The Paradise Key (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 5)

by Nick Thacker

  She pulled it away quickly the moment it was free, rubbing it with her hands. He passed her the oxygen hose and allowed her to take a breath, then he attempted to mime their plan.

  Swim. Up.

  It was a pretty simple plan, so she nodded in agreement and they each took a final hit from the air hose.

  He sucked in as much of the air as his lungs would hold, then he pushed off the floor of the Subshuttle and out the hole in its side.

  The water outside felt cooler, an effect of the vastness of the open space they were now in, but he didn’t stop to look around or ponder any of that. Sarah was right behind him, having followed him out immediately after. He waited for her to reach him, then he grabbed her hand. She squeezed onto it, allowing him to guide them upward.

  He turned his face to the lighter water above him, noticing the dark, long shapes splashing and swimming up there. Whatever they were, they were occupied. They didn’t notice the two humans swimming up to greet them, and he didn’t plan on changing that.

  Reggie changed course a bit, away from the creatures, hoping they would have enough air to go diagonally upward instead of straight up. Sarah was still there, holding tight but kicking with her legs to hurry them along. They were making good time, swimming fast, and it seemed as though the ocean’s floor was only forty or fifty feet beneath the surface.

  As long as they didn’t run into trouble, Reggie knew that was an easy swim, considering their own buoyancy was on their side.

  They didn’t run into trouble, but they ran into something else.

  Something Reggie hadn’t at all expected.

  Chunks of flesh began to appear.

  Blood, thick swirls of it.

  All of it raining down slowly, as if they were in a slow-motion storm. The water was holding it in place, a macabre scene of suspended-animation gore.

  A bone, still attached to some hunk of skin and muscle, floated directly in front of his face.

  He kicked harder, not daring to look back at Sarah. He already felt like he was going to throw up.

  He tried to talk his mind into focusing on the lightening waters above, about getting out of the water and then processing whatever the hell happened. But he couldn’t shake the thought, it kept sliding out into the front of his conscious mind, unprovoked.

  Is this what’s left of my friends?

  56

  “GET UP,” CRAWFORD SAID. HE had walked up a few moments later, after Vicente Garza and his men had arrived.

  Ben was laying on the concrete, the warm sun now a friend, no longer a foe beating down on him. It was nice, save for the hard ground. But hard or not, anything was better than the water.

  The saltwater crocodiles plowed through the remains of the seal, fighting each other for the scraps. The alpha had disappeared, probably sulking from the loss of his own prize.

  Ben looked up at Crawford.

  He sat up.

  “All the way up,” Crawford said.

  “Adrian, buddy,” Ben said. “It’s over. You tried to have your creatures in there eat us, but it didn’t work.”

  Crawford fumed, but his eyes remained rigidly fixed on Ben’s. His dimple was nowhere to be found. One of his arms hung by his side, lifeless, while his other was in a pocket.

  The Hawk was suddenly there. “Get up, Harvey. We need to finish this.”

  Ben was surprised, but he obeyed. Julie and Susan had been taken by two of Garza’s men, but there was no one else on the dock. He stood, eye-to-eye with the soldier. Crawford stepped to the side, allowing The Hawk to take his place.

  “You going to throw me back in there?” Ben asked. “I already fought off your big one, I’m sure I can do it again.”

  “No,” The Hawk said. “That would be too complicated. What if they’re not hungry anymore? What if you’re not to their liking?” he smiled. “While I would love to see you get ripped apart by crocodiles, I need this to be very simple. One shot, through the temple. Ends it quickly, unfortunately for me, but I wasn’t hired for my creativity.”

  Ben swallowed.

  The Hawk held up a pistol. 45 calibre, a monstrous thing. “This baby is a favorite of mine. Makes a hell of a racket, and it’s a bit showy, but damn if it doesn’t get the job done.”

  He held it up to Ben’s head. “Turn around.”

  “You’re going to shoot a man with his back turned.”

