In Search of the Dove (26 page)

The priestess inclined her head slightly. “In that case, I’d appreciate it if you’d move her to a cell by herself for the night.”

“I was going to do that anyway.”

* * *

J
ESSICA SHIFTED
on her mattress and tried to get comfortable. Though it was dark and quiet in her tiny cell, sleep eluded her. She tried to mentally detach herself from the claustrophobic surroundings—let her mind find Michael. But some force seemed to hold her spirit bound as effectively as the locked door kept her body from escaping.

When two of Talifero’s goons had come to separate her from Jed, she’d struggled violently, terrified that she was going to be handed over to Lonnie. But she’d simply been taken to a solitary room and left with a bowl of water and some thin stew for dinner. She’d been afraid the food might be drugged. But after a few cautious tastes, she’d been hungry enough to finish the stuff. If that was what the patients there got regularly, she felt damned sorry for them.

There was a metal clank at the door of her cell, and Jessica tensed. Were they coming to get her after all?

“Jessica?” a voice whispered in the darkness. “I must talk to you.”

She sat up. The voice was Simone’s.

“Come over here and put your face near the crack in the door. Hurry. I must turn on the TV camera again very soon, before someone suspects.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Hurry. I’m trying to save your life.”

Stiffly she got up and moved to the door. “Why should I believe you?” she whispered.

“It’s your only hope of survival. But if I’m going to help you, I must know who came down here with you.”

So that was it. A trap for Michael. Jessica pressed her lips together.

“Jessica!”

“I have nothing to say to you. Go away and leave me alone.”

“Don’t you understand? The ceremony tomorrow will be a human sacrifice. You and Jed.”

“You’re on Talifero’s side. Why should you do anything for me?”

“I tried to warn you off. I never intended for you to get mixed up in this, but Talifero is a powerful man. I had to obey him.”

“Then how can you defy him now?”

“A calculated risk. I believe I can defeat him once and for all.”

“Why do you need to know who I came here with?”

“So they can rescue you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Trust me.”

Jessica squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She wanted to believe, but it was impossible. “I can’t.”

* * *

T
HERE WAS NO WAY
he could get to sleep, Michael thought, shifting uncomfortably on the narrow bunk. He already knew what they had done to Jed. He wondered what they might be doing to Jessica and clenched his fists.

Jessica! Had he really walked away from her in the library back at the Aviary? He remembered when she’d needed him, how her body had moved frantically against his, how his arms had tightened around her, soothed her. He remembered the taste of her mouth, her sweetness, her insistence that she was responding to him, not just the drug. Then later, when she had almost literally brought him back from the dead, how she had held him in turn, comforted him, given him everything that a woman could give a man. Given him her love.

Her love. He pictured her face that night, the tenderness in her eyes mixed with the passion. She
had
given him more than he was willing to accept. Though she had been afraid to tell him how she felt, she had still given. Unselfishly, without reserve. He had repaid her with rejection.

Jess,
he thought.
Oh, God, Jess. You mean so much to me, and I never got a chance to tell you. I was afraid to open myself up to you, terrified I was just going to hurt you. I’m going to try to get you out of there. If I can, Jess. If I can.

Suddenly the cabin was too oppressive, too closed in. He had to get out into the open air. Swinging his legs over the side, he eased himself down to the deck. A quick glance told him Holcroft was sleeping. Moving quietly so as not to disturb the agent, he climbed the stairs to the aft deck and stood looking back toward the dark shoreline. He felt as if something was searching for him in the night, and he must respond.

The disembodied presence came across the dark water seeking him, tentatively at first and then with more assurance. He felt something—no, someone—touch his mind and knew that he was neither dreaming nor fully awake.

Michael Rome! I dared not hope to find you here. But I should have known.

He didn’t exactly hear words, but his mind turned the disembodied thoughts into language. “Who are you?” His heart leapt. “Jess?”

Not Jessica. A friend.

