The Djinn (26 page)

O’ Lord, as thy shut the
mouths of the lions for thy servant Daniel, I beseech you to do the same
for…crap! What’s the King James word for “me”?

Apparently, it didn’t really
matter because a low growl reverberated from the water to my left a second
later. I turned to catch the fleeting image of a serpentine tail descend from
the shoreline into the murky river. The water rippled as the other crocs
submerged into the depths.

“Keep moving,” the big man said
from behind just as I heard the telltale sound of a hammer being pulled back on
the big man’s .357.

I scanned the surface for any
signs of the waiting crocodiles and came up empty. They had all disappeared.
Tensing, I took another step out, moving deeper into the water.

“You know, if I get a parasite
from this, I’m really going to get ticked,” I grumbled as the river rose up to
my waistline. “They say they crawl through your urethra. Not a pleasant image
for anyone.”

“Oh for the love of…” I heard
Charlie growl just before the crack of a gun echoed across the barren
landscape.

I froze.
Then
started patting myself down.
There didn’t seem to be any holes in me, so
I spun around to look at the massive smuggler. A weird shaped mark appeared in
the center of his forehead, a stream of crimson oozed down into his stunned
eyes. Then, he silently
fell
face first into the
water.

I looked at the other guards,
bewilderment plastered across their own faces as they stared dumbly at their
fallen comrade.
 
Then, five more shots
rang out, leaving five dead guards immediately in their wake.

Landers
, I thought, scouring the terrain for signs
of my friends. A flash of light flared up over a hundred yards away in the
center of the broad river. Then, I heard the sound of an outboard motor whine
to life and a small speed boat coasted quickly toward me.

The crocs lurking in the water
jittered off at the approaching watercraft, but I couldn’t say the same for the
thirteen pirates baring assault rifles heading my way from camp. The scrawny
form of Artie led the way, as he pointed and shouted curses in my direction.

I looked at my approaching
friends, turned back to the smugglers still sixty yards away and threw them a
wave before diving into the water. A few seconds later, one of my oldest and
best friends, Randy, was hauling me into the boat with a huge grin plastered
across his face.

“I sure am glad to see you
guys,” I said, as Landers maneuvered the vessel around.

“Yeah, we weren’t exactly sure
how we were going to get you out of there,” Randy said, as he handed me a
cigar. “Lucky they have no imagination when it comes to killing people.”

“I said the exact same thing.” I
clutched the cigar in my teeth with a grin as he lit it with a covered match.
It was a ritual. Every time I narrowly escaped death, I had to have a cigar.
The philosophy was simple, if illogical…if I was going to die from something, I’d
rather it be from smoking.

I turned to the grim visage of
the ex-marine manning the wheel.
“Uh, Scott?
We still
have a little problem with the fact that those guys have faster boats than us.”

“No,” he said, throwing me a
slight smile and holding up a black, rectangular box in his hand. “I don’t
think we do.”

He pushed a red button on the
box and the night sky behind us exploded in four balls of fiery coolness. The
smuggler’s vessels were smashed to splinters by the concussive force of C-4
charges that the ENIGMA agent had obviously planted before his daring rescue.

“Nice.” I couldn’t contain my
own smile as I took a long pull from the
stogey
. I
jerked slightly as something rubbed up against my leg in the boat. I glanced
down to see the soft, cuddly features of the
bunyip
nudging me with its broad snout. Tiny nubs that would one day became tusks
protruded from its mouth. “So,” I said to it, “now to get you to your new
home.”

I picked the little guy up and
placed him in my lap as we sped through the dark waters of the Queensland
river
.
Next stop, home and a long
vacation.
I couldn’t wait.

