Black

by Ted Dekker

  He slid to a halt, his back against the wall, the door to his left. Muta pulled up at the shed, gun extended.

  Tom tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He pulled it. Braved a quick look and withdrew. The interior was dark. Vacant.

  Vacant, very, very vacant. He swallowed and waved Muta forward. The man ran across the open ground, gun waving.

  Tom stepped into the building.

  “They’re in,” Carlos said, eying the monitor.

  “Let them come,” Svensson said. “Send a message to her father as soon as you leave. In view of his disregard for the terms we set forward, we have reduced the time for his compliance to one hour. Give him new drop-off instructions. Use the airport.”

  Svensson strode for the door. “Bring her to the mountain,” he said. “I trust this will be the last complication.”

  They’d seen the pair as soon as the sensors picked them up at the perimeter. They’d even released the security bolts on the doors to let the men in. Like mice to a trap.

  How Raison had found this place, Carlos couldn’t begin to guess. Why he’d sent only two men, even more mysterious. Either way, Carlos was prepared. What happened to these two was inconsequential. But the lab’s cover had been compromised. Svensson would be gone through the tunnels in a matter of minutes, even with his bad leg. Carlos would follow as soon as he had the vaccine.

  Carlos stood. “I’ll bring her within twenty-four hours. Yes, this will be the last complication.”

  Svensson was gone.

  Carlos took a deep breath and faced the monitor. Perhaps this was better. The mountain complex in Switzerland had a far more extensive lab. The entire operation would be launched from yet another secured facility. The six leaders who’d already agreed to participate, should Svensson succeed, had established links with the base. The complication would change—

  Carlos blinked at the monitor. The lead man’s face had come into full view for the first time. This was either Thomas Hunter or Thomas Hunter’s twin.

  But he’d killed Hunter. Impossible! Even if the man had survived a bullet to the chest, he would be in no condition to run through the jungle.

  Still, there he was.

  Carlos stared at the image and considered his options. He would let the mouse into his trap, yes. But should he kill him this time?

  It was a decision he wouldn’t rush. Time was now on his side. At least for the moment.

  Vacant. Very vacant and very dark.

  A flight of stairs to his right descended into blackness.

  “There.” He pointed the machete at the stairwell.

  He ran for the stairs and descended on the fly, using the light from the gaping door above to guide his steps. A steel door at the bottom. He tried the handle. Open. The door swung in. A dark hall. Doors on either side. At the end, another door.

  A thin strip of light ran like a seam beneath the far door. Tom’s heart pounded. He kept his machete leveled in both hands. Two careful steps forward before remembering his backup. Muta.

  He eased back, glanced up the stairs. No Muta.

  “Muta?” he whispered.

  No Muta. Maybe Muta had gone back to cover the front door. Maybe he’d been taken out. Maybe . . .

  Tom began to panic. He breathed deliberately, shrouded in the darkness. It was a nightmare and he was the lone fugitive, panting down deserted dark hallways with the phantoms at his heels. Only his phantom had a gun, and Tom had already felt a couple of its slugs.

  No way he could go back up those stairs now. Not if there was someone up there waiting.

  He ran toward the door at the hall’s end. Rubber soles muted his footfalls. He was passing other doors on either side. Whoosh, whoosh, like windows into gray oblivion. Doors into terror. He ran faster. Suddenly it was a race to get into the door with the light.

  He crashed into it, desperate for it to be open. It was. He burst through, blinded by light. He slammed the door shut. Shoved a bolt home and gasped for breath.

  “Thomas?”

  Tom spun. Monique was strapped to a chair in the corner beyond a row of white tables with bottles on them. This was the room Rachelle had wanted to be rescued from, almost exactly as he’d imagined it. But this wasn’t Rachelle; this was Monique.

  Her eyes were wide and her face white. “You . . . you’re dead,” she said. “I saw him shoot you.”

