Bitter Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2) (12 page)

He heard a familiar bang outside, and his gaze locked with Rudenko’s. Both men had heard it often enough to recognize it as the sound of an RPO being fired.

Mikhailov turned toward the rear wall, his mouth open, screaming for his men to take cover. Then he felt himself being lifted off his feet, Rudenko’s bulk propelling him backward. His back slammed into the bottom of a big freestanding livestock watering trough. Flipping it on its side, Rudenko dived in beside him. The sergeant just had time to flip it upside down over the top of them before the building was torn by fire and thunder.

CHAPTER NINE

“I hate the thought of you leaving so soon.”

Jack kissed Naomi’s hair and ran his fingers along her spine. They’d spent most of the time in bed since he’d arrived from San Antonio. While their original plan had been for him to hop into his SUV and drive out to LA with the two cats, Vijay’s untimely accident and the troubling news Renee had uncovered had put him on a much tighter schedule. He had arrived at work that morning, the essentials already packed up in the car, and rushed through the final signing off process that was the end of the short-lived SEAL project. He had brought Alexander and Koshka along, and they waited impatiently in their crates in his office while he performed his final duties as a servant of the people of the United States.

Then he was off to the airport, where he caught a flight to LAX. Naomi had bought two tickets for him in first class, and Jack had talked the flight attendants into letting him board the plane with both cats. Koshka had accepted everything with quiet dignity, staring up at Jack from her spot on the seat beside him, while Alexander had voiced his indignation loudly and repeatedly from his spot on the floor. Jack had felt like the parent of a howling baby until one of the flight attendants had bribed the big cat to silence with a full serving of salmon.
 

Once in LA, Naomi had met him in a chauffeured car, courtesy of Howard Morgan, and the two of them quickly caught up on recent events as they headed to their new condo. Jack had the brief impression of the walls being made out of money before he turned the cats loose.
 

Then Naomi led him to the bedroom so they could get caught up on other things, because they didn’t have much time. While Jack was in flight from San Antonio, Naomi had booked a flight that evening that would take him from LA to Hyderabad.
 

“Yeah,” he told her, “I don’t exactly want to go, either. But we’ve got to get to the bottom of this, and Vijay may be our only solid lead.”

“I still think I should go with you.” Naomi brushed a hand across his face, her fingers lingering on the scars left by shrapnel when Jack had been wounded in Afghanistan.

Jack smiled. “We’ve been over that already, and you lost, fair and square. Listen, your place is here, doing the genius things that only you can do. I know you want to be there for Vijay, but this is a job for a hired gun, as Renee likes to say. Hired guns can be replaced. Brilliant geneticists can’t.”

She propped herself up on an elbow, fixing him with her blue and brown eyes. “You may be a hired gun, but you’re not replaceable, Jack. Not to me.” She kissed him softly. “Don’t you ever forget that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As he leaned forward to kiss her, the bed suddenly bounced as Alexander’s twenty pounds landed near their feet. Like a chaperone who had caught his charges about to do something naughty, he wriggled his way between them and flopped over on his side. Wrapping his forepaws, half the size of Jack’s palms, around Naomi’s arm, he began to purr.

“You turd.” Jack rubbed the big cat’s head while Naomi giggled. “I see he missed you, too.”

There was another bounce, and Koshka, still bearing the scar of where a harvester had nearly killed her, joined them. Unlike Alexander, she was content to sit near their feet, watching her feline companion’s display with obvious disdain.

“I hate to say this, but I wish I could take you with me, you big lug.” Jack shifted his scratching to under Alexander’s chin, and the big cat’s purr grew even deeper. While the scars weren’t as obvious as the one Koshka bore, Alexander, too, had been savaged by a harvester. Alexander had saved Jack’s life twice, and Jack felt acutely vulnerable any time the big cat wasn’t with him. Even though all the harvesters had supposedly been accounted for, there were still only three ways to tell if the person next to you might be one: look at them with a thermal imager, try to set them on fire, or have a cat. Of the three, Jack trusted feline instinct the most. “But you need to stay here and help Koshka watch over Naomi.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, did you happen to ask Morgan about feline security services?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t exactly wild about the idea.” Naomi sat up so she could reach Koshka, who deigned to accept her human’s attention. “Cat hair and clean rooms don’t exactly mix, and he just stared at me when I suggested they keep cats at the security checkpoints. But I did get him to agree to let me take them to my office.” She shrugged. “He just has no idea of what we’ve been through. None of them do.” She was silent for a moment. “Maybe we’re just being paranoid.”

