Gone Wild (Thorn Series Book 4)

by James W. Hall

  Sean glanced at Allison, frowned a question at her. What the hell should she do? Allison tried to send an answer back with her eyes. Nothing. Do nothing. Just stand there, hold the pistol. Wait. Stay ready.

  "This is where Mom used to bring us after the dentist. After the fucking Nazi experiments. Make it up to us, all that pain, letting us walk around here, look at the birds. Tweet, tweet, Ray. Tweet, tweet. Pretend we were off somewhere else, saying the names of places like she was in a swoon. Tahiti, New Zealand, Madagascar. You remember?"

  "I remember."

  "Funny," Orlon said. "I didn't think of it till now. Standing here, everybody with a gun aimed at everybody — hell, you'd think I'd be concentrating on the difficulties at hand. But no. There's Mom coming into it again. Always old Mom."

  At that moment Broom released Patrick and he crashed to the flagstone patio. Rolled two times and came to rest next to a stone bench, faceup. Broom climbed down the bars and waddled to the front corner of his cage and hunched down, staring forlornly at Allison.

  Orlon stared at Patrick for a moment, his pistol still hanging at his side.

  "I never liked that guy. I'm glad to see him come to a bad end. I always thought he had shifty eyes and a weak chin."

  Still looking down at him, Orlon jerked his pistol up, swung around, crouched, and set his aim on Sean, but before he could fire Sean shot him twice in the belly, and Orlon's body pitched to the left. He rolled onto his face and was still.

  With a sob, Sean threw her pistol aside.

  "You killed him," Ray said quietly. "You killed my brother. Jesus. There was no need to do that."

  "Ray," Thorn said. "Your brother was no good."

  "He was my brother. It was my job to look after him."

  "He was no good," Thorn said. "The world's better off with him dead. You're better off."

  Ray stared at Thorn. Then he broke away, made a half turn, and raised his pistol and aimed it at Sean.

  "She didn't even know him. This girl, she just shot my brother without any good reason. She didn't know anything about him. Didn't know what made him do what he did."

  Sean froze. Allison pushed herself to her feet, stepped in front of her daughter, into the path of Ray's aim.

  Ray cocked the hammer back.

  "Orlon was a good man. He just watched too many movies. They confused him. He didn't deserve this."

  Thorn dropped his shoulder, lurched to the right, and slammed into Ray White's ribs. He bulled him across the flagstone patio, got him stumbling backward, carrying him all the way to the cage, where Ray slammed his head against the bars. His pistol clattered to the stone walkway.

  With Broom roaming behind them, Thorn flopped onto his belly and covered the gun as though it were a live grenade. In a moment, Ray took a long breath, pushed himself to his knees, and crawled across the flagstone patio to where his brother lay.

  Ray White squatted beside him, lay his cheek against Orlon's back, and he wept.

  CHAPTER 41

  Bernice Shap had never done anything like this before, never in her wildest dreams, but she couldn't help herself, she just couldn't stand to see the young orangutan subjected to torture another minute at Hickman College, so she'd gotten into her car and she'd driven to Miami where she knew there was a woman, Allison Farleigh, who had connections in Borneo or Sumatra, connections that might allow her to send the orangutan back to the jungle over there where it more than likely came from.

  Actually, the truth was, she'd known Allison's name for some time because she was a member of Allison's organization, read all her newsletters, never anything more than that, just read them. And no way had she ever done anything like this before, and now what she really needed to know was, was it possible for Allison to keep it a secret exactly where the orangutan came from, how she came by it, because the girl was supposed to start the Duke University graduate program next September, and it would totally wreck her chances for that if it became known what exactly she'd done, not to mention the legal problems, stealing something so valuable from Hickman College, but she couldn't help herself, it wasn't right, the experiments, the way the professor was using this ape, she'd never felt this way before, oh, maybe it bothered her sometimes, but nothing like this, the fire, the tests, the way the orangutan changed so suddenly after arriving.

  Allison said yes. She'd take the ape. She thought she might just know where it came from. She'd also try to work out some financial settlement with Hickman for the loss of their ape without revealing to them how the ape was freed.

