Thriller (14 page)

Now get going.” She checked her watch. She had given Kowalski a second timepiece, calibrated to match. “Nineteen minutes.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you soon.” He moved off the trail, vanishing almost instantly into the dense foliage.

“Where are you going?” she called after him. “The trail—”

“Screw the trail,” he responded through the radio. “I’ll take

my chances in the raw jungle. Fewer traps. Plus, I’ve got this baby

to carve a straight path to the mad doctor’s house.”

Shay hoped he was right. There would be no time for backtracking or second chances. She quickly dosed herself with a

morphine injector and used a broken tree branch for a crutch.

As she set off for the beach, she heard the ravenous hunting calls

of the baboons.

She hoped Kowalski could outsmart them.

The thought drew a groan that had nothing to do with her broken leg.

Luckily Kowalski had a knife now.

He hung upside down…for the second time that day. He bent

at the waist, grabbed his trapped ankle and sawed through the

109

snare’s rope. It snapped with a
pop
. He fell, clenched in a ball,

and crashed to the jungle floor with a loud
oof.

“What was that?” Dr. Rosauro asked over the radio.

He straightened his limbs and lay on his back for a breath.

“Nothing,” he growled. “Just tripped on a rock.” He scowled at

the swinging rope overhead. He was not about to tell the beautiful woman doctor that he had been strung up again. He did have

some pride left.

“Goddamn snare,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He had forgotten about the sensitivity of the subvocal transmitter.

“Snare? You snared yourself again, didn’t you?”

He kept silent. His momma once said,
It is better to keep your

mouth shut and let people think you’re a fool than to open it and re-

move all doubt
.

“You need to watch where you’re going,” the woman scolded.

Kowalski bit back a retort. He heard the pain in her

voice…and her fear. So instead, he hauled back to his feet and

retrieved his gun.

“Seventeen minutes,” Dr. Rosauro reminded him.

“I’m just reaching the compound now.”

The sun-bleached hacienda appeared like a calm oasis of civilization in a sea of nature’s raw exuberance. It was straight lines

and sterile order versus wild overgrowth and tangled fecundity.

Three buildings sat on manicured acres, separated by breezeways, and nestled around a small garden courtyard. A threetiered Spanish fountain stood in the center, ornate with blue and

red glass tiles. No water splashed through its basins.

Kowalski studied the compound, stretching a kink out of his

back. The only movement across the cultivated grounds was the

swaying fronds of some coconut palms. The winds were already

rising with the approaching storm. Clouds stacked on the southern horizon.

“The office is on the main floor, near the back,” Rosauro said

110

in his ear. “Careful of the electric perimeter fence. The power

may still be on.”

He studied the chain-link fencing, almost eight feet tall,

topped by a spiral of concertina wire and separated from the jungle by a burned swath about ten yards wide. No-man’s-land.

Or rather no-
ape’s-
land.

He picked up a broken branch and approached the fence.

Wincing, he stretched one end toward the chain links. He was

mindful of his bare feet.
Shouldn’t I be grounded for this
? He had

no idea.

As the tip of his club struck the fence, a strident wail erupted.

He jumped back, then realized the noise was not coming from

the fence. It wailed off to his left, toward the water.

Dr. Rosauro’s shrieker.

“Are you all right?” Kowalski called into his transmitter.

A long stretch of silence had him holding his breath—then

whispered words reached him. “The baboons must sense my injury. They’re converging on my location. Just get going.”

Kowalski poked his stick at the fence a few more times, like

a child with a dead rat, making sure it was truly dead. Once satisfied, he snapped the concertina wire with clippers supplied by

Dr. Rosauro and scurried over the fence, certain the power was

just waiting to surge back with electric-blue death.

He dropped with a relieved sigh onto the mowed lawn, as

bright and perfect as any golf course.

“You don’t have much time,” the doctor stressed needlessly.

“If you’re successful, the rear gardens lead all the way to the

beach. The northern headlands stretch out from there.”

Kowalski set out, aiming for the main building. A shift in

wind brought the damp waft of rain…along with the stench of

death, the ripeness of meat left out in the sun. He spotted the

body on the far side of the fountain.

He circled the man’s form. The guy’s face had been gnawed to

the bone, clothes shredded, belly slashed open, bloated intestines

strung across the ground like festive streamers. It seemed the

111

apes had been having their own party since the good doctor

took off.

As he circled, he noted the black pistol clutched in the

corpse’s hand. The slide had popped open. No more bullets. Not

enough firepower to hold off a whole pack of the furry carnivores. Kowalski raised his own weapon to his shoulder. He

searched the shadowed corners for any hidden apes. There

were not even any bodies. The shooter must either be a poor

marksman, or the ruby-assed monkeys had hauled off their

brethren’s bodies, perhaps to eat later, like so much baboon

takeout.

Kowalski made one complete circle. Nothing.

He crossed toward the main building. Something nagged at the

edge of his awareness. He scratched his skull in an attempt to

dislodge it—but failed.

He climbed atop the full-length wooden porch and tried the

door handle. Latched but unlocked. He shoved the door open

with one foot, weapon raised, ready for a full-frontal ape assault.

The door swung wide, rebounded, and bounced back closed

in his face.

Snorting in irritation, he grabbed the handle again. It wouldn’t

budge. He tugged harder.

Locked.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

The collision must have jiggled some bolt into place.

“Are you inside yet?” Rosauro asked.

“Just about,” he grumbled.

“What’s the holdup?”

“Well…what happened was…” He tried sheepishness, but it

fit him as well as fleece on a rhino. “I guess someone locked it.”

“Try a window.”

