Conspiracy Game

time. Most of the time he never regretted it. But sometimes, when he sat thirty feet up in a tree with a rifle in his hands and death surrounding him, he wondered what it would be like to have a home and family. A woman. Laughter. He couldn’t remember laughter, not even with Ken, and Ken could be amusing at the most inopportune times.

It was too late for him. He was rough and cold and any gentleness he might have been born with had been beat out of him long before he was a teenager. He looked at the people and the world around him stripped of beauty, seeing only the ugliness. It was kill or be killed in his world, and he was a survivor. He settled back and closed his eyes, needing to sleep for a few minutes.

He woke to the sounds of screams. The sound often haunted him in his nightmares, screams and gunfire, and the sight of blood running in dark pools. His hands curled around the rifle, finger stroking the trigger even before his eyes snapped open. Jack took a long, deep breath and looked around him. Flash fires came from the direction of the camp. Several of his traps had been sprung, and once again chaos reigned in the rebel encampment. Bullets spat into the jungle, zipped through leaves and tore bark from trees. The ghost in the rain forest had struck again and again, and fear had the rebels by the throats.

On and off over the next few hours, some hapless soldier tripped a trap, probably trying to get rid of it, and the camp would erupt into pandemonium, confusion, and panic nearly leading to rebellion. The soldiers wanted to head for the base camp and Biyoya refused, adamant that they would recover the prisoner. It was a tribute to his leadership-or cruelty-that he was able to rally them after each attack. There was no sleep for anyone, and the fog crept into the forest, blanketing the trees and mixing with the smoke from the continual fires.

Through the haze, Jack saw the camp on the move, abandoning their position. Biyoya screamed at his men and shook his fist at the camp, the first real indication that the long night had taken its toll on him. He’d lost more than half of his soldiers, and they were forced to group in a tight knot around him to protect him. They didn’t look very happy, but they marched stoically through the forest on the muddy, torn road.

The rain began again, a steady drizzle that added to the stirring life of the jungle. Chimpanzees resumed their eating and birds flitted from tree to tree. Jack caught a glimpse of a boar moving through the brush. An hour went by, soaking his clothes and his skin. He never moved, waiting with the patience born of a lifetime of survival. Biyoya would have his best trackers and sharpshooters concealed, and they would wait for him to make a move. Major Biyoya didn’t want to go back to General Ekabela and admit he’d lost skilled soldiers to his prisoner. His escaped prisoner. That kind of thing would lose the major his hard-earned reputation as a ruthless interrogator.

Jack’s eyes were different, had always been different, and after Whitney had genetically enhanced him, his sight had become amazing. He didn’t understand the workings, but he had the vision of an eagle. He didn’t care how it was done, but he could see distances few others could conceive of. Out of the corner of his eye, movement to the left of his position caught his attention, the colors in bands of yellow and red. The sniper moved cautiously, keeping to the heavier foliage, so that Jack only caught glimpses of him. His spotter kept to the left, covering every step the sniper took as he examined the ground and surrounding trees.

Jack began a slow move into a better position, but halted when he heard a feminine scream in the distance followed closely by a child’s frightened cry. Jack jerked his head up, his body stiffening, sweat breaking out on his brow and trickling down into his eyes. Did Biyoya know his trigger? His one weakness? That was impossible. His mouth went dry and his heart slammed in his chest. What did Biyoya know about him? Ken had been brutally tortured. There wasn’t a square inch on his twin’s body that hadn’t been cut with tiny slices or stripped of skin. Could the interrogation have broken Ken?

Jack shook his head, denying the thought, and wiped the sweat from his face, the movement slow and careful. Ken would never betray him, tortured or not. The knowledge was certain, as much a part of him as breathing. However he’d gotten his information, Biyoya had set the perfect trap. Jack had to respond. His past, buried deep where he never looked, wouldn’t let him walk away. Trap or not, he had to react, take countermeasures. His gut knotted up and his lungs burned for air. He swore under his breath and put his eye to the scope again, determined to take out Biyoya’s backup.

