Darkness Bound (11 page)

Twilight was spreading green gloom over the floor of the forest. It would be dark soon.

Then he could hunt.

From behind him, she said quietly, “Is it safe?”

He turned to look at her. She was staring intently at the space he was clearing beside the tree.

“On the ground, I mean. Couldn’t we . . .” Her eyes lifted, and she gazed into the high branches of the tree.

“You’d feel safer in the tree than on the ground?”

In a guarded voice, she replied, “In my experience, the ground is always where the predators are.”

This surprised Hawk for several reasons. First, she was correct. The larger predators—including him—hunted the forest floor. Second, how would she know that? Finally, there was a double meaning behind her words, he was sure of it. The way she gazed longingly into the tree was telling, but of what he didn’t know.

Another puzzle piece. Another misshapen clue that didn’t fit.

“All right. I’ll find a spot, and come and get you. But once we’re up, we’re up for the night, understand? Whatever business you have to take care of, take care of it now.”

Her lips twisted. She nodded, understanding his meaning.

“And, uh, bury it.”

Jack stood, looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else on Earth at this moment. “Roger that, Rambo,” she said dryly, and ducked under the low, spreading branches of a giant philodendron.

Hawk watched for a moment, stretching his senses. He smelled loamy earth and wet vegetation, felt the scant vibration of a duo of capybaras nosing through bracken several dozen yards away, heard a thousand different bird and insect noises, but sensed nothing dangerous. There were no predators nearby that might leap on her mid-squat.

Satisfied, he leapt with ease onto one of the taller buttress roots that supported the tree and began to climb the trunk.

Ten minutes later, he descended to find Jack anxiously awaiting him, her neck craned up as she watched him climb down, her arms wrapped around her body as if for protection.

“I should have brought my gun,” she muttered, glancing around the quickly darkening forest. The night creatures were beginning to stir, and the air was alive with strange, new noises. Bearded pigs, leopard cats, flying fox bats, and the deadly caiman were all emerging from their daytime slumber with a hunger that would only be satisfied by fresh meat.

“You don’t need a gun.” Hawk jumped down and landed silently beside her. “You have me.”

She made a face, the meaning of which he didn’t care to decipher.

“You’re going to have to hold on tight as we climb, understand? You don’t want to fall—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you don’t need to give me a safety lecture,” Jack interrupted, moving so close to him he felt the heat of her skin. She looked up into his eyes and declared, “Let’s do this.”

Hawk suppressed a smile. Bossy, brave, fragile, stubborn . . . if she wasn’t such a prejudiced pain in the butt he might have actually liked her.

He leapt back onto the tall buttress root and held out a hand. She scrambled up beside him with surprising agility, grabbing his hand for balance, but immediately released it when she steadied. Their eyes met, and she quickly glanced away.

“All right,” Hawk said, all business, “arms around my neck. Try not move too much. And keep your ankles crossed, or your feet might get in the way of my—”

“Wait,” Jack interrupted, understanding dawning over her face. “You don’t think you’re going to
carry
me up this tree, do you?”

His brows arched. He pointed to the branches far above. “How else did you think you’d get up there?”

She looked affronted. “The same as you. Climb.”

Hawk knew her well enough by now to realize an argument was imminent. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her, but she wasn’t backing down.

“I know. You think you’re better than me because you have a dick and I don’t. But I’m perfectly capable of climbing this stupid tree, and I’ll prove it to you.” She tried to brush past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Can’t let you do that, Red. I’m responsible for your safety. If you fall and break your neck, it’s my head on the chopping block.”

Hawk knew he’d made a big mistake when her eyes narrowed and her gaze, sharp as an eagle’s, honed in on his face.

“Forget it.” Then he reconsidered, and smiled. “Unless you’d like to negotiate.”

She chewed the inside of her lip and scowled at him, wondering, no doubt, how she was going to bash in the side of his head. “A question for a question,” she pronounced, correctly guessing his terms. He nodded, his smile growing wider.

Jack studied his expression. Then, in a stunning display of honesty that left him reeling, she solemnly said, “I have a lot of experience climbing trees. I did it all the time when I was a kid because I had a lot of things I needed to hide from, and those things were afraid of heights. I know you’re bigger than I am, and you’re stronger than I am, and no doubt you could force me to go up this tree on your back.” She swallowed, hesitating for the briefest of moments before continuing, quieter than before. “But if you do that, I will feel weak, useless, and totally dependent, all of which are things that make me crazy.

