon! An adolescent with long blond hair, a reincarnation of the boy she'd lost in the jungle eight years earlier. Her heart hammered in her chest and she drew shallow breaths, afraid to disturb the scene below. Afraid he might see her and turn those green eyes skyward. She didn't know if she could manage that without breaking down.