Nest

by Terry Goodkind

  When she turned to the sound, bringing her gun up, she saw red mist spray from the head of another one of Shannon Blare’s men. His gun clattered across the floor as he went down.

  Kate saw two men way back across the room running in out of the darkness. One of the men was dressed in a gray suit, the other in dark clothes and carrying a small submachine gun. He had taken out the gunman with that precise, brief burst.

  Kate turned and raced to the wall. Her fingers clawed at the rope laced tightly around the cleat. She was finally able to undo it and free the rope. Using her weight to counterbalance Jack’s weight, she lowered him to the floor. As she was doing so, she heard two more bursts of automatic gunfire in the distance. The threat was being handled by Gilad and his men.

  Once she had Jack down on his back, a pool of blood immediately started to spread under him.

  Kate cut his wrists free and then took his face in both hands. “Jack—Jack. It’s all right now. I’m here. We’re all right.”

  Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true.

  He stared at her, unable to take his eyes off her.

  “Lie still,” Kate said, smoothing a hand down his face. “Don’t talk. Help is on the way.”

  “Too late,” he whispered. “She fooled me. I couldn’t see what you can. She fooled me.”

  “No, Jack, it’s not too late.” Kate took one of his hands in hers. “Don’t say that. It’s going to be all right.”

  He smiled a little.

  “Jack—I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. Please hang on, please. I love you so much.”

  His smile widened and his grip on her hand tightened. “You made my wish come true.”

  “I love you, Jack—I do. Hold on, please hold on. I need you so much.”

  “I love you, too, Kate…. I was going to tell you at dinner. You taught me what living really means. Life is too precious to let the past steal it away. I was going to tell you…. I was going to ask you to spend the night with me … to spend every night with me.”

  “Yes.” She kissed his lips as she squeezed his hand. “Forever yes.”

  He smiled.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said. “I want you to know … I don’t hurt anymore. You made all my pain go away.”

  “Me too. I love you, Jack.”

  He smiled again. “Live, Kate. Live.”

  And then the light of his soul began to fade away from his beautiful eyes. His hand went slack. His last breath left his body.

  Kate screamed. “No! Jack no!”

  She lay across his chest, listening for a heartbeat. There was none.

  “Don’t leave me. Please Jack,” she wept, “I love you. Don’t leave me.”

  Kate looked back over her shoulder and saw men in dark clothes coming at a dead run. “Hurry!” she screamed. “Help him!”

  As they rushed in, Gilad’s gentle hands lifted her out of the way as the men crowded down around Jack. Gilad sheltered her in his arms as she wept in helpless agony.

  One of the men gathered around Jack checked him and immediately started giving him CPR, counting each compression out loud. Another man put a mask over Jack’s face and started squeezing the bag attached to it to get air into his lungs.

  A third man pulled packs from the cargo pockets of his vest. He put a needle in Jack’s arm and held up a bag of fluid. A man who’d been carrying a case in each hand set them down and started pulling out equipment. He lifted out defibrillator paddles and squeezed gel onto them as another man switched on the machine.

  Kate watched in a daze as he used the paddles, trying to start Jack’s heart. Each time he called “Clear” and hit the button, Jack’s body flinched, but each time they had to go back to doing CPR as the defibrillator charged. She lost count of how many times they tried to restart his heart. Each attempt felt as if it jolted her heart.

  Gilad, seeing how grave the situation truly was, started pulling Kate away. She stretched an arm back toward Jack. “No! No! Let me stay.”

  The man with the paddles sat back on his heels, looking at Gilad, and shook his head.

  Kate heard a truck engine in the distance, rumbling though the basement, and then more of the men in black ran in pulling a gurney. They never stopped giving Jack CPR even as they lifted him onto the gurney. Once he was on the gurney, the man with the paddles tried again. Jack’s body jumped, but she knew by the men’s reaction that it hadn’t worked.

  Kate thought she might faint when she heard one of the men say that when they got him in the van they were going to have to crack open his chest to get at his heart.

  She clutched Gilad’s sleeve. “I want to go with him.”

  Gilad’s arm around her shoulders squeezed her tight as he pulled her away. “You don’t need to see that. Please, Kate. You must remember him for his words to you. That would be what he would want the most.”

  Kate looked up at him. “I have to go with him.”

  Gilad finally relented and gave her a nod. “Let them do their job. We will follow in my car.”

  She could tell that he believed Jack was beyond help.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTY

  Kate saw the impeccably dressed figure of Gilad Ben-Ami coming across the expanse of grass. He was holding a bouquet of flowers.

  Kate, lying on her side on Jack’s grave, didn’t get up when Gilad came to a stop over her. He stood for a moment, gazing down at her, and then he lowered himself down to sit on the grass beside her.

  “I brought some flowers,” he said. He lifted them out to show her briefly before he placed them in the small metal vase above Jack’s gravestone.

  “Thank you,” Kate said. “They’re beautiful.”

  After that terrible night, it seemed like the world had slowed to a stop, leaving Kate feeling empty and numb. John’s death and the deaths of AJ and her family seemed like they had all happened in a dream.