“You were right about me hating to not be in control. Feeling in control is the only thing that keeps me sane, because there was a time in my life when I was completely
out
of control, completely helpless, and that’s something I can never be again. So, please. Just let me try to climb this fucking tree. If you think I can’t handle it, if it looks like I’m about to fall, you have my permission to throw me over your shoulder or drag me up by my goddamn hair if you want. Just . . . please let me try. Before you decide for me.”

She stood staring up at him with eyes wide and shining, and Hawk felt as if a giant, invisible fist was squeezing his heart.

He said, “I don’t think I’m better than you because I have a dick. And I don’t think you do it on purpose, but that mouth of yours makes
me
crazy. Can we agree that if I let you try to climb this tree, you’ll try to cut out the cursing?”

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and chewed it. “Why does that bother you so much?”

A million different memories flooded Hawk’s mind, all of them bad. “Because the things
I
needed to hide from when I was a kid just loved to scream curses.” His voice hardened. “Right before they beat the hell out of me.”

The expression that crossed Jacqueline’s face then was indescribable. She looked as if she might throw her arms around him, or burst into tears. But she did neither of those things. She only nodded, then waited, standing perfectly still.

Hawk exhaled a hard breath. “All right, Red. You first. Don’t make me regret this.”

Still serious, she nodded again, then moved past him. Finding notches in the rough bark of the trunk, she pulled herself up. She paused just before climbing, and turned to look at him.

“Thank you, Lucas.” Her voice was quiet in the gathering gloom. Their gazes held just longer than was comfortable, until he jerked his chin, indicating she should climb.

So she did. He watched her with more than a little trepidation and a burgeoning premonition of doom as she quickly and confidently began to scale the trunk of the mammoth tree.

Jacqueline Dolan
, he thought, unable to tear his gaze from her as she climbed,
you are trouble with a capital T.

Hawk shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, then leapt onto the trunk beneath her.

The three men who sat around the oval conference table in silence inside the soundproof office at the elegant townhouse on Sutton Place in Manhattan were so different from each other that an observer might have a difficult time determining why they were meeting at all.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations was a slight, bespectacled man named Min Ji-hoon, formerly the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea. His air of humble geniality belied a razor-sharp intelligence, and a fierce competitive streak that drove him like a merciless slave master. To the press he was known as “the slippery eel,” due to his ability to deftly avoid questions, a particularly valuable skill for a diplomat.

Directly across from him sat another bespectacled man, this one white-haired and missing one hand and an eye. The hole in his skull was covered by a black patch, giving him the look of a pirate, but the look in the other blue eye that stared out from behind his glasses was anything but piratical. It held the flat, killer gaze of a jihadist, of one who had seen and done things no man ought to have seen and done. He sat perfectly still and straight in his chair, clad in a tailored black suit that hid the unfortunate fact that one of his legs was aluminum from the upper thigh down.

The man was known by several names, including the Doctor and, like all the others in the multinational organization to which he belonged, John Doe. To the gathered group, and the businessman he represented, he was known simply as Thirteen.

The third man at the end of the table was the largest, most imposing, and most arresting of the three. Clad in a simple cloth robe the color of blackest night, with a cowl and hood hiding the pale dome of his bald head, the albino named Jahad sat with his large hands folded peacefully in his lap, gazing at Thirteen with a look in his gray-lavender eyes that could only be described as chilling. There was no love lost between the two men, and though they’d worked together once before to catch the beasts they still pursued, the operation had ended disastrously for both of them, and each bore the scars of their failure.

Jahad’s were internal, however. Though unseen, his claustrophobia was nearly crippling.

He had scars aplenty from earlier exploits, including those from the fire that had almost killed him as a boy, leaving him with hideous pocked and puckered flesh on the right side of his face and body, and a hand that was curled to a claw. All in all, he was a most unusual sight. Most people couldn’t bear to look at him for more than a few seconds at a time.

The Secretary-General was currently experiencing exactly that problem.

“How can you be sure this tip you received was credible?” Min said to Thirteen, trying hard not to glance at Jahad. It was like trying not to look at a car accident on the freeway. You wanted to see a glimpse of a bloody corpse, yet hoped simultaneously not to.

“Certain details were given that proved credibility beyond a doubt. I wouldn’t be here if there was any question of authenticity,” replied Thirteen, his one eye glittering icy blue, cold as an arctic sky. His voice held a strong German accent that, in addition to his missing parts and that lone, frigid eye, made him seem like something straight out of a folktale by the brothers Grimm.