DEVIL’S CHILD

(An ENIGMA Directive
Novel)

CHAPTER TWO

I limped my way
through the halls of ENIGMA headquarters, nestled in a series of non-descript
buildings in a business district of Arlington, VA. My little Jack Russell
terrier, Arnold, limped right alongside me. Oh, he wasn’t injured. Just having
sympathy pains…if dogs can have that anyway. But he’s not exactly an ordinary
dog either, though I’d never told a single soul about where he came from.
Needless to say, having him limp in sympathy with my own aches is not as crazy
as it might sound.

And why
shouldn’t he feel bad for me? After all, I had enough aches all over my body to
keep most people incapacitated for at least a week. I’m not bragging…I’d just
as soon be one of those people, wrapped up in my blankets at home, and watching
Oprah while the bruises and broken ribs mended. But Director Anton Polk, I
guess you can say he’s sort of my boss, demanded a debriefing of our trip to
Australia.
Which basically translates to a major chewing out
for disobeying his orders not to go in the first place.

So, I pulled
myself from the much needed R&R, hopped the first plane from my modest
two-story townhouse in Florida, and made my way to the one place on earth I
wanted to be the farthest away from.

I came to a set
of elevators and mashed the button. The lobby was barren, like the desert
wasteland of the Mad Max movies. Only a single security guard had nodded me in,
as I’d entered the building. It wasn’t surprising. It was Saturday. The few
office personnel who actually worked in the building had a zillion better
things to do with their time than to come here and listen to Dr. Obadiah
Jackson get reamed by the Director.

The elevator
door pinged open and I stepped through. Arnold bounded inside as well, his
tongue lolling over to one side of his head as his tail wagged furiously.

“
Heh
.
Yeah, I know you’re
excited,” I said to him, crouching down to give him a good pat. “Polk is definitely
not going to like seeing you, is he?”

Polk had
forbade
any non-
cryptid
animals
access to any part of the ENIGMA complex. He despised animals. Hated them was a
better word. I think it probably has to do with the nearly head-exploding bouts
of sneezing that occurs when he gets within five feet of anything walking on
four legs.
Which, of course, is precisely the reason I always
insist on having Arnold tag along whenever I make an appearance.
Plus,
Arnold loves the crotchety old skinflint. I couldn’t help the chuckle that
escaped my lips as I stood up and waited for the elevator to reach its
destination…thirty-three levels straight down into the Virginia soil.

That might
sound unusual to the uninitiated. It’s not. The fact is, ENIGMA, which stands
for
ENtity
Identification and Global
Management Agency
, is super-secret. Not too many people outside the
President and a handful of congressmen even knew we existed. Established in the
late 60s by President Nixon when an outbreak of
cryptid
sightings terrorized several communities throughout the world, ENIGMA was
developed to investigate such sightings. On paper, it was created to track down
these
cryptids
and study them. Sometimes, we’re
expected to contain them.

But like most
institutions, it lost sight of its goals. Began developing strategies and
scenarios in which the strange creatures we investigated might be used for
more…unsavory…things.
Military.
Living
weapons.
Really nasty stuff.

I know firsthand
how nasty. It was one of ENIGMA’s own experiments that killed someone very dear
to me two years ago. I shuddered at the thought, just as the elevator slowed to
a halt and the doors opened once more.

I heard Polk
shouting the moment I stepped through them. I heard Landers’ name.
As well as my own.
Well, the Director didn’t actually use my
name in his profanity-laden tirade. But I was quick enough to put the pieces
together of a few catchy expletives I could tell were being used to represent
me.

My grin
broadened on my face. I can’t explain why I take such a perverse pleasure in
making that man so miserable. I suppose, it’s just one of those simple joys in
life.

Arnold and I
hobbled through the long corridor until we came to the doors leading to Polk’s
office. I tapped on the door and poked my head in. Arlene, his secretary,
looked up from her desk and threw me a wide smile. I swear
,
you could melt the entire Arctic region with those pearly whites of hers.
Arlene was a looker.
An ex-runway model in her younger years.
Now that she was just south of fifty, she looked even more amazing in my
opinion.

