Nest

by Terry Goodkind

  Kate’s world spun around when he backhanded her. She landed in the wet street, stunned by the shock of pain.

  She gathered her wits as she sprang to her feet.

  The passenger door flew open and Jack was out of the car.

  The figure fired off three shots at him. The sound of the gunfire made her flinch. Kate saw Jack roll off to the side. When the man swung back around, pointing the gun at Kate, the light from a distant streetlamp caught him just right, and she saw his eyes.

  The sight of those eyes shot icy fear through her veins.

  “Kate Bishop,” he said, “what a payday this is going—”

  Before he could get another word out, Kate backhanded his gun hand with her left fist. She would have tried to slash the inside of his wrist holding the gun, but the force of her blow had surprised him enough to knock the gun from his hand. It went skittering across the wet pavement.

  Before he could do anything, before he could recover from the surprise of losing his gun, before Kate could even look to see if Jack was dead or alive, in a crystal-clear instant she saw her target.

  It was as if time froze, giving her that instant of clarity she needed.

  In one clean thrust, she caught the side of his neck, and with all her strength she yanked the blade back, cutting through muscle and tendon.

  She had cut him so deep that in addition to severing his carotid artery it partially cut open his windpipe. His breath coming out of that gash in his windpipe sprayed the blood pumping out of his artery. It made a horrible sound as he sucked in a breath through the wound.

  Before his hands could make it to his throat, she struck with her left hand and cut the carotid artery on his right side.

  As dark as it was, she could still see blood pumping out in spurts and going everywhere. She could smell it.

  The big man dropped to his knees, trying to speak but unable to because of the opening in his windpipe. He fell to his side, his arms flopping out onto the pavement.

  Kate, too, fell to her knees. She let out a cry of anguish, and then Jack was lifting her up.

  “It’s all right. You’re okay.”

  Kate let out another cry as she fell into his arms. He hugged her tight, whispering to her that it was okay, that she was fine.

  It was a moment before she could speak. “Are you okay? Were you hit? I was so afraid that he shot you.”

  Jack put a hand to the back of her head and pressed her to his shoulder.

  “No, he missed. Remember what I told you?”

  She sucked back a sob of terror. “That it’s hard to hit a moving target?”

  “That’s right,” he said with a smile as he held her away and looked into her eyes. “You did good, Kate. You did everything right.”

  “Did you know he was there?”

  Jack shook his head. “I hate to admit it, but I didn’t see him until you did. It was over before I could get out of the car and make it to you. By then, you had already handled it.”

  Kate nodded, overwhelmed by a flood of emotions—terror, surprise, and a rush of triumphant joy that she and Jack were alive and unhurt.

  “Go wait in the car,” Jack said as he bent down beside the guy, immediately starting to go through his pockets, taking his phone, wallet, and anything else he could find.

  “Are we going to call the police?”

  “Hell no, we’re not going to call the police.” He looked around briefly. “There aren’t likely to be any cameras in this area, but even if there are they won’t show much in the rain. The last thing you need is to get tangled up in this. How would that help? The guy was trying to kill you. You defended yourself. End of story.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Her instinct was to call the authorities, but she knew Jack was right.

  “Go on, wait in the car,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Kate nodded, but she didn’t move. She didn’t want to leave Jack there alone. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone herself.

  Jack finished and ushered her to the passenger side of the car. He held her arm as he sat her down, and then he shut the door. When he got in, he started the engine, then looked over at her.

  “Kate, you need to be clear about this. I know that individual cops would be happy that you put down a killer, but their political bosses don’t care about your life as much as their careers. You could prove your innocence this time, but if it happens again they will call it vigilantism. They will say that you are looking for these people so you can ‘take the law into your own hands,’ as if your life is less important than their notion of law and order. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Kate was finally gathering her wits. “It’s hard for me to think of things that way, but I understand. My life depends on me now, not the law.”

  He put a hand over hers. “It’s hard, I know. You did the right thing. You defended your life. That’s all that matters.”

  Kate turned the rearview mirror and looked at herself.

  She saw the eyes of a killer looking back.

  Not the eyes of a murderer like the man she had just killed, but eyes like Mike’s had been, eyes like Jack’s were.

  It was so strange to see that look in her eyes looking back at her that she had trouble recognizing herself. Her hair was wet and matted. She saw that blood was running down her chin from where the guy had clobbered her. It made her angry at herself that he had managed to get in those three shots. He could have killed Jack. He could have shot her. She needed to be faster the next time, or she might not be so lucky.

  But she had survived, and he was the one who was dead. That was what mattered.

  “He knew my name,” Kate said. “He said my name and that this was going to be his big payday.”

  “Like you said, you intended to put him on the X. You succeeded,” Jack said. “He must have followed us. I didn’t even realize it until I saw his car parked on the other side of that building.”

  “He knew my name,” Kate said again with emphasis.

