“Adams,” Ferenzi said, “you’ve made a mess of this. All of you, go in the shed.”
Rendon stared at Ferenzi and then shook his head. “No, I’ve got to take care of this man.”
Ferenzi glared back at the doctor, lifted his gun, aimed it at the dying man, and then blew the top of the man’s head off. “Get in there, now.”
His face pale and his shirt covered with blood, Rendon stood and followed the rest into the shed. In the darkness inside, Harry raised his arm to his face to look at his watch. It was ten in the morning. He dropped his hand. It didn’t matter. There was no time left. Why hadn’t he realized it? Why hadn’t he listened to Ree? Why hadn’t he trusted his gut reaction to Ferenzi?
Rendon ripped off the sleeve of Evan’s shirt and began binding the wound.
Outside, they could hear Ferenzi talking. Inside, the room smelled rotten. Following his nose, Harry went to the back, pulled away a couple of bags of potting soil, and then turned away quickly, holding his stomach.
Under the bags was hidden the bug-infested body of a dead man.
The door of the shed slammed closed, shutting off the light. Harry stared into the darkness. What was Ferenzi going to do?
The air smelled slightly sour. The lights were dim. Andrews sat beside a short man who purported to be the day manager of the Bare Nights Club. Andrews stared at a black-and-white publicity photograph.
He felt awful, half dead. He’d slept little the night before, drank too much. His mouth was dry; his eyes, tearing. It was hard to focus, but he forced himself. A dark hole of pain grabbed at his gut.
The woman in the picture was slender, with dark eyes. It was Kara-Lee, no doubt, even with the blond hair. She had the same facial features and skin coloration as her mother. Except the eyes, he decided. The eyes were from her father. He put the picture down and looked at his watch. It was nine thirty. Earlier he’d carefully read the briefing papers he had and had only glanced at before.
Kara-Lee Andrews was Lee Abu was a stripper and an A student. With her picture in hand, he knew who she was.
How much time did he have?
Why had the agency contact given him all the information? What game were they playing?
The short man said good-bye to Andrews with evident relief. The agency ID tended to make people nervous. Andrews walked through the empty parking lot to his rented car, a light tan Buick, and got inside. The club had been deserted. Too early in the morning for nudity. Andrews paused and stared at the cloud-filled sky. There was one break of blue directly above him.
Could it be that the agency wanted him to act on his own, so they could deny everything? Had Cee’s words all been a ploy? Was Andrews now a pawn in a game he wasn’t given the rules to?
Why had the control given Andrews the information? Even the code for the project: code “Able.” With their new cover story, they no longer needed Ferenzi. Did they want him dead?
Andrews scratched at his head. First, he’d been included. Then after he’d called the scientist, he’d been cut out; then suddenly, they put him right back in the game. They gave him information while they told him he was out and tried to seduce him with the retirement offer. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. Did they know it was his niece? If they knew, why hadn’t they told him? Or had a new priority appeared, a new source of pressure? Bastards.
He turned on the ignition and started to drive to Stone Mountain Park. Whatever was happening was going to occur there at the park. There was one thing he was sure of—Kara-Lee Andrews was alive, and she would stay that way. He would ensure that regardless of the agency. Finally he could atone. Even if it killed him.
He felt the gun in his shoulder holster. It was reassuringly solid against his fears. He had used to be good with it. Another thought occurred to him, and he stopped to make a quick phone call to one of the people on Adams’s list of contacts, the policeman with Dekalb County. He said just enough in the message to get the sergeant to Stone Mountain fast. A little backup never hurt. Hell with the agency.
The traffic on Clairmont was light. Andrews turned onto the freeway going north and accelerated up to seventy-five. A car passed him on the right, and he increased his own speed to eighty. The Buick began to shake. He nosed down to seventy-eight, and the shake quit.
Speeding through the myriad elevated lanes of Spaghetti Junction, he slowed down on East 285—too many cops and he couldn’t afford the time to explain. Then, he sped up again on the Stone Mountain Freeway. By the time he entered the park, it was going on ten.
No one else was entering the gate, so without waiting, he shoved his money into the guard’s hand, asked directions for the archery area, and then headed as he had been told. The roads wound around through woods. He thought of Kara-Lee, a college student. Her father would have been proud. He’d always said she was bright. She was trying to escape the streets and doing it. Andrews liked the thought. Tears formed in his eyes.
