by Ted Dekker
Casius glared at him. Looking at the man, a small portion of sorrow spread through Sherry’s chest. There was a whole history there that neither she nor Petrus could possibly know.
She dropped her eyes to the fire, suddenly feeling heavy. “I was told yesterday that life comes through dying.” She lifted her eyes and saw that Casius stared at her. “Are you ready to die, Casius?”
She had no idea why she asked the question. Really she was asking it of herself. A knot rose to her throat and the flames suddenly swam. She swallowed.
Casius tossed a stick onto the fire, sending a shower of sparks to the ceiling. “I’ll be ready to die when death defeats me.”
“So . . .” She was speaking again, and she still wasn’t sure why. “Death hasn’t put its claws into you yet? You yourself haven’t felt the effects of death— you’re too busy killing.”
“You speak too much,” he said.
This was all wrong. She didn’t mean to insult this man. On the other hand, he reminded her of everything she’d come to believe was offensive. Men like Casius had killed her parents.
“I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m not grateful for your help—I am. You just bring back some pretty . . . awful memories. I’ve seen enough killing.” She looked at Petrus. “The father told me that for every killing, there is a dying. There were two sides to the crucifixion of Christ—a killing and a dying. Like in some grand chess match, there are the black players who are the killers, and there are the white, who are the die-ers. One kills for hate, while others die for love. I was just coming to understand that . . .”
“You show me someone—anyone—who dies for love, and I’ll listen to you. Until then, I will kill whom I have to. And you should learn to keep your mouth closed.”
“You are CIA?” Father Petrus asked.
He pulled back into himself then and breathed deliberately. “I’ve said too much already. I’ll be back as soon as I check the perimeter.” He stood abruptly, walked to the entrance, and slid out, leaving Father Petrus and Sherry alone with the fire.
And the lizard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Wednesday
THEY SPENT the rest of the morning in an odd silence, waiting for signs of a search, huddled speechless in the small cavern. Several times the woman made comments in hushed tones, but Casius immediately lifted a finger to his lips. As long as they were in the cave, they wouldn’t have the advantage of being able to hear an approach. Their own silence became critical. He was glad for the restriction.
Casius made the fifth perimeter sweep of the day, stepping lightly from tree to tree, eager to confirm the direction of any search party and resume their journey north. Eager to step beyond the strange dichotomy that seemed to rear its head as the day progressed.
He decided that the priest’s and woman’s presence was simply an inconvenience. A kink, as he’d said. As long as he ignored them, they wouldn’t be much of a threat to his mission. He’d soon dump them in the arms of safety and continue. He pulled into the shadow of a large Yevaro tree and scanned the slope before him. Several times helicopters had beat low over the trees, possibly carrying men to the search. So far, none had ventured this deep.
He leaned on the tree and thought about the woman. Sherry. She was an enigma. For reasons out of his grasp, ignoring her was more difficult than he had imagined. She kept popping into his mind like one of those spring-loaded puppets. Only she was no more a spring-loaded puppet than he was her monster. The talk had put a spur in his chest. A small ache. And what about you, Miss Sherry Blake? You and your mission from God, come to the jungle to die with your priest. What kind of heart do you have?
A good heart. He knew that and it gnawed at his mind. She’d surprised him with the questions earlier and he had surprised himself even more by engaging her. An image of her leaning back in the dim firelight rose in his mind’s eye. Her dark hair lay on her shoulders; her hazel eyes glistened like marbles in the flickering flame. The white T-shirt was no longer white, but muddy brown. She had well-muscled legs and a silky smooth complexion under the dirt. Her cold had turned her voice husky and her eyes a little red. She’d slept again—stretched on her side, her head resting on her arm. Sherry Blake.
He’d seen someone who looked like her before. Not Shania Twain or Demi Moore, but someone from his past. Someone from Caracas maybe. But he had shut out his past. He couldn’t even remember what his father or mother looked like. They said the stress of the killing had done that. Washed out portions of his mind.
Casius left the tree and scaled the hill to his right quickly. He paused at its crest and listened carefully. Far off, possibly as far as the mission, another helicopter whacked at the sky.
The snap of a twig interrupted his thoughts and he shrank back into the tree’s shadow. Down the slope, slogging away from them, three men headed back toward the mission. So they had come and gone then. He watched them step carefully through the brush, dressed in khakis and a mismatch of paramilitary garb. They held their course and disappeared through the jungle.
Casius turned and retreated to the cave quickly. He found Sherry on her side and the priest poking a stick at the ashes, attempting to revive the dead fire. Light streamed in through the vines at the entrance now.
“I’m sorry, but I had to extinguish the fire when the fog lifted,” he said, dropping to one knee. “They’re gone. We’ll go now.”
He slid through the opening, followed by the woman and then Father Petrus. It dawned on him that if a guard had been waiting in the open he would have hardly noticed. He swore under his breath. For all their talk of killing, the pair might be the death of him.
He looked at Sherry, suddenly struck by her beauty in the full light. “Let’s go,” he said.
