We stand inside the passage that winds through the garden and shake. My heart is racing. Our arms are wrapped around each other; her face is buried against my shoulder. “Are you okay?” I’m conscious of the Nikon dangling at my side. I didn’t get a picture of the cat looking down at us. Damn!
She takes a deep breath. “Yes. I’m fine.” We both loosen our grip a bit and she looks up. Not at me but off in her mind, across my shoulder. I begin to understand that most of the fear I felt was hers, not mine. It’s now dropping away and my own thoughts are shifting from the sabre garden to her face–a very beautiful face, even up close.
And then her eyes turn up to mine and I feel it. It’s as though someone or something is pulling, or maybe it’s pushing, forcing me down to her. I want those lips so badly. I know what they are going to be like–soft and moist, warm and succulent.
I resist. I hate myself for resisting. I hate myself for needing to resist. I hate myself for wanting to not resist. My heart races.
I don’t hate myself for wanting her.
Suddenly she pushes away, stumbles back two steps, puts her hand to her chest and says, “Oh God! Did you feel that?”
What do I say? Yes–No? Admit it or fight it? The internal battle ensues, but the word, “Yes,” spills out of my mouth.
“It happened, didn’t it? Whatever it was just happened.”
I stare at her blankly for several seconds before I understand what she’s talking about. It’s not the animal attraction between us, which apparently is only in one direction, but the feeling of approaching tragedy or death that has been growing in both of us for the last couple of days. I did feel it but I related it to the scare we just received in the sabre garden followed by the overwhelming need to press my mouth against hers. I feel foolish and embarrassed.
I look away.
She’s right. The growing tightness peaked in the last few minutes and is now gone.
“Who? Where?” she says.
“It has to be close. Where’s Thomas?”
As if on cue we both begin walking through the garden. Side by side. Not touching. I wonder if she felt anything like I felt or was her mind consumed by everything else? Again I feel foolish. Someone, we agree, just met tragedy or death and I’m still going on about my feelings for a woman who is not my wife. We round a bend and in a flash, all thoughts of romantic feelings for Aileen, guilt and anger at myself, as well as the thoughts while looking in the face of a sabre-toothed cat, fly out of my head. No more than twenty feet away Duchess straddles Thomas Holm’s body.
“Do . . . not . . . move,” I say.
Aileen isn’t moving. As a matter-of-fact I have a hunch she couldn’t move if she had to. I remember reading that there’s something about the human face the Bengal tiger does not like. They attack from the rear, never from the front. There was a documented case that once, while carrying the victim off, the body became lodged in the V of a tree and flipped over, face up. The unavoidable sight of the man’s face forced the tiger to abandon his kill and run into the forest.
I’m praying that this is a fact and not just some made-up story by the local people of Bangladesh, or by the author. As a matter-of-fact at this moment our lives may depend on it.
My heart is racing and my legs want to turn around and run. My mind refuses to let them do that. I finally force a step forward, toward the animal with the eyes at which I am now staring. We are locked in a face down. She lowers her chin, stretches her neck and backs up one step.
“What are you doing, Zach?” Aileen’s words come out raspy.
“Do not turn your back to her. Make sure she sees your face.”
Duchess backs up another step.
“Step forward with me,” I say.
“I . . . I can’t.”
“If your life depends on it, you can.” I reach back. Her fingers touch mine and I hook on, not taking my eyes off the big Bengal. The stripes of color around her eyes brings to mind a mix of vanilla, orange and chocolate pudding; thick and thin chocolate stripes float in a gray and orange field. The eyes themselves are deep blue, deep enough to see inside me. I’m afraid they will find my fear and will know that one aggressive step forward and I’ll turn and run no matter how hard I try to tell myself not to. She steps back again and then again. She has cleared Thomas’ body. She dips her head once more and as if shy turns partially away. I take another step forward, pulling Aileen with me. Her hand is fully in mine now and I am not letting go.
And then Duchess turns and runs down the path, out of sight.
Now what?
Without taking my eyes away from the last place I saw her, I squat next to Thomas and feel for a pulse. There is none. Never will be one again.
“Stay here,” I tell Aileen. “I’ve got to see where she went. If she returned to her area maybe I can close the gate.”
“No! don’t! If you corner her, she may not be so predictable. We can back out of here, go out the side door and go around.”
“We can’t leave him.”
“He’s dead. We can’t help him now. Let’s not add our deaths on top of his.”
I think about that a minute and agree. Let security come in with their dart guns. “Okay. You talked me into it.” I rise and back away from Thomas and then, hand in hand, we walk backwards. “There’s no way she can get around behind us is there?”
Aileen suddenly jerks her head around to our rear. I stiffen. “No,” she says. “No way.”
“Can she get outside?”
“I don’t think so.”
We continue backing until our butts hit the door. We back through it. “How do we go around?”
I follow her and then suddenly we are outside in the cold mountain air. It feels wonderful for a few seconds. We do not have our coats. Soon the cold air starts working on the heavy layer of sweat covering every square inch of my body. I follow Aileen through the knee-deep and sometimes waist-deep snow. It’s wet and I am soaked before I make it a dozen steps, if steps are what one calls it. By the time we get to the front of the domed building, some hundred yards if you believe Lance, much more if you ask me, I am exhausted and my toes and fingers are frozen. I wait while Aileen manipulates the gate controls. The gates have hardly moved when we are through them and into the main building.
