Nest

by Terry Goodkind

  “What did you do for the Mossad?” She didn’t explain how she knew about it. She glanced over to see him still looking out the side window. “You said that you wanted me to know that I wasn’t as safe as I thought I was, and that people who can do what I can are being systematically murdered. I think we’re past the ‘what’s your favorite movie’ stage of our date.”

  “Indeed we are,” he said, half to himself.

  Cabs honked as Kate worked her way across three lanes of traffic.

  “So answer the question. What did you do for the Mossad?”

  “I helped them find people like you.”

  Kate didn’t know what she had expected to hear, but that wasn’t it. “Why?”

  Jack seemed unconcerned with the aggressive way she accelerated past several cars and then slid into an opening in the next lane. She didn’t want to miss being in line for the entrance ramp to I-90. In the heavy traffic it would take half an hour to get back around if she missed it.

  “As innocent as they may look, there are killers who have high explosives packed inside ten or fifteen pounds of ball bearings and strapped around their waist, or an IED in their backpack. Wouldn’t you want that kind of person identified before he got on a crowded bus, pulled out a knife, and stabbed you along with other innocent passengers?”

  Kate glanced over. “The Israelis really use people like me for that purpose? Kind of like bomb-sniffing dogs?”

  He was still looking out the side window, watching the throngs of people moving along the sidewalk. “Don’t ever discount the value of a good bomb-sniffing dog. They’re man’s best friend.”

  Kate thought about it as she maneuvered her way through the stop-and-go traffic, letting in an aggressive cab rather than getting into a honking match. She slammed on the brakes briefly as a guy dashed out between parked cars. She couldn’t help looking at his wide eyes as he froze. When their gazes met, she saw that he was just a guy in a hurry, trying to cross the canyon between towering buildings. He waved his appreciation that she hadn’t run him over.

  “And they really paid you twelve point five million dollars?” she finally asked.

  He laughed. “No. I’m afraid your source was wrong.”

  “He’s a pretty good source.”

  “Well, he’s wrong. The fact is that twelve point five million was their opening offer.”

  “Jeez,” Kate said. “What did you counter?”

  “I told them that if it was that important to them, then they needed to know that it was that important to me as well, so I would do it but for a fraction of what they were offering.”

  Kate shook her head. “It would be hard to turn down that kind of money.”

  Jack shrugged. “They paid me enough so I can continue to try to help people like you. That’s what matters.”

  Kate had more important things on her mind than Jack’s past work experience or his salary, but the investigator in her couldn’t resist asking another question.

  “If the work was that important, why did you quit?”

  He finally looked over at her. “Terrorists are determined to kill people everywhere, not just Israel. As killing spreads, it threatens to overwhelm every civilized country. The Israelis were the only ones more interested in finding the killers than finding excuses for them. But I think that it’s vital for me to help individuals—good people, innocent people, people who care—wherever they are, even if it’s at a private level.”

  Kate realized that identifying terrorists before they could act must have been what Jeff Steele had meant about bureaucrats not wanting Jack’s consulting services. They would be accused of profiling. How would they justify arresting someone because of their eyes? Politicians would rant and rave. Lawyers would have a field day.

  She could see that his help would be invaluable to people like her, but only if it was unofficial and kept secretive.

  “So you wrote that book.”

  “So I wrote that book,” he confirmed with a nod.

  “Did it really help with …” She took a hand from the steering wheel and rolled it as she tried to think how to put it into words. “Did it really accomplish what you wanted? Did it really make a difference the way your work in Israel did?”

  He glanced sideways at her. “Yes and no. It’s a process.”

  As Kate turned onto the on-ramp, following a line of cars up onto I-90, she said, “Can we not talk in riddles, please?”

  “It’s not that I’m trying to talk in riddles. It’s just not easy to explain. While some of it sounds simple on the surface, it’s really a three-dimensional maze of different moving components over time. It’s pretty complex.”

  “Well, how about you start with the simple part, then. What is it you do, and why did you come looking for me?”

  “Okay,” he said, gesturing with both hands. “Here’s the thing. Your brother and your Uncle Everett had the ability to recognize a killer by their eyes. That’s incredibly rare.”

  “How would you know about them?”

  “Everett read my book. Shannon Blare, my editor, lets a few messages get through to me if she thinks they’re legitimate. She understands and believes in what I’m doing. She has been my champion at her publisher.

  “Everett had a lot of questions, much like AJ did. From speaking with him, I knew he had this ability, but it wasn’t very robust. Although I never talked with your brother, I would bet that your ability, now that it’s been triggered, far outstrips his.”

  “Because he didn’t have the mental capacity to process information the way I do?” Kate suggested.

  “That’s part of it. The total genetic makeup of the individual’s mind, all the elements, such as intelligence and analytical acumen, contribute to and shape that ability.”

  “How do you know that my ability has only just been triggered?”

  “By the way you act,” he said, as if it were obvious.