The scene of the action was obvious. Foster hadn’t even bothered to pull his car all the way off the road. Andrews rounded another curve and saw Harry Adams’s Chevy pulled off to the side. It looked just like the file described—worn out. One of the back windows was open. Andrews turned his Buick around and then parked it out of sight in the other direction from Foster’s car.
Despite the anxiety that kept his breath short and his heart pounding, Andrews treaded carefully through the woods. He couldn’t afford to warn them he was here. He couldn’t even be sure that anything had happened yet. Nor did he want a direct confrontation with Ferenzi.
Foster probably could be counted on to respond to the code name. He was being paid by the agency. Still, the only way to be sure was to have the upper hand. If Foster thought Ferenzi would win, Foster’s decision might be different. Those kinds of odds Andrews could not afford.
Seeing a change in the intensity of the light ahead through the thick foliage, he drew his gun and then got down on his hands and knees. He crawled forward until he could just see the clearing with the shed located on the apex of the incline.
On the ground were two bodies.
For a moment, he held his breath, not wanting to look, a hollow forming in his stomach. He forced himself. Both bodies were too big to be Ree. Andrews gave a sigh of relief. Ferenzi, Foster, and another man were talking in front of the shed.
Andrews stood up and leaned against a tree. His hands shook a little, and he wished he’d drunk less the night before. He leaned to the side and peered out. The trunk hid him from view from the top of the knoll. He thought again about his brother, dead because of the agency, because of Andrews.
Foster went to the door of the shed, opened it, and motioned. A man who was huge, Rendon (the CDC doctor), Harry Adams, and then finally Ree came out. Andrews scowled with confusion. What were all these people doing here? What was Ferenzi going to do?
It was too early to act. First, Andrews had to make sure that Ferenzi wasn’t going to play it straight this time.
Ferenzi gestured and said something. One of his men handed a bag to Ree. She didn’t seem to want to take it. A gun was pointed at her. She took the bag very carefully. There was another set of instructions. The bag was handed to the huge man. He took it and then dropped it on the ground.
Fingerprints, Andrews thought. Ferenzi is getting them to touch the bag, so there’ll be concrete evidence of their involvement. He’ll claim they were the terrorists—Ree. The bag must contain the infected drug. Andrews shifted a little to the edge of the tree trunk, ready to spring out when he needed.
A moment later, Ferenzi’s gun pointed at Adams. The reporter raised his hands, gesticulating. Then Foster pushed Adams forward. Ferenzi raised his gun.
Andrews watched stunned as from beside the doctor, Ree darted forward, spun, and kicked at Ferenzi. Her heel hit the gun as it went off.
Adams reeled back, grasping his shoulder. Ferenzi s
pun around to try to aim at Ree. Adams dove at him. Ferenzi dodged, landed a kick, and Adams crumpled to the ground. Ree launched another attack, and Ferenzi just moved out of the way, the kick grazing him on the hip.
Andrews stepped forward from the shadows. He spread his legs and aimed his pistol at Ferenzi.
“Code Able!” Andrews shouted. “Foster, cover the other man. Freeze, Ferenzi!”
Foster and Ferenzi turned to face Andrews. Ree twisted and kicked at Ferenzi. The man slipped to the side and raised and fired his gun.
Andrews squeezed the trigger on his semiautomatic, just as he felt a sledgehammer hit his chest and drive him backward against the tree. Ferenzi lurched backward and fell to his knees, clutching his stomach with one hand and still firing the gun with the other.
Another bullet tore into Andrews, slamming him back hard against the tree again. He clenched his jaw, the pain suddenly striking him. He couldn’t stop now. He had to save Ree—for his brother’s memory.
He aimed and fired at Ferenzi, who was staggering up, his hand covered with blood. The bullet struck the former agent in the shoulder and twisted him around. He dropped the gun and fell back to his knees.
Amid the soft hissing of silenced weapons sprung the high-pitched wail of a police car. Up the gravel road roared a Crown Vic cruiser, its blue lights flashing. It launched into the air going over a bump in the road, and landing with a crash, wheels locked, it slid sideways into the grass.
Ree scrambled to where Ferenzi’s gun had dropped, picked up the weapon, rolled, and lifted the gun, pointing at Ferenzi. Foster swung his pistol around and fired at Ferenzi’s other man, who dropped to the ground.