“Hey,
gorgeous,” I winked and nodded over to Polk’s interior office doors. “How’s he
doing?”

“Oh, you’ve
really outdone yourself this time, Jack,” she said. “I’ve never seen him this
upset before—” Her speech cut off when she saw the bruises all over my face. I
could imagine I didn’t look in the best of shape.
Cuts.
Scrapes.
And though the swelling had gone down enough
for me to see through it, my [right or left?] eye was still six shades of blue.
“Dang, Jack. We need to get you some Kung Fu lessons or something.”

“Well, you
should see the other guys.”

“Landers was
there, right?”

I moved over to
Polk’s door and rested my hand on the knob. “Yeah, but what’s that got to do
with it?”

“Because with
Scott, it means the other guys all have bullet holes in their heads. It doesn’t
count. You still need lessons.” She gave me a compassionate smile again and
nodded toward the office. “You better get in there. And I’m not so sure you
should take
Arn
—”

Before she
finished the sentence, I turned the handle and stepped into the Category Five
hurricane that was Anton Polk’s fury as he turned to glare at me.

“Jackson.” He
was standing, or rather pacing the floor before he turned to spot me. His eyes
burned as he pointed his spindly index finger at a nearby chair on the other
side of the long conference table. “Sit.”

My dog plodded
victoriously into the room, his head held high as if he was the guest of honor.
The Director’s eyes widened simultaneously with the reddening of his face. I
half expected steam to shoot out his ears like Elmer
Fudd
in a Looney Tune cartoon.

“And he stays
outside.” His heat-seeking finger targeted on Arnold. “You know better than to
bring him…”

“Anton, calm
down,”
came
the gruff voice of Senator John Chesterton
Stromwell, or J.C. if he liked you well enough. I hadn’t even noticed his
presence as I’d entered the office…which is saying something when you consider
how large the man is. He was seated at the far end of the table. His bushy
Theodore Roosevelt mustache barely contained the obvious amusement of seeing
the Director so upset. Or maybe it was from seeing Arnold, who trotted over to
the larger-then-life politician and pounced up in his lap. The senator cooed in
his ear as he scratched the terrier’s underbelly. “We’re not going to get
anywhere with you acting like a bad imitation of Old Faithful. You need to
settle down.”

At the
senator’s words, Polk drew in a breath. His face lightened a little as if he’d
been oxygen deprived and had finally taken in enough air to ventilate his
brain. He stared at Stromwell for several seconds before leaning forward and
resting his hands on the table. His head dropped as he continued his breathing
exercises, something he’d been instructed to do by his cardiologist whenever
his blood pressure rose to volcanic proportions.

Landers sat
quietly in a chair next to him.
His back rigid against the
seat.
His head held high, almost stiff, at perfect military attention.
The
freakin
’ boy scout.
I guess
the years since leaving the Marines would never quite remove the spic-n-span
gleam to his razor sharp discipline. He’d been getting a royal chewing out
before I stepped into the room, yet his demeanor was as calm and placid as if
he’d been having afternoon tea with my elderly neighbor Gladys. He shot me a
knowing look and then let his eyes fix on the chair next to me.
A silent plea for me to take a seat.

I took the cue
and sat down.

“I’m just tired
of him, John,” Polk wheezed, still pointing furiously at me. “I’m tired of his
insubordination. I’m tired of his constant lack of respect for me and this
office. I’m tired—”

“We’re all
tired, Anton,” Stromwell said, leaning back in his seat. Arnold repositioned
himself to lie squarely on the man’s oversized belly.
Perfectly
content.
“Including Jack.
He was put into this
position for a very special reason.
To keep an eye out for
anything that smacks of unethical behavior toward
cryptids
…whether
within the organization or out.
When you prohibited him from going to
Queensland to look into the
bunyip
poachers, you were
effectively telling him not to do his job.”

“That’s exactly
what I told him two weeks ago,” I said, raising my hands in the air.

