The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) Read online

  “I want you to take off your shirt and put this on under it,” she told the boy.

  “What it is?”

  “It stops bullets.”

  Timing was critical now. Wait too long and the troops would return to the residence. Move too soon and the night would not be dark enough to cover their movements.

  “How many of them did you kill?” Christopher Hanley asked as he strained to button his shirt over the Kevlar.

  “I don’t—It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. When they took me, they killed my teacher. I saw the man who did it.”

  “I know.”

  “I hate them. I knew someone would come. I dreamed it. If I had a gun I would have done the same, and I don’t care if you believe me or not.”

  “Eight,” Hedda answered.

  “Huh?”

  “And I believe you.”

  The soft grass cushioned their drop out the window. Hedda went first and then raised her hands to help Christopher. The cover of the once well-manicured bushes hid them for now, but the floods sprayed more light than Hedda had expected. A dash in any direction risked them being trapped out in the open, Hedda powerless to offer further resistance. She had a fresh clip snapped in the machine gun, yes, but bullets were useless to her if it meant drawing all the opposing forces to them. For now, though, the perimeter guards were scattered casually about, any reason for vigilance gone with the apparent escape of their young hostage.

  Bright beams sliced through the night and nearly caught them. Hedda grabbed Christopher and drew him down closer to the ground. The light passed over them and was gone. A vehicle, a Jeep it looked like, had pulled into the residence through the main gate. The darkness of the night grew more complete again when the Jeep’s high beams switched off. Hedda heard its engine rumble briefly and then shut down as well. She judged it to be parked along the circular entry drive halfway between the gate and the house.

  “Stay by my side,” she whispered to the boy. “Move as I move.”

  On knees and elbows, she kept her pace slow so he could keep up. It was hardly necessary. The boy was young and athletic and crawled across the ground like a monkey. They stayed within the dying garden that rimmed the house all the way around the front. The Jeep was parked just where she had expected it would be. A pair of guards remained on duty near the gate, one each on either flank.

  The Jeep was thirty-five yards from them. A quick dash to it would be too risky because of the attention it might draw. It would be better to keep using the night for cover. Attention would be drawn only once they had appropriated the Jeep.

  She gestured toward the Jeep and the boy nodded. He was an amazing young man to be able to maintain such control after what he had been through. Again her mind stirred. Another boy … Another time …

  When?

  Who?

  Other matters demanded her complete concentration now. There was some degree of ground cover en route to the Jeep, but not much. Necessity dictated they be in the stark open for the last stretch, and Hedda could only hope the night would be enough to shield them. The cold dirt quickly turned to the warm asphalt of the circular drive, and then this gave way to damp grass. Thirty yards covered before she knew it.

  The boy’s enthusiasm carried him past her, and he reached the Jeep while she was still on her stomach. She caught up and positioned him under cover of its front bumper, then slid on toward the driver’s side. It was the same Jeep that had arrived just prior to her triggering the plan that afternoon. Its fifty-caliber machine gun hung barrel down, sleek and all but unnoticeable in the night from even this slight distance. Using the frame for cover, she climbed into the driver’s seat and hunched low beneath the dash.

  The keys were in the ignition. Rapidly Hedda calculated the time lag of starting the engine, shifting into gear, and crashing through the front gate. The risk was there, but it was considerably smaller than that posed by chancing flight from the residence on foot.

  “Now!” she rasped, and instantly heard the boy crawling across the stone pavement.

  She guided him up into the passenger seat, signaling him to stay down, low as he could.

  "Then search it again!"

  The words emerged through the open entrance to the holy residence. The occupants of the Jeep were returning! No wonder the gate had not been closed upon their arrival.

  Hedda instantly turned the key and slammed down on the accelerator, almost in one motion. The Jeep shot forward, tires kicking stones in its wake. She spun the wheel to the left, climbing up on the grass briefly en route to the front gate.

  Screams and shouts followed her every move, but bullets did not follow them until the Jeep bore down on the gate.

  “Stay down!” Hedda ordered Christopher Hanley.