  Tom walked to the middle of the floor, mind reeling. She was actually here. He wasn’t sure if it was an intense sense of relief or a general kind of madness that made him want to cry.

  He was suddenly running again, straight for her. “You’re here!” He slid behind her and ripped at the duct tape that bound her hands to the chair legs. “Rachelle told me you’d be here, in the white cave with bottles, and you’re here.” An uncontrolled sob was in the mix, but he recovered quickly. “This is incredible; this is absolutely incredible.”

  He pulled a trembling Monique to her feet, threw his arms around her, and hugged her dearly. “Thank God you’re safe.”

  She felt stiff, but that was to be expected. The poor soul had been taken at gunpoint and—

  “Thomas?” She gently pushed him away. Glanced at the door.

  Tom fell back a step and followed her glance. The door was locked from this side. Monique wasn’t doing backflips at his rescue, and he wondered why.

  “I came to rescue you,” he said. The reality of what he was doing, where he was, suddenly crashed in around him. He blinked.

  “Thomas, we have a problem.”

  “We have to get out of here!” He grabbed her hand and pulled. Then doubled back for the machete he’d set on the ground. “Come on!”

  “I can’t !” She jerked her hand free.

  “Of course you can! It’s true, Monique, all of it. I knew about the AIDS pairs, I knew about the Raison Strain, and I knew how to find you. And I know that if we don’t get out of here, we’re going to have more problems than either of us can imagine.”

  She spoke quickly in a half whisper, hands on her belly. “He forced me to swallow an explosive device. If I go more than fifty meters from him, it will kill me. I can’t leave!”

  Tom looked at her stricken face, her hands trembling over her stomach. His mind went blank.

  “You have to get out, Thomas. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for not listening. You were right.”

  “No, it’s not your fault. I kidnapped you.” He stepped up to her and for a moment she was Rachelle, begging to be rescued. He almost reached out and swept her hair from her forehead.

  “You have to get out now, and tell them it’s all true,” she said, glancing at the corner.

  Tom saw the small camera and froze. Of course, they were being watched. Muta had been taken out because Monique’s kidnapper had seen them coming all the way. They had let Tom walk into this trap. There would be no way out!

  Monique stepped up to him and pulled him tight. Her mouth pressed by his ear. “They are listening; they are watching. Kiss my face, my ears, my hair, like we’ve known each other for a long time.”

  She didn’t wait for him but immediately pressed her lips against his cheek. She was giving whoever was watching something to think about.

  “They have the wrong numbers,” she said, louder, but not too loudly. “Only you.”

  “Only . . .”

  “Shh, shh,” she hushed him. And then very softly. “His name is Valborg Svensson. Tell my father. They intend to use the Raison Vaccine. Tell him it mutates at 179.47 degrees after two hours. Don’t forget. Take the ring carefully off my finger and get out while you can.”

  Tom had stopped kissing her hair. He felt the ring, pulling it off.

  “Keep kissing me.”

  He kept kissing.

  “I can’t leave you here,” he said.

  “They will need me alive. And if they think you have more information that they need, they won’t kill you.”

  “I’m right about the virus, then.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry for doubting.
”

  He felt a strange panic grip his throat. He couldn’t just leave her here! He was meant to rescue her. Somehow, in some way beyond his understanding, she was the key to this madness. She was at the heart of the Great Romance; he was sure of it.

  “I’m staying. I can fight this guy. I’ve learned—”

  “No, Thomas! You have to get out. You have to tell my father before it’s too late! Go.”

  She gave him one last kiss, on the lips this time. “The world needs you, Thomas! They are powerless without you. Run!”

  Tom stared at her, knowing that she was right, but he couldn’t leave her like this.

  “Run!” she yelled.

  “Monique, I can’t leave—”

  “Run! Run, run, run!”

  Tom ran.

  It happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that Carlos found himself off guard. One second he had them both trapped in the laboratory at the end of the long hall. The next Monique was suggesting that Hunter still knew something they did not. That perhaps she and Hunter had planned this together, an interesting thought.

