Francis and Torr were both stretched out on their backs, blood on the ground. They were covered in it.
He wanted to scream. An ice-cold feeling hit his spine.
He ran back into the room to the door between the suites and kicked it hard. Gun up in both hands, he cautiously eased into the room. The rifle—a silenced H&K G28—was on the floor, the shooter gone. The G28 signified ex-military to Steel.
He ran to the hall door, peeked out, and looked down the hallway. Empty. Racing to the exit door, he took the stairs down three at a time, then five.
By the time he burst out the north side of the hotel he was in a state of frenzy. Beyond the fiery pain in his side, leg, and arm, he was barely able to hold off the grief building just behind his eyeballs.
The Glock was in his hand as he ran along the hotel’s outer wall, then around it and south. To the west he was aware of the crowd and police presence where the bodies lay on the path. He remembered the hotel layout. The public beach parking lot would provide an easy exit for someone in a hurry.
A few tourists in lounge chairs saw his gun and gave startled gasps. Spotted doves and common mynah flew up from the manicured grass as he ran across it. He was oblivious to all of it, his eyes focused only on the parking area ahead, his legs like wooden spikes on the grass.
There was only the image of Francis lying in blood, Francis lying in blood, Francis lying in blood.
A man appeared ahead of him. Fifty yards away. Wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and shorts. He could have been just another average-looking tourist—except that he was running.
Steel brought the Glock up to his chest and ran harder.
The man glanced back, saw Steel, and ran into the parking lot. Trees hid him.
Heedless of the injury, Steel pushed his leg, wanting the pain to deaden the loss he felt. Extending the Glock as he ran, he took aim at a Camry whose tires were already screeching on the pavement. Shouts erupted from his mouth and his eyes blurred. He wasn’t aware of what he said, not caring.
A man burst through the trees a dozen yards west of Steel, also with a gun extended toward the killer, his right arm in a sling. General Rivera.
Steel fired at the Camry, and continued to fire. He and Rivera shot out the Camry’s two side windows. The car accelerated and flew through the parking lot.
Steel ran, shouted, and emptied the Glock into the rear window, aware that Rivera was matching his strides.
The Camry veered with whining tires, hit the curb, clipped a tree, and tipped onto its side, sliding across pavement. People strolling up from the beach jumped out of its way. The car slid forward in a shower of sparks across the pavement. A SUV entered the lot and clipped the Camry’s trunk, spinning it once until it came to a rest—still on its side.
The front passenger door of the Camry opened and the killer attempted to climb out, gun in hand.
Another gunshot sounded as Rivera targeted the killer, sending him sinking back into his car. The general aimed at the Camry’s gas tank next and it exploded. Flames engulfed the car.
Steel didn’t register anything for long moments.
Fire and pain coaxed him back. He lowered his gun and turned to the powerfully built man beside him. Rivera’s face was pockmarked and somewhat harsh. But what Steel focused on were the tears that ran down the man’s cheeks, like his own.
CHAPTER 87
Vegas kept working on Francis, while Christie maintained pressure on the wound.
Torr’s security had formed a perimeter around the bodies.
“Francis,” whispered Christie.
A minute later the friar exhibited a heartbeat. In another thirty seconds he was breathing. Francis blinked and stared up at them with dazed, open eyes.
Christie gently stroked his forehead and sat back, blood on her hands. She used the back of her wrist to wipe tears off her cheek.
Police were suddenly everywhere, and EMTs took over.
Vegas rocked back on his heels. He sighed and looked at an agate in his palm. “When the three of us were orphans on the street, with nothing, Francis found this stone on a beach and said to me, ’Now you’ll always have something beautiful in your life.’ I knew then what I had was a beautiful friend.” He looked at her. “But he’s stubborn. We had to fight to make him wear the vest.”
Christie concluded Steel must have interrupted the shooter’s aim—the only reason Francis was still alive. She shook her head, noting the hole the bullet had made above Francis’ heart in the Kevlar vest.
“Even friars need backup,” she said.
A warm glow filled her that Francis would live. She wanted to celebrate that with one other person. Having heard the shots and explosion farther south, she worried about Steel. But she couldn’t find out just yet.
As Vegas talked to a police officer, she did the same, showing her military ID and explaining what she had observed. The officer motioned her off the path, away from the crowd.
While the policeman talked to her, she looked for Steel, worried he might have been shot, or worse. She bit her lip when she saw him pushing his way through people on the path. General Rivera strode beside him.
Steel was safe.
Part of her wanted to hug him, talk to him, and share her relief—the relief he would feel when he learned Francis was alive. But that part of her, she decided, wasn’t in touch with reality so she didn’t try to get his attention.
***
Steel wanted to cheer when he saw Francis alive. He watched as General Rivera knelt near the friar. Vegas squatted near Francis’ feet, resting a big hand on Rivera’s shoulder. Steel wasn’t sure what had happened until he saw the Kevlar. The shooter hadn’t made the shot he intended or the friar would be dead. He’d done his job.
He glanced sideways.