“Shut up,
Jack,” the big man glared at me as he stroked the top of Arnold’s head. “We’ll
get to you in a minute.” He turned his attention back to Polk. “I’m not sure
where this animosity you have for the boy comes from, but you’re going to have
to…”

My phone
chimed, alerting me to a text message.
Stromwell’s
eyes glared at me for the interruption. Apologetically, I pulled the phone from
its clip and flipped it open.

“We’re in the
middle of something here, Jack.” The senator’s voice left no room for
misinterpretation. He wanted my full attention.

The problem was
,
I’d already seen who the message was from. And since I
hadn’t heard from him in about five years, I couldn’t very well just put him
aside. If Kenneth Stephens was trying to contact me…especially by text…then it
was probably important.

“I know,
Senator,” I said, glancing down at the digital display on my phone briefly and
scrolling down to the meat of the message. The breath was almost knocked from
my lungs as I read it.
Hospital
?
“But this is
important.”

“Whatever it
is, it can wait,” Polk spat. “See, this is exactly the rotten attitude I’ve
been telling you about. He just won’t listen to reason.”

I stood up and
cradled the phone back in its clip.

“Sorry,
Senator, but I’ve got to go.” I patted my thigh and Arnold leapt down from
Stromwell’s
lap and moved over to me, his tail wagging
happily.

“We’re not done
yet, boy,” Stromwell all but growled the sentence. Though he liked me,
especially since I’d saved his daughter, Nikki, from an ENIGMA experiment gone
horribly wrong, he had been none
to
happy with my
people skills while working for his pet agency. “This meeting will determine
whether you should be scheduled for a disciplinary hearing. It’s not something
to be taken lightly.”

I walked over
to the doors and opened them before turning back to the room. “And I can’t take
a friend lying in a hospital bed right now lightly either. You want to put me
before the disciplinary board. Go ahead. Right now, I’m going to see my
friend.”

“Jack, wait…” I
heard Scott say as I slammed the doors behind me.

I waved a curt
goodbye to Arlene and made my way out of the building. I had a plane to catch.

Kenny, my
friend
, I thought to myself as I hailed a cab.
This had better be good
.

****

Oddly enough,
considering I’d been to every continent on the planet and darn near every
country,
it was my very first honest-to-goodness visit to
New York City.
Something that, as a Southerner, I secretly
prided myself on.
Oh, sure, I’d been here before…for airport layovers
before catching my next flight to Lord only knew where. But I’d never really
stepped foot onto the bustling sidewalks of Manhattan.

And what an
experience I’d been missing. The buildings towered on all sides of me, like a
thousand giants looming into the sky. It was almost suffocating, if not
intoxicating. But I had no time for sightseeing, as I strode up the majestic
steps of the New York Presbyterian Hospital in northern Manhattan. The
automatic doors slid open for me as I stepped toward them and I made my way to
the front desk to inquire about Kenny’s room. After being given the directions,
I quickly moved to the fifth floor and walked down a long, busy hallway until I
came to room 514.

I stopped. It
had been so long since I’d last seen my old childhood friend. We’d grown up
together in the foothills of the Appalachians in eastern Kentucky. From
opposite worlds, Kenny was from a poor black family. The middle child, in a
household of seven kids, he’d always had a hard time fitting in…even within his
own family. Maybe that’s why I’d taken an instant liking to him. He had been as
much at odds with his own parents, as I had with mine. But where I had come
from two middle-class University professors who were also devout
Bible-believing Christians, his was an uneducated farming-class family. He
aspired for greater things. I just wanted to stay home from church every once
in a while.

In the end, we
both ended up where our parents had wanted us. Though Kenny had never taken up
the family farming business, he remained a man of the earth. Living off the
land like he’d been sculpted from the very soil his bare feet had so often
tread. Last I heard
,
he made a decent living as a
professional hunter and tracker. Winning numerous competitions and becoming
somewhat of a celebrity back home.