Nick dreaded his next call – to Rance Osborne, FBI Director. His boss would have a few choice words for him, because Nick had sidestepped official bureau policy by meeting with a suspected terrorist without back up. Of course, this wasn’t the first time Nick had blown-off an official policy during an investigation, but this was the first time that he actually felt guilty about it. A government official’s life remained at risk.
He punched Rance’s home phone number into his satellite phone and pressed Call. He turned away from the paramedic. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
4
T
he next morning, a stiff gulf breeze whistled through the open sliding glass door into the suite where Blossom and Clay were examining the gold chest. The sheers fluttered and billowed inward with each gust, but they failed to distract the couple. Their attention was directed on the problem of how to open the locked chest, so they could search the interior for any objects that might identify its ancient owner. Blossom photographed the chest numerous times from every conceivable angle with her digital camera, but even the close-ups failed to pick-up any clues that they might have missed with their own eyes.
The phone jangled and they both flinched. Blossom snatched the receiver before the second ring.
“Professor Anders! Thanks for returning my call so quickly,” Blossom said excitedly and immediately proceeded to detail their dive and discovery.
“That’s amazing!” Professor Anders said after Blossom finished. “Don’t force the chest open. We’ll get a locksmith to open it when I arrive tomorrow.”
Blossom’s eyes were large brown marbles. “You’re coming here?”
“As luck would have it, I got another call today to inspect a construction site not far from Pirates Cove.”
“A construction site?”
“Seems the construction workers found some bones. Actually, a lot of bones.”
“But why bring in an archeologist, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Professor Anders laughed. “Seems some of the bones they found are human and others are not so human. Or so they say.”
Blossom gasped. “You mean the bones might belong to an undiscovered species?”
“I highly doubt it, but I’m going to meet them at the site in the morning. Are you and Clay going to be around tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sure.”
“How about I swing by your motel around three?”
“Perfect.” Blossom gave her the directions to their motel and hung up.
Clay wrapped his arms around her and squeezed gently. “You didn’t tell the professor that we’re engaged.”
“Oh God, you’re right. I was so surprised that she was coming down to see us that everything else kinda slipped my mind.” She kissed him. “I’m sorry.”
“Not much of an apology,” he said, feigning a pout.
Blossom shoved him backwards and he fell across the bed. She grinned seductively.
“I’ve got a much better apology planned, big boy.” She slipped her shirt over her head, tossed it on the dresser and displayed her bare breasts.
There was a knock at the door.
“Maintenance,” the voice in the hall announced.
“Shit!” Blossom exclaimed and tugged the shirt back on. She strode out of the bedroom. “Sorry,” she mouthed to Clay and opened the door.
Three armed men slammed against the door, knocking Blossom to the floor behind it, and rushed inside. One of the intruders grabbed her shoulder, roughly yanked her to her feet and smothered her mouth with his large hand. The other two pointed their guns at Clay, who stood in the bedroom doorway and helplessly watched the stranger manhandle his fiancée.
“Hands behind your head or die!” a short man with a shaved head and a maze of tattoos curtly ordered. Clay complied reluctantly, his anxious eyes never leaving Blossom.
The first man into the suite removed his hand from Blossom’s mouth and forced her down onto the loveseat.
“Scream and your boyfriend dies,” he growled.
Suddenly, Blossom recognized her attacker. “Jay!” she whispered. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The man she referred to as Jay glowered at her. “Catching my girl cheating with pretty boy there.”
Anger displaced her fear. “Dammit, I’m not your girl and I haven’t been for over eight months. I told you that we were through and I meant it. So get it through your thick head that . . .”
Jay bent and slapped her face. Clay lunged forward, but the tattoo man gave him a solid uppercut to the solar plexus that knocked the air from his lungs. Clay doubled over, gasping for breath.
Jay glanced at Clay and then the tattoo man. “The next time pretty boy moves, shoot him.”