  “There’s nothing poetic about dying face-to-face with a man, Ben. I don’t care if it’s a bullet to the head or a knife through the back. It’s all the same, as long as the heart stops beating.”

  “In that case, get it over with.”

  Ben was tired. He didn’t want to die, but he couldn’t fight. There was no point. Reggie was dead, Julie was as good as dead.

  If there was an obvious thing to do, it didn’t come to him. He couldn’t fight his way out of this one. Even without his army, The Hawk had him surrounded.

  “Find Gareth Red, and the doctor,” The Hawk spoke into his wrist mic. “Sarah Lindgren can’t be allowed to leave either.”

  Crawford watched them. “Are you sure they weren’t on the shuttle?” he asked. “Some of your men say they saw them get on with the others.”

  “If they did, they’re already dead,” The Hawk said. “They either drowned or were torn apart by the crocs. We need every man we can spare searching the ring, all levels. They won’t stop until they’re found. Dead, preferably.”

  Crawford nodded. He didn’t look happy.

  Ben closed his eyes. They wouldn’t find his friend and Sarah Lindgren in the labs. Ben knew exactly where they were when he’d left them.

  He dropped his head. “Get it over with, Garza.”

  Garza paused. “No, I’m not going to make it that easy for you, Ben.”

  Ben frowned.

  “I kill people who get in my way. But people who annoy me, consistently, and take something from me, they get my full wrath.”

  “Sounds scary,” Ben said. “Can we dispense with the pleasantries. I’ve been in this situation before, man. Just pull the trigger and get it over —“

  “No, Ben,” The Hawk said. “I don’t think you understand. I’m going to make you watch.”

  Ben turned his head, but Garza shook him, hard. He straightened up again, staring out at the white-capped water as the crocs fought.

  “Push her in,” The Hawk said.

  Ben struggled against The Hawk’s grip, but his muscles were sore. He wrenched an arm free, but then Garza’s huge pistol came down and found a spot just above Ben’s spine on the back of his neck. He went down to his knees, dazed.

  Susan fell into the water, pushed by one of The Hawk’s men.

  Julie screamed.

  Ben couldn’t believe what he’d just seen, but he wasn’t going to watch, either.

  Three of the crocs immediately turned and swam over to the spot where the woman had entered the water. She surfaced quickly, her arms flailing above her head, her mouth and eyes opening and closing rapidly. She screamed.

  And the first croc pulled her under.

  Ben shut his eyes.

  The Hawk pressed the gun into his temple, pushing his head sideways. “Open your eyes, Ben,” he said. “This is your fault. You did this, you understand?”

  Ben clenched his jaw. He kept his eyes closed. He tried not to hear the sounds of the reptiles eating.

  “If you weren’t going to die here, today, you would have to live with that knowledge. I hate that you won’t, but I want you to feel that, at least for a minute. Got it?”

  Ben felt his captor turn to address Crawford. “When does the chopper arrive, Crawford?”

  “The investors leave within an hour. Bahamas, then back to the mainland on a commercial air—“

  “I don’t care about their travel plans, Crawford. I’m commandeering that chopper.”

  “You can’t do that!” Crawford shouted. “It’s not yours to —“

  “I need to perform a surveillance sweep of the area, and I can
provide support best if I’m in the air.”

  He turned back to Ben and pressed the gun against his head once more. Apparently the conversation was over.

  “Jacobsen,” The Hawk barked. “Get her ready to go in. Ben, you watching?”

  Ben felt his heart rising into his throat. He swallowed it back down, blinked twice. Is this real?

  He waited.

  “Okay, Jacobsen,” The Hawk said. “Throw her in.”

  57

  SHE WATCHED SUSAN’S BODY TORN to shreds by the crocodiles, unable to look away. It was horrifying, but Julie was in shock. She was numb to the reality of it, the pain gnawing at her insides but still not quite hurting.

  The blood darkened the water, spreading outward and yet still somehow just as deeply crimson as it had been after it spilled out of its owner’s body.