Police were quietly approaching while staring at him from a hundred feet away on the path, guns drawn. Steel touched Rivera’s elbow and asked if he had a phone he could borrow. The general saw the police and handed his to him.
From memory Steel dialed a secure number for Blackhood, gave a code number, and was patched through to whoever would replace Danker for the time being. General Morris.
He explained the situation briefly, and Morris told him to hand the phone to the police, who were now shouting at him to kneel, and then lie on his stomach, hands on his head—along with Rivera. He complied and held the phone up with one hand.
The officer in charge took it and listened, while another officer took Steel’s gun.
In a minute the officer in charge gruffly asked Steel for his ID. Steel told him what pocket to search, and they pulled it out.
***
Christie saw them detain Steel. After the police interviewed her, and took her contact information, she quietly left, blending back through the crowd.
Limping away from the path, across the grass and parking lots, she made her way to the Four Seasons. If she was going to make an exit, better to do it now. She didn’t want any awkward goodbyes with Steel.
It seemed odd and painful how things had worked out. She was aware of a shift inside her, of refocused priorities in her life. Steel was the reason for most of it. It was because of the honesty and trust he was capable of that her emotions were always tugged around him. From the very first she had recognized sincerity in his eyes. She never knew how much that had affected her until she had lost his trust. Lost him.
The life and death experiences they had gone through in the last few days had somehow brought clarity to that loss. Suddenly she wanted out of her career. At least a long break from the never-ending attempts to climb higher. She wanted to explore things, the world, herself. Have trust and sincerity in all areas of her life. Find out what made her happy.
She choked on a breath, already knowing what might make her happy. Steel. But he would never consider her good enough for him now. She was tainted goods. So
meone who had betrayed him. Her chance was gone.
She reached the hotel, found her room, and unlocked the door and went in.
Someone pushed her from behind with considerable force, propelling her across the floor and onto the bed, face down. A knee on her back kept her immobile. She barely felt the sting of the needle in her arm.
CHAPTER 88
In thirty minutes, after General Morris had contacted police superiors, they let Steel go—with his gun. Rivera was still being questioned.
General Morris called Steel back and told him to wait at his hotel for further instructions. Steel guessed they wanted someone from Blackhood to pick him up for questioning. He wasn’t sure who that would be.
Before he left, he scanned the crowd for Christie. It seemed odd that she wasn’t present. He didn’t know what the urgency inside him was, but he wanted to see her, say something.
Instinctively he headed toward the Four Seasons, suddenly realizing what was happening. He slowed to give her time. It was for the best and he guessed by now they both knew it. He wasn’t sure how much of the grief he still held was due to the betrayals by her and Kergan, or due to everything else that had happened since the Komodo Op. It all spilled together.
Since the CIA director and the president were part of the opposition, he needed a heavyweight behind him to go anywhere with his story. And, he realized dully, he might not be able to go anywhere with anything. He doubted the president and Hulm would leave him alone once they found out Kergan was dead.
Limping along, head down, his mind felt numb. His leg wounds burned and his arm throbbed. It might be good to disappear into the islands or head somewhere far away. He didn’t have anything left to give.
But the last few days had at least clarified something for him, which had been building inside ever since the Komodo Op. Witnessing a hired killer shoot a friar for profit distilled the complexity of it for him.
It came down to following orders.
Everyone was following, marching behind the plans of leaders, who often had their own interests at stake, and little else. The masses lurched forward out of habit. Steel now viewed the Komodo Op as a microcosm of the problems which that momentum caused at many levels in society.
He used to believe following orders gave structure to things, to his life. Now he understood that leading and following allowed for the worst kinds of evil and chaos to occur. In the future, whatever he did had to be on his own terms, and not under the thumb of anyone else.
When he considered what it had taken to bring about his change in perception, he wasn’t sure the price was worth it. Lives had been lost and unbelievable pain endured. And it wasn’t over.
Walking down the hotel hallway, he saw his door was ajar.
He pulled out the Glock, even though it was empty, and his OTF knife, and toed the door open. Shadows filled the room and he slipped inside. The curtains were still pulled on the balcony doors. He went through the room fast, seeing only Kergan’s body on the floor. He flicked on the light switch.
He was about to check Christie’s room, but something odd about Kergan caught his eye. The body lay closer to the wall than when they had left. He walked over to look more carefully.
Kergan’s hands were wrapped around the umbrella’s handle, the tip of it under his chin. The small extension cord from the umbrella’s handle was plugged into the wall and Kergan’s stiff, frozen finger still depressed the umbrella’s trigger.
Steel unplugged the umbrella.
He bolted to Christie’s room. Her purse was on the bed. His pulse took a small skip and he wondered where she could be. Looking at all that was there, he searched for a clue to tell him the story, but came up empty.
He dumped the contents of her purse onto the sheets. The Glock fell out. He picked it up, turned off the light, and sat in the shadows with a dead man to wait.
The call came in an hour. He picked up the phone with a sweaty palm.
The voice was muffled.
“Waianapanapa Cave, Steel. One hour, alone, or she dies.”
The phone went dead.