  Since he sounded sure of it, she didn’t argue.

  “I believe that it’s one of the many connections involved in the larger picture,” Jack said. “Mankind’s fate has always been in flux—like the way the weather goes through periods of drought and times of flooding.”

  “It still sounds to me like you’re talking in riddles.”

  “We see a single murder, we don’t how they are connected. The purpose of the book was to begin to bring out information on those underlying connections behind historic trends in order to find and help people like you, or people like AJ who know about you, to survive. That’s the purpose of the book.

  “In Israel I had a limited audience. They believed in me, which was great, but that was only one place. I didn’t feel I could turn away from the larger problem.

  “In order to begin to tackle it, I first needed to introduce the basic information, hoping that in the relative obscurity of a mostly unnoticed book I could begin to find a number of these people, like I ultimately found you. The book is also helping to smoke out some of these super-predators, find out how they are going about what they do.

  “In the second book I want to bring understanding to those capable of understanding. I know what kind of super-predator is after you and others. What I’m doing won’t save the world, but I’m hoping I can save some good people of rare ability. If I can do that, then my life will have been worthwhile. So for now I have to try to find those like you before it’s too late.”

  Kate checked her mirrors as she merged onto the center lane of the interstate and into the stream of red brake lights that stood out in the dreary early-evening light.

  “All right, so let me get this straight. There are these two rare types of predator and prey who can recognize one another,” she said.

  Jack nodded. “That’s right.”

  “That means I can recognize killers, and this certain rare type of top-level killer can recognize me.”

  “Right.”

  Kate dared to ask the question. “So, since you recognize me for my ability, you would have to be one of those
top-level predators.”

  Jack smiled. “Very good, Kate. Very good indeed.”

  Kate swallowed, seeing that traffic was moving slow enough that if she had to she could jump out of the car.

  “Is that what you are, Jack? One of those rare predators on the hunt?”

  He smiled in a boyish way as he shook his head.

  “No. From what you know it would seem that I would have to be. But you don’t know it all.”

  “What is it that I don’t know?” she asked in a tone that told him she expected an answer.

  “Your ability is rare. The ability of those elite predators is rare. You are in a way two sides of the same coin. But I’m the rarest kind of all. As far as I know I’m the only one of my kind alive in the world right now.”

  Kate stole a quick look over at him. “You’re the only kind of … what? What is it you can do? Recognize killers like I can?”

  “No. Unfortunately, I can’t tell a killer by looking at their eyes. I wish I could, but I can’t. What I can do is look into eyes of those like you and recognize your ability. I can recognize you for what you can do the same as one of those rare predators can. I guess you could say that I can only see your side of the coin.”

  “Wow,” Kate said under her breath as she stared ahead at the road and the traffic.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  “So you mean to say that your ability is to find people like me? You can only identify people who can recognize killers? But you can’t spot killers yourself?”

  “That’s right.”

  Kate drove in silence for a time, letting her mind run through all the permutations. The good news was that, while she knew by looking into his eyes that he had killed people, his eyes were like Mike’s—those of a killer in defense of innocent people, not one who preyed on them.

  If, of course, he was telling the truth. For all she knew, she could be sitting in her car with a seriously dangerous man who had found her and now intended to kill her.

  “What’s it like when you look into the eyes of someone like me?” she asked. “What is it you see in my eyes?”

  “What do you see in a killer’s eyes?”

  “Don’t dodge the question by asking one. What do you see, Jack?” With her first two fingers she pointed at her own eyes. “What is it you see when you look into my eyes?”

  “A killer. A savior.”

  “That’s not good enough. I want a better answer. I think you owe me a better answer.”

  Jack stared ahead for a long moment before he gave her that answer. When he did, it came without him looking over at her.

  “I guess that the best way to explain it is that it’s an emotional experience.”

  Kate frowned. “Emotional?”

  “Yes. It’s like looking into the eyes of a real-life avenging angel. Into the eyes of someone elementally human—someone carrying an ancient spark from the dawn of mankind. It’s almost an animalistic glint in their eyes. For me, that’s emotional.

  “At the same time it’s terrifying because I know that there are predators who hunt your kind, and I know how very fragile are the wings of such rare, avenging angels.”

  That was not the kind of answer Kate had expected.

  She drove in silence for a time, maintaining distance from the car ahead so as not to run into it while her mind raced.

  A raised-up black pickup with tinted windows took advantage of the space to dive in front of her. She backed off and let him have the space rather than antagonize him.

  “So … what? You expect me to save the world or something?”

  Jack snorted a laugh before frowning over at her. “Save the world? You can’t save the world. The world is going to do what the world is going to do. It’s always been that way. It always will be. This is a struggle as old as mankind. It is the struggle of mankind. All you can hope to do is save yourself.

  “When I look into eyes like yours, I see something worth risking my own life to save because I know that it’s something bigger than just you or me. That’s why I do this. It’s my calling and my curse—to be able to see that kind of righteous soul, and yet not have that ability myself.

