The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (31 page)

Kimberlain looked his way long enough to see the cord dangling from his throat. He noticed the woman’s face had filled with shock.

“Kimberlain!” Hedda exclaimed, recalling August Pomeroy’s mention of the name. “But what—”

“Not now!” the Ferryman ordered, eyes on the gauges. “We’re going down.”

“
What?
”

“I didn’t have time to fill up the fuel tank.”

The power held just long enough for Kimberlain to settle the chopper into a drop. It smacked the water hard and sat there. Hedda helped Chalmers down and then followed him into the water. Kimberlain waited until they were both out before dropping out himself.

“How long a swim is it?” Kimberlain asked.

“Not very long at all,” Hedda said, and she pulled the long-distance homing beacon from her soaked vest.

The autopilot mechanism of one of the cigarette boats would respond to the beacon’s signal, just as long as the boat had stopped after The Caretakers had left it en route to the island.

Sure enough, four long minutes later, the boat coasted up alongside them. Kimberlain climbed in first and helped the other two up over the gunwale. Hedda moved immediately to the deck-mounted controls and took the wheel.

Kimberlain’s eyes rotated warily between the both of them. “Who are
you
?” the Ferryman asked Chalmers. “How do you know who I am?”

“We met once… . Don’t you … recognize … me?” Chalmers responded. His voice emerged even more broken and garbled than usual, thanks to the beating his speaker had taken in the water. “In Modesto … California … a long time ago. At … the beginning … The Ferryman’s … beginning.” Chalmers touched the cord running out of his throat. “The night you … did this to me.”

A chill moved up Kimberlain’s spine. “In the bar …”

Chalmers tried to nod. “You did it … with a chain… . You … remember.”

Kimberlain remembered all too well. The night he had killed the members of the motorcycle gang who had murdered his parents, he had come back for the leader and found him in the bar’s back room with another man. The man had drawn a pistol and begun firing. The bullets had poured into the biker leader when Kimberlain grabbed him as a shield. Then the Ferryman had stripped the chain from the corpse’s midsection and lashed it outward. The sharp-pronged edge tore into the gunman’s throat and came away coated with flesh. The man had gone down, gasping and gurgling, dead for sure.

Apparently not.

“But what were you doing there?” Kimberlain asked as the stiff sea breeze made him feel cold and clammy.

“Your parents’ … deaths were … arranged by … me.”

“
What?
”

“You were set … up. Everything was … set up.”

“
Why?
”

“A test.”

“You
bastard
!”

“You passed.”

Kimberlain tried to compose it all in his mind. The very existence of the Ferryman was a lie. He had not acted on his own back then, any more than he had in the years that followed as a Caretaker. He had simply done their bidding. They had programmed him, and Kimberlain had performed. What did they have to lose, after all? If he had been killed trying to avenge his parents, they lost nothing. If he succeeded, they would be in a position to provide the only means available to free him from the stockade. What choice had there been? They had killed his parents to make him what they needed him to be.

Kimberlain moved a step closer to Chalmers, suspended between thoughts and intentions. “Maybe I should finish the job I started back then.”

“Maybe. But … tonight finds … us on the same … side.”

“I’m not convinced of that yet.”

“But it’s the truth,” Hedda interjected. “I know who you are, too. I know you’re the last surviving member of the original Caretakers.”

“Original?”

“I’m part of the new Caretakers, the last survivor… .”

Kimberlain looked at Chalmers. “Recruited by him, too, I suppose.”

Hedda nodded. “Under drastically different circumstances, though. I was in prison when he found me.”

“Renaissance,” the Ferryman realized.

Hedda jerked the wheel in surprise. Water lifted up over the gunwale and sprayed them all.

The term sent a shudder through Hedda. She exchanged glances with Chalmers, then spoke finally. “How much do you know?”

“Hundreds of convicted criminals, chosen for their capacity for violence, were taken from prisons and asylums to be reconditioned to serve in a twisted army run by the worst of them all. And you’re one of them.”

“What twisted army?” Hedda demanded. “Just who is the worst of them all?”

“Then there’s something you don’t know, isn’t there?”

Hedda’s eyes flashed between Chalmers and the night sea before them. “You know, don’t you? It’s what you wouldn’t tell me.”