“WHERE DID you last have them in sight?” Abdullah asked. It was late and he was tired. Tired from the lack of sleep, tired of incompetent men, tired of waiting endlessly for Jamal’s call.
Ramón leaned over the map in the security room. Other than the laboratory below, this room contained the only real sophistication in the compound. There was the processing plant, of course, and the conveyors that took the logs to the chute through the mountain, but those were relatively basic operations. Security, on the other hand, was always a matter of the highest regard in Abdullah’s mind. Not even Jamal knew what he had here.
The map showed the boundaries of the perimeter security system, a sensitive wire buried several inches under the forest floor. Using radio waves, the system showed the mass of any object that crossed over, allowing them to distinguish animals of smaller mass from humans.
“They crossed here.” Ramón pointed to an area south of the compound. “Three persons. Traveling fast, I think.”
Abdullah blinked, letting the last statement settle. Who could possibly be in the jungle so close to the compound? Hunters maybe. The infection on his lip throbbed and he ran his tongue over it gently. “How can you know they are traveling fast?” he asked.
“They crossed the perimeter here and then exited here, ten minutes later. At first we thought they had left, but within a few minutes they reappeared here.”
Heat spread down Abdullah’s neck. Hunters? Yes, hunters might move about like that. But so deep in the jungle? It could just as easily be a sniper with his spotter. Or a reconnaissance mission, launched by some suspecting party. The Russians, perhaps, somehow tipped off as to Yuri’s location after all these years. Or the CIA.
Or Jamal.
“And what have you done?” he asked.
“I have ordered Manuel to pick them up.”
Abdullah whirled to the man, his eyes glaring. “Pick them up? And what if it’s a sniper? How do you plan on picking up a trained sniper? You don’t just pick up trained men; you take them out!”
Ramón stepped back. “If we kill them and they are in contact with some authority, then their absence will be a warning. I thought they should be taken alive.”
Abdullah considered that, turning from the man as
he recognized the validity of the man’s point. “But you don’t just pick them up as if they were stray dogs. You saw how well Manuel did with the mission compound. How can you possibly—”
A rap suddenly sounded on the door and Ramón opened it.
Manual stood, winded and breathing hard. “We have spotted them, sir. Two men and a woman.”
“Good!” Ramón said. “Take them with the tranquilizers.”
Manuel turned to leave. “And Manuel,” Abdullah said. “If you let these three escape again, you will die. Do you understand?”
The guard stared wide-eyed for a moment and then dipped his head.
CASIUS LED them through the jungle at a punishing pace. To make a statement, Sherry thought. The statement that he wanted to leave her and her big mouth for the animals. They moved steadily through the trees, down one slope, over the next, up a cliff, through a creek, only to begin the cycle again.
The man dragging her through the brush was a killer many times over, that much was now painfully obvious. Like the men who had killed her parents. Killers for some abstract cause, ignoring the simple fact that for every one they killed, someone else was sentenced to live with that death. A brother, a sister, a wife, a child. No telling how many nightmares Casius had spawned in his years. She detested the man.
On the other hand, he had saved her life. And every time he spoke she found herself chasing away an absurd sentimentality. As if he were her guardian.
God forbid.
But true enough. It was why she had become so angry at him, she decided. It was as if her parents’ killer had stepped out of her nightmares and come to save her with a flashing smile. One last twist of the knife.
The muscles in his calves balled and flexed with each stride. His bare feet moved effortlessly over the forest floor. Sweat glistened on his broad shoulders. At one point she found herself wondering what it would feel like to run a finger over such insanely massive muscle. She quickly dismissed the thought.
Father Petrus took up the rear, and Sherry thought about his suggestion that she was now on God’s path, waiting for God to reveal truth as he saw fit. And if so, then this man was also a part of God’s grand plan. Maybe somehow connected to the vision. Yes, the vision that came around each night like the falling of a pole-driver. That mushroom growing huge, night after night.
Casius had paused three times in the last fifteen minutes, surveying the land ahead carefully. Now he stopped a fourth time and raised his hand for silence.
A flock of parrots squawked into flight above them. Sherry held a hand to her chest, feeling her thumping heart beneath her fingers. “What is it?” she whispered.
He jerked a finger to his lips, listening.
CASIUS HAD felt it four times now—that hair-raising sense of prying eyes. They had progressed to within two miles of the compound, the last three hours under cover of darkness. He would leave Sherry and the father there under the shadow of several large boulders, scout the plantation quickly, and return for them within a few hours. He would then take them to the Caura River and return depending on what he found at the compound.
At least that had been in his mind. But now this tickle at the base of his brain unnerved him.
He had seen no sign of men. And yet that fourth sense—as if they’d been monitored by invisible eyes for the past fifteen minutes. In the dark, the man who used surprise wielded the biggest weapon. As an assassin he had relied heavily on sudden surprise in darkness. Losing it now with the woman and the priest would force him to abort his plan until he could get rid of them.
On the other hand he had been careful, staying under the heaviest canopy and avoiding ridges. Only a lucky observer could have picked them out and then only with powerful scopes. If there had been men stationed on the ground, he would have discovered them; he was confident of that.
