“You’re running out of time, Elizabeth,” the Beekeeper said. “Where’s my key? You have thirty seconds, and then Donald is dead.”
“What are we going to do?” Mala hissed.
Keen swept the area, looking for a solution. There was always a way out. Always. God, where was Cooper? Keep him talking.
“Hey, I’m willing to discuss this,” she said, and played a standard tactic by adding, “but you have to give a little, too. How about you release one of your hostages as a sign of good faith, and—”
“What is that, page seven from the negotiator’s handbook?” the Beekeeper said. “Don’t insult me. Get down here with that key.”
He jerked his head at the woman, who raised the machete.
And something snapped inside Elizabeth Keen. The Beekeeper was bullying, pushing, pulling, manipulating every step of the way.
Enough. It was over.
“No,” she said into the phone.
“Sorry?” said the Beekeeper. “No, what?”
“If you’re looking for me to say, No, sir, you can stuff your honeycomb up your ass. I mean, no, I’m not negotiating with you. My name is Elizabeth Keen, and I’m working with the FBI. I’ve already alerted the Bureau to your location, and they’ll be here any minute.”
“FBI!” Mala gasped.
“Shush,” Aram said.
“The FBI,” the Beekeeper said slowly, and a ripple went through the assembled drones. “You’re bluffing.”
“No,” Keen said. “I’m them.”
This time the ripple was more pronounced. Keen gave a grim smile as the Beekeeper turned to stare at his drones.
“Not them!” cried Pug. “Elizabeth wouldn’t be one of them!”
“It’s all right, dears,” said Mrs. Griffin. “She’s a damned liar.”
“Indeed!” Dr. Griffin added quickly. “She’s telling tales to save herself.”
That seemed to settle the drones a bit, so Keen spoke again. “The FBI doesn’t negotiate with terrorists,” she said. “You can give yourself up and just spend some time in jail. But if you kill Ressler, there’s nothing to stop us from opening fire on you and your people. In fact, Ressler is the only thing stopping me from killing you right now.”
“So you can see me,” the Beekeeper said, scanning the hills around him. “Where are you, Elizabeth? Can I stand here, behind my Ressler shield, long enough for my people to find you? Or maybe I’m threatening the wrong hostage. During your Circle babbling, you mentioned a great attachment to—”
“Surely we can resolve our differences in a more sophisticated manner than this,” Reddington said abruptly, stepping forward. “Listen to yourselves! Squabbling like children! It’s gotten to the point where you don’t even know why you’re fighting! This puts me in mind of the two families in Romeo and Juliet. I saw a delightful production of the play in Paraguay, though it was in Spanish and lost something in translation. Still, the story rivets audiences the world over.”
“What are you babbling about?” the Beekeeper snapped.
“I was going to say the same thing,” Aram murmured, but Keen waved him to silence.
“The Capulets and Montagues remain at war with each other, which forces their children to hide their love affair and eventually commit suicide with knives and poison,” Reddington said. “And what was behind it all? Money! The real evil in the world. Repercussions that lead inevitably to death.” He chuckled. “What is it Romeo says when he hands over gold for the apothecary’s little flask? I sell thee poison. Thou hast sold me none. Wisdom from a dying man. Don’t you agree, Stuart?”
One of the drones pulled off his mask, revealing Stuart Ivy.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stuart said, his voice just barely carrying into the phone.
“Of course you do, Stuart,” Reddington said. “I sell thee poison. Don’t you recall a handful of years ago, just as now, a chemical weapons deal that went down in a place much like this one? The repercussions of that deal led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East. Money. Poison. Honey.”
A jolt went through Keen.
“Oh my god.”
The Beekeeper seemed to sense he was losing control of the situation. “Look, Reddington, you’re a hostage here. One word to my people, and—”
“Oh, Benjamin, is your memory going, too?” Reddington interrupted. He strolled closer to the Beekeeper, a friendly smile on his face. “You had black hair back then and you didn’t wear the glasses, but weren’t you involved in that other chemical weapons deal? The one that went wrong?” His jovial tone hardened. “And didn’t it end in the death of a woman named Vivian Ivy?”
