The momentary distraction almost caused Tupac to lose sight of the man he’d been following. When he located his guide, Tupac saw that he was twenty meters ahead, continuing on his previous path westward. Pushing against the flow, the shaman gradually closed the gap. By the time he caught up, the flood of inmates had become a trickle.
With the sound of distant battle increasing as yells, screams, gunfire, and sirens echoed down the alleys from the north, Tupac’s guide stepped into a narrow gap between thick brick walls and signaled for Tupac to join him in the small alcove. The large man hesitated for just a moment as the unreality of this situation struck him. Then, twisting sideways to allow his broad shoulders to enter the tight space, Tupac ducked under the concrete overhang and joined the smaller man.
As the question rose to his lips, a much closer explosion ripped the air, sending a shower of bricks, flying metal, and debris down the alley they’d just left, followed immediately by a thick dust cloud that made breathing almost impossible.
“Stay with me!”
His head ringing from the explosion, Tupac had difficulty making out the smaller man in the swirling dust cloud, but he reached out and placed a hand on the guide’s shoulder and allowed himself to be tugged along despite the coughs that wracked his body. Then they were through the damaged outer wall. Five meters in front of them, a white panel van waited. Beside the open side door, a native Bolivian man fired at the nearest guard tower. From the lack of return fire, it was clear that his aim had been good.
Tupac stopped.
The man who had led him out through the collapsed wall climbed into the back of the van and then turned to yell at Tupac.
“Come on. Get in the van!”
Behind Tupac, the sound of approaching yells and gunfire helped him decide. He hadn’t wanted to make a prison break, but turning back now would be suicide. Tupac climbed inside, and the van’s sliding door slammed closed behind him. The man who had been shooting dived into the passenger seat, and with the squeal of tires, the van accelerated around one corner and then another before slowing to merge with traffic, leaving the sirens and gunfire far behind.
Rubbing his eyes in an attempt to clear some of the dust that clogged them, Tupac leaned back against the wall of the panel van and looked at the dust-coated man across from him, meeting those strange brown eyes that held the same predatory gleam he’d observed the previous day.
A smile split the man’s filthy gray face, his teeth appearing unnaturally white as he leaned forward and extended his right hand.
“Hello, Tupac. You can call me Jack.”
CHAPTER 8
Jack Gregory extended his dust-coated right hand toward the huge, native man who leaned against the wall on the driver’s side of the white panel van.
“Hello, Tupac. You can call me Jack.”
There was no hesitation in Tupac Inti’s response, and Jack found his hand enfolded in one twice the size of his own, a hand with the strength to snap his bones. But though Tupac’s grip was strong, it held no malice. Neither did it show any warmth. The big man’s dark-brown eyes stared at him out of a face caked with gray dust, giving them a mystical appearance, reminding Jack of an aborigine coated with clay-pipe mud. Considering the reverence with which most of the Quechua people regarded this shaman, that vision seemed appropriate.
As Tupac opened his mouth to respond, the van cornered hard to the right and then back to the left as it slowed to a stop. The two men in the front hopped out, and the side door slid open to reveal the interior of a double-wide garage, the other space occupied by a black Ford Explorer.
Without hesitation, Jack stepped out and shook hands with the dark-skinned man who had opened the door, ignoring the Uzi which hung loosely in his left hand. Behind the van, the driver tugged a chain that lowered the garage door with the rattle and groan of metal.
“Nice shooting back there, Pablo.”
Jack shifted his attention to the driver, a short white man with curly brown hair flattened on the top by a round yarmulke. “I can’t say the same for your driving, Efran.”
Efran grinned. “Looking like you do, you’re lucky I let you in my van.”
Tupac Inti climbed out of the van to tower over them. When he spoke, his deep voice rumbled.
“Maybe someone would like to tell me what is going on.”
Jack nodded. “I owe you that, but not here.”