“No!” Blossom shouted, and Jay slapped her again.
“Cheatin’ bitch!” he yelled. “You and me were made for each other, promised to each other by the tribal elders, but here you are sleazin’ around with a white man. A goddammed white man! Us Indians got to stick together, Blossom. Can’t have no white man thinnin’ our bloodlines.”
She gingerly touched her face and felt the heat swell her cheek beneath her fingers. “You’re crazy, Jay,” she said softly, “and that’s why I left you. There was a time at Nebraska University when you were actually . . . civil . . . kind, but that changed when you abandoned your circle of friends for them.” She pointed at the tattoo man and the tall thin blonde man with pale blue eyes.
Blossom studied Jay. Yes, the two of them had been a romantic “item” since junior high school, but Jay grew increasingly distant and secretive the past two and a half years. He would mysteriously disappear on weeknights and over long weekends while she stayed in the dormitory alone, waiting and worrying. When he did return, he refused to tell her where he’d been. All Blossom could get out of him was that his frequent absences were connected to activities on behalf of the oppressed Indians and other minorities everywhere. He bragged that he was going to be part of some kind of worldwide revolution, and until then she would just have to trust and support him. Maybe some day, he said, she would be invited to join their cause.
Of course, she had no intention of joining any radical organization so she transferred universities and left him alone with his faction.
Jay Walkingman’s long black braids were shaved to stubble, and a merciless countenance displaced his former warm and smiling one. Hate plowed deep furrows into his forehead and at the corners of his eyes; his formerly sensuous lips were reduced to terse, cruelly drawn lines.
Blossom sighed. So many changes, but yet he obviously still cared enough to seek her out. His love – or lust – for her remained constant despite the other major changes in his life.
Or had it? Blossom suddenly got some bad vibes about the situation. Perhaps he thought of her as a possession, not a person. If that was the case, he wouldn’t be content with just reclaiming her. Following Jay’s twisted logic, he’d have to dispatch his competition. For good.
That morbid conjecture iced her flesh and roiled her stomach.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? I can read it in your face, sweet Blossom,” he smiled. “You’re right, I am crazy – crazy like a fox. I’m an important part of something big. Something so big that it will shift the world’s attention to our righteous cause. Bring the world to its knees like a cheap whore. Governments will be begging to meet our demands,” Jay boasted.
“Sounds terrific. I’m so proud of you,” she said sarcastically. “So why are you here instead of bringing the world to its knees? You expecting us to join your cause? Or is your big plan to bully the world, two people at a time?”
When Jay raised his hand to strike her again, she defiantly awaited the blow and made no move to avoid it. He lowered his hand.
“You’re going to see it all, Blossom. You’re going to be a part of our cause, whether you like it or not.”
“Part of what cause?”
“Patience, my love. Next week, you’ll be singing our praises
,” Jay predicted.
“You sound like a common terrorist to me,” Clay said. “Leave Blossom here and take me with you instead.”
“I ain’t no queer, white boy!” he snapped. “Why would I want you in my bed?”
Clay lunged forward again, but quickly stopped when he felt the cold barrel of the tattoo man’s gun pressed hard against his ear.
“Just stay out of this, white pig!” Jay growled and turned toward his blonde companion whose eyes were dull expressionless orbs. “Get the chest, Lonny.”
Lonny jostled Clay on his way to the bedroom.
“No!” Blossom objected. “Not that! It has historical relevance.”
“To me, it has financial relevance. Now stand up. We’re leaving,” Jay ordered brusquely.
“I will not,” Blossom replied obdurately.
“You mean you’d rather stay here with your white-bread fiancé?”
“How do you know about that?”
Jay laughed. “I watched the entire touching engagement scene from my boat yesterday.”
“You’re a Peeping Tom these days, too?”
Jay slapped her cheek again. “We cruise the area for dive boats and lighten them of their loads.”
