Empire of Dust (35 page)

At times Laika had to slow to a crawl to negotiate their way around a combination of ruts, roots, and rocks, not to mention the frequent trenches on either side of the road. Still, they proceeded upward, reaching an altitude that closed Laika's ears, so that she had to yawn to open them.

"We're almost at the top," Miriam said. "Well over a mile up from the valley floor. It's a beautiful view when we cross over."

Laika assumed she meant crossing over the summit, but the phrase stayed uncomfortably in her mind as a harbinger of disaster. She sure as hell wasn't ready to cross over Jordan yet, beautiful view or not.

At last they reached the summit, and Laika saw that Miriam was right. The view was both breathtaking and terrifying, since there were no guard rails. If the tires slid too much on the loose earth, it seemed as though they would go over the edge and continue to fall until they hit the valley floor. She hugged the middle of the road as closely as possible.

She had her foot on the brake most of the time now, and the cold metallic taste in her mouth increased every time the Camry continued to slide of its own accord, though she was always able to control it in time. Her attention was focused on the road in front of her, and the next hazard she might encounter, so she wasn't immediately aware of the car that was suddenly behind them until she heard the first shots.

I
t was about time, Popeye Daly had thought, when the car had crossed his line of vision. He had started the engine as soon as he heard it approach, knowing full well that the operatives would never hear it over the sound of their own tires skidding and skittering on the loose dirt.

He had only had time for a brief glimpse of the car and passengers as they passed, but it was enough to positively ID the Camry, with Stein in the front seat and Luciano in the rear. "That's it," Daly barked, as he spun the Blazer out of cover and onto the road.

The Indians didn't have to be told twice. Their assault carbines were immediately punching shots at the Camry just ahead of them. They were aiming for the back window, but the condition of the road was throwing their shots high, wide, or low—anywhere, it seemed, but at their target. Bullets popped through the metal of the trunk, skimmed off the roof, and smacked into the bumper, but the glass remained intact.

The car speeded up, and Daly thought,
Great, do my job for me and run off the goddamned road yourself
. The brake lights lit up, and the Camry fishtailed around a turn, its rear wheels only inches from the edge of the precipice. "Just not built for this kind of driving," Daly whispered, as one of the Indians changed clips while the other continued to fire.

Daly's Blazer negotiated the turn tightly, and now the car was only ten yards away, on a temporarily straight stretch. The Indians fired, and Daly was finally rewarded with the sight of the car's back window shattering to pieces. "
Yes
," he hissed. He could see only the head of the driver, probably Harris. Had they damaged the other two, or were they just staying low? Since they weren't returning fire, maybe they'd been hit.

He pressed them some more, racing forward until his reinforced steel bumper slammed against the rear of the sedan. It skidded toward the edge of the cliff, and Daly saw Harris jerk the wheel in that direction, then back, straightening out just in time.

But there was another turn ahead, and he knew that she was going too fast to make it. It swung to the right, with the mountain's face rising on their left. The Camry's wheels slipped on the dirt and stones, and its rear shot to the left, spinning the car so that its back left tire dropped solidly into a storm ditch, stopping the car as firmly as if a giant hand had grasped it.

Daly hit the brakes, stopping the Blazer just behind the car. "Box it in!" he shouted to the Indians, as he grabbed his weapon and pushed open the door.

They spread out as they ran toward the car, but Daly didn't expect much opposition, so he was surprised when three of the sedan's doors burst open at once and the operatives came out shooting.

The Indians were ready, but not for the kind of skill that Harris, Stein, and Luciano brought to the party. The bastards must have planned it all out. Daly was able to get off some rounds, but Luciano and Stein had targeted him, and fired directly at him a moment after he had pulled his trigger. He caught one round in the lung and another in the gut, and his shots went wild as he fell.

Harris had targeted the Indian on the right, who was hit with a string full in the chest and fell without firing a shot. Daly saw the second Indian manage to get a burst off before he was hit in the shoulder by Luciano, and his rifle went flying. Stein's fire took the Indian's legs out from under him, and he went down on his face in the dirt, where he tried in vain to push himself to his feet.

God damn it
, Daly thought. A lifetime of wet work, a fortune in his grasp, and he had blown it by hiring bush leaguers. He was too used to working with pros, and he had depended on the undependable. It was one helluva time to make a fatal mistake.

But maybe, he thought in the few retrospective seconds he had left, maybe these three sonsabitches were just
better
than he was.

"H
e's dead," Laika called to Tony, who was advancing in a running crouch toward the man she had hit full in the chest. "Watch him," she added, gesturing with her gun barrel to the one who was trying to push himself to his feet. His chestnut skin and long black hair told her that he was an Indian. "Miriam okay?" she asked Tony.

"Yeah." He patted down the wounded Indian, found no other weapon, left the man in the dirt, and joined Laika and Joseph over the gutshot white man in the brown leather jacket.

The man was lying on his back, and Laika could see that he wouldn't live much longer. He had been hit in the chest and stomach, and blood was trickling from his mouth. His breath rasped in his throat.

"Hey," Joseph said, "I think I
know
this guy." Laika thought the man looked familiar herself, but couldn't place him. "Where have I seen you before?" Joseph asked. "Who are you, pal?"

The man shook his head slightly and coughed up some blood. "Nobody. Just . . . someone who wants . . . to disappear. . . ." A final breath wheezed out of him on a cough, and more blood poured from his mouth, as though something had been broken deep inside him. His eyes partly closed, and the pupils saw nothing.