The policeman, a black man with sergeant’s stripes, leaped from the car, drawing his pistol.
Andrews watched in horror as Ree’s pistol went off, the gun flying up, its kick too strong for the girl. She wanted to kill Ferenzi, now a defenseless man, and she was trying to do it in front of a cop. What had Ferenzi done to her?
The bullet missed Ferenzi.
The police officer screamed out a command as he took up a position behind his vehicle. Ree aimed the pistol again at Ferenzi, who was crawling toward the police car.
The cop aimed his pistol at Ree. “Drop the gun!” he yelled.
Ree froze but didn’t drop the weapon.
Andrews clenched his jaw. Never again, Ree. With one last gasp of energy, he raised his semiautomatic, aimed, and fired at Ferenzi. The man’s head exploded in blood and gore.
Ree dropped the pistol.
Andrews coughed blood and choked on it as he slumped over and fell to the ground.
His pistol drawn, the cop ran toward Andrews. Andrews dropped his weapon. He saw Ree racing down the hill. Then she was above Andrews, staring down at him, tears in her eyes. Behind her, standing far into the blue of the sky, was the police officer. Ree’s face swirled into the gloaming darkness a moment and then returned. She was alive.
Then suddenly another face, the doctor. He ripped at Andrews’s shirt. Andrews shook his head. He knew he was going to die.
“Doctor, stop and listen to me.”
The man didn’t stop.
“The virus…You have to listen.”
This time he stopped, and Andrews struggled to make the words come out.
“The bag there is all the rest of it. There’s a secret drug investigation in South America. They found the virus only spreads by use of the drug.”
“But how can—”
“Don’t talk. Maybe agency can help, but it’s true. Check with a man named Cee. Ask him about a project called ‘Death’s Shadow.’ Don’t cancel the games.”
Andrews felt his muscles growing limp. The doctor stood and backed away. Above Andrews now, he saw Ree, and with his last effort, he forced a smile. She leaned closer, and he choked out a few more words. Someone should know the truth. She told him about Ferenzi, and it seemed his pain turned warm.
As blackness swirled his consciousness down, he thought of Ree. The reporter had risked his life to try to save her. Andrews had seen her risk her own to save the reporter.
A love to die for, he thought and was gone.
Afterword
The large, echoing room was filled with more flowers than the man had probably seen in his entire life.
William Andrews, scheduled to retire from the agency the day after, had died at Stone Mountain Park. He died of multiple bullet wounds. He had been proclaimed a hero, posthumously.
Now, a week later, a burial ceremony was held for him at the Seven Lights Cemetery in northeast Atlanta. There were five people present. Only one of the mourners, a small woman, had tears in her eyes.
Ree Andrews, said to be the deceased’s niece and currently a full-time student at Georgia State, cried. Next to her in the front row sat Harry Adams. She held his hand. Their arms touched. She had moved into his apartment until she found a new one of her own, she had told him. The look in her eyes had said something else.
For a few days, Adams had been a media star for his part in saving the games. Now, he was forgotten by the six o’clock news. But just hired, he had taken a job as a paid stringer for the nationally acclaimed Dateline News Magazine. The editor of the magazine, a Harold Rendon, actually Dr. Thomas Rendon’s father, had called a news conference to announce his acquisition.
Adams sat stiffly on the bench, his shoulder bandaged. In the briefcase at his feet were his notes for his next exclusive series of stories—a breakthrough in research—a room-temperature superconductor. Nobody knew how he’d gotten the reclusive wheelchair-bound inventor to discuss the issue before the peer-reviewed article was released. The invention was said to be worth millions, at least.
Across from them sat Dr. Thomas Rendon, also held in high public esteem for his part in solving the mystery of the virus that had almost canceled the games. According to the news releases, the virus had been one of those products of the steamy South American jungles that crop up from time to time and invade civilization. In this case, the virus had contaminated a drug that had by chance ended up in Atlanta. It had been cocaine of considerable psychoactive potency.
This was the story that was told.
In the back row of the flower-filled room sat an immense man. He was the bouncer at a local strip club. It seemed a strange lot.
The flowers that filled the room were mostly yellow roses, though one vase was filled with delicate yellow orchids.
In Death's Shadow Page 26