“So you’re the jerks responsible for the boat thefts around here,” she said, fighting back the tears. Jay’s slaps stung like hell, but she was too stubborn to submit to his bullying.
He shrugged. “It’s all for the cause. We need a lot of coin for our operation. Our major operation.”
Lonny returned with the chest. His thin biceps bulged from the weight.
Jay yanked Blossom from the loveseat and dragged her toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“No!” she screamed. “You’ve got the chest; now leave us alone.”
“You belong with me, Blossom.” He turned to the tattooed man. “Let the white man go.”
Tattoo released Clay and joined his companions while Jay drew his gun. “Consider this an un-engagement present, Blossom.” Jay sighted the barrel and fired. Clay spun backwards into the bedroom and collapsed to the floor.
“Nooooo!” Blossom screamed again, reaching out for her fallen Clay, but Jay shoved her into the hall.
He grinned spitefully. “Now you have no reason to stay here, my love.”
5
C
row sat at the bar in the Wild Dolphin Bar and Grill on the Pompano Beach Pier and sipped a Bacardi and Coke. He had spent the morning deep-sea fishing, and although the captain of the commercial fishing boat promised Crow that he would get his sea legs after an hour or so, he didn’t. Now he was inside the cool seedy bar trying to rediscover his land legs. Never, he promised himself, would he ever venture out on the ocean again. Give him a river or stream where he could fish without the perpetual rolling swells and the accompanying sickness.
Crow was the computer genius for the FBI’s Orion Sector division. He had built one of the world’s most powerful and resourceful computers and named it Geronimo, reflecting his Native American heritage. He was in the middle of a two-week vacation and he was rapidly growing bored. He was used to a fast paced environment, not the leisurely pursuit of wasting time beneath the broiling Florida sun.
Crow was the only name he gave to his friends and employer. No last name and no middle name. Actually, he hated his birth name, and when he left the Omaha reservation to go to college, he legally changed it.
He was short and stocky with his long black hair woven into twin braids. His knotted biceps displayed his daily exercise regimen, and his face suggested a man younger than his thirty-six years. Crow’s keen deep-set black eyes never missed a detail. The half-moon craters bordering his wide down-turned mouth belied his dry sense of humor.
He glanced around the Wild Dolphin Bar and Grill and sipped his drink. The ceiling was draped with fishing nets while several spear guns, a whaling harpoon and a pair of stuffed sailfish adorned the pitted cedar walls. The table legs resembled barnacled pier supports, and numerous starfish and conch shells dangled above the gray tiled bar countertop. Faded window blinds kept the torrid afternoon sun at bay, and a half-dozen, low-hung ceiling fans kept the cool air circulating.
He ordered another Bacardi and Coke and glanced up at the muted newscast on the plasma television mounted above the mirrored shelves lined with liquor bottles. Another Jimmy Buffet Caribbean melody played on the jute box while the deeply tanned, drop-dead gorgeous blonde bartender swung her hips to the beat as she placed Crow’s drink in front of him. Suddenly Crow’s eyes widened. The television station cut from the news desk to a still photograph of his niece, Blossom; a picture of her Tallahassee boyfriend followed it.
“Can you turn up the volume?” Crow shouted and pointed impatiently at the television. By the time the bartender found the remote control, the news anchor had moved on to another story.
Crow’s sat phone rang and he snatched it off the counter. He covered one ear to block out the bar din and listened silently for a minute; his dusky complexion grew darker. After he disconnected the call, Crow tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and rushed out of the Wild Dolphin Bar and Grill.
After stopping twice to ask directions, Professor Lisa Anders finally located the remote rural construction site. It seemed like a long day already and it was barely eleven in the morning. Her early morning flight from Tallahassee and the car rental transaction in Tampa were a breeze, but when she attempted to check into her motel before ten that morning, the desk clerk rudely informed her that check-in was at four that afternoon. Lisa was forced to drive into the steaming Florida wilds with all her luggage in tow.