  One of the guards rushed her from the left, and Hedda shot him in the face. The second Palestinian lunged out directly before her and the gate. Orange flared from his machine gun barrel, the staccato bursts drowned out by the Jeep’s revving engine. Hedda ducked low enough to avoid the spray of glass as the windshield exploded inward under the barrage. She still held her own machine gun, but the Jeep itself was an infinitely preferable weapon.

  She flinched at the thudding impact when the bumper smacked into the Palestinian. He was pulled under the Jeep, and a thump followed as one of its rear tires rolled over him.

  “Keep your head down!” she ordered Christopher Hanley. But a glance at his huddled form told her the boy was already doing just that.

  Bullets traced them from within the courtyard, but it was too late. She knew these streets well, had memorized their layout as part of the preparation for this mission. She had deposited the nearest car on a street called Javinta, where there would be enough traffic at this hour to provide sufficient camouflage. She allowed herself to breathe easier. This mission was drawing to a close. The rest of the escape route was all worked out. Routine from here.

  She swung the Jeep left and then right. A brief stretch down a one-way street gave way to Javinta. Just past the stop sign up ahead the car would be waiting. Hedda slowed the Jeep, so as to blend with the normal traffic. Her eyes sought out a place to abandon it even as she peered into the night for the reassuring sight of her plant car. Just after the stop sign, just—

  The harsh revving of an engine made her swing to the rear. A Jeep was coming up on them fast from the other end of Javinta. Gunmen began opening fire from its open cab. The few pedestrians in the street scattered, diving for cover. Bullets chewed her Jeep’s steel frame. Christopher didn’t need to be told to duck down this time. Hedda joined him beneath the dashboard and returned the fire with her own machine gun. The pursuing Jeep skidded to a halt, unwilling to chance the temporary fusillade of her bullets. There was no reason to do otherwise. They had her outgunned, overmatched. Unless …

  Hedda’s eyes locked on the fifty-caliber attached to the Jeep’s built-in pedestal. She hurdled over the seat and jammed the gun upright. She locked the bolts and feed mechanism into place, and stood there defiantly against the hail of bullets splitting the air around her.

  She was vaguely aware of Christopher screaming at her in the last instant before the heavy rat-tat-tat began. It stunned her ears, and the gun pulsed in her hands. The burst slammed into the enemy Jeep’s side and pummeled the gunmen firing from within it. There was no time for celebration, though, as another pair of Jeeps screeched down Javinta Street following the path of the one she had destroyed. Hedda readjusted her aim, not liking the odds.

  “I can drive,” Christopher yelled up to her from his position of cover.

  “What?”

  “My father taught me. I could—”

  “Do it!” she ordered just as the new Jeeps’ gunmen seemed to find them in the night.

  He slid into the driver’s seat and gave the engine gas, testing both it and himself. He was barely big enough to see through the remnants of the windshield. Hedda felt the Jeep lurch forward, sputter, and then lurch again. The pursuing
Jeeps drew within range. She opened fire just as their Jeep jolted forward and picked up speed.

  The second pursuing Jeep wavered out of control. The driver of the third deftly avoided it and charged on, a twin of her fifty-caliber offering return fire as Christopher tore through the Beirut streets, heedless of traffic signals or pedestrians. There was no need to honk the horn; the gunfire was klaxon enough. He drove better and faster as his confidence grew. Suddenly Hedda feared a quick turn or stop might upend or send her flying.

  Hedda saw her clip was nearly expended. A quick search of the Jeep’s rear found no replacement. She had forty rounds left at most and began firing much shorter bursts to keep their pursuers honest.

  Honest … Yes, that was it!

  She abandoned the fifty and grabbed her machine gun from the front seat. Then, still straddling the Jeep’s front and back sections, she draped one of her powerful hands between the boy’s on the steering wheel.

  “Hold on,” she ordered. “I’m going to crash us.”

  “Wha—”

  She had spun the Jeep into the sideways skid by then, ramming them against a parked truck. Christopher bounced in his seat. Hedda was thrown into the steel frame of the windshield. Breath gone, she nonetheless opened apparently desperate fire with the machine gun still dangling from her shoulder, as the final Jeep bore confidently down upon them.

