The Bequest

by Hope Anika

  THE BEQUEST

  Hope Anika

  Copyright © 2002, 2015 Hope McKenzie

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Other books by Hope Anika:

  * * *

  The Getaway

  Aequitas

  In Plain Sight

  Evolution: Awakening

  To Dan

  For Believing

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  The Getaway

  Prologue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  When he dreams, it’s always of the desert.

  Of the sun, baking him slowly and turning his skin into blistered rawhide. Of the wind, scouring his flesh as effectively as steel wool. Of the sand, encrusting his skin so deeply he knows it is possible to drown in a pool of miniscule golden grains.

  Dusk descends, and the sky is breathtaking in its intensity: gold and pink, orange so deep it could be pure flame. A disorienting paradox; hell should be ugly and bleak and without hue. That such brilliance washes the horizon infuriates him, an empty promise no one will keep. The mockery of night is no better: stars glitter like a sea of diamonds, and the thick, glittering twist of the Milky Way pulses as if sentient. It tempts him to believe.

  In something. Anything.

  With every return to this patch of earth, he notices details he missed. Little things: the faint vibration beneath his feet as the helicopter approaches, the small hole on the bottom of his left boot, the Boston Red Sox bandana Hogan is wearing. Nothing of significance. Nothing important.

  Nothing that will stop what is to come.

  “Fucking wind, fucking sand, fucking shit hole!” someone snarls.

  Kent, maybe. Or Hogan. He doesn’t know. The wail of wind that surrounds them like a keening child is almost deafening, the sand a maelstrom that swallows them whole. His eardrums throb to the beat of the rotors of the incoming Apache helicopter.

  “Life with Alpha Team 6 sucks ass today,” another adds.

  No one disagrees. They are exhausted. Homesick; heartsick. Tired of the sun, the sand, the blood. The rhetorical struggle in which they find themselves engaged: one god pitted against another, a fruitless argument over existence where death is the only victor.

  “They’re early,” Hogan mutters. His hands are chapped and blistered as he straps the wooden crates tightly together. The lettering painted across the top of the warped wood is oddly beautiful; a biting irony. “Command confirmed 2100.”

  Hogan’s unease trips his own, a switch that immediately puts him on full alert, but they can see nothing beyond the whirl of sand and darkness. The sky is hazy, an endless black blur broken only by the infrared lights mounted on the copter’s steel frame as it grows near. Next to them, Kent and Rye are carefully stacking the last of the crates, their faces stark with tension behind the bandanas they wear in effort to hold the sand at bay. Pale with dehydration, skin reddened and chapped, limbs fatigued from swimming through sand.

  These are his men. His brothers; his family. They have followed him relentlessly, with such unwavering belief it astounds—and sometimes shames—him. Into every nook and cranny of this godforsaken country, down every IED and mortar strewn road. Without question or protest. They are good men. Men he would die for.

  He claps Hogan on the shoulder, but when he speaks, his reassurance is harsh, crushed glass in his throat. “Could be the storm.”

  Hogan shakes his head once, a decisive rejection. “Feels wrong, boss.”

  He knows he should turn away and conduct another security sweep, but the power of Hogan’s rebuff uncoils and stabs deep, rooting him to the hard desert ground he occupies. They remain alive in this land of sand and death only because they do not discount their gut; instinct is a far more useful tool than any weapon they’ve been given. And he trusts Hogan’s gut.

  He squints at the incoming copter, seeking reassurance through the surge of sand and grit, but his heart pounds with breathtaking force. The winds grow stronger, a wild, feral howling that feeds his growing disquiet. Foreboding whispers down his spine as he glances at the crates—simple wooden boxes that house death. Coveted and hunted by every faction under the sun, from pole to pole.

  The Apache is upon them now; he can feel the steady whoosh whoosh whoosh of the rotors pulse inside his skull. His gut is thick with acid. Deep inside, where his soul clings to tenuous life, a cry of panic wells.

  “Fall back.” He gives the order abruptly, instinct pushing through protocol. “Get to the fucking ridgeline. Now.”

  The stark wall of sandstone is steep, but riddled by narrow canyons and deep crevasses in which to hide. They know these hollows intimately, as familiar with them as with the underbelly of their armored Humvee or the firing mechanisms of their weapons. They are the only haven to be had in this hellish land.

  “Boss?” Rye questions.

  “To the ridgeline,” he repeats and steps next to the crates. Inside his skin, dread swells like a corpse bloated by death. “Go.”

  His rank overrides the argument he can see in their gazes, pitting their need to stand with him against the indoctrination of their training. That disapproval is the very thing that leads him to protect. He goes first. Always.

