“Then the Americans are on the island. If they used an E-bomb, then they know about the trigger device. Nothing else makes sense.”

There was a distinct note of panic in his voice.

“We have to get out of here,” said Otto in an urgent whisper. He fumbled in the dark until he found Hecate’s arm and gave it a fierce squeeze. “We need to get out of here before they can stop us or we will have lost everything we’ve worked for.”

“I have a ruggedized laptop in my office,” she said. “It can withstand any kind of EMP and it’s in a lead-lined safe along with a portable hard drive with our backup files.”

“But how can we get to your office?” demanded Cyrus. “We’re trapped in here.”

Hecate laughed, a strangely feline sound in the darkness.

“I designed this place, Father. Do you think I would be so careless as to let it be my tomb?”

“Then get us out of here.”

“I need to find the waterfall. The rear panel is false. There’s a door that leads to a service tunnel. Now be quiet and let me get my bearings.”

CONRAD VEDER TOOK the darkness philosophically. He wasn’t frustrated, because he was not emotionally invested in the kill. All it meant was that the change in circumstances required a new plan.

He remembered the process of climbing up to the ledge and climbing back down would be easy enough. But he didn’t move right away. There was no immediate threat to him up here and the lights might come back on.

One of the greatest advantages of having a mind like an insect is that there is no tendency toward impatience.

TONTON DID NOT like the total darkness. It was the only thing that made him feel vulnerable.

He could still smell the woman and if he was careful he could track her. But what if she had night-vision goggles? How was she dressed? Fatigue pants and boots, a black tank top.

Did she have an equipment belt?

He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t sure.

A few seconds passed.

No, he decided. She hadn’t been wearing an equipment belt. On the other hand, she may have had a pack and left it among the foliage. He hadn’t seen her after she’d run into the brush. She might have had time to grab a pack and keep going.

So what did he do?

If he had one of the new recruits he’d have ordered him to stand up and then he’d see if the bitch put a bullet through his head. Tonton was not willing to risk his own head.

Miss Jakoby might have a trick. Tonton reached into his pocket for his cell, but the unit was dead. Not even a glow from the screen. What the hell?

Wracked with indecision, Tonton did nothing.

***

GRACE COURTLAND DID not fear the darkness. She would have preferred night vision or some useful light, but she didn’t need it. There was too much of the predator in her to be stymied by darkness.

If she couldn’t see, then neither of the men who were hunting her could see, either. And she understood the why of the darkness. Church had dropped the EMP, which meant that she had a little breathing room. But she also had a very specific purpose. There might be a hardened terminal or laptop on the island. She doubted there was one in this chamber, but that meant that she had to prevent Cyrus Jakoby from getting out of the chamber.

Her Special Forces training ran deep. Grace had been one of the very first women accepted into the SAS, and she’d been the first field team operator for Barrier. Church hadn’t recruited her for the DMS because she was decorative. Church wanted her because she was the best of the best. Now was the time to live up to that, and in the absolute darkness Grace smiled.

If anyone had seen that smile-even a killer like Tonton-it would have given him pause.

She moved out of her niche, recounting the steps she’d taken. Her training taught her to remember directions, yards run, right and left turns, elevation. This wasn’t a time for gunplay. She couldn’t see a target, and the muzzle flash from a missed shot would give her position away. The gun went back into her waistband and she practiced drawing the fighting knife from her right-hand pocket several times until she knew that she could have it out and flick the blade into the locked position in under a second.

That gave her the confidence to keep her hands free while she retraced her steps. She paused briefly to feel along the ground for small rocks, and she put several of them into her left pocket.

Somewhere off to her three o’clock position she could hear the whispered voices of Cyrus, Hecate, and Otto. Their position sounded about right for where she thought she needed to go.

Her greatest care was in placing her feet, making sure that each step was featherlight until she was sure of her footing, and then she shifted weight in a flow from one leg to the other. It was like using Tai Chi to stalk her prey in the darkness-long, slow, controlled steps.

TONTON THOUGHT HE heard something and he turned his head and sniffed at the darkness. The air was thick with the scent of fear from several of the transgenic animals that had panicked when the lights went out. It clouded his sense of smell, but he was sure that he’d just caught a fresh whiff of the woman. Humans don’t smell like animals, and though Tonton did not possess the genes necessary for processing the thousands of individual scents that jungle apes had, he had trained for many hours to hone his olfactory skills.

He was sure that it was the woman. She’d moved.

There was a sudden sound far off to his opposite side and he turned suddenly, swinging his pistol around to point at the blackness. What had made the noise? The woman? Veder? One of the animals?

There was a second sound. Sharp and fast, like a stone dislodged by a running foot.

Then a third. All off to his right side.

It had to be her. Somehow she’d tricked him and was crossing the open field under cover of darkness instead of coming back along this path.

“Got you, bitch,” he said with quiet malice as he rose from a prone position and got to his feet. He took a tentative step, then another.

And then something brushed against his leg and he spun, but as he spun he felt his thigh ignite with a white- hot burn. He smelled a confusion of scents. The woman-close!-and then the sharp, coppery tang of blood.

He swung a vicious a blow through the shadows, but all he hit was air.

There was another flash of burning pain across the back of his knee and suddenly he found himself tilting to that side, his knee buckling.

Tonton cried out as pain hit him in waves, a one-two burst of agony from thigh and knee. He scrabbled at his thigh and could feel wetness, and then he felt something hot splash against his palm. He was bleeding. Fast and hard. An artery.

The bitch had cut him!

She’d found him in the dark and cut him.

“You fucking cu-!” he started to shout, but he was struck across the face. His cheeks burned with unbearable pain, and when he touched his face he could feel something weird, something terribly wrong. His mouth seemed to stretch wide… absurdly wide. Where the corners of his mouth should be were two ragged double lines of torn flesh.

He flailed at the darkness as fear burst through him like fireworks. Then he felt fingers curl into a knot in his hair and his head was jerked violently backward. Then there was the hard edge of a blade against his throat. It pressed deep but did not cut.

Something brushed his ear and he realized it was a pair of soft lips.

“This is for those poor bastards in Deep Iron,” the woman said in a murmur that was as soft as a whisper of passion.

Вы читаете The Dragon Factory
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату