Red (29 page)

Justin looked around at the Scab army. “Especially them. Never can get used to the smell.”

“I think the smell might be coming from your skin as well as theirs,” Mikil said.

Justin stared at her with those piecing green eyes of his. He looked freshly bathed.

“I see you've gotten yourself in a bit of trouble here,” he finally said.

Thomas frowned. “Perceptive.”

“We don't need your help,” Mikil said.

“Mikil!”

Justin smiled. “Maybe you should consider changing your approach. I mean, I love the spirit of it. I'm tempted to join you and fight it out.”

There was a twinkle in his eyes that inspired confidence. This was one of the reasons Thomas had selected him to be his second two years ago.

“Have you, by any chance, noticed how large the Horde's armies are these days?” Justin asked.

“We've always been outnumbered.”

“Yes, we have. But this isn't a war you're going to win, Thomas. Not this way. Not with the sword.”

“With what. A smile?”

“With love.”

“We do love, Justin. We love our wives and children by sending these monsters to Hades where they came from.”

“I wasn't aware they came from hell,” Justin said. “I was always under the assumption that they were created by Elyon. Like you.”

“And so were the Shataiki. Are you suggesting we take them to bed as well?”

“Most of you already have,” Justin said. “I fear the bats have left the trees and taken up residence in your hearts.”

Mikil wasn't one to tolerate such sacrilege, but Thomas had made his will clear, and so she spoke to him, not Justin. “Sir, we can't sit here and listen to this poison. He's riding with them.”

“Yes, Mikil, I know how much these words sting such a religious person as yourself.” They all knew that she was religious only when it served her. She bathed and followed the rituals, of course, but she would rather plot a battle than swim in the lake any day.

She harumphed.

“There's a saying,” Justin said. “For every one head the Horde cuts off, cut off ten of theirs, isn't that it? The scales of justice as it were. The time will come when you'll break bread with a Scab, Thomas.”

Someone coughed behind Thomas. Clearly Justin was delusional. Even Thomas couldn't resist a small smile.

“Mikil has a point. Did you come down here to give us a hand, or are you more interested in converting us to your new religion?”

“Religion? The problem with the Great Romance is that it's become a religion. You see what happens when you listen to the bats? They ruin everything. First the colored forest and now the lakes.”

Heat spread down Thomas's neck. Speaking against the Great Romance was blasphemy! “You've said enough. Help us or leave.”

Justin lowered his eyes to the book in Thomas's hand. “The Books of Histories. The worst and the best of man. The power to create and the power to destroy. Whatever you do, don't lose it. In the wrong hands it could cause a bit of trouble.”

“It's empty.”

Justin nodded once, slowly. “Take care, Thomas. I'll see you at the Gathering.”

Then he turned his horse and galloped past the Scabs, back up the tall dune where he pulled up next to the Desert Dweller.

A long horn blasted once, twice. The call to retreat. At first none of the Horde moved. The assassins seemed confused, and a murmur rumbled over the sand.

The horn blasted twice again, with more force.

The price for disobeying an order such as this was immediate execution for any Scab. They withdrew en masse, in the same directions they'd come from.

Thomas watched, dumbstruck as the desert emptied.

Then they were gone. All of them.

Their salvation had come so fast, with so little fanfare, that it hardly felt real.

He twisted in his saddle to look at Justin.

The hill was bare.

Mikil spit. “I could kill that—”

“Silence! Not another word, Mikil. Your life has just been spared.”

“At what cost?”

He didn't have an answer.

15

CYCLOPS.

Stealth was out of the question. They didn't have a week to sweep the jungle in search of a tunnel that might lead into the mountain. What they did have was infrared technology that would electronically strip Cyclops of enough foliage to reveal any suspicious anomalies, such as heat.

They'd landed the tactical C-17 at the Sentani airport, refueled, and immediately climbed back into the skies to take on the mountain looming over the coast. The forecast was fair, the winds were down, and the team had slept well on the flight over the Pacific.

Even so, Thomas couldn't shake his anxiety. What if he was wrong? What if Rachelle had been mistaken?

And another piece of information now complicated things: He'd failed to retrieve the Books of Histories in his dream. Qurong still possessed them all except for the one book with blank pages. The only useful information he had from his dreams was Rachelle's claim that Monique was here, in this mountain.

The transporter flew low, scanning the trees, covering the backside of the mountain in long sweeps. Captain Keith Johnson approached him from the cockpit looking like something out of a comic book with all of his camouflaged equipment: a helmet with a communications rig that allowed him to view the proximity of each of four team leaders through a visor that hovered over his right eye. Parachute. Jungle pack. Two grenades. A green-handled knife with a shiny blade that Mikil might trade her best horse for.

The rest looked the same. Only Thomas was dressed down. Camouflaged jumpsuit, knife, radio, an assault rifle he had no intention of using, and a parachute he had no choice but to use. Buddy jump.

“Just completed the first full sweep,” the captain said, dropping to one knee. “Nothing yet. You sure we shouldn't cover the other side?”