The woman screamed again, this time the sound painful in the early morning dawn. The knots in his belly hardened into something scary. Yeah. Biyoya knew, had information on him. He was classified, and the information Biyoya possessed was in a classified file with a million red flags. So who the hell sold me out? Jack rubbed his eyes again to clear the sweat from them. Someone close to them set the brothers up. There was no other explanation.

The screams increased in strength and duration. The child sobbed, begging for mercy. Jack cursed and jerked his head up, furious with himself, with his inability to ignore it. “You’re going to die here, Jack,” he whispered aloud. “Because you’re a damned fool.” It didn’t matter. He couldn’t let it go. The past was bile in his throat, the door in his mind creaking open, the screams growing louder in his head.

He leapt from the safety of his tree to another one, using the canopy to travel, relying on his skin and clothing to camouflage him. He moved fast, following Biyoya’s trail into the darkened interior. The ribbon of road flowed below him, hacked out of the thick vegetation, pitted, mined, and trampled. It looked more like a strip of mud than an actual road. He followed it, using the trees and vines, moving fast to catch up with the main body of soldiers.

He slipped into a tall tree right above the heads of the soldiers, settling in the foliage, lying flat along a branch. Somewhere behind him the sniper was coming, but Jack hadn’t left a trail on the ground, and he would be difficult to spot blending in as he did with the leaves and bark. A woman lay on the ground, clothes torn, a soldier bending over her, kicking at her as she cried helplessly. A small boy of about ten struggled against the men shoving him back and forth between them. There was terror in the child’s eyes.

There was no doubt in Jack’s mind that Biyoya had constructed a trap, but the woman and the child were innocent victims. No one could fake that kind of terror. He swore over and over in his mind, trying to force himself to walk away. His first duty was to escape, but this-he couldn’t leave the woman and child in the hands of a master torturer. He forced his mind to slow down to block out the cries and pleas.

Biyoya was the target and Jack had to find his place of concealment. Jack inhaled sharply, relying on his enhanced sense of smell. If his nose was right-and it nearly always was-the major crouched behind the jeep just to the left of the woman and boy, behind a wall of soldiers. Jack circled around and lifted his rifle, taking the bead on Biyoya, knowing the soldiers would be able to pinpoint his trajectory.

The bullet took Biyoya behind the neck. Even as he fell, Jack switched his target to the man kicking the woman and fired a second round. Calmly, he let go of the sniper rifle and took up the assault weapon, laying down a covering fire to give the woman and child a chance to escape. The soldiers fired back, bullets smacking into the trees around him. Jack knew they couldn’t see him, but the muzzle flash and smoke were a dead giveaway. The woman caught her child to her and took off into the rain forest. Jack gave them as long a lead as he dared before moving, sliding back into heavier foliage and leaping up through the branches to use the canopy as a highway.

Ekabela was not going to let this go. Jack would have every rebel in the Congo chasing him all the way to Kinshasa.

CHAPTER 2

Briony Jenkins huddled in the darkest corner of the room, hands over her ears, eyes tightly closed, desperate to shut out the assault of thousands of people and their suffering. It had been such a mistake to take the job. She’d tried to tell Jebediah she couldn’t do it, but it meant so much to the family-so much money the circus needed to stay solvent. How in the world was she ever going to perform? She could barely see with the pain shattering her head and with spots dancing in front of her eyes. There was no medicine she could take, no relief from the suffering and violence in this place.

“Briony?” Jebediah crouched beside her.

She shook her head, pressing her hands tighter over her ears, as if that would keep the thoughts and emotions from flooding her mind. “I told you I couldn’t come to a place like this. I’m going to be sick again.” She couldn’t look at him, didn’t dare open her eyes and see light. Her body shook uncontrollably, and tiny beads of sweat trickled down her face. “I’m getting another nosebleed.”