The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels)

by Jon Land

  She had just steadied herself in a normal riding position when a figure hurled itself with a scream over the track’s side atop her. Hedda saw the man’s knife in time to ward off the first strike and launch a vicious elbow into the face now level with hers. The man screamed again and went for Hedda as the sled slid into a steep drop. Hedda had managed to wedge a leg forward against the lever to keep the wheels lowered all the way, but had yielded position to her assailant in the process. The man rose over her, and when Hedda turned to focus on his knife, his free hand cracked into her chin. Hedda felt her head being forced over into the track whistling by beneath them.

  That certainly further fueled her desperation. Her own people were out to do the job they had failed to do in Lebanon.

  Hedda fought to jam one hand into the attacker’s face while the other locked on the wrist bearing the knife to keep it away from her body. Trees and bushes sped by, and the sled rolled precariously up on the track’s side, nearly sliding off onto the adjoining turf. The man continued trying to force Hedda’s head down, and she managed to maintain the stalemate. Her advantage was that she was in control of the sled. Steadying her leg against the control lever, she dipped her shoe to the lever’s far side and jammed it toward her instead of pushing it away. Instantly the wheels were pulled back with brakes lowered in their place. A grinding screech found her ears, and her assailant was lifted slightly forward. Hedda was ready for the sudden stop, but the man wasn’t. She twisted out of his grasp and maneuvered on top of him.

  Maintaining her control of the man’s knife hand, Hedda shoved his head sideways until it came into contact with the curved track siding. At the same time she jammed the control lever all the way forward again, wheels lowered as the sled dipped into its steepest drop yet. Her ears were stung by the sound of the man’s skull scraping against the asphalt, a trail of blood left in his wake. Straining every muscle, she heaved him off the sled into the brush rimming the track.

  By the time Hedda’s sled was moving again at top speed, she heard gunshots behind her. Another pair was pursuing her on sleds, firing at the same time. The shots were errant, though, both because of the movement and the awkward firing positions.

  Hedda grasped the lesson in that and reached beneath her for her Sig Sauer. After snapping a fresh clip home, she tucked it into her waistband within easy reach. Then she stood up and found an uneasy balance, as the sled sped into a straightaway where a banner read SLOW!

  Hedda saw that the sides of the track had lowered to almost nothing. Her sled wavered fitfully as she struggled for an uneasy equilibrium with right foot working the control lever. She kept it pressed as far forward as it would go and rode the track standing fully upright like a surfer on a huge wave.

  The track banked into a sharp curve that sent her listing almost parallel to the ground. The sled righted in the other direction and Hedda compensated by shifting her weight, gun now steadied in one hand. The pursuers dropped into the straightaway and caught clear sight of her standing form for the first time. The one on her track fired from a crouch with his machine gun, but another curve came up fast and Hedda disappeared around it. When the gunman swung round the same curve, Hedda’s gun was trained on him. A bullet spun the man around and lifted him airborne, and he flew off the track through the air.

  Hedda turned forward again in time to shift her weight to jibe with the bends of an S curve that featured a smiling wooden figure between the tracks holding a sign urging CAUTION! She swung fast at the sound of wheels speeding down the other side. The other man had risen, too, but was unable to maintain his balance. At the instant he pulled the trigger a sharp curve threw him from the sled, and Hedda watched both sled and rider fly from the track as bullets stitched the air.

  Hedda, meanwhile, had no idea where precisely on the track she was. She knew sight of a blue water slide on her left would mean the final stretch was coming. She took a curve hard, and again her sled flirted with the edge of the track. Behind her the grinding whoooosssssh from around the bend to her rear signaled another pair of attackers closing fast, one on each track. They broke into the open, and from her sideways standing position Hedda could see both had settled into crouches that permitted them to steady their machine guns across the front of their sleds. The staccato bursts pierced the warm air and echoed along the brush of the mountainside. Hedda did her best to aim through the turns and curves, but the bullets from her Sig were faring no better than the opposition’s automatic fire when it came to hitting targets. Her next squeeze of the trigger brought a click, signaling an empty clip.