  She lunged back behind her fifty-caliber when only thirty yards separated the Jeeps. Her hand found the trigger and squeezed in the same motion. The remaining bullets in the belt punctured the engine block and blew out the pursuing Jeep’s front section. Flames jumped from its hood. She saw it waver from side to side briefly, before it careened over and went skidding by them down the street. Sparks from the resulting friction seemed to fuel the flames further, engulfing the Jeep in a massive fireball. The final blast came before it impacted with anything. Steel shards blew outward, and she covered the boy to shield him from them.

  “Now let’s get you home,” she told him.

  They abandoned the Jeep for one of the escape cars, which brought them across the city to a small restaurant she knew possessed a public phone. Christopher stayed by her side the whole time, both of them drawing stares from the puzzled patrons.

  “Station sixteen.”

  “This is Hedda. Retrieval complete. Require pickup.”

  “Position?”

  She gave it.

  “Litani River Bridge in the Bekaa Valley. Twenty-five miles east of you.”

  “I know it.”

  “One hour. Librarian will be there.”

  The phone clicked off.

  The boy spoke nervously for much of the ride, Hedda paying little attention to what he was saying until some of the words tugged at her mind.

  “What did you just say?” she asked, interrupting him.

  Christopher seemed confused. “That I couldn’t understand why—”

  “About your father.”

  “That he doesn’t have anything to do with them, so why did they kidnap me?”

  “But he works for Aramco.”

  The boy shook his head. “No, he doesn’t. He’s a chemist, an organic chemist.”

  Now it was Hedda’s turn to be confused. “In Riyadh?”

  “No—London. That’s where I’m from.”

  Hedda tried to keep her mind on her driving. The information Librarian had provided pertaining to Christopher Hanley was all wrong. Her people never made such mistakes, unless, unless …

  The mistakes were purposeful.

  “They kidnapped you in London,” Hedda resumed.

  “I only saw one of them.”

  “Was he at the residence?”

  “No. He was just at the school.” The boy’s head lowered. “He shot the teacher who tried to help me.” His eyes glistened. “He was big and only had one eye.”

  A chill swept through her. “One … eye?”

  “He had a patch on the other.”

  Hedda went numb.

  Deerslayer! The only other Caretaker she knew, a man whose life she had saved … This boy was describing Deerslayer!

  But how could that be? Why would The Caretakers arrange a kidnapping, only to thwart it in the end? It made no sense. There was something she was missing, something she hadn’t been told for whatever reasons.

  They lied to her… .

  The possibility was unnerving. With trust lost, everything was lost. Again, where was the reason, the sense? Perhaps she was overreacting, her rapidly depleting supplies of nervous energy causing her to think incoherently.

  “We’re here,” she said a few minutes later, after pulling the car off to the side.

  “Aren’t you going to drive across?”

  “No,” she told the boy, not exactly sure what she was doing.

  The bridge was dark and secluded. Hedda and Christopher reached the west side, and instantly three sets of headlights flashed on from the east. Hedda squinted into the brightness. The boy raised a hand to shield his eyes.

  “Come on,” she instructed, and together they began to walk across toward the light spilling their way.

  The bridge was a hundred yards long, stretching across the width of the Litani River, which ran north to south. Christopher’s pace slowed as they drew nearer the middle. Hedda sensed his reluctance.

  “You’re going to leave me with them,” he assumed, quite correctly.

  “They’ll take you back to your father.”

  He’s a chemist, an organic chemist.

  Across the bridge waited those who had lied to her. They sent her to retrieve the boy for reasons they did not honestly divulge …

  He was big and only had one eye.

  … after Deerslayer had kidnapped him and delivered him to the Arabs. Coincidence maybe. Or perhaps the boy was wrong.