  But Jack’s death was a nightmare.

  Kate knew that the sight of them loading him into that van in the basement while working on his unresponsive, blood-slick body was something that would haunt her forever.

  Gilad and Kate had followed the specially equipped van on the way to a trauma center while what he assured her was an elite Israeli combat medical team worked on Jack. When Gilad received a call from the van as they followed behind, he told her that they had opened Jack’s chest and were massaging his heart to try to keep him alive.

  Much later that awful night, as she sat beside Gilad on a bench in the cold hallway of a private medical facility, doctors continued to try everything humanly possible to save Jack. But in the end there was nothing more they could do.

  Gilad had been invaluable after Jack’s death. He had handled everything, including taking care of all the arrangements as well as helping her in a strange city.

  If there were any police involved, Kate never knew of it. She suspected that diplomatic immunity had been involved and everything had been kept under the radar in order to protect her. Gilad had taken her to a secluded hotel and made sure that no one bothered her. He had meals delivered. She ate few of them.

  His country had given Jack a beautiful funeral in a private, exclusive cemetery protected with towering, old trees. A lot of people attended. She hadn’t known any of them, but they all knew Jack and they knew of her. Most all of them wept.

  Kate was appreciative of those who came, who shook her hand or hugged her and told her how sorry they were, and how much Jack had done for them all.

  A woman with wavy black hair had given Kate a hug and introduced herself. It was Dvora Artzi. She had come from Israel for the funeral, as had a number of others. She told Kate that she was the bravest woman she had ever had the honor to know. Kate remembered begging for help on the phone and didn’t feel the least bit brave.

  Dvora had stayed until just the previous day, spending the time with Kate so she wouldn’t be alone. It was comforting to have her there. She confided in Kate that her husband had been killed in a bombing.
That bonded them in a kind of silent sisterhood, the living left behind by evil, both having been in love with men who fought to protect life.

  Gilad had given the eulogy. He said to the solemn audience that they were all his countrymen, and they all lived every day with what Jack Raines had told them about, that the world was coming to dark times, and that in the fight against evil, Israel was the tip of the spear. Jack, he said, was the sharp point of that spear.

  In that effort, Jack Raines, a man from another country, a man not of their religion or heritage, had been a true friend to them all, for he fought for something universal. He fought so that others might have the chance to live their lives. He said that Jack’s tireless work had saved a great many people, more than any of them would ever know.

  Gilad said that while darkness had taken him, it did not defeat him, because he had brought light to them all, and in each of them there would always be a piece of Jack Raines, lighting the way for them.

  Kate told Gilad that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. He said it was because it was from his heart, and the hearts of all those who knew Jack.

  Jack had no living relatives that anyone knew of. Gilad insisted that everything he had should to go to her.

  Among Jack’s possessions, besides the bank accounts, was the thumb drive that he had used to take her to the underworld of the darknet. She also had his burner phones with all the numbers he had, like the one he had used to call for help when Kate saw a killer boarding the Air France plane, the same one she had used to call Dvora for help.

  Jack’s laptop had a lot of information on people he was trying to contact. Gilad said that he hoped she would get in touch with them, because they were like her, they had the vision she had, and maybe she could help them come to understand that vision and the gift of life they had been born with.

  He told her that they had worked with Jack for years, and while Jack had found a number of people who could see evil, none of them had ever been able to do what she could do.

  What Kate could do, Gilad said, was something beyond exceptional, beyond what any other had ever been able to do. He had no idea how to explain the ability, he only knew she possessed it. Kate didn’t know what to think of that.

  He also delivered an open invitation to come to Israel anytime she wanted, for as long as she wanted, as their guest.

  In the days after Jack’s death, Gilad and his people had managed to go through Shannon Blare’s effects and found passwords, credentials, and other information that allowed them to take control of the Scavenger Hunt site.

  Gilad told Kate that their investigation revealed that Shannon Blare had been a rare, and ruthless, female serial killer, a black widow, linked to fourteen murders they knew of so far, but he was certain there were many more. Apparently, she started out killing homeless men she found living in the buildings she bought. There was no way to tell how many more of those men she killed, or what she did with the bodies. From what they learned in her effects, she was obsessed with the act of killing.

  By chance, from Jack’s book, Shannon Blare learned of those special people like Kate. It was one of those connections Jack spoke of wherein predators crossed paths with those able to see them. As a result of that connection, she had formed a nest of killers dedicated to eliminating those who could see them for who they were. Because he was blind to what Kate had easily seen in her eyes, Jack had unwittingly helped Shannon Blare find some of those people with that rare vision.

  Like a black widow, she drew them into her nest.

  Gilad said that they had cleaned everything off the site. Kate’s photos were gone. The rewards were gone. There were no longer any active scavenger hunts. The torture videos were gone. The review section was gone.

  The only thing left of the site was the home page. There, the Mossad had posted a photo and some text. They had lined up over a dozen dead who had been a part of the Scavenger Hunt nest, with Shannon Blare lying in the center, the back half of her head gone, and taken a photo of the collected bodies in all their bleeding glory. They put it up on the home page, saying only that these were killers who had been dealt with. They then locked down the site so that no one could add anything, alter anything, or take it down.

