The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (41 page)

“It comes from those who recognize your value and would like you to make use of it on our behalf.”

“We’ve been through this before, Jones.”

“Times change.”

“People don’t.”

Jones lifted his trench coat and jammed his arms through the sleeves.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, and started for the door.

“Leaving guards in your place, Jones?”

The squat man stopped and turned back. “I’m not one of those people of yours. You’re free to go anytime you feel up to it. Walk out of here, run if you choose.”

Kimberlain settled back in silence.

“Think about my offer,” Jones said, and then he was gone.

When Kimberlain awoke next, darkness filled the room except for areas of light from the parking lot sneaking through the half-drawn blinds. A huge shape stood there gazing out into the blackness.

“Hello, Ferryman,” Peet greeted without turning.

Kimberlain smiled. “I didn’t know if you were alive, if you survived the—”

“A cleansing explosion, fire ironically an element of purification, rather than destruction.”

“In more ways than one.”

“The fire department could not quell the blaze. It burned itself out.”

“Again familiar …”

“I am free, Ferryman.”

“You were free before all this, Peet.”

The giant shook his massive bald head. Able to see a bit in the darkness now, Kimberlain made out the harsh red sheen on Peet’s exposed skin, the cracked and bubbled places on his face from close exposure to the flames. In addition, a bulge beneath his shirt indicated a self-bandaged wound. One of his hands was wrapped thickly with gauze as well.

“No, Ferryman, I was prisoner on the property you lent me. Leave it and I feared everything would go back to the way it was before. I was a prisoner of who I had been, of my own persona. I am free of that now.”

“Because you faced Leeds and stared him down, along with everything he represented?”

“Because I no longer have to run from the person I used to be. That person might still be out there, but he cannot catch me. I have at last learned how to emerge from unclean situations cleaner, to wash myself with dirty water.”

Kimberlain shifted his head through the pain. “Does this mean you won’t be using my cabin anymore?”

Peet looked at him deeply. “I must find my own woods, my own forest.”

“They’re still out there, Winston. Hundreds of them that Leeds sprung and then reconditioned.”

“But left their essences intact.”

“That was the point.”

“It will make them easier to find on my way.”

And then Kimberlain realized. “Give me some time to get healed and I’ll tag along.”

The giant shook his head. “Not this time, Ferryman.”

“I was starting to think we made a pretty good team.”

“We might yet again.”

“You’ll stay in touch.”

“It won’t be hard to figure out where I am.”

“What else brought you back here, Peet?”

“The wish that you would not consider trying to join me. The hope that you will at last walk away from the world that torments your soul.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Certainly not if you don’t try.”

“Leeds wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last. Who would stop them?”

“Themselves—eventually.”

“Not before plenty of people get hurt.”

“You can’t save them all, Ferryman.”

“Because I’m not responsible, right?”

“You are … for yourself.”

Everything was growing very clear, Kimberlain’s mind splitting the darkness. “Not always. My parents were killed because of what some force wanted to turn me into. My first mistake was to let it. I’m not going to make a second by letting that go to waste.”

“You pick up pieces that would be better left scattered,” Peet told him.

“And aren’t you about to do the same thing?”

“Yes, but for me there will be an end. I have found there can be closure. For you the cycle never stops or even lets up.”

“And there must be a reason for that, don’t you think? You see, Winston, I understand now that they tried to turn me into something that must have been there already or it couldn’t have come out. I am what I’m supposed to be, and I’m at peace with that, now more than ever. I really don’t want to change, Winston. I don’t know what I’d be like as somebody else.”

A slight smile spread across the giant’s face. “From that which you want to know and assess you must depart, at least for a time. Only when you have left the town, can you see how high its towers rise above the houses.”

“And do you ever come back?”

“Depends on what you find on the road.”

Kimberlain tried to raise himself up and failed. “Travel well, my friend.”

“You too, Ferryman.”

A Biography of Jon Land

Since his first book was published in 1983, Jon Land has written twenty-nine novels, seventeen of which have appeared on national bestseller lists. He began writing technothrillers before Tom Clancy put them in vogue, and his strong prose, easy characterization, and commitment to technical accuracy have made him a pillar of the genre.

Land spent his college years at Brown University, where he convinced the faculty to let him attempt writing a thriller as his senior honors thesis. Four years later, his first novel,
The Doomsday Spiral
, appeared in print. In the last years of the Cold War, he found a place writing chilling portrayals of threats to the United States, and of the men and women who operated undercover and outside the law to maintain US security. His most successful of those novels were the nine starring Blaine McCracken, a rogue CIA agent and former Green Beret with the skills of James Bond but none of the Englishman’s tact.

In 1998 Land published the first novel in his Ben and Danielle series, comprised of fast-paced thrillers whose heroes, a Detroit cop and an Israeli detective, work together to protect the Holy Land, falling in love in the process. He has written seven of these so far. The most recent,
The Last Prophecy
, was released in 2004.

RT Book Reviews
honored Land with a special prize for pioneering genre fiction, and his short story “Killing Time” was shortlisted for the 2010 Dagger Award for best short fiction and included in 2010’s
The Best American Mystery Stories
. He is also the author of the Caitlin Strong series, starring the eponymous Texas Ranger, a female character in a genre that Land has said has too few. The second book in the Caitlin Strong series,
Strong Justice
(2010), was named a Top Thriller of the Year by
Library Journal
and runner-up for Best Novel of the Year by the New England Book Festival. His first nonfiction book,
Betrayal
, written with Robert Fitzpatrick, tells the behind-the-scenes story of a deputy FBI chief attempting to bring down Boston crime lord Whitey Bulger, and was published to acclaim in 2011. The Blaine McCracken novel
Pandora’s Temple
won the 2013 International Book Award for Best Thriller/Adventure, and was nominated for a 2013 Thriller Award for Best E-Book Original Novel.

Land currently lives in Providence, not far from his alma mater.

Land (left) interviewing then–teen idol Leif Garrett (center) in April of 1978 at the dawn of Land’s writing career.

Land (second from left) at Maine’s Ogunquit Beach during the summer of 1984, while he was a counselor at Camp Samoset II. He spent a total of twenty-six summers at the camp.

Land with street kids in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which he visited in 1987 as part of his research for
The Omicron Legion
(1991).

Land on the beach in Matunuck, Rhode Island, in 2003.

In front of the “process trailer” on the set of
Dirty Deeds
, the first movie that he scripted, which was released in 2005. The film starred Milo Ventimiglia and Lacey Chabert.

Land pictured in 2007 with Fabrizio Boccardi, the Italian investor and entrepreneur who was the inspiration for his book
The Seven Sins
, which was published in 2008.