  Her pursuers’ automatic weapons provided them with a much fuller sweep, and Hedda presented an easier target for them than she would have wished. She took advantage of a thickly wooded area rimming the track to reload her Sig and was ready when she re-emerged into the open.

  Twisting to her rear, Hedda snapped off a series of rapid bursts as her opposition’s automatic fire fought for a bead on her. One of her bullets ricocheted off the asphalt track siding and grazed the enemy on her track. His sled wobbled fitfully, and he was pitched headlong over the side, thumping across the ground. The gunman across wavered as well, and again Hedda widened the gap between them.

  Hedda knew he had no choice but to go all out to catch her, and she elected to let him. She negotiated through an especially difficult bank turn to the left and chose it as her spot, since it would come equally as hard for the gunman speeding her way.

  His sled rolled up and nearly over the track’s edge as he swung into the bank. Hedda saw his body wavering from side to side in the last instant before she fired the final two bullets in her clip. Impact tossed the man upward into the air from the track, while incredibly his sled held to its position and continued straight on, slowing by itself.

  Hedda ejected the spent clip and extracted a final one from her jacket pocket.

  The squealing approach of a sled running with wheels all the way down on the adjacent track alerted her to yet another attack. She turned and saw a large man thundering for her, machine gun in hand. If her count of the men atop the mountain was correct, this was the last one she’d have to contend with. He opened fire, and one of his bullets bounced off the asphalt and stung Hedda’s wrist, numbing it. She lost her grip on the fresh clip she had yet to slide home into the Sig. It fluttered in the air, and she snatched at it futilely before it dropped to the ground behind her. There would be no outgunning this final adversary now. Outrunning him seemed equally impossible.

  The track! Think of the track!

  It swerved to the left toward the blue of the water slide en route to the final straightaway leading to the foot of the mountain. She caught glimpses of the crowd fleeing in a panic brought on by the gun battle. Cars thundered from the parking lot. Sirens wailed, drawing closer.

  Hedda realized where her only chance lay and crouched low, readying her legs to spring as she wrapped the hand she could still feel around the control lever. She didn’t need to look behind her; her ears told her everything she needed to know about the enemy’s position.

  Bullets singed the air above her, and a few pounded the asphalt at the lower rim of the track. Above her, the attacker dropped into the sharp turn that banked into the final straightaway, machine-gun fire drawing a closer bead.

  Now!

  She jammed the control lever toward her, brakes meeting the asphalt surface with an ear-wrenching screech. She braced herself to avoid the violent forward thrust of stopping short and rose to stand erect as the gunman whizzed toward her. Her sudden stop had spoiled his aim, and he worked frantically to diminish his own speed.

  Hedda leapt when the man’s sled drew even with hers. Impact drove both of them through the air, their progress stopped when they slammed into the rim of the water slide. The machine gun was still held to the man by a strap slung round his shoulder, and he fought to gain control of it again. Hedda had expected him to do precisely that. She wedged the gun against his body with her numb hand and pounded his face with her oth
er. The man managed to twist away after the third blow, slippery and lithe as a snake as he tore himself from Hedda’s grasp, almost free.

  The sounds of water rushing by in the slide gave Hedda the idea for her next strategy. Grabbing hold of the man’s hair, she yanked violently and propelled both of them all the way over the rim into the water slide itself. The pair, inseparable now, crashed down the jetting currents with Hedda on top and the man struggling to relocate the trigger pinned beneath him.

  Hedda ignored the gun; grasping a thick handful of the man’s hair, she bashed his head against the frame of the water slide. Then she twisted it around so that his face was pressed into the swirling waters as they dipped and darted through the S-like design. Hedda kept the pressure up with all her might, the man’s flesh taking the brunt of the contact with the water slide’s bottom. They hit the pool at the slide’s end hard, and Hedda jammed the man’s face down one last time to force as much water into his lungs as possible.

