Wages of Sin (A James Acton Thriller, #17) (James Acton Thrillers)

by J. Robert Kennedy

There was a laugh that made him nervous. “We’re not landing. See the chute?”

  “Yes.”

  “Retrieve the supplies and set yourself up for pickup. How many can you add to our merry band?”

  “Two.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll see you soon.”

  The call ended as two of Leather’s men peeled away in one of the camp’s vehicles, rushing toward where the supply drop was touching down.

  “What do you think it is?” asked Reese, a smile spreading across Leather’s face as he realized what was going on.

  “Oh, I know what it is.”

  Reese finally figured it out and groaned. “Bloody hell, you’re not telling me—”

  “Yup, Skyhook.”

  Reese’s groan grew louder. “Ugh, I’ve managed to avoid that my entire career.”

  Leather slapped him on the back, deciding to have some fun with him. “Just remember to squeeze your cheeks. You don’t want to shite your pants.”

  The jeep returned and the equipment was unloaded, lights in the camp flooding the area, every student now out of bed, few able to sleep after hearing their professor was in trouble, none with all the commotion. His men set up the system, the balloon quickly inflating then floating into the air as Leather and Reese climbed into their harnesses, snapping onto the lift line.

  Leather looked at Reese. “Ready?”

  “Cheeks squeezed.”

  Leather laughed. “Good.” He nodded at his men holding the balloon in place. “Let it go.” The balloon soared into the air, beacons flashing, the sound of the transport aircraft overhead changing as it banked, the pilot having spotted the lights.

  “Good luck,” said Mitchell. “Bring her back safe.”

  Leather nodded, doing one last check as the plane roared overhead, his equipment bag lying at his feet, latched to his harness. He heard the yoke on the front of the plane catch the cable stretched between the balloon and themselves, and braced.

  “Squeeze!”

  He was ripped from the desert floor and yanked into the air, the force tremendous, enough to leave him gasping from the shock. He peered down and saw Reese below him, the plane gaining altitude, already redirecting toward their destination as the crew inside reeled them in.

  I love this job!

  61

  Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “Sir, the drone is coming online now.”

  Leroux rose from his chair, stepping toward the screen, most of it displaying the footage from the drone that had just arrived from a covert CIA installation in Burundi. “Anyone see anything?”

  “There’s too much wildlife,” complained Tong, and she was right. The brief imagery they had received from the satellite was still being analyzed by his team, so far they finding nothing, the area simply too vast with thousands of creatures similar in size to humans.

  And it appeared the drone footage was going to be the same.

  “Okay, start a standard search pattern from their last known location. We’ll find them.”

  Child let out a burst of joy. “I’m in!”

  Leroux smiled, stepping over to Child’s workstation. “What have you got?”

  Child’s fingers attacked the keyboard. “The guide has a record from years ago, apartheid era—”

  “Everybody has a record from back then.”

  “Exactly. He’s been clean for over twenty years.”

  Leroux nodded, exactly as he had expected. A resort of the quality the Actons and Courtney Tasker would stay at would have thoroughly vetted their staff. “Family?”

  “At least three brothers with records, but get this”—he gestured at the display, an image appearing of a disagreeable-looking man in his thirties. “This is his brother, Tladi. He’s got several recent charges against him, and according to the file, is suspected of poaching, though they haven’t been able to nail him for it yet.”

  Leroux grunted. “Well, that’s quite the coincidence.”

  Child glanced up at him. “And we don’t believe in coincidences?”

  Leroux smiled. “No, we don’t.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “Get that info to Agent Reading. He can check it out with the locals when he arrives.”

  “You don’t want Delta on it?”

  Leroux shook his head. “Sometimes the scalpel is better than the hammer. Besides, if it is him, then he’s somewhere out there”—he motioned at the drone footage—“not sitting at home.”

  62

  Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa

  Acton held up a fist, coming to a stop.

  “What?”

  “Shhh.” He strained to pick up what he thought he had heard, and as his heart steadied, it came into focus.

  Running water.

  He pointed ahead. “I’m hearing water.” He glanced back, there no sign of pursuit, human or otherwise, and they were now at least a good mile from the campsite. They should be safe, though not here.

  Water meant animals, animals meant prey, prey meant more of what they had just gone through.

  But water also meant they could wash the blood off themselves, perhaps reducing the chances of another encounter. He continued cautiously forward, stopping at the edge of a stream, small enough there wouldn’t be anything lurking in the waters, waiting for them, yet big enough to work with.

  “Okay, you first. Strip everything off that has blood on it, then wash it as best you can.”

  “You’re not going to look, are you?”

  Acton rolled his eyes. “You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before, but don’t worry, I’ll be busy watching your back.”

  “Huh?”

  He jabbed a finger at the darkness. “Your back, figuratively, not literally.”

  “Oh.” She quickly peeled off her top, her pants apparently fine, then dropped to her knees, shoving the shirt in the water as Acton watched the surrounding area for hostiles, saying nothing. She began to hum a tune, a few murmured words escaping.