Efran gestured toward the front of the garage. “There’s a bathroom with a shower stall through that door. I’ve laid out a change of clothes for each of you. The fit for Tupac probably won’t be great.”
“You can go first,” Jack said. “But don’t take long. I want to be out of here in fifteen minutes.”
Without a word, Tupac took him up on his offer. Five minutes later, he emerged from the shower wearing loose-fitting pants that were three inches too short, sandals, and a dark cotton pullover shirt that was tight across his chest. For the first time Jack took the time to study the man’s face.
Dark-skinned with short-cropped black hair, Tupac had a high forehead; a broad, triangular nose; jutting cheekbones; a square chin and lips that curled up at the edges. It was a powerful face that exuded dignity. In better circumstances, Jack would have liked to know this man.
Pulling himself out of his reverie, Jack took his own turn at the shower, sluicing the dirt in a muddy clockwise swirl down the drain. Then, sliding into boxers, jeans, black Nikes, and a dark undershirt, he stepped back into the garage.
He accepted the small duffel bag that Pablo offered, set it on the floor, and unzipped it. Grabbing the H&K P30S, he slapped in a full 17 round magazine, chambered a 9mm round, and slid the weapon into the holster pocket of his undershirt. Slipping into a brown leather jacket, he pulled the key fob from its right pocket and clicked a button to unlock the Explorer.
Reaching inside the bag one more time, Jack grabbed the disposable cell phone and a second H&K, turning to offer this last item to Tupac.
The big man shook his head. “I quit using guns a long time ago.”
“You might want to reacquaint yourself.”
“I don’t think so.”
Tossing the H&K back in the duffel, Jack zipped the bag closed, walked to the Explorer, and set it behind the driver’s seat.
“I’m driving.”
“Are you going to answer my question?” Tupac asked.
“On the road. Climb in.”
For a moment Tupac merely stared at him, his face a mask that showed no hint of what was going on behind those dark eyes. Then he walked around to the passenger side, slid the seat all the way back, and climbed in.
Turning back to the other two, Jack shook hands one last time.
Efran gripped Jack’s hand in both of his. “Stefan says to be careful.”
Jack felt the habitual grin split his face, even though he failed to feel any humor. “He knows that’s not my way.”
“Yes, but God gives us hope.”
As Pablo raised the garage door, Jack climbed into the black SUV and started the engine. Five minutes later, he turned northeast on Av Santos Dumont, headed toward the Cuarto Anillo city loop and then took Highway 9 toward San Javier, intent upon getting out of the city before police roadblocks could be established. Nothing happened fast in Santa Cruz. The police were currently occupied trying to stop the massive riot along Palmasola’s damaged north wall as they looked for one huge target within that mob.
After all, Tupac Inti was the sole reason the Bolivian government had orchestrated that explosion.
As their vehicle left the outskirts of Santa Cruz, headed northeast, Jack felt Tupac’s stare as powerfully as the red dot of a laser sight. The voice that followed carried with it an implicit threat.
“My patience has reached its end.”
When Jack glanced at the man’s dark face, he had no doubt that he spoke the truth. Words were expected, and a judgment was about to be made. In Jack’s experience, moments like this called for nothing less than the truth. Maybe
not the whole truth, but a significant portion of it.
“My real name is Jack Gregory, although down here some people know me as Jack Frazier. A little over a year ago, I did a job for a senior member of the Bolivian parliament. He was happy enough with my work to rehire me to break you out of Palmasola.”
Tupac’s silence dragged out for a full minute, and Jack didn’t interrupt the big man’s contemplation, instead focusing his attention on weaving around the frequent potholes on the two-lane highway while dodging oncoming cars and trucks performing the same dangerous snake-mating ritual.
“So you chose to bomb Palmasola and trigger a riot just to get me out of jail?”
“No. The first explosion, the big one, was a UJC setup. Didn’t you wonder why you and all the other inmates were herded out of the cells and into the common areas? During the subsequent chaos, you were supposed to be kidnapped. Because your benefactor learned of the plan, I was sent into Palmasola to make sure that didn’t happen.”