  All of the killers or want-to-be killers who had visited the site before would now find only a photo of their dead idols.

  The remains of Rita and others killed by Victor and other members of the nest had finally been laid to rest.

  Rights to A Brief History of Evil went to Kate, as did the royalties. But with the numbered account Jack had given her and his considerable wealth, the royalties hardly mattered.

  Besides the information on others like herself that Kate had found on Jack’s computer, she had also found the manuscript of his new book. Jack had told her that he had work to do on it, but he wasn’t exactly telling her the truth. She discovered that it was actually mostly finished except for the last important connection he was trying to make.

  He had notes having to do with a rare kind of super-visionary who could see more than merely a killer by looking into their eyes. Jack theorized that as a result of evolution such a person would have to exist and they would be able to see evil itself, and the shape it would take.

  In his notes he said that he was still looking for that rare individual who could see those things that no one else could.

  Kate knew that she was the one he had been searching for.

  She now knew enough to complete the manuscript, but she decided not to. She had it, and that was enough. Jack believed that mankind would ultimately survive or not. He couldn’t save the world.

  She couldn’t save the world.

  She knew from Jack that it was up to each of them to live the life they had to its fullest in the world they were born into. Only in that way could they make their world better.

  “How are you doing, Kate?” Gilad asked.

  “My life is over,” she said as she sat up.

  Gilad smiled as he touched her cheek. “Jack would not like to hear you say that. He fought so that you might live.”

  Kate felt a flash of shame. She nodded. “You’re right.”

  He handed her something. She saw that it was an SD card.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the card out of the camera that Victor was using to record what he was doing to you. The one from the camera filming Jack has been destroyed. No one will ever see it.

  “I am returning this one to you because it is you on the video. It was difficult to watch. I was going to destroy it, but I thought that maybe you should be the one to do that if you wish. I think that someday, if you ever decide to watch it, you will see a woman who is brave, a woman who is inspiring.”

  Kate closed her hand around it and held her fist to her chin. “Thank you. You are a very thoughtful man, Gilad.”

  He huffed a brief laugh.

  He turned serious then as he gazed at her.

  “When there is great trouble in the world, God sends us angels. You never know what form those angels will take. You are one of those angels.”

  Kate shook her head. “The only angel I ever knew was Angel Janek. She was an avenging angel. She protected lives. She died in this struggle. It was because of her that I met Jack.”

  He gave her an admonishing look. “You saved the lives of hundreds of people about to board that plane. None of them will ever know of the angel watching over them, the angel who saved their lives from evil that day.”

  “You saved me.”

  “We all save each other, Kate Bishop.”

  She smiled a sad smile. “I guess we do.”

  Gilad reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Speaking of which, I have a problem. I hate to do this to you. Honestly, I do, Kate,” he said, looking quite guilty. “I am hoping that you might be willing to help me …”

  “It’s all right,” she said, laying a hand on his. “I understand.”

  Kate took the stack of photos from him. Sh
e shuffled through the whole stack, then pulled one photo out of the rest and tossed it on the grass before him. It was a smiling, intelligent-looking young man. But he had the terrifying eyes of a killer. She saw that in his eyes, and so much more.

  “This one,” she said.

  “You are sure?”

  Kate nodded. “You have twelve hours.”

  “Twelve hours?”

  “He has a bomb in a moped, or scooter, or whatever they’re called. It’s a faded red and has some rust. It’s a big bomb, in the hollowed-out seat. He intends to set it off just over twelve hours from now.”

  Gilad frowned. “Where is he? Where is he going to use this bomb? Do you know?”

  “The Israeli embassy in Sweden.”

  He stared at her. “You’re serious?” When he saw that she was, he asked, “How can you know this just from looking at his photo?”

  Kate arched an eyebrow. “You’re the one who said I was an angel. You tell me.”

  She thought about what Jack had said in the manuscript about believing that there was someone who possessed the ability to do just such a thing. He had written that before he met her.

  Gilad hastily stuffed the photos back in his breast pocket as he clambered back to his feet. “I must go and tend to this. Thank you, Kate. Thank you for all the people who will not die in twelve hours.”

  He reached down to touch her cheek. “Shalom.”

  Kate looked up at him. “What does that mean? ‘Shalom’?”

  “It means peace,” he said.

  Kate smiled. “I like that. Shalom, Gilad.”

  He turned back as he was leaving and waved. “I will call you. I would like to take you to dinner. Someplace nice.”

  “I’d like that,” Kate called after him.

  When he was gone, Kate went back to her silent vigil at Jack’s grave. She touched the headstone with his name. He was part of the history of mankind now, the long history he spoke so passionately about.

  She knew that someday she would move on, but for the time being she felt that it was important to come every day to tell him that she loved him. She had been able to tell him that when he was alive, and she knew what it had meant to him. He had told her that he loved her, and she knew what it meant to her.