“That and more,” Chalmers confirmed.

“Including Andrew Harrison Leeds?” Kimberlain challenged.

Chalmers’s face filled with confusion. “Who?”

“The man behind all of this.”

Chalmers shook his head. “The man behind … Renaissance … was Briarwood.”

“As in T. Howard Briarwood? The billionaire?”

“Yes.”

And in that instant, everything was clear to Kimberlain.

“Briarwood Industries,” Hedda muttered. “They owned the plastics factory that burned down.”

“What are you talking about?” the Ferryman asked her.

“A trail I followed from the time my own people tried to kill me… .”

Starting there, Hedda told the story of her journey; from learning of Lyle Hanky’s transdermal poison in Doha, to PLAS-TECH, to the mysterious toxic strips the ruined plant produced and then shipped to a trio of paper production facilities. By the end of her story, Kimberlain had grasped the total shape of what he had been pursuing. Everything had come together, and the shape was terrifying.

“TD-13,” he muttered.

“It stands for transdermal, meaning—”

“Absorption through the skin. A poison that causes death by mere touch.” He paused. “Hundreds of millions of deaths.”

“No. Hanley said the quantities produced weren’t sufficient for that kind of destruction. He said it was going to be more limited.”

“He was wrong. This whole country’s going to die, maybe the whole world in the long run.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ninth dominion,” Kimberlain told her.

“Then Leeds, alias Briarwood, is going to use TD-13 to make his vision a reality,” Hedda said when he was finished. “Only according to Hanley, he doesn’t have enough to pull it off.”

“The key lies in those plastic monofilament strips. Why send them to paper mills?”

“Because the finished paper is going somewhere else with the poisoned strips inserted within it.” She thought briefly. “Magazines maybe, or newspapers.”

“No. By your account, there isn’t nearly enough of this TD-13 to infest even one city’s supply of newspapers. And even if there were, most people don’t read them. No, Leeds has figured out a way to get his poison into something
everybody
touches.”

“Not everybody,” Hedda said. “That’s what his plan is all about. And that’s where I come in, and the others like me, isn’t it? Because it was Leeds who made me, made all of us.”

“The guardians of his new order. He thinks he needs them to ride herd over the criminals and madmen he intends to let loose.”

“Then the criminals and madmen are going to survive TD-13 when Leeds unleashes it on the rest of the country. But how?”

A thick sigh emerged from Chalmers’s speaker. “It’s coming soon… . He pulled them … off the island… . They must already … be in place… . Waiting. Except … for one.” Chalmers looked Kimberlain tautly in the eye. “Tiny Tim.”

“My God,” the Ferryman muttered. “Then he’s a part of Renaissance, too?”

“A part gone … terribly wrong… . Leeds must have … released him … from the island… . I didn’t realize … it until the … second town. Then … I knew the … truth about … Briarwood.”

“Leeds,” Kimberlain corrected. “And you’re saying he let Tiny Tim loose and set him on his way to find the closest survivors of the original Caretakers. Why?”

“Felt it was … justified.”

“By what?”

“The past … San Luis Garcia.”

“Travis Seckle …”

Chalmers nodded. “You wiped out … his family … including a son.”

Kimberlain nodded. “Garth Seckle. Big brute who massacred a small village in

Viet—” He stopped when the connection struck him, so obvious he hadn’t been able to see it before. “He survived… .”

“Yes.”

“Then Leeds let him out of the stockade so he could get his revenge.”

Chalmers’s eyes shifted rapidly between Hedda and Kimberlain. “And I know where … Tiny Tim is … going next.”

“Which one of the other Caretakers is the target? Where’s he going to hit?”

Chalmers turned away from Kimberlain and fixed his gaze upon Hedda. “That last night … of the Storm Riders … the night you … killed the boy … The piece you … knew was there … but couldn’t identify.”

“Yes,” she muttered, feeling the truth now, almost close enough to touch it.”

“You were pregnant,” Chalmers told her. “Sandman’s … baby. Delivered … six months later … just before the … trial. A boy … age twelve now.”

"I have a son?"

“No,” Chalmers corrected Hedda. “You
had
… a son. You … gave birth to … him. Nothing more.”

“Where is he?”

“He was … adopted.”

“The parents, do they know …” Hedda let her question tail off, the intent of it clear.