“Paranoid’s a good thing in my book, at least until we’ve sorted out what’s going on. If it’s nothing, fine. I just need to know you’re safe.”

She leaned over and kissed him. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

“I know. That’s one of the many things I love about you.” He happened to catch sight of the clock. “Crap. I’m going to have to get going.”

“Not quite yet.” Naomi gently shooed Koshka from the bed, then did the same to Alexander, who gave her a hurt look. “We’ve still got a little time left.”

Then she pulled Jack back into her arms.

* * *

In the thatched hut that was the home of his family near Koratikal, Naveen Reddy shivered with fever. And yet, strangely, he did not feel ill. Not exactly. He felt more like he had smoked
ganja
after a very hard day in the fields. He was placid, lethargic. Tired.
 

His wife chittered at him, berating him as she always did for being a lazy scoundrel. He looked at her, and smiled to himself. He saw her mouth still moving, but the sound of her voice, an angry buzz that followed him everywhere but to the fields, had faded away to blissful silence. There was no one else in the hut, for their three children had already left for school. Their education was the one thing that he had insisted on, despite his wife’s endless objections.

Naveen also noticed, as if he were a separate being within himself, that the aches and pains that never left him were gone. Like his wife’s voice, they had faded away into the pleasant numbness that had crept over his body with the onset of the fever.

A glint of white caught his eye. It was the business card the government man had given him, there on the floor next to the mat on which he lay. When the fever had come, he had been tempted to call the man.
 

But going to Koratikal where there was a phone was a long walk, and he was sure it would be for nothing. Naveen had been sick before, and he would no doubt be sick again. It happened sometimes. It was simply the way of things, and this would be no different. His body would recover, and he would again have to listen to the incessant nattering of his wife.
 

No, there was no need to call the government man, not that Naveen could have done so now. He was too tired.
 

Still marveling at the miracle of seeing his wife jabbering but not having to hear her, he closed his eyes and fell into a sleep filled with strange dreams.

* * *

Jack looked out the window of the car, feeling a keen sense of disorientation at the British convention of the driver being on the right and the passenger on the left. Behind the wheel was Surya Chidambaram, another of Vijay’s cousins who had insisted on picking Jack up from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and taking care of him while he was in India. Surya’s black Mahindra Scorpio SUV sped down Pathergatti Road toward the hospital where Vijay remained in critical condition.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get some rest first?” Surya was a handsome man, about five years younger than Jack. He had studied engineering at Caltech, and had been extremely successful at one of the many high technology companies that called Hyderabad home.
 

Jack had taken a liking to him instantly.
 

“I’d love to, but I’ve got to talk to Vijay as soon as possible. I just hope I can get something intelligible out of him.” Jack felt like he’d been run over by a bus in forward and reverse after the grueling trip halfway across the world, but he knew the clock was ticking. As exhausted as he was, he couldn’t delay talking to Vijay.

Surya glanced at him. “I hope you won’t be disappointed. I saw him yesterday, but he wasn’t very lucid. He’s still in terrible shape.”

“Yeah.” Jack felt a sense of grim foreboding settle over him as they drove on in silence.
 

At the hospital, they were taken to the intensive care unit. Unable to help himself, Jack stopped in his tracks as he entered Vijay’s room. The only part of the man’s body not wrapped in bandages or a cast was his face, which bore several sets of stitches and was horribly bruised. His bed was surrounded by equipment that beeped, hissed, and whirred in a mechanical rhythm.
 

“Just a few minutes.” Vijay’s attending physician had been reluctant to admit Jack at first, but Surya had managed to persuade him.
 