While she makes the call I pull off my boots and wet socks. A bare minute later two armed security guys rush in. Aileen tells them what happened. Just before they go out I say, “If you run into her don’t turn your back on her. As long as you face her, you’re safe.”
They look at me like, ‘what the hell do you know buddy?’
“The Bengal tiger does not like the human face, cannot stand the sight of it. She’ll back down if you look at her. You do not have to kill her. Just put her down with the dart gun.”
They look at Aileen. She nods her head and they are gone.
In another minute, Victor shows up with Lance. They listen while she explains in more detail what happened.
“What were you doing in the sabre area without Thomas?” he asks.
“That’s my fault.” They look at me and my bare feet. “I wanted to observe the sabre-toothed cats without a bunch of people hanging over me. Just having Ms. Bravelli along was enough.”
“You went along with this, Aileen?” Victor says.
“Yes. There was no need for Thomas to be there. What were we going to do? Steal a cat?”
It’s only a glance. But I see it and I understand it. It was the ‘we’ word that did it. ‘What were we going to do?’ Victor’s eyes go briefly between Aileen and me and in those few seconds I catch the essence of his thoughts. He’s the one who killed Doctor McCully and I think, though I’m not sure, that it was because he suspected something between Aileen and the doc. It’s also in those seconds that I know I’ll have to be careful from now on. I could be next.
As a matter-of-fact, there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s no doubt in his mind, that I’ve been penciled onto his hit list. He just needs t
o figure out how. It won’t be a simple matter of telling Lance to dismiss me. Not at all. He’ll want me here now, more than ever, so that he can keep an eye on me and find the right time.
“You’re right,” he says. “No reason you needed to have Thomas along.” He walks over to the window that faces the Bengal garden. “What was he doing that she got out? Why did she attack him?”
“I have no idea,” Aileen says.
He looks at me. I shrug my shoulders.
He looks at Aileen and then at me again. He isn’t wondering what Thomas was doing. He’s probably wondering how to get me alone in one of the cat or tiger compounds. He’s probably wondering how to make another accident he can blame on the animals. It won’t be that hard. It already appears the animals are on a rampage.
Chapter 15
If under attack, do not run; face your attacker and smile. Beware of your back.
–from the journals of Zechariah Price
I strip out of my sweat-soaked clothes and shower until my skin starts to wrinkle. I do the undressing and dressing in the bathroom. I know I should act normally and do it in the bedroom, but right now I’m feeling very self-conscious. I get a beer and retrieve the CD and then sit with the computer and record absolutely everything, except my urges toward Aileen. Somehow I cannot put that in writing. To do so would be like confessing. I haven’t done anything to confess.
I finish with Victor Vandermill wanting my death.
I suddenly realize that if something happens to me someone needs to be able to get to this file. I need to get into town and mail a letter to Tanya. I cannot trust any other communications. But what do I say without alarming her?
I put the thought aside, save the journal entry to my secret file buried in Windows and then shift to editing out the parts of what I wrote that I don’t want Victor or his goons, if he has goons, to read. I do a save as of the file under the name, ‘Journal’, and put a shortcut to it on my desktop. Maybe if they find it easily they won’t look any further. I bring up the CD burner software and then drill down to the hidden file, zj.doc. I start the file transfer.
There is a knock at my door.
I look at the CD burner. It won’t take long, but it’s still a couple of minutes. If someone, the wrong someone, comes in now, he or they will be able to see what I’m doing.
The knock comes again.
It’s sitting on the sofa behind the laptop, churning away. I drop a pillow on top of it and go to the door. It’s Victor, Lance and a couple of sheriff’s deputies.
“Zach,” Lance says, “this is Sheriff Shwartzberg and Deputy Andrews. They’re here concerning Thomas Holm’s death. They need to ask you some questions.”
I shake hands with the two officers and invite them all in. I’ll have to move my laptop for seating. My mind races as I try to figure out how to do it without revealing the CD burner. Maybe I’m being alarmed beyond reason. It’s just a computer and an attached accessory. I’m a writer after all. It’s part of my stock and trade. Why am I becoming so apprehensive? If I act nervous the sheriff is going to see that. If I try and move the laptop and hide the burner at the same time, he’ll see that as well and then attention will be focused on it. I don’t need that in front of Victor Vandermill.
“Please have a seat,” I say too rapidly and pick up the laptop and burner together. I forget that the burner is plugged in and almost yank it out of my hand. It is through with the writing process, but I can’t shut it down until I properly eject the CD. I carefully carry it all to the counter, the cord just barely reaching. I avoid Victor’s eyes and return to the sofa. Lance sits down next to me. The sheriff drags a chair across the room and sits facing me. The deputy and Victor remain standing.
“This shouldn’t take too long,” Sheriff Shwartzberg says. “Instead of repeating back to you what I’ve learned from the other witnesses, why don’t you tell me what you saw? How was it that you came upon Mister Holm and how long had it been since you saw him last?”