  “I know,” Jack said as he pulled away from the curb, taking care to drive around the corpse. “He undoubtedly knew it from the Scavenger Hunt site.”

  Kate picked up her phone from the center console, unlocked it, and pressed a speed-dial number. She pointed, directing Jack to take the next left.

  She wiped her nose with the back of her hand as she listened to the phone ring.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice said.

  “Theo, it’s me, Kate.”

  “Kate … are you all right? You sound … I don’t know. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. It’s just that it’s been an emotional day for me with the funeral and all.”

  “I understand. You gave John a beautiful ceremony.”

  Kate put her elbow on the armrest and rubbed her fingertips on her forehead as she held the phone up to her ear.

  “Listen, Theo, if you think you could do without me for a little while, I think I’d like to take your advice and take some time off.”

  “Of course,” he said immediately. “All the time you need, Kate.” He thought a moment. “Have you ever even taken a vacation?”

  “No,” she said, trying her best to control her voice.

  “Then you have one coming. Take all the time you need.”

  “Thanks, Theo, you’re the best. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Okay. Please take care of yourself and you call me if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “I will. Good night.”

  She sat for a moment after ending the call, staring at her trembling hands. Finally, she looked over at Jack.

  “Can I come to New York with you?”

  Jack smiled as he reached over and touched her chin.

  “Sure.”

  That made Kate smile.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-THREE

  Kate walked at a brisk pace beside Jack, both of them pulling their carry-on bags behind as they made their way through the clots of people in the sprawlin
g airport. They were both dressed casually. They had to alter their course constantly, weaving among people crowding into gates, walking slowly, looking in store windows, or not paying any attention to where they were going. For midweek, O’Hare was unusually busy.

  Terminal 5, post-security, was as elegant a shopping experience as just about anywhere in the city. The wood and glass design elements of retail spaces were graceful and modern. It was a strange juxtaposition to see some disheveled flyers in flip-flops shuffling past such stylish shops.

  Kate never looked forward to flying. It was time-consuming and wearying to have to deal with the bureaucracy and all the security restrictions and regulations that seemed to grow day by day. But this time she felt better about it, because at least they were getting out of Chicago and away from where people were actively hunting her. They were getting off the X.

  More than that, though, she couldn’t help feeling good to be going with Jack. It was going to be a needed respite from the duties of her job and a chance to decompress from the terrible grief over the deaths of John and AJ’s family.

  Kate wasn’t carrying the small knives Jack had given her. She felt naked and vulnerable without them. She had never felt that way before. But of course no one had been trying to kill her before, at least not that she knew about.

  Now her photos and personal information were posted on the darknet. There was a reward for her life. She was relieved to be leaving town for a while to vanish into New York City, where no one would know her.

  They had both put their knives in their checked baggage. Being in security herself, Kate knew that the results of tests conducted by any number of agencies had shown that between ninety and ninety-five percent of testers had been able to get guns, knives, and even bombs past airport security with no problem. Jeff Steele had warned her not to be lulled into complacency by airport security and to remain vigilant.

  Security was mostly a show for the public to make them feel safe, to make them feel like the government was protecting them, when it really wasn’t. Most people believed in the show and felt safer for it. And to some degree a show of security did tend to discourage people who meant harm. Still, Kate knew from her own work that not everyone was discouraged by a show of security.

  The chances of security finding their knives in a carry-on bag were slim, and since they were so small, the most they were likely to do would be to confiscate them. Jack didn’t want to take that risk for no good reason. He said that she already knew how to fight, and just about anything could be used as a weapon, even a rolled-up magazine. He said it was better to remain unnoticed by authorities. Besides, there was a lot of security in airports, both security you could see and security you couldn’t see.

  Kate had gotten used to having the knives on her. Jack had given them to her to help keep her safe. Because of that they had taken on a meaning of their own. They were symbolic as well as defensive. Especially after the time he spent teaching her to use them, and especially after they had saved her life the day of her brother’s funeral.

  As they walked past a gate for Air France, a man on crutches was being allowed to board before anyone else. He was in a tan jacket and had a dark blue backpack. As he went past the boarding kiosk he looked back, scanning the crowd.

  His gaze briefly met Kate’s.

  When she looked into the man’s dark eyes Kate stopped dead in her tracks.

  He obviously didn’t recognize her ability by looking into her eyes, because he didn’t show any reaction to seeing her, but she certainly reacted to him.

  Jack stopped beside her and glanced in the direction she was staring.

  “Kate. Kate.” Transfixed, she hardly heard him. Her mind filled with images. His grip tightened on her arm and he kept his voice low. “Kate. Look at me.”

  She blinked and looked into his eyes.

  “Do you see something?” he asked.

  In the chilling grip of fear that that kind of eyes always gave her, she struggled to find her voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Then walk.”

  “What?”

  “Walk.” He squeezed her arm harder. “Kate. You need to walk.” Once they started away, he leaned closer. “What did you see?”