An oncoming pickup truck with a half-dozen women and children in the open bed swerved around a huge pothole and careened into Jack’s lane, forcing him to swerve onto the right shoulder. The SUV’s right wheels spun in the loose gravel, and the vehicle fishtailed until Jack managed to guide it back into its lane.
Tupac continued his questioning as if he hadn’t even noticed the near collision.
“The second explosion was yours?”
“Yes.”
“People may have been killed.”
“Yes.”
“And the men who waited outside the wall with the van?”
Jack weighed the decision of just how much to tell the Quechua shaman.
“Men I’ve worked with before.”
“On the other job you mentioned?”
“Yes.”
“Another job where people died?”
“Yes.”
Once again, Jack felt the weight of Tupac’s gaze. He couldn’t blame the man for judging him harshly. Feeling the familiar adrenaline-fueled fire fill his veins, Jack readied himself. The moment of decision had arrived, and if Tupac made the wrong choice, this ride was about to get a whole lot more interesting.
CHAPTER 9
Sitting in the second-floor office of his La Paz estate, Conrad Altmann stared across his desk at his lieutenant in disbelief, feeling his blood pressure rise so fast that it threatened to pop a blood vessel in his forehead. At these times he looked like one of the demons illustrated on the ancient Incan temples. In one of the fiery rages that had become more and more common of late, people quailed before him. But not Dolf Gruenberg.
Having delivered the latest bad news, the six-foot-seven albino just stared back at him.
“What the hell do you mean they can’t find Inti?” Altmann asked.
“He’s not among the dead or the living in Palmasola. After they reestablished control of the prison grounds, police conducted a complete search of the compound. They believe he must have escaped through a hole in the western wall as police battled the mob trying to get through the gap in the north wall.”
“A second hole?”
“Several minutes after our car bomb rammed the north wall, there was another explosion along the west wall. Because police and guards had converged on the north wall following the planned attack there, only a single manned guard tower had visibility on the part of the western wall where the second explosion occurred. Unfortunately, both guards were killed before they could call for assistance.”
Unable to stay sitting, Conrad Altmann rose to his feet and leaned forward, both palms planted on the massive mahogany desk that dominated the southern end of his office.
“Tell me there were witnesses.”
“Three, for what it’s worth. One reported seeing the explosion and hearing gunfire after he dived for cover. The other two saw a van driving away at high speed. Neither of them saw a license plate or any of the people inside. One of them said the van was white, and the other said it was gray. Useless.”
As much as Altmann wanted to reach under his desk for the concealed gun and put a bullet through his lieutenant’s head at this news, he gritted his teeth and restrained himself.
“Checkpoints?”
“The chief of police has ordered them set up throughout Santa Cruz, but because of the extraordinary police presence at Palmasola, it is taking longer than it should to disperse them to other parts of the city. He has ordered all vans to be stopped and searched.”
“Why the hell do I pay so much to that stupid bastard? Inti will have switched vehicles. He could be anywhere by now.”
Straightening, Altmann turned to stare out the curved floor-to-ceiling window, although he took no notice of the manicured grounds beyond the glass. Without turning back toward Dolf, Altmann took two calming breaths and gave the order.
“Get General Montoya. I want to see him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
The sound of the door closing behind him told Altmann that he was alone. Walking back to his desk, Altmann seated himself, extracted a silver flask from his right drawer, removed the lid, and raised it to his lips. The long pull that followed funneled its glowing warmth into his belly, but rather than soothe his anger, the smooth whiskey fanned it. That was fine with him. Maybe his rage would provide the motivation that the Bolivian chief of intelligence would need to get people off their asses and deliver Tupac Inti, alive. After the years of work it had taken to retrieve the Sun Staff’s crown piece, Conrad Altmann wasn’t about to allow his father’s project to fail for lack of the shaman’s unique knowledge.