  He sank slowly to the bottom, and she bounded out from the pool. Around her the chaos was everywhere. She rushed for the parking lot in the hope she would be able to join it.

  “You!” a scream ran out behind her. “Stop!”

  She had been seen, then, identified as one of the parties in the battle that had raged up on the mountain. Before her in the parking lot cars continued to scramble away. Perhaps she could reach one just as its owner was inserting his key, or yank a driver from behind the wheel.

  She was charging forward with that intention, when a trio of police cars blared into the parking lot and headed straight for her. She spun around to flee in the opposite direction and saw an old sedan hurtling toward her. Hedda lunged out of its way, and it screeched to a halt beside her. She caught a glimpse of the driver and couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Get in!” Chalmers ordered.

  Chapter 22

  FOR A LONG MOMENT, she couldn’t move.

  This was Librarian, her control! He had set her up in Lebanon, deceived and then tried to kill—

  “I said … get in!” the speaker wedged against his windshield blared.

  Bullets slammed into the ground around her, and Hedda jumped into the backseat.

  Librarian jammed the big sedan into reverse and floored the accelerator before she had gotten the door all the way closed. Just as it caught, the sedan’s rear end slammed into a pair of police cars speeding for it. Librarian spun the wheel and floored the gas pedal in a desperate move to escape. Bystanders dove from its path as the car tore forward, jumping the curb and clanging hard to the pavement. Its back window exploded and showered Hedda with glass. She could hear Librarian’s labored breathing, coming from his speaker, she thought, and not his mouth.

  The slight head start Librarian had gained over his pursuers wouldn’t last long. In hopes of foiling the pursuit, he spun the big sedan onto an unmarked, unpaved road a mile down the main drag before the police drew back in sight.

  “Listen to me,” he rasped, turning around to look at her.

  “The road!” she screamed, as the car left the road and headed for the trees.

  Chalmers looked back too late. He managed to swing the wheel to avoid a head-on collision, but impact was nonetheless jarring. Hedda kicked her door open and moved around to his. The radiator was hissing from the white steam that was rising from beneath the crumpled hood.

  “Come on!” she screamed at him, finding her feet. “Hurry!”

  Chalmers mouthed, “Can’t.”

  Hedda stooped and grasped a rock. “Look away,” she warned, and then smashed what remained of the driver’s side window. Still not understanding why Librarian had chosen to rescue her, Hedda eyed him warily, then reached inside to grab him. His leg was pinned between the crushed door and the seat. Hedda pried it free and hoisted him out.

  She gazed back up toward the road, over two hundred yards away. “I don’t hear them yet, but they’ll be coming. We’ve got to move.”

  From the ground, Librarian mouthed, “My speaker.”

  Still eyeing him with caution, Hedda reached inside the car and found it lying on the passenger seat. Then she hoisted him to his feet and began to drag him away. When it was obvious he couldn’t walk well enough to cover any ground, Hedda effortlessly placed him over her shoulders. None of her own wounds were serious, but there wasn’t a part of her that didn’t ache beneath her slowly drying clothes.

  She brought Librarian as far into the woods as she thought necessary to avoid pursuit from whoever found the car. For some reason, he had helped her escape, even though the Gunmen back at the slide might as well have been the same ones from the Litani River Bridge. She set him down and gave him his speaker.

  “Time to talk, Librarian,” she ordered.

  “Chalmers,” he mouthed.

  “What?”

  “My name is … Chalmers,” he mouthed again, reaching for his speaker.

  “You saved my life back there.”

  A nod.

  “Why? You tried to kill me first, and then you save me. Why?”

  He fumbled the speaker as he drew it upward. Stretching the cord out, he found the pronged end and raised it obscenely for his throat. Three holes peeked out from the discolored patch, looking like bites from a vampire. Chalmers felt his way and jammed the prongs into the proper slots.