  “Okay, Jacobsen,” The Hawk said. “Throw her in.”

  Julie wasn’t sure who he was talking about. Is it me?

  Ben was going to die. Susan had already died, and Reggie and Sarah had already died. They were all going to die.

  There was no denying that fact now, and while she wasn’t necessarily welcoming her own death, she wasn’t sure she was against it, either.

  Ben seemed to be resigned to his fate as well, and she felt as though she were looking out of her eyes through a filter, as if her eyes weren’t her own but someone else’s. It was surreal.

  It was unreal.

  She felt the Ravenshadow man, Jacobsen, pushing her over. She felt his arm, but it wasn’t hers. She felt her body sliding sideways, giving in, but it wasn’t hers. She stepped with him, allowing him, welcoming him.

  What is happening?

  Ben turned and looked at her.

  Suddenly, in that moment, in those eyes, she saw everything. Her past, her future, and — of course — her present.

  Right now.

  She knew where she was. What was happening.

  She was on a pier. Standing precariously close to a crocodile-infested tank of saltwater, on a secluded artificial island called Paradisum.

  She was here with her fiancé, and that was all that mattered.

  And she had had enough. Everything fell back into place, her reality no longer tainted by the life-sucking filter she had been viewing it all through.

  She was done. She wanted out.

  She ducked, spun around, caught the back of the man’s knee with her foot. She wasn’t as strong as he was, but he wasn’t expecting the retaliation. Reggie had trained her in hand-to-hand combat, and she was getting better every week. The blow brought the man down, but he recovered and compensated by falling onto his other knee.

  He brought his subcompact machine gun out from around his shoulder and tried to get it into position to fire on her.

  That’s a mistake, she thought. She was in the worse position, the lower ground, standing on the edge of the tank.

  She capitalized on the man’s mistake by punching him, her fist long and tight with her first knuckles pointed, catching him right in the Adam's apple. He coughed, choking, and she threw her body around but slung the nook of her elbow around his neck and used his own body weight against him.

  He fell backwards, but she wasn’t even close to done. He tried to roll, but she was still attached to him. His gun fell from his shoulder, and he brushed it away. Julie heard it skidding against the concrete.

  She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Ben reacting as well, trying to get a grip on the end of The Hawk’s pistol. Both men were locked in a struggle, each dancing back and forth and changing positions dangling over the edge of the croc tank.

  Her man writhed around again, trying to shake her loose. She wasn’t going to be able to choke him to death, or even hold him forever, so she came up with a different plan.

  Time to shift gears a bit, she thought. Make him think he’s winning.

  She screamed in pain, then released him. She popped up onto her feet in a crouched position, making sure she was out of arm’s reach. Her bet was that the man would be in close combat mode, either forgetting about his weapon or choosing to ignore it in favor of beating this far-smaller woman without extra help from propelled munitions.

  She was only half-right.

  He lunged forward, an impossibly large Bowie knife in his hand. He held it well, like Reggie had taught her and Ben. She sidestepped, swiveled, then turned to face him again.

  He was now standing on the edge. Right where she had been standing a moment earlier.

  She kicked, her foot low and straight, her leg no higher than the man’s waist. No sense trying to be a ninja, Reggie would have said. Just get in, get out, get both feet on the ground again. Fast, efficient, effective.

  And it was.

  The man let out a sharp cry of pain as Julie’s low kick hit him right in the groin, doubling over.

  He tried to recover, but Julie was already there. Right in front of his face.

  Pushing him.

  He started rotating his arms as he felt the weightlessness of gravity taking over, but it was too late. There was nothing left to grab onto, as Julie had anticipated the man’s action and backpedaled a step, simply watching him fall backwards into the water.

  The first croc was already waiting for him, mouth open.

  She turned away at that moment.

  Ben and The Hawk were still locked in battle, neither man appearing to have the upper hand, but Julie knew better. Ben was stubborn as hell and wouldn’t back down, but he was tired. Beaten, worn, and shaken to his core, he wasn’t going to make it much longer.