  His men fall back as the Apache lands. The sandstorm is intensified by the circling blades, and he is swallowed by a suffocating golden cloud. Grit fills his throat as he lifts his night vision goggles and straps them into place. Blood roars in his head, a dizzying rush as the sand pummels him.

  The copter bobs as it hits the desert floor and creates fresh chaos. A brutal storm of sand and rock and desert scrub pelts him, tearing unprotected flesh. Poppy petals whirl into flight like confetti. Behind the thick lenses of his night goggles, he tries to make sense of the figures who are jumping from the copter.

  He can hear nothing but the rotors—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the jackhammer of his pulse, the sickening rush of his blood. As he watches the figures grow closer, Hogan’s words are a drumbeat in his skull.

  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

  Two things happen in that moment. First, he realizes the Apache is not powering down; the rotors circle ceaselessly, their speed unabated. Second: the men who have disembarked the copter are not wearing fatigues. Or SEAL gear. Or any military issued wear.

  He turns; his gaze clashes with Hogan’s as the first the bullet tears through his flap jacket, burrowing into his back to pierce his left lung. A cry of warning lodges in his throat, coated by blood and fury.

  Go.
<
br />   But it does not escape.

  The second bullet plows into his right hip and drops him where he stands, next to the crates. Fire bursts to life in his lungs. His breath whistles through his lips, and he can feel blood, warm and wet, streaming down his back, his thigh, filling his lung. He rolls over, and his hip threatens to separate from its socket. He flirts with oblivion, but in his brain the knowledge that if he sleeps, he dies hammers at him. So he grits his teeth and blinks it away, blood spewing from his mouth to sprinkle the sand like flower pollen. And he focuses.

  His weapon is heavy, but he clasps it tight, squeezing so hard the steel cuts into the flesh of his palm. It steadies him. Behind him, Hogan is screaming—fury given sound —and regret threatens to undo him. He forces himself to his knees, but his hip gives and he wobbles like the Yoda bobble head Rye once glued to the dash of their Humvee. He wrestles for breath, struggling to suck in enough oxygen to stay conscious. Blood pools next to him, black and oily in the night.

  He lifts the SSAR-15 and fires, but his aim is wild, an unsteady arc that sends his shots sharply to the right; he kills nothing but a stray Creosote bush. He grasps futilely at the sand in effort to find purchase, but the grains collapse beneath him. He pulls the trigger again and knows a fleeting, intense moment of satisfaction as three of the bodies heading toward him fall. But when he moves to fire again, buoyed by his small success, a third bullet shatters his right forearm and a broken, enraged sound tears from his throat, expelling the last of his remaining air. His hip gives, and he falls back, his body convulsing beneath the onslaught of blood loss, oxygen deprivation and massive trauma. His weapon disappears into the sand.

  Darkness beckons, but he clings to the only lifeline left: consciousness. His goggles are askew, but he can see the booted feet of the men who have come for the crates, who will take them.

  Steal them. Sell them. Use them.

  They speak in low, guttural tones of Arabic, but he doesn’t recognize the dialect, can’t make sense of their words, and as they step over his body, one of them kicks his wounded hip hard enough to shatter what little is left holding him together. It is everything he can do not to react. To stare sightlessly into the storm, unblinking, blood seeping from his mouth to drool down his jaw. To deny himself breath.

  Because he will live; there will be vengeance. Violent, malicious, soulless retribution.

  A laugh echoes around him. Husky, low. And there is something in that sound that marks him, a wound deeper than any other, a memento more effective than any of the scars that will mar him.

  I will know you. And death will follow.

  The crates are gone, leaving nothing but perfect squares stamped into the sand. The Apache lifts, abandoning the bodies of the fallen to the harsh desert landscape, where they will be perfectly preserved in their murderous glory by the dry air. A licentious act—symbolic of identity—and he tells himself to remember. As the Apache fades from sight, a plume of glittering gold sand drifts down over him like a silent eulogy.

  Hogan is sprawled on the sand only a handful of feet away; he is missing most of his skull. Just beyond him, Rye lies in a pool of blood so profuse it seems impossible that it was ever contained in only one body. Kent and Axel have fallen to his left, their heat signatures fading into muted splotches of pale pink, weapons still clutched in hand.

  Dead.

  War has taught him that life is altered in an instant, a span of time so quick it cannot be comprehended, but still, he is stunned they have disappeared so quickly, so thoroughly, from existence. Erased. And the rage that has kept him awake and alive steeps into every breath, every cell, until his pores bleed black with hate. Purpose is born; a need for vengeance so deep there is no consideration of failure.

  Live. Live to kill.

  Around him, the night is as black and still as the death that has come for them. There is no sound beyond his own rasping battle for air—no moans or groans or twitching limbs. No hope.