  “What’s that?”

  “A little Kanye.”

  Acton groaned.

  “Not a fan?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Well, you’re old, so you’re not supposed to like him.”

  Acton tilted his head to the side for a second, nodding, the girl right.

  “Did you know he might run for president?”

  Acton almost looked at her in shock. “God help us.”

  She giggled. “I know, right? Like, I like his music, but wow, he’d be like a disaster, right?”

  Acton paused, squinting at something in the distance.

  Bush.

  “The scary thing is he could win.”

  Acton’s eyebrows popped at that statement, looking down at the girl.

  She caught him. “Hey, you said you wouldn’t look.”

  His head spun away. “Sorry, you just shocked me with that. How the hell could he win?”

  “Well, he’s got like twenty-five million Twitter followers, and with his wife and her family, they’ve got like almost every young person in America following them. If they decide to vote, he wins.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  “I know, right?” She tossed her shirt on the ground beside her, bending over and rinsing her face and arms.

  Acton shook his head. “That’s the problem today. Western culture loves its celebrities so much, they actually believe they’re smarter than them because they have a platform. I forget who said it, but youth and beauty aren’t accomplishments, but today’s youth thinks it is. They think if someone is a star then they must be smart, so should be listened to.”

  Courtney put her shirt back on, turning toward him. “Wasn’t Ronald Reagan an actor?”

  Acton gave her a look. “Please tell me you’re not comparing Ronnie to Kanye.”

  “No, just sayin’, an actor became president, so why not a rapper?”

  Acton pointed at their surroundings. “Watch for any movement. K
eep scanning the entire area. You see something, you let me know.”

  She gestured toward the gun. “You giving me that?”

  He paused.

  “Come on! I’m an excellent shot.”

  He sighed, handing it over. She had done well in the tent, attacking the lioness with her knife rather than running off and leaving him there. After the way she had acted before, he had expected her to simply sit there screaming while he tried not to become dinner.

  She turned her back as he stripped to his underwear, everything on him covered in blood.

  “Would you vote for him?”

  She glanced at him, her eyes locking on his body. He looked up at her as he plunged his pants into the stream. “Hey, I thought we agreed to no looking.”

  She turned away. “Umm, sorry, I uh, didn’t realize you were, you know?”

  “What? So old?”

  “No!” she gushed, turning back toward him. “Buff!” She tore her eyes away. “Your wife’s a lucky woman.”

  Acton smiled, shaking his head as he worked on his clothes. “I like to think so. And you didn’t answer the question. Would you vote for him?”

  She shook her head. “My daddy has too many guns in the house for me to risk it.”

  Acton chuckled. “I guess that explains why you’re handy with a weapon. What about your friends?”

  She shrugged as Acton moved on to his shirt. “Oh God, enough of them are stupid enough to do it just because they’d think it was funny.”

  Acton washed the blood off his face and arms. “Sometimes I think there should be a test before you’re allowed to vote.”

  Courtney laughed. “Yeah, but I’d probably fail. So would most of my friends. The news just isn’t interesting, and there’s too much going on now. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, my phone is going off constantly with text messages, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever. I barely have a moment to myself anymore.”

  Acton stood, shoving his feet into his pant legs. “I wouldn’t want to be a kid today.”

  Courtney glanced at him, her eyes lingering again. He jabbed a finger at the darkness. She quickly complied. “No, it sucks. Sometimes I’d like to just smash my phone so I could get a little peace, but then I’d be piled on by all my so-called friends for being antisocial.” She sighed. “You just can’t win.”

  Acton put his boots on. “Perhaps you should start pruning your friends list.”

  She spun, gaping at him. “Are you kidding? The number of followers you have is like a status symbol. If I got rid of the people I didn’t really know, I’d have like, I don’t know, maybe twenty friends?”

  “How many do you have?”

  She shrugged, handing him the gun. “I don’t know, a few thousand on Facebook, tens of thousands on Twitter and the others.”

  Acton shook his head. He didn’t have a Twitter account, didn’t know what Instagram and Snapchat were—and more importantly didn’t care—and had six friends on Facebook, everything set to private so he wasn’t discoverable. He had too much going on in his life where he dealt with people face-to-face, like it was meant to be. He wasn’t about to waste any of it in the virtual world.

  He pointed to the backpack. “Let’s try to wash the tent out, then we’ll get moving.” Something growled in the distance. “And let’s be quick about it.”

  63

  Poacher’s Camp

  Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa

  Tladi leaned back in his seat, waiting for dawn, dreaming of what a mountain of gold could do for his station in life. But fantasy was one thing, too much of his life spent daydreaming of what could be, rather than what was. It was why he stole, it was why he poached. Working hard in Belfast meant little pay, a sore back, and a hard life.

  None of that interested him.

  Until yesterday, the only fast-track to bettering his position was through crime, poaching the only way he could see his way to the big time.

  But lost gold?