  Instantly a wheezing sound emanated from the speaker, a wet gurgle like that of a man bleeding to death inside.

  “No,” emerged through the wetness.

  “Bullshit!”

  “I let you … escape in … Lebanon.”

  “Your men shot at me! They hit that boy!”

  “But you lived … You got away … like I knew … you would.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “They wanted you … dead. I couldn’t… do it. Not … after Deerslayer.”

  “No! You had him killed!”

  Chalmers’s expression looked pained. “Like killing … a piece of … myself.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t … do it again… . Not to you … not to the … others.”

  “The Caretakers?”

  Chalmers nodded. “They were mine … You were mine… . I couldn’t hand … you over to … him.”

  Hedda felt chilled. “To who?”

  “Not yet,” Chalmers said, shaking his head.

  Hedda grabbed him at the shoulders. “Now!”

  “You’re not … ready yet… . Trust me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I … saved your life … twice now.”

  “But you lied to me. You lied to Deerslayer. About the boy. All of it, lies! His father wasn’t Aramco, he was an organic chemist.” Hedda stopped. “Wait. If you arranged the boy’s kidnapping, why’d you need me to get him back?”

  “Screens … fronts … everywhere … the Arabs held … the boy for us… . But then they … wouldn’t give him … back. We tracked … them down and … sent you.”

  “So you could kill him?”

  “No. Just you.”

  Hedda slid backward, suddenly wanting to put distance between herself and Chalmers.

  “I would have … returned the boy … to his father.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I expected … you to do … what you did… . I knew you … would save the boy… . I let it … all happen … because it was … the only way I … could keep you … alive.”

  “Why bother?”

  “Because you … are the best… . That’s why I … need you now.”

  “Need me?”

  “It may be too … late to stop him.”

  “Stop who?”

  Chalmers seemed to be catching his breath. Hedda spoke again before he had a chance to reply.

  “Lyle Hanley’s son was kidnapped to force him to create a poison deadly to the touch. My God, that’s what this is about. Whoever it is you suddenly want to stop has the poison! That’s it, Librarian, isn’t it?”

  Chalmers nodded slowly.

 
“What else?”

  “I don’t … know.”

  “I do. The way the poison is going to be delivered is somehow connected to a plastics company that burned to the ground yesterday. I think the poison was placed in plastic strips and then shipped to a trio of paper mills as part of some secret government contract. But what is it that’s coming out of those mills?”

  Chalmers’s face twisted in puzzlement. “I don’t know… . I never did.”

  “But you do know millions of people are going to die, don’t you? You know that’s what The Caretakers were involved in the whole time. I’ve seen Pomeroy, Librarian. I know what I am, what all of us were. But I still don’t know who I am, Chalmers. Who am I?”

  “You don’t want … to know.”

  “I have to know. You said you need me, but I’m not going to help you until you tell me who I am!”

  Chalmers regarded her thoughtfully. She didn’t realize he was speaking again until she heard the speaker’s rasp coming from next to his lap.

  “Only name that … matters,” he started with strange evenness, “is the one … you were … wanted under.”

  “Wanted?” Hedda waited with breath held and stilled heartbeat as Chalmers’s next words emerged.

  “For murder. They … called you … Lucretia McEvil.”

  The memories came flooding back as pieces of her story emerged through the speaker in rasps and gurgles. Hedda didn’t need to hear it all; enough was returning on its own, triggered by the name.

  Lucretia McEvil …

  The name for her the press had used a dozen years ago. It was all coming back to her, and she realized with terrifying starkness that August Pomeroy had been right: she indeed did not want it to. The easiest memories to suppress are those the conscious mind would prefer to smother. Pomeroy had said that was what made her a willing subject. So much she wanted to suppress. Becoming a different person was infinitely preferable to staying the one she had been.

  Fragments of a fractured life came back to her in large chunks, fitting themselves together as Chalmers continued to speak. Her eyes left him and focused on the speaker in his lap, but soon they saw nothing other than what her mind had denied her for years.