Casius lowered his hand and stepped forward. Behind him, Sherry and Petrus followed. Although they hadn’t talked, Sherry’s disposition toward him had changed in the last few hours, he thought. Less animosity. Sharing the struggles of life and death united even enemies, it was said. Maybe that accounted for his own growing apprehension over leaving her alone while he scouted the plantation. In fact, it could have been her presence that brought that tickle to his neck.
Within ten minutes, they came to the edge of a clearing. Twenty yards out a small pond shone with the moon’s reflection. Three large boulders jutted from the ground at one end. He turned to them and nodded. “All right. See those boulders? I want you to wait under them for a few hours while I scout ahead.”
Sherry stepped next to him, breathing steadily from exertion. He could smell her breath, like only a woman’s breath could smell, although he could not imagine why—she hadn’t worn lipstick or gloss for at least twenty-four hours. She peered ahead, her lips slightly parted, apprehension clear in her round eyes. Her shoulder touched his arm and it startled him.
She faced him and he shifted away as casually as possible. “A few hours? For what?” she asked.
Casius opened his mouth, not sure what he intended to say. It was then, with his mouth gaping and she looking like a puppy up at him that the faint coughs carried to him on the wind.
The instant before the darts reached them, he knew they were coming. And then they struck, whap, whap, the first in his arm, the second in his thigh. Thin and hairy and buried to their hilts.
Tranquilizer darts!
Whap, whap! Sherry was hit!
His first thought was of Friberg’s face, grinning back in Langley. His second was of the woman. He had to save Sherry.
He slung an arm around her waist and pulled her back, deeper into the jungle’s cover. She was saying something. He could smell her breath, but he could not make out her words. He faced her and saw her wide eyes, inches from his face.
Casius staggered back as the drug swept through his veins. He fell, still holding the woman, breaking her fall with his own. Far away a shout rang out. Spanish, he thought. So he had been followed. But how? Something heavy rested on his chest.
Then his world went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Thursday
RICK PARLIER stood over Tim Graham, who fiddled with the tuning dials on the satellite transmitter. They had been in the jungle one night, and already the insects were taking their toll. The satellite dish had been set up in the canopy within minutes of their securing a base on the mountain’s crest. Contact had been established with Uncle, Rick’s designation for their U.S. link, and Graham had confidently settled down next to his toys. The receiver was left on at all times, and the frequency altered every thirty minutes to a schedule followed by all three parties.
It had been an hour since the receiver had first started sputtering, refusing either transmission or reception.
“There it is.” Graham withdrew what looked like a giant winged ant from the opened receiver. “Bugger chewed right through the variable volume resistor. Made a mess. Should be all right now.”
Five minutes later, Tim Graham hit the power switch and handed the mike to Parlier. “Should work now.”
Parlier took the mike and depressed the transmission lever. “Uncle, this is Alpha, Uncle, this is Alpha. Do you copy? Over.”
Static sounded over the speaker for a moment before the response came: “Alpha, this is Uncle. Read you loud and clear. Where the heck you been?”
“Sorry. We had a little problem with our radio. Over.”
There was a pause and the voice came back on. “Copy, Alpha. What is the status of the target? Over.”
Parlier looked out into the jungle. Uncle had reported a disturbance at some mission station twenty-five miles south and had speculated that it might be connected with their target. Then nothing. No action, no word, no nothing.
He pressed the toggle. “No activity on this side. Beta and Gamma report no movement. Will advise, over.”
“Roger, Alpha. Keep to the schedule. Over and out.”
Give me equipment that works i
n the jungle and I will, Parlier thought as he handed the mike back to Graham. “Good work, Graham. Keep this radio clean. We can’t afford another break like that.”
“Yes, sir.”
Parlier stood, walked to the boulders cropping from the crest, and glanced over his men. Phil and Nelson were on glass duty, peering diligently through the high-powered field glasses to the cliff lip below. Next to them, Giblet rested on his back, shooing away various flying insects with his hands. His sniper rifle sat propped on a tripod beside him, readied for a shot. Of course, even if they did spot the man, it was highly unlikely that Giblet would have the time to get a shot off. And even if he did, it would be a quick one—he could miss.
Graham’s recommendation that they descend to the cliffs had gnawed in his gut all night. Beta and Gamma had established similar observation posts from which they studied the forests in the valley below. In addition to the cliff, they watched the canopy, looking for anything unusual that might indicate the passage of humans below them. So far they had observed nothing.
Except for insects, of course. They had observed plenty of those.
Parlier walked back to his radioman. “All right, Graham. Tell Beta and Gamma to hold tight. I’m taking this team to the cliff.”
Tim Graham grinned and snatched the mike from its cradle. “Immediately, sir.”
“Make sure you explain that we’re not going to the cliffs. We’re just going near the cliffs. You got that? And tell them I want them on the horn if they hear so much as a monkey fart.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?” The radioman grinned.
“Pack up. We’re headed down.”
DAVID LUNOW knocked once and walked into Ingersol’s office without waiting for a response. The man looked up, staring past bushy black eyebrows. His hair slicked back nicely, David thought, the kind of hairdo he could wear without washing it for a week.