“No, this side.”

“Then the operator wants to go lower. But you know anyone down there's going to hear us. This thing sounds like a stampede flying over.”

Thomas removed his helmet and ran his fingers through damp hair. “You have an alternative?”

They'd been through a dozen scenarios on the flight over. Thomas had offered his thoughts, but when it came to electronic surveillance, he was clearly out of their league. He'd deferred to them.

“No. Not with your time constraints. But I gotta tell you, if they're down there, they're all eyes.”

“I'm not sure we don't want them to find us. If we're lucky, we'll force their hand. They can't leave without exposing themselves.”

The captain eyed him, then nodded. “I don't mind saying that we're hanging our rear ends out pretty far. This wouldn't be my first choice.”

“I realize the danger, Captain, but if it makes you feel any better, the president might put the entire 101st Airborne in these same shoes if he thought it would speed Monique de Raison's recovery. Let's take her down.”

THE DECISION to use the French secret police to deal with Hunter had been Armand Fortier's call. The head of the
Sûreté
had called Carlos directly. They were putting over three hundred agents on the case, each with the order to return Hunter to France immediately or, thus failing, to kill him. They'd already activated a wide network of informants in the United States and learned that the man had flown to Fort Bragg and then disappeared.

Three possibilities,
Carlos thought.
One, he was still at Fort Bragg, keeping
a very low profile. Two, he was on his way to France to deal directly with
Fortier. Or three, he was on his way here, to Indonesia.

Carlos peered through the binoculars at the approaching transporter and knew that he'd made the right call. No doubt Hunter was in that plane.

The man now unnerved him in a way not even Svensson could. Three times Hunter had miraculously slipped out of his grasp. No, not entirely correct: Twice he had been mortally wounded and then apparently healed, and once he'd slipped from his grasp—the last time.

It wasn't just his nine lives. Hunter seemed to know things that he had no business knowing.

True, it was from the man's dreams that they had supposedly first isolated the Raison Strain. But if Carlos was right, the man was still learning things from his dreams. The plane that now approached, undoubtedly with infrared scanners, was proof enough. He'd elected to let the French track Hunter in the United States while he returned here, where he was sure the man would eventually come. He would come for Monique.

“How many times?” Svensson's voice crackled on the radio.

Carlos keyed his mike. “Seven. They're coming in lower this time.”

Static.

“How did they find us?”

“As I said. He knew about the virus, he knew about the antivirus, now he knows where we are. He's a ghost.”

“Then it's time to bring your ghost in for a talk. You don't think a crash will kill him?”

“I don't. The rest maybe, but not Hunter.”

“Then bring them down. No other survivors.”

“We'll evacuate?”

“Tonight, by dark. Fortier wants this man in France.”

“Understood.”

Carlos stepped from the shielded netting that had kept his heat signature to a minimum, shouldered the modified Stinger launcher, and armed the missile. A direct hit would cut the transporter in half. He wasn't certain that Hunter would survive, of course, but it was a gamble he was gladly willing, even eager, to take. More than a small part of him wanted to be wrong about Hunter's impossible gift. Better for him to die.

He waited for the plane to turn at the far end of the valley and head back toward him. Svensson had dug into the mountain at its center, and the plane was now approaching him at eye level. They would see him this time. He would have one good shot.

It was all that he needed.

“CONTACT BEARING, two-nine-zero.”

Thomas heard the electronics operator above the aircraft's din. He twisted and looked out of his window.

“Contact, one—”

“Incoming! Incoming!”

The warning came from the cockpit, and Thomas immediately saw the streaking missile through the window.

He was right then. Monique was here.

He was also staring death head-on.

He grabbed the rail by his seat. The C-17 rolled sharply away from the incoming missile.

“Countermeasures, deployed.” The pilot's voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of the four Pratt and Whitney engines as the jet pitched up and groaned for altitude.

“It's gonna hit!” someone yelled.

For a brief moment panic fired the eyes of twenty men who'd faced death before but not in these circumstances. This fight could be over before it started.

Whomp!

The fuselage imploded with a huge flash of fire just behind the cockpit. A ball of heat rolled back through the cabin, hot enough to burn bared skin.

Thomas got his head down before the heat hit him. A roar swallowed him. Hot air. Then cool air. Someone was screaming.

It all happened so quickly that he didn't have to react. He knew they'd been hit by a missile, but he had no understanding of what that meant.

His eyes sprang open. The C-17 floated lazily to his right, cut into three pieces just in front of the wings and at the tail. The middle section was still under full power and now roared past the nose and tail sections.

Thomas was suspended in the air, still strapped to his seat. He didn't seem to be falling, not yet. He'd been thrown from the aircraft, maybe through the exposed tail, and now floated free.

But the trees were less than three thousand feet below him, and this buoyancy wouldn't last more than—

It occurred to him that he was already falling. Like a rock.

Panic immobilized him for a full three count. Thunder to his right jerked him out of it. An oily tower of fire rose from where the main fuselage slammed into the valley under full power. No one could have possibly survived an impact like that.