  And then Hunter was running.

  The American made the hall before Carlos reacted.

  He leaped over the body of the guard who’d come with Hunter, threw open the door, and sprang into the hall. Hunter hit him broadside before he had time to bring his weapon around. Then the man was past and sprinting for the stairs.

  Carlos let the force of the impact spin his body toward the fleeing figure. He extended his gun, aimed at the man’s back. Two choices.

  Kill him now with an easy shot through the spine.

  Wound him and take him alive.

  The latter.

  Carlos pulled the trigger. But Hunter had anticipated the shot and dodged to his left. Fast, very fast.

  Carlos shifted left and fired again.

  But the slug sparked against the steel door. The man was through the door and on the stairs. Carlos felt momentarily stunned. He recovered. Took after the man in a full sprint.

  “Run!” the woman screamed from behind.

  She stood in the doorframe of her prison.

  Carlos ignored her and raced up the stairs, three at a time. Hunter was gone already? Carlos reached the door and flew through it.

  The American was at the shed. Cutting behind. Carlos squeezed off a quick shot that took a chunk of concrete from the corner just above Hunter’s head. He veered into the open and sprinted for the tree line.

  Carlos started his pursuit, knowing the shed would offer a perfect brace for a fully exposed shot at the man. He’d taken only one step before pulling up.

  If he and the woman were separated by more than fifty meters, the explosive in her belly would end her life. They needed her alive. She knew and wasn’t following.

  The man was stretching the distance.

  Carlos could leave the transmitter, but the woman might decide to follow, find the transmitter, and escape with it. She was his ball and chain.

  Carlos swore under his breath, leaned against the doorframe, and steadied his outstretched gun. The man was only twenty yards from the jungle, a bobbing blotch in the gun sight.

  He squeezed off a shot. Another. Then two more in rapid succession.

  Smack!

  The last bullet hit the man squarely in the back of his head. Carlos saw the man thrown forward with the signature impact of the slug, saw the spray of blood. Hunter disappeared into the tall grass.

  Carlos lowered the gun. Was he dead? No one could have survived such a hit. He couldn’t leave to check as long as the woman was free and the transmitter was in his pocket. But Hunter was going nowhere soon.

  Movement.

  The grass. He was crawling?

  No, he was up, there, along the trees. Running!

  Carlos jerked the gun up and emptied the last clip with three more shots. Hunter vanished into the trees.

  Carlos closed his eyes and settled a rage pounding in his skull. Impossible! He was sure he’d hit the man in the head.

  Twice the man had eluded him after direct hits. Never again. Never!

  The woman’s ingenuity was quite unexpected. Admirable in fact.

  He walked down the stairs and stared at Monique, who stood in the doorway, arms crossed. He very nearly put a bullet through her leg. Instead, he walked down the hall and slugged her in the gut.

  Perhaps he would have to hurt her after all.

  28

  It happened in three segments, branded in Tom’s memory, still hot from the burning. He’d been dodging a spray of bullets, sprinting for the forest, only a few steps from the first tree and sure he’d escaped. Segment one.

  Then a bullet had struck his skull. It felt as though a sledgehammer had hit the back of his head. He was flying forward, headlong, parallel to the ground. Everything screamed with pain and then everything went black. Segment two.

  He didn’t remember landing. He was either dead or unconscious before he hit the ground. But he did remember rolling over after hitting the ground. He was panting and lying on the ground, staring at the blue sky.

  He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t unconscious. And a quick check of his head confirmed that he wasn’t even wounded. He was only winded. Segment three.

  He’d scrambled for the jungle and run into the trees, chased more by thoughts of what had just happened to him than by the last few bullets.

  He’d been shot in the head. He’d lost consciousness before dying. But in the moment before dying he’d awakened in the colored forest, and although he couldn’t remember it, he knew he’d been healed by a fruit or the water. For all he knew, the whole journey had lasted only one second.