CHAPTER 10
The mind worm had been called by many names, among them, Anchanchu, the soul bane. Loosely translated, it meant “The Rider.” Although humans thought of it as a demonic being from their various religious traditions, the truth was something far stranger. It was an entity beyond the four dimensions that compose space-time, able to observe all possible timelines but, until it had discovered the human race, unable to experience any of them, its existence a frustrating hell from which humanity’s arrival on the cosmic stage had offered release.
Anchanchu had learned that as a human straddled the life–death threshold, it could establish a parasitic link to that person’s limbic system. It required the host’s cooperation, but once accepted, it could stimulate the human’s physical responses far more effectively than a doctor’s adrenaline injection or electric paddles. If the body was not too badly damaged, Anchanchu could shove its host back across the life–death boundary.
The mind worm’s limbic attachment enabled it to feel human emotion, to experience the world through its host’s senses amplifying its host’s feelings and bodily responses. But Anchanchu’s lack of connection to the higher brain functions meant it was unable to sense its host’s thoughts.
Anchanchu knew its hosts better than they knew themselves. It understood what drove them. And with its ability to sense what was coming, it was easy to see the paths along which their amplified passions would carry them. Breaking a new host was different in every case. With some it was as simple as amping up specific desires. Though some struggled to resist its siren call and maintain their sense of self-control, even the most strong-willed generally succumbed within months.
Yet, as difficult as it was for the mind worm to accept, in the months since Jack Gregory’s deathbed acceptance, the man continued fighting to reestablish his self-control. It was a new experience, one that Anchanchu found both thrilling and terrifying.
It was time to apply the bloody spurs that would break this stallion to rein, once and for all.
CHAPTER 11
The black Ford Explorer bounced the last part of the thirty-mile dirt road that led to the Frazier Hacienda and rolled to a stop in the midst of the thatched-roof buildings, corrals, and barns that flanked the main ranch house. As Jack opened the car door, he was met by Rafael Morales, the native ranch foreman, and Yachay, the motherly Quechua woman who ran the household, empty though it had been fo
r the vast majority of the time since he’d acquired it. These two had run the ranch long before Jack had inherited it, and he’d seen no sense in changing this arrangement. It had been one of his better decisions.
“It is good to see you, Señor Jack,” Rafael said, the weathered skin of his face crinkling at the eyes in what was the closest thing Jack had seen to a smile on the lean man’s face.
“It’s good to be back.”
Jack inhaled deeply through his nose, letting the clean, high-country air fill his lungs, holding it for several seconds before slowly exhaling through his mouth.
The main house was a long one-story building with a high-peaked thatch roof in the style of the native peoples of the area. To the west, a number of smaller thatched huts stretched out toward the corrals. Beyond them the beautiful rolling countryside spread out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Above this magnificent view, a spectacular sunset had just begun to bathe the western sky in fire.
He’d loved this hacienda the first time he’d set foot on it. It was little wonder that this was the same region that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had fallen in love with after they had fled to Bolivia. The rough hills with their many varieties of trees and grasses and the old soil that wasn’t rich enough for farming but was perfect for raising cattle and horses smelled like what Jack thought the old west should have smelled like. It made him feel like just the latest in a line of infamous gunmen to savor this view.
When Tupac Inti stepped out of the car and rose to his full height, Yachay uttered a single syllable that she immediately stifled. Clearly she recognized the man, although, from the lack of recognition in Tupac’s face, Jack assumed she must have only seen the shaman from a distance.
Without asking what Jack wanted, Rafael opened the Explorer’s rear door, grabbed the duffel, and carried it into the main house through the door Yachay held open.
“Your place?”
The sound of Tupac’s deep voice surprised Jack. After all, the man had barely spoken to him after posing his series of questions as they had left Santa Cruz in the SUV’s rearview mirrors several hours ago. Jack had taken Tupac’s previous silence as a positive sign, and he decided to take this break in that routine as another one.
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