“Jesus!” Keen said, forgetting that the phone transmitted her words to the Beekeeper.
“Who’s Vivian Ivy?” Aram said.
Stuart’s face, until now a picture of composure, twisted into a rictus of agony. “You killed my Vivian, you goddamned son of a bitch!”
“No swearing!” Pug admonished.
“Such language from a pensioner,” Reddington said. “Benjamin, I believe you’re looking for this, is that right?”
Keen gasped. Reddington was holding up his flash drive.
The abrupt change in subject seemed to confuse the Beekeeper for a moment, and for a split second he looked like a tired old man blinking behind coke-bottle glasses like a half-blind insect. Then he recovered himself and the confident mask returned.
“Give it to me, Reddington,” he said.
“What the hell is he doing?” Keen breathed.
“It’s yours, Benjamin,” Reddington replied, holding it out. “A gift.”
Griffin stepped over to Reddington and reached out to pluck the flash drive from his hand. At the last second, Reddington moved. He flicked his free hand into his coat pocket, snatched out a hypodermic, and stabbed it into the Beekeeper’s neck.
“For Vivian, you bastard,” he snapped. “A little overdose.”
The Beekeeper slapped a hand to the wound. “What—?”
The drones and Mrs. Griffin looked on in startled shock as the Beekeeper dropped to the ground. He writhed and squirmed in obvious agony.
“Sweet,” he groaned. “Oh, god. The sky tastes… sweet.”
Then he shuddered hard and went still.
“I have sold you poison,” Reddington said. “Or perhaps you sold it to yourself.”
“No!” cried Mrs. Griffin.
Pug dropped the bullhorn and put his hands over his face with a low moaning sound.
Several drones drew on Reddington. Dembe emerged from the cave mouth and tackled one of the drones from behind.
Ressler shot to his feet. With a quick movement, he wrested the machete from the female drone and clocked her with the handle. She went down. Ressler threw the machete at one of the drones, hitting its arm.
Dembe wrestled his drone’s pistol away.
The other drones swung their own weapons around toward Ressler and Dembe. They hesitated a tiny moment, uncertain about firing toward their own people, but Keen knew they wouldn’t hesitate for long.
She scanned the area, desperate for something, anything, that might help. Then she saw it. Without another thought, Keen sucked in her breath and aimed the rifle.
“What are you doing?” Mala asked tensely. “They’ll kill everyone!”
Keen fired three rounds. All three went straight into the boxy beehives.
Bees poured from the hives.
They boiled out in an angry cloud that attacked everyone and everything that moved. The drones’ masks protected their faces, but not their hands or necks. The bees crawled up their sleeves and stung. The bees crawled down their shirts and stung. The bees crawled up their trouser legs and stung. The drones, including Stuart, yelped and howled and slapped at themselves. Most dropped their weapons. Nearly all of them fled toward the trees. Pug completely ignored them, groaning into his hands like a tree in a windstorm. Only a few drones remained behind.
“Yes!�
�� Aram whooped. “Keen, that was brilliant!”
In the confusion, Dembe went for Reddington. He hauled his boss away from the center of the group of drones. Ressler followed, wincing as all three of them got stung as well. Ressler pointed a little ways away from the cave mouth at the stockpile of weapons Keen had noted earlier, when she and Dembe had first arrived at this vantage point. Most of the drones had by now vanished into the woods.
The trio ran past Mrs. Griffin. She scrambled to her feet and, ignoring the bees, plowed into Reddington with surprising strength. The move caught him and Dembe completely off guard. Mrs. Griffin snatched the flash drive from Reddington’s hand, then staggered away shouting. Keen couldn’t hear what she said—the Beekeeper was lying on the satellite phone.
“Come on!” Keen yanked Aram to his feet. “We have to help!”
“Why doesn’t Dembe get the flash drive from Mrs. Griffin?” Aram panted.
“He only cares about Reddington,” Keen replied grimly. “Go!”
They ran down the slope toward the cave with Mala close behind. Aram’s teeth were tight against the pain of his injury. Dembe and Reddington had reached the weapons dump and were yanking the camouflage netting away from the crates with Ressler’s help. Where had Stuart gone? Mrs. Griffin stood in the mouth of the cave, and now Keen could hear her.