Professor Anders parked her black Jeep Liberty rental beside the Warnke Construction Company command trailer and entered. Inside the cool interior, Russ McKutchen and George Patrick, the Charlotte County medical examiner, greeted her. McKutchen’s eyes roamed Lisa’s shapely form as she shook their hands.
Lisa Anders was the youngest Florida State University archeology professor at age thirty-two. She moved with the unexpected grace of a dancer, not the awkwardness of a stereotypical field professor. Her fine red-gold hair was styled short, with wispy bangs veiling her forehead. Her oval face was a delicate ivory sculpture and spattered with freckles, but her fiery hazel eyes were anything but delicate. Her sensual shape was displayed beneath snug blue jeans and a tight coral tank top.
George Patrick was the first to step forward and introduce himself. Patrick was a plump gay bachelor in his mid thirties, and his dour countenance hinted at a solemn nature. His round face sported a van dyke beard, brown salted with gray, and his blue eyes were magnified behind thick black-rimmed glasses. He mopped his gleaming baldpate with a folded handkerchief. Dr. Patrick was a perpetual sweater who often joked that he could sweat in a cold shower.
Russ McKutchen was tall, olive-complected and was in his early forties. His face was plain and raisin-wrinkled from decades of continuous exposure to the Florida sun. It was one of the hazards of outdoor work in the Sunshine State.
“Russ McKutchen, Professor,” Russ offered and handed Lisa two-dozen photos of the bones that they discovered in the muck. The bones had been cleaned and photographed in Dr. Patrick’s lab in town.
“Lisa, please. Professor sounds so stuffy. You wouldn’t happen to have any bottled water in here?”
Russ nodded and retrieved a bottle from the small refrigerator beside his desk.
Lisa smiled gratefully and took a long drink. “Thanks,” she said and proceeded to study the pictures. After several minutes, she spread them out on the drawing table.
“I take it that the short deformed bones are the ones in question?” she asked.
Patrick nodded. “The shape, texture and coloring had some people jumping to conclusions about their origins,” he said with a slight lisp, glancing accusingly at Russ. “But after my preliminary analysis, I concluded that those bones are human after all.”
“But why are they so deformed?” she inquired.
“That took a while longer
to assess, but of course my findings are only preliminary. The feds are picking up the bones tomorrow for a thorough analysis,” he explained. “After pulling an all-nighter last night, my staff and I believe we’ve located the mutating agent.” He paused to wipe the welling perspiration from his face.
Russ and Lisa waited anxiously.
“We’ve isolated an unknown virus in the marrow. One that has very unusual properties.”
“Such as?” Lisa was growing impatient with this self-righteous little man. Extracting information from him was like pulling teeth.
“Well, the virus appears to be able to transform the cells around it without altering its own form.”
“Transform them how?”
“This is going to sound incredible, but the virus appears capable of rejuvenating cells before altering them completely.”
“Make cells younger?” Lisa asked.
Russ chuckled.
“What?” Lisa demanded, her face suddenly beet-red.
“You looked like the cat that swallowed the canary when ole doc here was talkin’ about that rejuvenatin’ part,” Russ replied with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, I couldn’t help it,” she bristled. “It sounds a lot like something people have been searching for forever.”
“The fountain of youth,” Patrick said, clucking his tongue. “A fable if there ever was one. This is science, Miss Anders. Pure and simple. And this virus no doubt existed in this neck of the woods long before the first white folks arrived. It’s a killer and we’ve got to isolate this area until we are absolutely certain that no one has been exposed and become a potential carrier.”
“Is it an airborne virus?” she queried.
“We just don’t know, and until we do there’ll be no more excavating or exploring these premises.”
Lisa looked at Russ. “Do you have thermography scans on site?”
“Shore do.”
Russ unrolled the thermal scans of the entire construction site, and they huddled over them.
The Ancient Breed Page 4