Kowalski glanced to the large windows that framed either

side of the barred doorway. He stepped to the right and peered

through. Inside was a rustic kitchen with oak tables, a farmer’s

sink and old enamel appliances. Good enough. Maybe they even

112

had a bottle of beer in the fridge. A man could dream. But first

there was work to do.

He stepped back, pointed his weapon and fired a single round.

The silver razor-disk shattered through the pane as easily as any

bullet. Fractures spattered out from the hole.

He grinned. Happy again.

He retreated another step, careful of the porch edge. He

thumbed the switch to automatic fire and strafed out the remaining panes.

He poked his head through the hole. “Anyone home?”

That’s when he saw the exposed wire snapping and spitting

around a silver disk imbedded in the wall plaster. It had nicked

through the electric cord. More disks were impaled across the far

wall…including one that had punctured the gas line to the stove.

He didn’t bother cursing.

He twisted and leaped as the explosion blasted behind him.

A wall of superheated air shoved him out of the way, blowing his

poncho over his head. He hit the ground rolling as a fireball

swirled overhead, across the courtyard. Tangled in his poncho,

he tumbled—right into the eviscerated corpse. Limbs fought,

heat burned, and scrambling fingers found only a gelid belly

wound and things that squished.

Gagging, Kowalski fought his way free and shoved the poncho off his body. He stood, shaking like a wet dog, swiping gore

from his arms in disgust. He stared toward the main building.

Flames danced behind the kitchen window. Smoke choked out

the shattered pane.

“What happened?” the doctor gasped in his ear.

He only shook his head. Flames spread, flowing out the broken window and lapping at the porch.

“Kowalski?”

“Booby trap. I’m fine.”

He collected his weapon from his discarded poncho. Resting

it on his shoulder, he intended to circle to the back. According

to Dr. Rosauro, the main office was in the rear.

113

If he worked quickly—

He checked his watch.

8:45 a.m.

It was hero time.

He stepped toward the north side of the hacienda. His bare

heel slipped on a loop of intestine, slick as any banana peel. His

leg twisted out from under him. He tumbled face-first, striking

hard, the weapon slamming to the packed dirt, his finger jamming the trigger.

Silver disks flashed out and struck the figure lumbering into the

courtyard, one arm on fire. It howled—not in agony, but in feral

rage. The figure wore the tatters of a butler’s attire. His eyes were

fever bright but mucked with pasty matter. Froth speckled and

drooled from lips rippled in a snarl. Blood stained the lower half

of his face and drenched the front of his once-starched white shirt.

In a flash of insight—a rarity—Kowalski realized what had

been nagging him before. The lack of monkey corpses here. He’d

assumed the monkeys had been cannibalized—if so, then why

leave a perfectly good chunk of meat out here?

The answer: no apes had attacked here.

It seemed the beasts were not the only ones infected on the

island.

Nor the only cannibals.

The butler, still on fire, lunged toward Kowalski. The first impacts of the silver disks had struck shoulder and neck. Blood

sprayed. Not enough to stop the determined maniac.

Kowalski squeezed the trigger, aiming low.

An arc of razored death sliced across the space at knee height.

Tendons snapped, bones shattered. The butler collapsed and

fell toward Kowalski, landing almost nose to nose with him. A

clawed hand grabbed his throat, nails digging into his flesh.

Kowalski raised the muzzle of his VK rifle.

“Sorry, buddy.”

Kowalski aimed for the open mouth and pulled the trigger,

closing his eyes at the last second.

114

A gargling yowl erupted—then went immediately silent. His

throat was released.

Kowalski opened his eyes to see the butler collapse face-first.

Dead.

Kowalski rolled to the side and gained his legs. He searched

around for any other attackers, then ran toward the back of the

hacienda. He glanced in each window as he passed: a locker

room, a lab with steel animal cages, a billiard room.

Fire roared on the structure’s far side, fanned by the growing

winds. Smoke churned up into the darkening skies.

Through the next window, Kowalski spotted a room with a

massive wooden desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

It had to be the professor’s study.

“Dr. Rosauro,” Kowalski whispered.

No answer.

“Dr. Rosauro…” he tried a little louder.

He grabbed his throat. His transmitter was gone, ripped away

in his scuffle with the butler. He glanced back toward the courtyard. Flames lapped the sky.

He was on his own.

He turned back to the study. A rear door opened into the

room. It stood ajar.

Why did that not sit well with him?

With time strangling, Kowalski edged cautiously forward, gun

raised. He used the tip of his weapon to nudge the door wider.

He was ready for anything.

Rabid baboons, raving butlers.

But not for the young woman in a skintight charcoal wet suit.

She was crouched before an open floor safe and rose smoothly

with the creak of the door, a pack slung over one shoulder. Her

hair, loose and damp, flowed as dark as a raven’s wing, her skin

burnt honey. Eyes, the smoky hue of dark caramel, met his.

Over a silver 9mm Sig-Sauer held in one fist.

Kowalski ducked to the side of the doorway, keeping his

weapon pointed inside. “Who the hell are you?”

115

“My name,
señor,
is Condeza Gabriella Salazar. You are trespassing on my husband’s property.”

Kowalski scowled. The professor’s wife. Why did all the pretty

ones go for the smart guys?

“What are you doing here?” he called out.

“You are American,
sí?
Sigma Force, no doubt.” This last was

said with a sneer. “I’ve come to collect my husband’s cure. I will

use it to barter for my
marido’s
freedom. You will not stop me.”

A blast of her gun chewed a hole through the door. Splinters

chased him back.

Something about the easy way she had handled her pistol

suggested more than competence. Plus, if she’d married a professor, she probably had a few IQ points on him.

Brains and a body like that…

Life was not fair.

Kowalski backed away, covering the side door.