The sound that wasn’t sound solidified in his mind. A woman. He knew her and yet he didn’t. He tried to bring her image into focus. She blocked his efforts.

Better not to see me. Don’t waste time trying. I can communicate like this only briefly.

“How did you find me?”

You were thinking of Jessica. Strong thoughts. Loving thoughts. Despairing thoughts.

“Why are you here?”

The ceremony tomorrow. Jessica is to be part of it—with Jed.

He cursed softly. He had been afraid of that.

Do not despair. You can rescue them.
Directions came to him in staccato phrases and sentences.
Don’t come by water. Circle Blackstone to the west and approach the ceremonial grounds from the back. Fewer guards. It will seem that your friends are being slain. A sham. There will be a diversion. Wait until then to make your move.

“Who are you? Why are you telling me this?”

Together we can stop Talifero.

He felt her disengaging, slipping away. “Wait. I need to know more.”

But the presence had already vanished into the darkness of the night.

Chapter Seventeen

G
ilbert Xavier looked around the well-equipped laboratory and sneered, his lips drawing back into a canine parody of a smile. Talifero had supplied him with everything from a spectrophotometer to an electron microscope that had its own special AC generator. It was a work environment to rival anything found at the top research universities. But instead of being shared by dozens of chemists, it was his alone. Today that didn’t excite him the way it had when he’d first arrived at the Blackstone Clinic. He’d come to realize that the expensive facility was a Venus flytrap, and he was the fly that had become enmeshed in its sticky poison.

He picked up several of the expensive quartz tubes for the spectrophotometer and let them slip through his fingers to the polished granite of the lab table where they splintered into nasty-looking shards. Too bad there wasn’t a spare gun in the supply cabinet along with the extra tubes. In his present frame of mind, he could almost imagine himself confronting Talifero, demanding his freedom, and shooting the man if he didn’t let him go.

It had taken him years to develop the exacting process that turned swamp plants into V-22. When he’d run away before, he’d taken his notes. Lonnie and his men had brought them back to Blackstone. Talifero had made sure that they weren’t going to leave the grounds again. So if he did what Simone wanted tonight, he really would be giving up everything. What’s more, the element of risk was absurdly high. It was hard to picture himself coming out of this alive. But what did it matter? His situation was untenable. Better dead than red, he thought, remembering the details Simone had given him about Franco Garcia—or, more properly, Feliks Gorlov. Xavier began to giggle. Once he started, it was hard to stop.

He found that tears were streaming down his face and wiped them away with the back of his hand. He’d better get a grip on himself. If he was going to carry out Simone’s instructions, he had work to do. Opening the cabinet where the glassware was kept, he removed a large retort and several beakers. Then he took out the key to the reagent storage room.

* * *

M
ICHAEL SAT UP
in the bunk and shook his head. He’d had a crazy dream last night, probably the product of his own desperation. A disembodied phantom had come to him in the night, promising that he could save Jed and Jessica and giving him instructions. It had all been very real at the time. But in the light of day, it seemed preposterous. He could hardly rely on that kind of aid. Go by land instead of sea. It sounded like a line from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

But he wasn’t the only one making the raid on Blackstone that night. Even if he were willing to risk his neck on the advice of a mysterious voice inside his head, he could hardly ask Holcroft and his local men to do the same.

That made him doubly surprised when the CIA man himself broached the subject of the approach to the clinic as they sat with mugs of morning coffee in the lounge of the boat that had been hastily rechristened
Star Fish.

“You know,” the agent mused, “I’ve been giving tonight’s mission a lot of thought. Your man Prentiss went in by boat. I would have done the same thing. But he got caught. I assume he knew what he was doing. So either that access is heavily patrolled, or he was damned unlucky.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I’d like to make sure we don’t get pulled in by the same net.”

“What do you think about coming up the main road and circling the grounds?” Michael asked cautiously.