“Jakes and Billford! Hurley and Wells!” she snapped. “Stop Reddington. I want him dead! Lawford, Hill, and Pug, you’re with me. Back to the chem lab!”
Keen stared. Mrs. Griffin? What was going on here? She was always so quiet, so mousy, so—
No. She wasn’t.
In a split second, Keen’s mind flicked back over the times she had seen Mrs. Griffin. Heard her suggest. Listened to her hint. Watched her gesture. And every time she asked for something, Dr. Griffin gave it to her.
“The Beekeeper is still alive,” she whispered.
“What?” Aram said, startled.
“The Beekeeper isn’t Dr. Griffin,” Keen said. “It never was. It’s always been Mrs. Griffin. A Hive is always run—”
“—by a queen,” Mala finished.
Mrs. Griffin, Pug, and the two other drones bolted back into the cave. Keen’s heart tightened beneath her ribs. Mrs. Griffin—the real Beekeeper—had the key, and had power to launch the helicopter drones. She pelted toward the cave entrance.
The trio reached the thinning cloud of bees. A red-hot needle pierced the back of Keen’s neck, and another stung the back of her hand. She ignored them and kept running. The rifle banged against her back.
“Lizzie!” Reddington shouted.
“Hold them off!” she ordered over her shoulder. “I’m going after Mrs. Griffin!”
The four drones to whom Mrs. Griffin had snapped orders managed to get weapons up and were firing at the weapons dump, ignoring Keen. Red welts were already rising on their skins. Bullets chattered and pinged off the crates while Reddington, Ressler, and Dembe crouched behind. Two of the drones were moving around, trying to flank the dump while the other two continued firing from the front. Dembe’s hand showed momentarily over the top of the dump, and a small object arced toward the flanking drones.
“Jump!” Keen barked.
Mala and Aram leaped for the cave mouth just as the grenade went off. The explosion crashed against Keen’s ears and bones. She landed hard and stomach-surfed a yard or two onto the wood floor of the main cavern. Aram and Mala came to earth beside her with pained grunts. Shouts, screams, and more shooting came from outside the cavern. Keen thought of Reddington, Dembe, and Ressler out there. They could take care of themselves. The helicopter drones had highest priority.
The main cavern was empty. The carvings, including the Great Tree and its boulder, crawled eerily over the walls, their beauty a sharp contrast to the sounds of combat leaking in from outside the cave. The stings on Keen’s hand and neck burned.
“Where is everyone?” Aram said.
“The chem lab,” Mala said. “This way!”
They scrambled toward one of the side tunnels. Belatedly it occurred to Keen that it would have made more sense to circle around and come into the lab from its own outdoor entrance, where the helicopter drones were lined up and ready to go. Now it was too late and too dangerous to take that option.
Many of the lights in the tunnels were out. Someone had cut power, at least partly, maybe to slow them down. Was it Mrs. Griffin? God, the woman was a general. Keen made her way through the gloomy cave. Damp, chilly air pressed in on her from all directions. Aram’s breath wheezed behind her. Mrs. Griffin as the queen of the Hive. It made sense now, and in retrospect it seemed foolish of her to have missed it. The way the Beekeeper didn’t use any of the drones for sex should have been the biggest clue—all cult leaders used sexual dominance to hold their position. The Beekeeper didn’t because he wasn’t really in charge.
They rounded the bend in the tunnel. The chem lab was just ahead. Keen heard the noises of the lab, including shouted orders from Mrs. Griffin. All traces of the gentle old lady were gone.
“We can stop her,” Aram said. “We can—”
Pug loomed in the tunnel ahead of them. His head nearly brushed the ceiling. His face was as hard as the cavern walls. They jerked to a halt. Mala gave a squeak.
“You want to hurt Mrs. Griffin, and I will not let you,” Pug said.
Keen slumped. Not this. None of this was Pug’s fault. Dr. Griffin and Mrs. Griffin had done this to him.
“I don’t want to fight you, Pug,” she said, bringing up her rifle. “And I definitely don’t want to shoot you. Let us pass.”