He was already out of his chair.
CHAPTER 89
Triggers were going off in Steel’s head over the call and the destination. Waianapanapa Cave was on the far eastern end of the island. A small cave, it lay near another one of similar size and shape, the pair the result of a lava tube cave-in long ago. He had visited it several years ago with Rachel.
Someone knew about his past, knew he used to be a caver, and planned on using that in a deliberate way to unsettle him. He had banned himself from all caves except one since Rachel’s death, but it wasn’t that fact that sparked his eyes and hunched his shoulders. It was Christie.
By giving up on Carol, he had freed another part of himself that had been chained for the last year to a dead marriage. And maybe his attempt to hang on to Carol was also his fear that he couldn’t love again or be loved. If he couldn’t succeed in ten years with Carol, how could he succeed with anyone?
Thoughts about Christie flashed through his mind. Their conversations, the moments shared at his house, her betrayal. And that she had risked her life twice to save his.
She had often been playing a game with him. Still on an intuitive level he also knew there was more. Her deception had triggered a reaction in him that was in part due to the pain he held from Carol’s betrayal. If he had been in Christie’s position, with his superior officer and the CIA director telling him someone was guilty, he wondered what he would have done.
And just as she had kept secrets from him, he had withheld information from her, putting her in danger. She was at risk now in part because of him.
The more telling thing for him was his feelings for her at a gut level. Something was there, some affinity they shared. It came down to his ability to trust again, his ability to love again.
He tried to focus on the caller. The position in which he had found Kergan indicated someone who enjoyed brutality. He remembered finding Rusack in his sensory deprivation tank, the way he was killed, slowly and with lots of pain. He was sure it was the same man who now ordered him to go to a cave.
This man knew how to hurt people, psychologically and physically. And enjoyed it. He was also good at it.
He tried not to imagine Christie in this man’s hands and wondered if she was alive. Wondered if the man had already tortured her. Wondered too many things to feel stable or prepared.
He accelerated the Jeep.
It was near dark when he pulled into Waianapanapa State Park. He drove past cabins near the seashore, which were located in a thick stand of bushy hala trees—their exposed roots sticking vertically into the ground like exposed six-foot bones.
The turn he was looking for suddenly loomed in his headlights. A bumpy dirt road that wound toward his destination. The cave was located far enough away from the ocean so that the black sand beach and waves were out of sight.
He turned off the lights on his car and stopped. With the Glock tucked in at his back, he limped the rest of the way through ferns, brush, and trees.
Memories of Rachel returned. Memories of her laughing and grabbing his hand to pull him faster.
Come on, Dad.
He swallowed.
CHAPTER 90
A small freshwater pool blocked the entrance to the cave. Without hesitation he waded into the cold water and swam.
At the rock wall entrance he treaded water, took a deep breath, and dove. He swam down eight feet and then level a dozen yards beneath rock to get to the inner cave.
He surfaced quietly in darkness. A small light blinked on farther back. Keeping his breath silent, he pulled his Glock and swam a quiet sidestroke toward the faint glow, holding the gun out of the water. His arm and leg ached with the exertion.
He hoped he held the element of surprise.
Abruptly a bright light shone in hi
s eyes. It was pulled back out of his gaze just as fast. His pupils adjusted again. A lantern was turned up until the cave was brightly lit. The ceiling was a dozen feet above the oblong pool, which was thirty feet wide and not much longer. The lantern hung from a climbing piton driven into the wall one foot above Major Flaut’s head.
Flaut was sitting on a short but wide ledge on the left side of the cave, barely visible. Christie sat in front of him, her feet dangling off the ledge, her back against Flaut’s drawn-up legs, her head in front of Flaut’s, blocking any possibility of a shot. It looked like her hands were tied behind her back. Flaut held one of his arms tightly around her neck with his gun barrel pressed against the side of her head. That she was still alive gave Steel hope.
“The gun, Steel. Toss it.”
He threw it across the pool and it plopped and sank into the water.
“The knife too,” Flaut said curtly.
Steel repeated his action with the OTF blade.
“Now swim to the other side, directly across from me.”
He swam forward to the other side of the pool, directly across from Flaut, and found a handhold in the rock wall to grip.
In the few seconds it had taken him to do that, Flaut had shoved Christie off the ledge into the water, his bare feet on her shoulders.
Gasping, Christie struggled to keep her head above the water, her eyes wide, her wet hair trailing around her neck. Her soft gasps and splashing sounds broke the silence, tensing Steel’s shoulders.
In one hand Flaut held a rope tied around her neck, while in his other he held a Walther PPK/S.
Steel remembered a Walther had been used to kill Tom and Janet Bellue. His jaw clenched.
Flaut smiled at him and pushed Christie’s head under the water. After several moments he allowed her to surface and she gasped for air. “The great Steel. I have some questions for you.”
Steel remembered the interrogation after the Komodo Op, the obsession Flaut had shown over the details of violent acts. And he remembered Flaut’s interest during the Serpent debriefing regarding the torture Alvarez had used on the captured DEA agent.
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