“Risky. But in light of our present intelligence, maybe it makes sense. Talifero is no dummy. He knows Jessica can’t be working alone. In addition to his usual guards, he’s undoubtedly prepared to fight off a rescue attempt. But let’s try to duplicate his thinking. He probably figures the least likely approach anyone would make is along the main road. So that may very well be the weak spot in his defenses.”

“I was wondering about that myself. Unfortunately, I was hoping Jessica could supply a better map of the place.”

Holcroft gave the other agent a considering look. Rome seemed like a pretty stable guy, yet he’d taken the girl’s vision yesterday damned seriously. “Tell me honestly,” he asked, “do you really believe in that psychic stuff?”

Michael took a sip of his own cooling coffee. The question meant Holcroft didn’t give Jessica’s abilities much credence. All the more reason to keep quiet about last night’s private “vision.” If he spilled that, Holcroft would probably turn the boat in the other direction and head for Jamaica. Michael shrugged. “Her hunches seem more on target than most people’s. But I’ll let you know what I think for sure when this is over.”

Holcroft laughed. “Yeah. You and me both. Too bad she can’t pick locks with her mind. Then she could get Prentiss, and the two of them could walk right out of that place so we wouldn’t have to risk our necks going in.”

Don’t I wish,
Michael thought.

“It would help if we knew what Talifero was planning for Jessica,” he said aloud, wondering if the specter had been right about that too. “I hate to think we have to hit the ceremonial grounds and two of the buildings.”

“The local guys may well have some information on that. News travels fast around here.”

“Right. Let’s get going.”

The two men had arranged to meet their team of half a dozen local dissidents at a small inlet about ten miles up the coast from their original mooring.

By the time they arrived at midmorning, the little group had already assembled and were waiting out of sight in a clump of trees. Michael and Holcroft anchored the
Star Fish
a hundred yards out in the bay and rowed in. After stowing the small boat in the underbrush, they joined the local recruits.

“We had to be very careful,” one of them commented. “Barahona has extra men out around the island—like he’s expecting trouble.”

Holcroft nodded and filled the group in on what had happened since their last meeting.

“Not good for the girl,” a young man commented. “I hear they like to jolt up the sisters and have some fun with them.”

“No, I heard from my cousin who delivered vegetables out there this morning that the white woman’s going to be saved for the ritual,” another corrected.

Michael’s jaw clenched and he looked away. God, he hoped the man was right, but what a thing to hope for. Pretending that he was still concerned about the rowboat, he walked over and rearranged the vines that had been thrown over the top. The man’s news was more confirmation that last night’s strange message was right. He straightened and took several deep breaths. When he turned back to the group a few minutes later, his face was impassive.

“All right, what can you tell me about Blackstone and the ceremonies?” he continued the questioning.

A lithe, very dark-skinned man named Jon Bequi seemed to know the most about the clinic. Though he was no voodoo worshiper, he had attended several rituals in order to pick up useful information.

“Do they search for weapons?” Michael asked.

“Sure do, mon. And they only let local people in. No spies.”

“Then the three of you attending the service will have to go in unarmed. We’ll carry extra pistols and ammunition for you.”

“How large a crowd can we expect?” Holcroft wanted to know.

“Maybe forty people. Maybe eighty. This is a big event. But you wait a couple of hours into the service. They be on the ground writhing around. Won’t even know you’re there.”

“We may not be able to wait that long.”

“When does the priest, uh, make the sacrifice?”

“He likes to wait until the people are pretty charged up. It depends.”

They asked more questions and were not necessarily pleased by the answers. But at least they were able to pick up a good deal more information about the setup at Blackstone.

The key to the rescue lay in the regulation military-issue C-4 plastic explosives they’d had brought along from the Aviary. Michael wasn’t going to wait for some specter’s diversion. He was going to create his own. The men on the team would be needed to help set the charges at various locations around the clearing. Since they had no idea when the murders would take place, the C-4 couldn’t be set off with timing devices. Instead they would have to use antennas and transmitters and be within a quarter of a mile of the blast sites. That made their possible discovery all the more likely. But they had to be close in to pull Jessica and Jed out anyway.