  As the girl was about to leave, Allison noticed the wedding ring on her finger and asked if she could see it. Bernice Shap raised her hand and Allison touched the stone that had once been hers.

  "Very pretty," she said. "Who's the lucky fellow?"

  "It's over now," Bernice said. Her mouth firm. "I just wear the ring because I like it."

  "Well," Allison said, "may it bring you great luck."

  The girl thanked her, stroked the orangutan once more, tickled it under its chin, made it smile, then she got in her car and drove away and Allison carried the young orangutan with the silver streak into her house and let it roam.

  ***

  The sultan was horrified. He'd had absolutely no idea what was going on, the criminal behavior at work behind this important effort. He had bestowed the honor of handling the work of the De Novo project on his sister's son and then left all the details to him.

  This was an outrage, horrendous, certainly not at all what the sultan had in mind. Patrick had lied to him, misrepresenting the entire project in the most gross and outrageous ways. As soon as the young man was out of the hospital and free to travel, the sultan would see that justice was served. And of course, as Allison was aware, Islamic justice was far more swift and pitiless than the American version. She could be assured that Patrick would be dealt with in the most severe way.

  In fact, Allison was invited to attend the trial. Her presence would be necessary to establish all the facts. And of course, afterward, the sultan would insist on making a substantial contribution to Allison's Wildlife Protection League, a sum, in fact, that Allison was free to name, if only she would consent to spearhead the effort of returning all the captured animals to their original locations.

  Dismantling De Novo would be a time-consuming and difficult undertaking, but the sultan was certain there was no one more qualified, and no one he would trust more to make certain the task was carried out with the professionalism and the good sense that Allison would bring to it. And of course, the sultan assumed that Allison would be extremely diplomatic in accomplishing the task. It was of the highest importance to the entire royal family that the process be carried out as discreetly as possible. Just imagine what the international press might do if they learned of the gross errors of judgment that had taken place, the tragic and unforgivable loss of life. How easy it would be for them to distort the facts and make it appear that Patrick was not the only one culpable. Oh, my.

  The sultan and Allison and Sean stood in the buttery light beneath a golden canopy rigged up on the tarmac of Miami International Airport a few feet from his Concorde.

  "Ten million dollars," Sean said.

  Allison turned and looked at her daughter.

  The sultan said, "Ten million dollars?"

  Allison smiled, coming back to face his Royal Highness.

  "Yes," she said. "We believe that would be the amount necessary to insure the continued viability of the Wildlife Protection League for the next decade or two. We would, of course, give ample credit to you and your countrymen in the newsletter that circulates to our fifteen thousand members."

  "You are very kind."

  "It would be my pleasure."

  "Of course," the sultan said. "Then ten million it is."

  Sean said, "Are you sure, Mother? Is ten million enough?"

  "It will do," she said. "For a start."

  ***

  Two weeks later Allison and Sean were met at Miami Internati
onal Airport by another Concorde. Thorn was there to see them off. They were to fly to Brunei to begin analyzing the scope of the task before them. And on the way there, they would make a brief stop in Kuching to drop the young male orangutan off with Dr. Sidra Tindusiri.

  Since the ape was still quite young, its complete rehabilitation was entirely possible. And because Allison and Sean had convinced the sultan to make a further generous donation to Dr. Tindusiri for the purchase of a few thousand acres of virgin rain forest in the regions adjacent to her preserve, the young orangutan now had a reasonable chance of finding a place where he could be alone and live out his life as he was meant to.

  As the jet's engines roared a few yards away, Allison and Thorn said their good-byes and she walked across the tarmac to the plane. She was halfway up the stairs when she turned around and came back down and jogged back over to Thorn.

  "What did you mean by that?" she said.

  "By what?"

  "That when we got back you'd take me fishing. Show me your secret spots."

  "I didn't mean anything by it."

  "Who else have you shown these secret spots?"

  "Well, there are a couple," he said, "I've never shown anybody."

  "Good," she said, and kissed him briefly. Touched a fingertip to his lips. "We'll start with those."