  Julie started running.

  Get to Ben, she thought. Get to Ben, and then fight. That’s it.

  There was nothing else to do.

  She had defeated one foe, she and Ben together could defeat a second.

  Especially someone like The Hawk, who had a permanent place in her mind as a man who needed to die.

  But she was intercepted halfway there.

  Crawford had stepped in front of her, blocking her route. She tried to barrel through him, but the man held out an arm, a football-type move that would have worked on any pro NFL team. His straight-arm hit hard, and she fell backwards to the concrete floor of the pier.

  “Game’s over, Juliette,” Crawford said.

  There was a gunshot, and Crawford spun around. She caught sight of a little blood spurting from his arm.

  She turned, saw Reggie standing there, soaking wet and somehow alive, Dr. Sarah Lindgren by his side. He had the Ravenshadow man’s subcompact in his hands, and he was taking aim at Adrian Crawford.

  “No,” Reggie said. “Now it’s over.”

  58

  A FEW THINGS HAPPENED AT once. Reggie heard the rotor wash of the chopper as it flew into view from behind the hotel in the central ring, the noise increasing as it drew near to land and pick up the hotel’s other guests.

  He wondered how much they had seen — they had mostly kept to themselves in the hotel, and he hadn’t seen them since they’d first arrived. Still, a steady barrage of gunfire and fighting would likely not have gone unnoticed.

  He also saw The Hawk release his grip on Ben, turn to face Reggie, and then stumble backwards. Ben swiped at him but missed, and Garza began running across the bridge connecting the pier and second ring to the main central ring.

  I should go after him, Reggie thought. He’s the reason we’re here.

  But a third thing happened as well. Crawford and Julie both turned to look at him. Crawford was smiling, an eerie grin that felt completely out of place. It threw him off, and he faltered.

  Crawford was quick, especially considering the bullet wound in his shoulder. He grabbed Julie from behind, then pushed her out and over the water, holding onto her neck.

  It seemed impossible, a man as physically average as Crawford, to be able to hold the woman out and over the edge without leaning or anchoring himself on something.

  Ben rushed over.

  “Don’t, Harvey,” Crawford sa
id. His voice was a growl. “Take a step back.”

  Ben did.

  “Reggie, go ahead and put that weapon down.”

  Reggie considered it. He could make the shot with just about anything other than the small subcompact, but there wasn’t enough accuracy in the weapon, and he hadn’t had enough practice with it, for him to feel comfortable from this distance. A shot wide to the left would strike Julie, and a shot that strayed too far right could hit Ben.

  He put the gun down.

  “Now,” Crawford said. “Garza is on his way to get his men. They will return, and they will kill you.”

  Reggie sneered.

  “I’ve given them the order to kill you all, and they’re quite good at following orders. So we have less than a minute, I would guess, before he tells his men that you and Dr. Lindgren are up here with the rest of us.”

  “What’s the point, Crawford?”

  “The point is that you all could have been part of something grand — a vision for the future that the board and I have developed over the course of years. Something the world has never seen.”

  “Growing back human limbs?” Reggie asked. “You’re years away from production. There’s nothing here but torture chambers and tanks full of your little science experiments.”

  Crawford seemed offended, but he recovered and smiled once again. Then, reaching out with his other hand, he unbuttoned the shirtsleeve on the arm that was holding Julie and pulled it up.

  Reggie couldn’t help himself. He took a step forward, trying to get a better view.

  The arm was gray, oddly bulbous and strange-looking. The hand around Julie’s neck seemed normal, but the arm itself looked like something that had washed up on a beach after months of floating dead at sea.

  “What the…”

  “That’s right,” Crawford said. “I was patient 31-0. The same medication that has been helping those subjects down in the lab maintain their emotionless state has been coursing through my veins for weeks now.”

  Crawford looked at his arm, examining it like a coroner would examine a cadaver. Clinical, emotionless.