“We won’t be long,” Jack promised, wondering if Vijay would even be able to respond to any questions.

With a curt nod, the doctor left the room and closed the door.

Approaching the bed, Jack looked down at “the worm guy’s” battered face. “Vijay, can you hear me?”

Surprisingly, Vijay’s eyelids fluttered open instantly. It took his eyes a moment to focus. “Jack.” He paused, his eyes shifting in small jerks to Surya, who nodded gravely. Then he looked back at Jack and whispered, “I was hoping Naomi would come. She’s much better looking than you.”

“She would have, big guy, but I drew the short straw to come check on your sorry ass.” Jack grinned. Then, the grin fading, he asked, “Can you tell us who did this to you?”

Vijay twitched his head from side to side. “Not important now. Jack, I think seed from The Bag may have been planted by AnGrow near Koratikal.” Speaking in halting phrases, Vijay told them exactly where the plot was located.

“I know of that place, cousin.”

Looking back to Jack, Vijay whispered, “Some maize was given to the locals. They may be infected.”

“Good God.” At Surya’s confused look, Jack said, “I’ll tell you later.”

“That is not all,” Vijay whispered urgently. “More of the maize was taken by AnGrow. I don’t know where. It was planted without authorization, but someone there must have record of it.”
 

“We’ll find it,” Jack reassured him, knowing that it was an empty promise. Tracking it down at home in the States would have been difficult enough. Here, as a stranger in a foreign land, it would be almost impossible. The only shot they might have at finding anything would be Renee, assuming she could hack into AnGrow’s network, and assuming anyone handling the deadly seed from The Bag had left an electronic trail behind.

Vijay suddenly grimaced, and the beeping from his pulse monitor became more rapid.

“You’ve got to rest,” Jack said. “We’ll take care of this.”

“Wait,” Vijay gasped. “Surya, call your brother. You and Jack must not go to Koratikal alone, unarmed.”

Surya wagged his head from side to side. “I’ll call him, but what do I tell him?”

Vijay did not answer. His eyes glazed over just before his eyes closed.

Jack darted a glance at his vital signs, fearing that the stress might have killed him. But his heart continued to beat, its pace slowing now as Vijay faded into unconsciousness.

“Christ.” Turning to Surya, Jack said, “Come on. We’ve got to get out to this Koratikal place.” As they left the room, he added, “Why did Vijay want you to call your brother? Who is he?”

“He’s a captain in the National Security Guard, the Black Cats.”

“Black Cats?” Jack asked, never having heard of them before.

“They’re our equivalent of your Delta Force, I think. His unit specializes in counter-terrorist operations.”

Jack whistled. “That’s a bit of good luck.” He glanced over at Surya, who had a troubled expression on his face. “Why so glum?”

“My brother hates me.”

* * *

“Naveen.
Naveen!
” Preethi Reddy hissed like a cobra as she stomped into the hut, the only home her miserable good for nothing husband could provide. Unlike many, who were content to accept their karma, Preethi cursed it every day as she asked the gods why she had been saddled with such a lazy fool.
 

While it was clear that he had caught some sort of fever, she was sure he was only using it as an excuse to get out of a day’s work, casting them another handful of rupees further into the depths of poverty. She deserved better.

There he was, still asleep. But if he thought he was going to have an undisturbed rest, he was badly mistaken.

“Naveen, stop faking and get to work. Did you hear me? I will not have you set such a poor example for the boys when they come home from that silly school.”

Her mouth snapped shut as she saw his hands. His fingers were deformed, as if they had melted together.
 

And his chest wasn’t moving. He had stopped breathing.

“Naveen?” She knelt next to him, suddenly terrified. As much of a lazy charlatan as he might be, she did not relish the thought of becoming a widow, living as an outcast to her family and village. “Husband?”

She reached out to touch a large spot on his chest that resembled a vicious bruise. The tips of her fingers slipped into his flesh. Except that it was no longer flesh, but something else.
 

With a scream of horror, she pulled her hand back. Her scream grew louder as she saw that Naveen’s flesh was still connected to her fingers, stretching out like soft putty between them before it parted.