  “But at least I can try to help those like you to protect yourselves. That’s what I can do.

  “I can see the strength in your eyes, but I can also see how easily you can be broken by those you can recognize. That’s why I came looking for you—to see if I could help you be safe before they find you and slaughter you.”

  Kate was taken by the raw emotion of his words. It was the quality she had seen in him, but until that moment had not been able to define. It was genuine goodness without guile. Strength without hate. Intellect without arrogance.

  Kate cleared her throat, finally finding her voice. “Thanks, Jack, but I don’t think what I can do makes me noble. I was born this way, that’s all, the same as having black hair. It’s the same as you being born male and me being born female. I didn’t work to achieve it.”

  “In a fundamental way, you’re right.”

  “And when I look into the eyes of killers it’s terrifying,” she said. “I don’t feel righteous about it. I think maybe you’re reading too much into what I’m like.”

  “Trust me, Kate. I’ve been with enough of your kind to know exactly what you’re like.”

  She twitched a frown at him. “What we’re like? What makes you think you know what I’m like?”

  Jack gestured at the radio. “When we got in your car, the radio wasn’t on. It wasn’t on because you generally don’t listen to music.”

  “So what? I like it quiet.”

  “You don’t like distractions from your ability to think. You’re motivated internally, not externally. You don’t really understand the way the rest of the world seeks ways to be distracted from life, from what’s going on around them, from their own thoughts. You don’t quite fathom how they can spend so much time watching TV or listening to music. You don’t get why they prefer an imitation of life over life itself.

  “You don’t have a Facebook page. You don’t really get those who do. You view social media as a monumental waste of time, as an opiate of the masses, something for those not like you. You bristle at the thought of being one of the masses.”

  “So I’m private and I like it quiet. That’s not so unique.”

  He considered a moment before going on. “You can’t identify with other people. They make you feel like you don’t belong.

  “Most of you are loners. It isn’t that you don’t like people—you do—but people in general let you down. They just don’t seem worth your time, and, like I said, you can’t comprehend how they put such little value on their own time.

  “You know the value of your own life, of your own spark of time in this world. You date little, and when you do you see all the things that make that person unworthy of a piece of your life.”

  “Maybe I just haven’t found the right person. Did you ever think of that?”

  “It’s not just dating, it’s everything. Those like you are almost always loners. Your uncle was a loner, living by himself in a trailer out in the desert. Your brother liked living alone. It’s not an overt trait; it’s more of an inner compass.

  “Most like to find the answers to things, whether it’s treasure hunting, research, or some kind of investigative work. You don’t accept what shows on the surface. You dig deeper than others would ever think to. I would bet that even your brother, as disabled as he was, liked working puzzles.”

  Kate had to swallow back the lump in her throat. “Picture puzzles.”

  “Your puzzles are a lot more complex. You need them to be challenging. You only feel your own strength when you have something hard to push against. Without a challenge there is no reward for you, no sense of self-worth, so you seek out things that are not easily accomplished. You don’t like unearned accolades. For that reason you also don’t like to gamble.

  “You feel that there is so much more that you don’t understa
nd and you hunger to know it all. You want to find answers. That’s why you gravitated toward the kind of work you do.”

  “Okay, so I’m a self-starter and I work hard. That’s not all that unusual.”

  “You have an attractive smile, especially with your eyeteeth.”

  This time, Kate gave him a serious frown. “My eyeteeth? What are you talking about?”

  “They’re on the long side of normal eyeteeth. They are a minor characteristic of your kind—part of your genetic makeup. They evoke the look of fangs and for good reason. Fangs are suggestive of the nature of your entire makeup. It gives you an edgy look.”

  She glanced over at him again. “Edgy.”

  “Yes, especially when you smile.” He looked at her for a long moment. “You know the way looking into the eyes of a killer gives you a chill of fear?”

  “What of it?”

  “When a killer looks at you, he doesn’t see what I see. He gets that same chill of fear. Your eyes are intimidating. Everything about your nature, including your vestigial fangs, is intimidating to them. You are the thing they fear most. You are a direct threat to their survival. That’s why they want to kill your kind.”

  “I’m no avenging angel, and now you’re making me sound like a vampire hunter or something.”

  He was still watching her. “In a way you are. Those you can recognize are extremely dangerous. But so are you. For example, you watch my hands because you know that is where the threat will come from, if I am a threat. Most of your kind instinctively take up some kind of defensive training—from martial arts to combat weaponry.”

  “Martial arts,” she admitted. “I do it for the exercise.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No, really. It keeps me in shape. I think it’s good training to have in my line of work, but it’s interested me since I was a girl.” She tried to think back to when that interest had started, but couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t interested her. “I’m not exactly sure why.”

  “It’s an inherent interest born of an elevated recognition of the very real dangers in the real world and a desire to defend yourself. Your instinct, your temperament, guided you to that interest.