  He had heard of the Kruger Gold. Everyone had. Though it was just a legend. Or so he had thought. Yet now these rich people said it was real, and Florence’s father even had one of the coins. If one coin existed, then others must.

  But he had been disappointed before.

  He needed more information.

  He grunted at one of his men. “Bring her to me.”

  His man nodded, jogging over to the prisoners and cutting her loose. He led her by the arm, roughly, something Tladi had no problem with.

  She glared at him, appearing tired and thirsty, yet still feisty.

  I like that.

  He might just have to have a little fun with her before killing her.

  Because she was going to die.

  They all were.

  Though not until he had his gold.

  He stared at her chest for a moment, then at her face. “You said it was in a mine.”

  She nodded.

  “And you don’t know where.”

  “No.”

  “But my brother did.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you think it’s in a mine?”

  “We found several coins with a piece of coal wrapped inside a jar.” She pulled something from her pocket, carefully unwrapping it. He leaned forward in anticipation. “We think it was left as a clue to where the gold was hidden.”

  Tladi’s eyes narrowed with disappointment, roughly grabbing the piece of rock. He held it up. “Are you kidding me? You think you’ve found a treasure missing for over one hundred years because you found a piece of rock wrapped up in a jar?”

  The woman shrugged. “That’s how archaeology works. You process a site, make a hypothesis, then try and prove it. Quite often you can’t because of the amount of time that has passed. We’ve made a hypothesis, and now we need to try and prove it.”

  He had no clue what this hypothesis word meant, though it sounded an awful lot like a guess. He held up the stone. “My brother died for this.” He threw it away, the woman yelping and rushing over to grab it. Jacob beat her to it as he walked over to join them.

  “Looks like coal.” He tossed the rock to the woman, who caught it, carefully rewrapping it before returning it to her pocket. “What’s so important about that?”

  “She thinks it’s a clue to where the gold could be.”

  Jacob’s head bobbed. “Could be.”

  Tladi’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about it?”

  “I worked in the mines when I was younger.”

  Tladi felt hope returning, however faint. “Where can it be found?”

  “Lots of places, I guess. There’re mines all over the place.”

  Tladi frowned. “Then what good is that?” He leaped to his feet, startling the woman. He pointed at her pocket with the rock. “My brother died for a piece of rock that can be found anywhere. How the hell are we supposed to find some treasure based on that?” He shook his head, rage building from within at the thought of his brother, dead because of these rich, privileged people. “I say we kill them and cut our losses.”

  “But why?” cried the woman. “We’ve done nothing wrong. We don’t know who you are! Just let us go!”

  Tladi wagged a finger at her. “We’ve been over this already. You know Sipho was my brother.”

  “We won’t say anything, I swear.”

  Tladi smiled, pulling his gun. “Of course you won’t. You’ll be dead.”

  64

  Second Acton Camp

  Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa

  Acton positioned the torn portion of the tent against the rock face, a concave in the stone fitting it almost perfectly. He followed Courtney inside, zipping the entrance shut behind them, once again using the flashlight to search for uninvited guests, guests they wouldn’t be able to keep out thanks to the now disturbingly obvious claw marks.

  “Make sure you check your shoes in the morning.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes widened. “What if I have to pee? You ma
de me drink an awful lot of water.”

  Acton climbed into the sleeping bag, Courtney following. “I wanted us super-hydrated. We don’t know when we’ll get access to more water, and it’ll also act as an alarm clock.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ancient Native American trick. We’ll sleep for a few hours then we’ll wake up because we need to pee. That will give us a jump-start on the others.”

  She snuggled up behind him once again. “Do you really think you can save them?”

  Acton closed his eyes. “Not at all. But I have friends who can, and they’ll need to know where they are.”

  “But how will they find us?”

  Acton smiled, pointing toward the sky. “I have friends in high places.”

  65

  Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “We might have found them.”

  Director Morrison stared at the display as he entered the Operations Center, joining Leroux in the middle of the room as footage from a UAV showed a large group of almost twenty people. “What makes your famous gut think it’s them?”

  Leroux flushed slightly. “Because of this.” He motioned and Child brought a second image up showing two heat signatures in what appeared to be a tent.

  “Where’s this?”

  “On the other side of this hill.”

  “So? Could just be a couple of campers.”

  “Not allowed. Besides, they’ve got no fire set or any other heat source. I’m thinking they’re following the other group and are using the hill as a blind.”

  Morrison nodded slowly. “Thin.”

  “Yup, but we’ve got some evidence.”

  “I hope so.”

  Leroux glanced at Child. “Zoom in on the large group.” The image filled the screen, Leroux stepping closer, pointing at five people lined up against the hillside. “These look like our hostages.”

  Morrison joined him. “There’s only five. I thought our intel said there’s at least seven—three surviving members of Ms. Tasker’s group, the Actons, and their two companions.” His jaw slowly dropped. “Ahh, so you think these other two off on their own are the missing hostages.”