“Well, going from the beginning so as to answer both your questions, we last saw Thomas on the way out to observe several other animals in the other building. We had to pass through that one to get to it.”
“We?”
“Aileen Bravelli and me”
“Of course. Go on.”
“We spoke with Thomas only for a minute or so to let him know we were going there. That was the last time we saw him alive.”
“How long would you say it was between when you saw him alive and when you found him dead?”
“We were only in the other building maybe six or seven minutes, can’t really say for sure. It was as we were returning that we walked up on Thomas with the Bengal tiger standing over his body. Considering the size of the buildings and the walking time, I’d say fifteen minutes, no more than twenty.”
“What did you do when you walked upon them?”
“I faced her down. She backed up and then turned and ran away.”
The sheriff’s mouth suddenly hung open. “You faced down a huge man-eating cat?”
“Actually, she’s a tiger, Sheriff. Her name is Duchess.”
“Whatever. You’re trying to tell me you didn’t turn and run away from this animal that just finished killing a man.”
“You don’t turn your back on a Bengal tiger. The best thing to do is show her your face. Bengals do not like the human face.”
“Really?” He looks across my shoulder at Victor. “Did you know that?”
“There is some rumor of that in Bangladesh, but I’ve never taken much stock in it.”
To me the sheriff says, “Ms. Bravelli said you scared it away. I didn’t believe her.”
I shrug.
“Then what did you do.”
“I checked for Thomas’ pulse. There was nothing. There was a lot of blood and it was obvious that his neck was broken. We backed out of there, literally, fearing that Duchess would return.”
“Where was his body when you backed out?”
“I’d say about the middle; roughly halfway between the front and the back of the building.”
“On the path?”
“Yes.” The question sounds odd. I look at Lance.
“Our security people found him in the garden. Apparently Duchess returned for him and carried him there to eat.”
I close my eyes and try to block out that vision. “Jesus!” is all I can say.
“Any idea how the tiger, Duchess, got out?” the sheriff asks.
“I have no idea.”
“Mister Holm was alone the last time you saw him?”
I nod my head. “I didn’t see anyone else. I don’t know their procedures as far as feeding and cleaning. I’ve been here only a short time.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a journalist. I was hired by Sans Sanssabre to document their research and results, and then write their story.”
“And what exactly is it that Sans Sanssabre does?”
I look at Lance who is already responding. “We are doing DNA research. We hope to be able to establish a foundation for DNA replication in the medical arena, such as growing new kidneys, and other vital organs, maybe even the heart.”
“Amazing.”
I blink my eyes at the boldface lie and look back at Sheriff Shwartzberg.
“You use the animals in that research, I gather,” he says to Lance.
“Much better than humans at this point.”
“You know, I never knew this place was here.”
“We are not exactly in town,” Lance says. “What we do is highly classified, and frankly, very controversial. Industrial secrets and all that. We try to stay very low key.”
The sheriff stands up. “Well, I guess that’s about it. I’d like to see the area again where Mister Holm was killed, if you don’t mind, Mister Vandermill.”
“Certainly,” Victor says from behind me. “Lance will be glad to escort you there.”
After they leave I go into the kitchen and pull the laptop acros
s the counter out of sight of the camera. When I turn the computer around to face me, I freeze. It’s not how I left it. As a matter-of-fact, it’s not in power-save mode. We talked long enough that it should have been. It means that someone–Victor of course–was into it while my back was turned. He probably sat on one of the bar stools and figured out what I’ve been up to. As a matter-of-fact the window that is open shows what was just copied to the CD.
The journal is password protected so he couldn’t have read it.
But he knows it’s there, on a CD. What else does he know? What else did he see? I close the window and see what else is hanging open. Just my CD burner application. At least I didn’t have the file itself open. I close the application and then think.
The first thing I need to do is get this file sent out to catalog.com. This is the one that will raise questions if something happens to me. I then need to write a letter and get a ride into Kalispell to mail it. If I thought there was a way I’d stop and talk to Sheriff Shwartzberg, but whoever I get a ride with would wonder what I was doing and might talk to the wrong person.
Aileen! Of course. No one would suspect her, would they? And she’s on my side, I think.
I eject the CD, hide it in the cereal box and go get the phone to call Aileen.
The phone is dead. I stand there with it in my hand for a long time, certain it’s no coincidence. Paranoia is closing in. There is no way now for me to contact Tanya by phone or by email, nor to send the zj.doc file out. With one stroke they have stopped me.
I’m trapped. The zj.doc is no longer secret.
I could sneak out. But how would I get out of the compound? How many miles is it to the nearest anything? While flying in I got no feeling for the distance. Twenty, thirty miles? I’d never make it.
I go into the bathroom, sit on the closed lid of the toilet and think some more. Burn another CD. Hide it somewhere else. Find a phone that’s working. Library. There’s a phone in the library. Go down there in the middle of the night. There’s also the boardroom. Three o’clock in the morning it would be empty. Don’t have to turn on lights. Transfer the file. Call Tanya. No! Don’t call Tanya. They probably listen to all the phones, and if they know she knows something they might go after her.
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 11