  Dead.

  All but him.

  The temptation to follow beckons sweetly, but he does not deserve to live a life none of them will have. He is their leader; none should have gone before him.

  Not one.

  And for a moment he can only think it is better to let his blood stain the hard desert ground here, now, than to exist in the shadow of their obliteration. Better to give up than to go on.

  But the purpose born within him will not allow such an easy end.

  Get the fuck up and live. You have people to kill.

  Retribution must be his lifeline. That his vision swims with inky streams, and his thoughts break apart, shattering as quickly as his bones have beneath the onslaught of bullets, makes no difference. He will push himself to his feet. He will make it to the village beyond the ridge.

  Because he is the only one left. No matter his pain, his rage, the grief that chokes him like a murderous hand. He is all there is: the only one who can sound the alarm that the crates have been taken. The only one for whom blood will be the sole recompense.

  As he reaches out and pulls himself across the barren land—like fucking nails, shredding his flesh—his eviscerated soul is rewoven, dark and feral and starved for vengeance. Justice.

  Life for life.

  Someone he trusted has betrayed him. Someone he will find. Someone he will kill.

  Chapter One

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “As in...kicked the bucket? Bought the farm? Sleeping with the fishies?”

  “Er…yes.”

  “Huh,” Cheyenne Elias said. “Well. Better late than never.”

  The punctuated silence on the other end of her cell phone spoke for itself—silencing people was something at which Cheyenne was proficient. The sad fact of it was, shutting people up was ludicrously easy, because they were usually so full of foolish expectation.

  Death brought the expectation of grief. But grief was a product of loss. And this was…

  Plus column all the way, baby.

  “I contacted you because you are named in Ms. Humboldt’s will,” the voice on the other end continued, rather doggedly. “To inform you that you have been designated as guardian to her minor son.”

  Shock jolted through Cheyenne.

  Shoe meet other foot.

  “Huh,” she said again. Which was better than Have you lost your goddamn mind? Or Ha ha ha! Suck it.

  Grossly inappropriate, even for her.

  “I quote: ‘In the event that my son, Rafferty Humboldt, is a minor at the time of my death, I hereby appoint Cheyenne Elias to be the Guardian of his person. My Guardian shall be held solely to the standard of good faith in the performance of her duties, and shall exercise her authority without the necessity of obtaining the consent of any court.’ ”

  Cheyenne filed through the words and tried to think of something to say. A toxic, jumbled mix filled her throat, unfit to speak. Her cell crackled, static filling the silence she couldn’t.

  Georgia Humboldt, dead. Six feet under and pushing up daisies…

  Try hemlock.

  “I realize this is probably a shock. I’m sorry. I urged Miss Humboldt to contact you, to send you a copy of these documents, but she was insistent that you not be notified unless she...”

  Died. Unless she died.

  “…well, only if it became necessary. I’m afraid her reluctance has left her son a temporary ward of the State of Wisconsin, and if you decline to act as his guardian, he will remain so until his eighteenth birthday.”

  Too bad, so sad.

  “Balls,” Cheyenne said. Because she wasn’t really that callous. She wasn’t. No matter how easy it would be.

  “You can decline, of course. But Miss Humboldt had been confident you would take the boy in.”

  Had she now? Well, wasn’t that special?

  “Hardy-har-har,” Cheyenne said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Talking to herself—while simultaneously talking to someone else—was one of her worst tend
encies. An old, bad habit of simply thinking out loud, born when there was no one listening. But sometimes people thought she was nuts, and according to Phil—her anger management counselor—that was the idea.

  You deliberately put people off, Cheyenne. Why do you think you do that?

  Because people are assholes, Phil.

  “Georgia’s idea of a joke,” she clarified. “Hysterical.”

  The voice (whose name she couldn’t remember—Smith? Jones?—attorney at law) replied, but it was inaudible, courtesy of the fact that she was halfway up Sleeping Indian mountain, and backcountry trails were generally not good cell receptors. She smacked her phone once, twice, knowing it wouldn’t help, but it felt good. Then a handful of words materialized. “..afraid…don’t follow…meaning?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” she said and sighed.

  Chuck, her three-legged blue heeler, stood a few feet ahead at the crest of the trailhead. He cocked his head at her as she muttered to herself, painfully aware that her peaceful existence had just been blown to smithereens. Again.

  “Shouldn’t have answered the damn phone,” she told him.

  What had possessed her? Answering an unknown number was a no-no—and something she never did. Because she hated dealing with people. Any kind of people, but especially strangers. You have the social skills of a leper, her publicist, Whitney, had once observed. It’s like you were raised by hyenas.