  “A man on crutches, in the tan jacket, just going into the jetway,” she said, looking back over her shoulder as Jack dragged her farther away. “He’s planning to kill the people on that plane.”

  Jack paused. “Are you sure?” He pulled her to the side, out of the way of the churning rivers of people. “Kate, are you sure?”

  She looked back at him. “Dead sure. He is planning to kill all the people on that plane.” When he continued to stare at her, she tilted her head toward him. “I’m positive, Jack.”

  Jack stared at her for a few brief seconds longer. He glanced back toward the Air France gate and then pulled out a cell phone. He pushed the number at the top of the speed-dial list. Someone answered after the first ring.

  “Get me Dvora Artzi—this is an emergency.”

  Jack gave his name and then rattled off a series of numbers and letters, obviously a code. Almost immediately someone else got on the line.

  “Dvora, it’s Jack Raines. I have an emergency. I’m at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, terminal five. I’m with a subject. She just identified a man getting on an Air France plane”—Jack looked over the heads of people moving through the busy aisle, to the gate number diagonally across the concourse—“gate M twelve.”

  He listened and then tipped the phone down away from his mouth to speak to Kate. “Describe him.”

  Kate leaned in, putting her mouth close to the phone. “Five-ten, on aluminum crutches, tan jacket, dark blue backpack, short black hair, clean-shaven, silver bracelet on his right wrist.”

  As Kate leaned back Jack listened to the woman ask something.

  He looked up. “She wants to know how sure you are.”

  Kate twitched a frown. “I’m positive.”

  “She says she’s positive,” Jack told the woman on the phone.

  Kate leaned in to speak into the phone. “He has a bomb that was surgically implanted in his abdomen. It doesn’t use metal for shrapnel so that it wouldn’t be easily detected. He intends to explode it once they are midway over the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Jack’s face lost some of its color as he stared at her.

  He listened to the woman on the phone for a moment and then asked Kate, “Anything else?”

  “The bomb has a deadman switch.”

  “Dvora, did you hear that?” he asked the woman on the phone. “The bomb has a deadman switch.”

  The voice asked something laced with brief hesitation.

  “Do you remember Jemina?” Jack asked. “Yes, that’s the one. On her very best day, Jemina couldn’t begin to be the equal of the subject I’m with right now.” There was a pause as Jack listened, and then he said, “All right. Hurry.”

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “I’m afraid that we’re going to have to catch a later flight to New York. All hell is about to break loose and the airport is going to be evacuated.”

  Kate looked around. Everything looked so normal.

  “I’m a subject?” she asked without looking at him. “Is that what I am to you? A subject?”

  Jack grasped her by her upper arm and turned her back to face him. “That’s what the Mossad call the people I work with, that’s all. They know what I mean when I say it.”

  Kate nodded. It seemed a hollow explanation.

  “You’re more than that to me, Kate,” he finally said. “It’s not you. It’s just that I’m not … I can’t be.”

  Kate understood. Rita, and who knew how many others before her, had been too painful an experience. Kate vividly remembered him telling her about the videos of her being tortured, of her calling out his name and begging for him to save her. Of her dying.

  He was too afraid of exposing himself to that kind of heartache again, so he had walled himself off.

  That wa
s why he had told her that he would never have the chance to hear a woman say that she loved him.

  Two men dressed casually raced up through the terminal, pushing their way through the throngs of people. They looked like any of the ordinary passengers in the airport, except they had chains hanging from their necks with some kind of ID. Kate could tell from their demeanor that they were anything but ordinary. Holding out their IDs, they ran past the two women at the check-in desk without slowing. Both of the women, along with most of the passengers waiting at the gate, looked startled.

  “I hope they can stop him,” Kate said. “Maybe it will be okay.”

  “I hope so,” he agreed.

  Jack’s brow drew down as he turned his attention back to her. He looked more than a little agitated.

  “You said that man has a bomb. What makes you think he has a bomb?”

  Kate blinked at the question. “Because he does.”

  “You said it was surgically implanted in his abdomen. How in the world could you possibly know that?”

  Kate’s brow tightened. “You’re the expert.” Kate was concerned by how upset he had become. “You tell me.”

  “You could tell by his eyes that he was a killer?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack held a finger up, as if for emphasis. “Okay, you saw in his eyes that he is a killer—I get that … but what could possibly make you think he has a bomb?”

  Kate wasn’t sure what he was getting at, what was upsetting him. “By looking in his eyes. I just know. It’s all there.”

  “Knowing a killer by looking into their eyes is one thing,” Jack said, “but telling anything else about them, like that they have a bomb, is something else entirely. Have you ever done anything like that before?”

  “Yes. I picked a couple out of a bunch of photos AJ showed me. I told her they were killers. I told her that the man wasn’t very bright and that he had raped a girl and that it was the wife’s idea to kill her, but they both took part in the murder. I told her that they used knives.”

  “Did you ever find out if you were correct?”