  Somewhere deep within Hedda a memory fluttered. Another boy, another time. Lights, gunshots, and blood, so much blood …

  They had passed the halfway point when Hedda first saw the men standing outside all three cars. Just shapes really, barely visible through the blinding glare of the headlights. But their spacing was all wrong for a simple pickup. Hedda slowed. She eased a hand back toward the boy.

  “Stop,” she ordered.

  “What?”

  Her hand touched his shoulder. “When I tell you, we’re going to turn around and run back to the other side, to the car.”

  “But—”

  “When I tell you.”

  Hedda had barely started to swing round when gunshots split the night. She dropped prone instinctively at the initial sound. A pair of bullets thumped into the boy’s chest, stopped by the Kevlar undergarment she had given him. She lunged his way and thrust him backward, trying to shield him. The ancient wooden bridge coughed splinters at her. A bullet grazed her shoulder and spun her away from the boy. She had jumped back for him, when a shell slammed into his thigh and sprayed her with blood. She heard him scream and then gasp.

  Hedda grabbed firm hold of Christopher and pushed off the railing into the night, the two of them airborne in the same instant. The sound of bullets continued until the very last when the cold waters of the Litani River dragged her under.

  “I think we got her, sir,” the man reported to the figure seated in the car.

  Librarian had not exited the middle sedan’s backseat during the ambush, not even when the remainder of his men swept across the bridge to gaze down for signs of drifting bodies. Now he plugged what looked like a three-pronged adapter into a flesh-colored receptor that protruded from his throat just beneath the Adam’s apple. When he spoke, his mechanically synthesized voice emerged from a speaker resting on his lap.

  “Did you find … a body?” The voice was a wet gurgle, the way a person would sound with a mouth full of water that somehow stayed put while he spoke.

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Then you did … not get her.”

  “There’s blood, sir.”

  “Not enough.”

  “I can
send the men to the shoreline.”

  “Won’t matter.”

  “If you had let us post men on both sides of the bridge—”

  “One side should have … been enough, Stur-ges.”

  Sturges seemed about to argue the point when he thought better of it and moved back to his post. Librarian watched him with a smile trapped just behind his lips and a shallow sigh emerging from his speaker.

  Chapter 6

  IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT by the time Kimberlain pulled into a parking lot adjacent to Sunnyside Railroad Yard, a resting place for mothballed railroad cars just outside of the tunnel under the Hudson River to Penn Station in Manhattan. His first task was to uncover how the escape from MAX-SEC had been pulled off. Only one man he knew could help in solving that puzzle, and Kimberlain was approaching his home now.

  He danced across dead railroad tracks as if current might still have been pumping through them. The gray and brown steel corpses of Amtrak and New Jersey Transit cars were lined up for a good eighth of a mile, rows squeezed so close together that there was barely enough room for Kimberlain to shoulder his way between them. The pair of rusted brown cars he was heading for had carried cargo in their time, not passengers. They were off to one side, apart from the neighboring lines of Amtrak cars relatively new in appearance.

  “Knock, knock,” he said softly into a small slit cut at eye level on the side of one of the rusty cars. The car’s rear door opened with a familiar whooosh of hydraulic power.

  “About fuckin’ time,” Captain Seven said.

  Of course, Seven wasn’t his real name, and Kimberlain couldn’t have said what his real name was. He knew him only as a spaced-out tech whiz who’d made his mark in Vietnam as a brilliant flake from the seventh planet in another galaxy. Captain wasn’t his real rank, either, but it sounded nice when the Seven was placed after it. He seemed content never to return to his own identity, and Kimberlain never pressed him about it.

  “What the fuck?” Captain Seven demanded inside the car, as the door whoooshed closed again behind them. “You told me you’d be here an hour ago. I been waitin’, man, I been waitin’… .”

  The captain’s hair had hung past his shoulders, wild and unkempt, for as long as Kimberlain had known him. The only difference was that recently the locks that rimmed his face were turning gray. He wore cut-off jeans that exposed his thin, knobby legs and a leather vest over a black Grateful Dead T-shirt. A medallion with a sixties peace sign embossed upon it dangled from his neck, even though he’d spent much of that era fighting in Vietnam instead of protesting about it.