  When he returned to the jungle, it took him two hours to reestablish contact with the base, get to the landing zone, and make the return trip in the helicopter. Time to think. Time to consider a quick trip back to the compound to get Monique out. Or retrieve Muta.

  But he knew neither would be there.

  A police helicopter checked the place out before his own pickup and confirmed his suspicions. Not a soul.

  Even if she had still been there, he couldn’t take her. He might be able to withstand the odd lethal blow, but she couldn’t .He felt both indestructible and powerless, an odd mix.

  Maybe he hadn’t been hit. Was there blood on the grass back there? He’d been in too much of a hurry to look. It was all a bit fuzzy. Just the three segments.

  Alive, dead, alive.

  “You what?”

  “I paid it,” Jacques de Raison said.

  Tom stepped into the office, dumbstruck. His dungarees were caked with mud, his shirt torn from the three-mile run back to meet the pickup, and his boots were leaving marks on Raison’s floor.

  “You actually gave them the vaccine?”

  “They gave me one hour, Mr. Hunter. My daughter’s life is on the line—”

  “The whole world’s on the line!”

  “For me it’s one daughter.”

  “Of course, but what about the information I radioed in?”

  “The hour was up. I had to make a choice. They wanted only a sample of the vaccine and a file with a copy of our master research data left in a car two miles from the airport. Monique will be in our custody within two days. I had to do it.”

  Tom dug into his pocket, pulled out the ring. A gold band with a ruby perched in a four-point setting. He tossed it to Raison.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s the ring your daughter gave me to persuade you that I was telling the truth. If you heat the vaccine to 179.47 degrees and hold that temperature for two hours, it will mutate. The man who has this information is named Valborg Svensson. He also may have the only antivirus.”

  Jacques de Raison’s face lightened a shade. He toyed with the ring absently. “Why didn’t you bring her out?”

  “Are you listening to me? I understand you’re distressed, but you have to pull yourself together. I found her, exactly as I said I would. If you don’t buy the ring, then the fact that Sv
ensson changed the deal on you because I found them is enough.”

  The man dropped heavily to his chair.

  “Now they have the vaccine?” Tom ran a hand through his hair. This was the worst of all worlds. Nothing he was doing was having any real impact on the unfolding drama. Maybe there was no way to stop this matter of the histories.

  Kara hurried in. “Thomas! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. They have the vaccine. They have Monique; they have the vaccine; they know exactly how to force the mutation; they may have the antivirus.”

  “But the dream. It was real.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, Peter, I want you to change the testing parameters. Try the vaccine at 179.47 degrees and maintain the heat for two hours.”

  Jacques de Raison seemed to have come out of his stupor. He was on the phone with the lab. “Watch for mutations and get back to me immediately.”

  He dropped the phone into its cradle.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Hunter. It’s been a very hard two days.” All business now. “I believe you. At any rate, the tests will speak for themselves in two hours. In the meantime, I suggest we contact the authorities. I know Valborg Svensson.”

  “And?”

  “And if it is true, if it is him . . .” Dots were being connected behind those soft blue eyes of his. “God help us,” he said.

  “It is him,” Tom said. “Monique insisted. I want to speak to Deputy Gains immediately.”

  Jacques de Raison nodded. “Nancy, get the secretary on the phone.”

  Merton Gains sat alone at his desk and listened to Jacques de Raison for several minutes in a mild state of shock. Six hours ago, hearing Thomas Hunter lay out his test to prove himself, the idea had seemed fanciful. Now that he’d actually done it, Gains felt distinctly unnerved.

  He had heard Bob Macklroy explain that Hunter had predicted the Kentucky Derby’s outcome. He’d talked to Thomas and reported the possible problems with the Raison Vaccine in the cabinet meeting. He even agreed to test Hunter’s dreams. But his indulgences had all seemed quite harmless until now.