“And just to be perfectly clear, your organization is willing to underwrite the entire cost of this operation? If this tip proves accurate, and we move forward with your plan, we’re likely looking in the hundreds of millions, including reparations to the Brazilian government, and any affected farmers or indigenous tribes. The cost of reforesting alone will be astronomical. Destroying an entire section of the Amazon rainforest—”

“Money is no object to the Chairman,” Thirteen interrupted, sneering. “You of all people should be aware of that.”

A flush crept over the Secretary-General’s cheeks. The Chairman had given generously to his election campaign. He’d never met the man—he remained an enigma, a faceless entity represented only through third-parties such as Thirteen—but his influence, and bank account, were definitely real.

For the first time, Jahad spoke. His voice was deep and somehow soulless, matching the empty look in his pale eyes. “We’re not looking for money. What we want is a guarantee.”

The Secretary-General finally looked directly at Jahad. Blinking behind his large glasses, he waited for the albino to continue.

“The UN will not interfere in any way. You will sanction this action, and allow us to proceed in whatever way we see fit.”

Min’s brows lifted. “I can’t give a unilateral guarantee that there won’t be a call for some kind of accountability. The Security Council will want to get involved—”

“There will be
no
interference.”

The threat in Jahad’s tone was obvious. It had Min sitting up straighter in his seat, the flush in his cheeks deepening. His voice went up an octave. “It’s my duty to report any matter that threatens the maintenance of international peace and security. Can you imagine what Brazil might have to say about this? Let alone the international conservation communities—”

“You can convince them,” Thirteen interrupted, sounding absolutely sure of it.

Min looked back and forth between the albino and Jahad, his outrage growing. Who did these two hooligans think they were, ordering him around? “The General Assembly can override me. They have veto power, regardless of what I recommend. The United Nations isn’t a monarchy, gentlemen. There are one hundred ninety-three member states, each of which gets a vote.”

Thirteen’s lips curved upward, but it was grim and ugly, a mockery of a smile. He set a leather briefcase on the table, clicked it open, and withdrew five manila folders, each with a name neatly typed in the upper right-hand corner.

“The five permanent members of the Security Council who hold veto power are the only ones who really matter. In these folders you will find information about those five members that might . . .
motivate
them to agree with whatever you suggest.”

Min was almost afraid to touch the folders Thirteen pushed across the table toward him. He glanced at Jahad, who sat stone-faced and shark-eyed at the end of the table, then back at Thirteen. He lifted the flap on one of the envelopes and withdrew a black-and-white photograph from within.

With a sick twist in his stomach, he shoved the photo roughly back into the folder.

In a tone so hissed it was nearly reptilian, Thirteen said, “Our friend Mr. Drake certainly does enjoy those underage boys.”

The Secretary-General said stiffly, “This is not the way to go about convincing people your plan is correct, gentlemen.”

“
Im gegenteil
,” said Thirteen. “On the contrary, this is exactly the way to convince them. Self-preservation is the strongest basic human motivation, even beyond that of procreation or the need for food or shelter. Every man has a flaw, a secret, or a regret he will go to any length to hide. Uncover it, exploit it, and there’s nothing he won’t do for you. This is the key to politics, Mr. Secretary-General. This is the key to gaining consensus. Surely you must know that by now.”

The satisfied smirk Thirteen sent him told Min he had underestimated the lengths these two men would go to get what they wanted. It also told him he’d made a terrible miscalculation when he’d accepted money from the Chairman.

He sat stiffly back into his plush leather chair and gazed at Thirteen with new respect, and new animosity. He chose his next words carefully. “Blackmail will not be necessary, gentlemen. These creatures slaughtered twenty-six of the world’s most important religious and political leaders in a coordinated attack that left no question about their disposition toward the human race. Or their ability to bypass our defenses. Public opinion is already on your side. A few well-timed words are all that will be needed to ensure your operation moves forward without incident.”

“But backups are always good, too,” said Jahad, smiling like Thirteen. On him it looked even more unnerving, the grin of a crocodile as its jaws snapped closed over your head.

The Secretary-General abruptly stood, signaling the end of the meeting. “My housekeeper will show you out. If you need to contact me again, I suggest you do so on a secure line, and not at the UN where a record of all calls are kept. My private cellular is off-grid. Use that.”

Thirteen and Jahad stood as well, acknowledging the instructions with matching expressions of disdain.

No one shook hands. The Secretary-General turned and hurried from the room.