"I've got it," Joseph said. "Langley."

"Company man?" asked Tony.

Laika nodded. "That's it. That's where I saw him. The parking lot, the cafeteria, somewhere. I can picture him in a suit, Joseph."

Joseph was already going through the man's pockets. There was no wallet, just a thick money clip loaded with several thousand dollars' worth of twenties and fifties. "No ID at all." He ripped open the man's shirt. "He's got his share of scars, though. And Jesus, look at those arms. Strong bastard."

"Popeye," Tony said softly.

"What?" asked Joseph.

"It just clicked. I didn't recognize him at first, but I remember now. In the gym. The guy could out-benchpress anybody. Had arms like hams. They called him Popeye."

"What the hell was he trying to kill us for?" Joseph asked. "Skye?"

Laika looked back toward the car, her mind working out the betrayal. But then she saw the bullet holes in the trunk. "Oh, shit," she said. "Come on!" If Ezekiel Swain had been harmed by the bullets that had penetrated the metal, their search was going to be a lot tougher.

She sprinted to the car, yanked the keys out of the ignition, and jammed the trunk key in the keyhole. She had barely turned it before the lid flew up, startling her into a split second of immobility. It was all the time Ezekiel Swain needed.

The thing that leaped at her from the trunk was barely recognizable as Swain. It rather resembled the dried brown corpses Swain had left behind. But all Laika knew at the moment was that some nightmare was upon her. It bore her to the earth with the force of its attack, and she felt its brittle skin cling to her clothing like some ancient dry and crusted glue, reeking of things far worse than rendered horseflesh.

Swain's face was only inches away and coming closer to hers, its mouth open in a round "O" like the sucking beak of some deep-sea creature. Laika tried to push it away but discovered that she couldn't use her hands or arms, which seemed bonded to her attacker.

She closed her eyes to shut out the horror, but then the pain hit her. It was as if a thousand fiery hollow needles sank into her flesh, and she felt her life and humanity being drawn away, not from a single wound, but from an infinity of wounds, as though her entire body had been stripped of flesh and salt poured upon the exposed tissues.

But even worse was when the thing was pulled away.

Laika felt as though someone had reached into her mouth and down her throat all the way to her bowels, and then quickly yanked her inside out. It lasted for only a second, but a second was enough for the pounding agony to bludgeon her into the darkness.

L
aika awoke only seconds later, and all that remained was the memory of the pain. She could still feel it, but it was physically gone from her.

Tony and Joseph were holding the thing that had been Ezekiel Swain. Each had hold of a wrist and stretched it apart so that it could not reach him with its body. It looked as if they were holding a rabid tiger, so furiously did Swain twist his leathery torso and whip his legs back and forth. His head writhed and jerked, and from his mouth there came a high-pitched squeal again, like the scream of a cat. His frenzy to feed had taken him beyond speech.

"The sonofabitch," said Tony, struggling to get the words out and hold the fury, "is
hungry
. . . ."

That had to be it. Laika had nearly been
fed
upon, and unless Swain feasted immediately on the diet of blood and fluids he had grown to need, he would prove too strong for her colleagues. Laika quickly pointed to the dead Indian. Perhaps his gaping chest wound would make it easier for Swain to feast.

Tony and Joseph staggered over to the dead man, then fell to their knees, dragging Swain down with them, and positioning him atop the body. But the attempt was futile. Swain screamed louder and higher, and struggled so desperately to avoid contact with the corpse that he seemed almost to levitate in his efforts. Apparently, Laika thought, the meat had to be alive.

Then she looked at the wounded Indian, the one shot in the shoulder and the leg. He had given up trying to get to his feet and now was just lying on the road. The earth had turned dark from the blood running out from him, and she thought that, depending on whether or not the wound in his shoulder had punctured his lung, he might not live until medical help arrived, if it ever did. She and her fellow operatives were certainly not going to call for it. The Indian had tried to kill them.

On the other side was her knowledge of what had been done to her by Ezekiel Swain. It was not so much the death itself as the sheer horror of it, and she would have to stand there and watch this man experience it.

Ezekiel Swain shrieked again and thrashed about as Tony and Joseph managed to get to their feet. They looked at her as if begging to be told what to do, and that look reminded her that she was the leader, and there was a job to be done.

They were near the end of their long search. Resolve crept into her again. Almost without thinking, she shot a finger at the wounded Indian and gave the two men a look that would allow no challenge.

She thought that they feared for their own lives as much as they feared disobeying her order. They stumbled with their ferocious burden to where the Indian lay. The wounded man rolled over on his side to see what was approaching him, and when he did, he yelled and threw up his good arm, collapsing once again.

"Are you
sure
?" Joseph cried, a mixture of frustration and pity wrenching his face.

"
Do it!
" Laika shouted back. Tony moved first, thrusting Ezekiel Swain down toward the Indian, and Joseph, running the risk of being attacked himself if he did not let go, did the same.

Swain fell upon the unfortunate Indian with a sound like the cry of a panther. His body seemed to mold itself to the Indian's, trunk, legs, and arms slapping together as if drawn magnetically. Even his mouth came down upon the Indian's in a blasphemous kiss, the kiss that Laika would have suffered had her team not saved her.

The sight of it feeding, and the memory of what it had done to her, brought up the little that she had remaining in her stomach. It tasted sour and bitter, of bile and acid, and when she thought that those exact fluids were even now being taken from Swain's victim, she continued to heave until she could banish the thought from her mind.