“You made Mrs. Griffin very angry,” he said. His massive form all but filled the cavern. “And the Beekeeper is dead. A very bad man killed the Beekeeper. I am sad. And I am angry. I will not let you pass me.”
“A lot more people are going to die,” Aram said. “Mrs. Griffin is going to kill them.”
“Too many words. You must be punished now.”
Pug rushed toward them. Keen fired.
Or tried to.
All she got was an empty click. The rifle was out of ammo. Keen had just enough time to register this before Pug slammed into her. She flew backward and hit the tunnel wall. Pain thundered up her back.
Aram, not a fighter under the best of circumstances, snapped a punch at Pug. It connected with Pug’s mid-section with a thud. Pug looked down as if a butterfly had landed on his stomach. He plucked Aram’s wrist away with a meaty fist, and Aram screamed with pain. Pug gave a casual twist and tossed Aram aside like an old sock. He slammed to the floor. Keen heard a terrible, wet snap.
Mala backed up a step. “Pug,” she said. “Listen to me. I know you loved the Beekeeper. But he wasn’t as nice as we thought. He and Mrs. Griffin are trying to kill thousands of people.”
“Mrs. Griffin said to kill you,” Pug snarled. “You will die now.”
Keen struggled to hands and knees. With every muscle aching, she crawled toward the two of them. Pug’s back was to her, and around his bulky body, she could just see the terror in Mala’s eyes.
“What would your mama think, Pug?” Mala said.
Pug halted. “My mama?”
“Didn’t you tell me she came to every one of your football games? How proud of you she was?”
“I liked football,” Pug said. “Mama always watched.”
“You loved her,” Mala told him. “What would she say if she knew you helped kill all those people?”
“Kill them?” Pug said. “The Beekeeper said it’s okay to cull people if he said so.”
“Would your mama say it’s okay?” Mala said, backing up another step. Keen crawled another couple of steps forward. She was right behind Pug now, but had no idea what to do. She looked around him and up at Mala, who glanced in her direction.
Pug shook his head. “You’re confusing me! Mrs. Griffin said you have to die! You have to be punished or I will be in trouble! I—”
Mala bolted toward him. The move caught Pug off-guard, and s
he slammed into his chest. He outweighed her nearly three pounds to one, but he tipped back just a little bit. Straight back into Keen’s hands-and-knees prone body. It was the oldest trick in an elementary schoolboy’s book, but it worked. Pug tripped over Keen and his legs went out from under him. His arms pinwheeled in frantic circles. More pain slammed across Keen’s back, and she forced herself to roll free of Pug’s kicking feet. One of them caught her on the shoulder, but she got clear. Pug went down with a tree trunk crash. He gave a soft groan and lay still—out cold on the stone floor.
“Poor guy,” Keen said, and meant it.
Aram tried to get to his feet, grunted, and fell back to the floor. “Oh, man. Oh my god.”
“Are you all right?” Keen asked.
“No.” Aram tried again, winced, and sat back down. “I think something’s broken. I can’t stand up. God, it feels like knives. It’s already swelling up.”
Keen ran her hands gently over Aram’s leg. He sucked in his breath, and it didn’t take an expert to tell his lower leg was indeed broken. That in addition to the gunshot wound on his other thigh.
“You’ll have to leave me here,” he said. “I’ll be fine. You have to stop Mrs. Griffin.”
Keen nodded reluctantly.
Mala, meanwhile, did a fast search of Pug’s belt. “He has a pistol, but no rifle ammo.”
“Give it,” Keen said, and checked the action. She left the rifle on the tunnel floor. “Let’s go. You’ll be fine, Aram?”
“I’ll have to be. Cooper should be here any second, but not fast enough to stop her. Go!”
Keen and Mala tried to dash down the tunnel but Keen found she could only manage a fast limp. Her back was on fire, and she clenched her teeth to keep back little yips of pain. The tunnel opened into the enormous, echoing chem lab. Keen caught a glimpse of the helicopter drones on the far side of the room with Mrs. Griffin hunched over a computer nearby. A shot rang out, and a bullet glanced off the stone wall. Keen whipped back into the tunnel, and her back screamed at her.
The Blacklist--The Beekeeper No. 159 Page 25