“They knew nothing … about you,” Chalmers told her. “No one … knew. But you … have to know now. Whole family is … at a resort … in the Poconos… . That’s Tiny Tim’s … next stop.”

“Wait a minute,” Kimberlain broke in. “He’s been killing families of the
original
Caretakers.”

“And he still … is,” Chalmers told the Ferryman. “I owe you for … what I did… . This is my … chance, my payback.” Breathing replaced Chalmers’s voice briefly through the speaker, and his eyes returned to Hedda. “Before Helena … Cain. Before … Lucretia … McEvil. Before … Hedda …”

“Finish it!
Who am I?
”

“Ellen … Kimberlain,” Chalmers said with his empty gaze turning back toward the Ferryman. “His sister.”

The Eighth Dominion
The Towanda Family Resort

Friday, August 21; 3:00
A.M
.

Chapter 32

“
SISTER
?’ KIMBERLAIN ASKED
in disbelief.

He and Hedda stared hard at each other, wanting to deny the revelation but knowing they couldn’t.

Chalmers continued. “We learned the … truth after … releasing you from … prison, Hedda… . It was quite … a shock to … us all. Briarwood … kept close track … of you. But … then it was … he who insisted … you be the … one I use … in Lebanon.”

“Because you were a threat to him,” Kimberlain said.

“No more than any of the others.”

“Except you were related to me.”

Kimberlain remembered his older sister had run away from home when he was six. She was never mentioned by name again, remembered only in the silent tears his mother shed when she was certain her father could not see her. His sister had become Helena Cain, then Lucretia McEvil of the Storm Riders, and now Hedda.

“Were we born this way?” Hedda asked Kimberlain abruptly. “I mean, think about it. Look at the two of us; what we are, what we’ve been.”

“We’re only what they made us.” Kimberlain glanced toward Chalmers. “Him and all the others.”

“No, you’re wrong about that,” she said. “They did it to
you
, not me. I joined up with the Storm Riders of my own accord. Nobody forced the guns into my hands. I held them because I wanted to and fired them for the same reason. By the time Chalmers and the others salvaged me, I was already a done deal. You were manipulated. From the beginning.”

“None of that matters now,” Kimberlain told her. “They made us what we are, and like it or not, we’re going to need that to save your son. My nephew.”

She looked at Chalmers. “Unless we’re already too late.”

“It’s … possible.”

“But if we’re in time, we can save him. Call ahead. Warn the people at this resort to evacuate.”

“They wouldn’t listen. It might make them call in the authorities or put extra security on, but that would only make things worse.”

“How?”

“Tiny Tim takes his time, likes to savor the moment. Put him against an army and he won’t bother being subtle. Those families won’t stand a chance. Your son won’t stand a chance.”

Hedda flinched at that. “You’re saying he will otherwise?”

“If we can get his family out in time, yes.” The Ferryman turned to Chalmers. “How long are they scheduled to be at the resort?”

“Three more days.”

“We’ve got time, then.”

“We go to the resort as soon as we get back to land, the fastest way possible,” Hedda insisted. “Before we go after Briarwood, Leeds, or whatever he’s calling himself.”

“Of course,” Kimberlain said.

Just as Chalmers nodded his acknowledgment, the cruiser’s engine sputtered and died.

They were adrift for three hours before Hedda managed to get the engine working, but their speed was barely ten knots. It was ten
A.M
. before they pulled up to a dock on South Carolina’s northeastern coast. All three were ravenous, and Hedda went into a dockside convenience store to get food.

She emerged seconds later with a newspaper in hand instead of grocery bags. She skirted past Chalmers and Kimberlain, eyeing them furtively.

“Keep walking,” she whispered, and they fell in behind her to a secluded bench beyond the dock area.

“What’s going on?” Kimberlain wondered.

“This,” Hedda told him, and handed over the newspaper.

The Ferryman opened it, and a headline on the lower half of the front page jumped out at him:

EX-COMMANDO SOUGHT IN FBI AGENT’S BEATING

“Talley,” he muttered, and read on.

His name appeared in paragraph one. Next to a picture of Lauren Talley was a poorly drawn sketch of him. Talley had been horribly beaten and lay near death in a Maine hospital, found near a secluded cabin that—