The Gamma Sequence

by Dan Alatorre

  I’m gaining on him.

  DeShear growled and pumped his legs harder, limbs and vines whipping his cheeks as he sped down the path.

  Trees loomed ahead again, and the trail went dark. He rushed forward, gun raised, ready for another ambush. As he crashed through the palm fronds, he looked for a place to take cover.

  His feet went out from under him. The trail dropped downward, and he fell, face first, into the mud, sliding several feet until his shoulder slammed into a tree trunk.

  DeShear rolled over, panting, gun drawn, ready to shoot anyone who appeared. The jungle was quiet. He put a hand out, found a rock to lean on, and got to his feet. Dripping with sweat and wincing from the pain, he scanned the underbrush.

  The roar of water came through the dense jungle. Somewhere to his left, water surged through the brush, cutting its way through the dark hillside. It was loud and constant, a river or more—probably what the trail was originally designed for. Tourists, seeking a scenic trail to walk or run on, not a killing zone.

  The noise of the surging water lessened his ability to hear the man he was following. His world just got a little more dangerous, but if it did for him, it did for the killer, too. He peeked over his shoulder. Any FBI agents or Indonesian soldiers following him wouldn’t be able to hear verbal directions now, but that might be a good thing. Whatever they could hear, the killer could hear—potentially giving away DeShear’s position and making him a target.

  He leaned forward into the brush, pushing aside a large cluster of leaves. The path worked its way downward through the thinning foliage. A scenic trail would have water views if it was this close to the water, but that water sounded too fast and too loud to get close to.

  He crept over the path, hunching down to be a smaller target if anyone was going to shoot.

  Another gunshot pierced the night air. He heard it, and saw the reflected flash off the wet leaves near him. It missed, not even coming close, but it told him the direction of the killer—and that was all he needed.

  He’s shooting blindly. He doesn’t know where I am.

  DeShear could no longer hear footsteps or someone making their way through the brush. Not over the noise of the rushing water. But he could follow a shadow down a trail. Keeping low, he moved fast, using the moonlight as his guide while he could, and keeping the river on his left.

  DeShear’s heart pounded as he raced forward, calculating the killer’s options. There were only two directions, and really only one. The killer couldn’t very well come back toward him if he intended to get away; somewhere behind DeShear, FBI agents and Indonesian soldiers were coming. He couldn’t go left; the river would drown anyone that tried to enter it. And he couldn’t go right—up a wet jungle cliff in the dark? No chance.

  The killer’s only option was forward—downward, moving along the same path he’d chosen in the clearing. His only escape was to outrun them all, and bleeding from a gunshot wound, that was unlikely.

  DeShear gritted his teeth and pushed another clump of leafy branches out of his way. The ground sloped downward more sharply, with a row of short, straight lines appearing through the dark.

  Steps.

  It was definitely a tourist trail, then. DeShear moved quickly over the wet steps, climbing down through the thick foliage. He looked ahead, trying to see through the brush. A shadow moved. DeShear stopped, holding his place and not trying to find cover. The incline was too steep, and any sudden movements might give him away.

  He waited, gun drawn, watching the shadow.

  It was longer now. Stretched out, and moving in a slow, awkward fashion.

  Crawling.

  Maybe he lost too much blood to continue his escape.

  DeShear lowered his foot to the next step. It was shorter, and wetter, than the others. A smooth stone that had become wet and slippery in the growth of the jungle. The shadow kept crawling, so DeShear kept moving down the steps. One by one, he inched lower, never taking his eyes off The Greyhound. The steps were like ice, slick and wet. He’d easily fall if—

  That’s what happened to the killer. He fell, and he may have broken a leg, too. No way he’d stop running.

  The hairs on the back of DeShear’s neck stood on end. A cornered animal fights hardest. If The Greyhound had broken a leg, he’d shoot to kill for sure—if he still had the gun.

  The roar of the water was louder now, impossibly loud for a river. It had to be one of the waterfalls—and a big one. In the darkness, it’d be hard to tell, but maybe the moon would show it. He crept down the last few steps, inching toward a flat, grassy area.

  A faint white cloud swirled just past the edge of the clearing, a darker, more iridescent one churning below. The river was about thirty feet down a cliff, a wide, rushing beast, flowing out and off the edge of the world and down into the darkness.

  At the edge, the shadow stood, a silhouette against the faint white cloud. He was tall and athletic, but slouching. DeShear stared at the figure, uncertain if the killer was looking at him or the rushing water below. A few feet away, the end of the earth beckoned. A cloud moved over the moon, but the vista was visible enough for DeShear to recognize it from pictures. Nungnung was hundreds of feet up, and recent rains had made it angry. Its dark water sped past, covering the visible distance in less than a second.

  The shadow heaved its chest, its shoulders going up and down, just like DeShear’s. He wiped the sweat from his brow. The runners’ race was over. Only a victor needed to be decided.

  The killer spoke, his words all but inaudible over the noise of the falls.

  “What?” DeShear shouted, his gun trained at the man in front of him.

  Limping along the edge of the cliff, The Greyhound raised his voice. “What now?”

  Injured or not, DeShear kept his gun aimed at the stranger. He’d seen the act before, at the ambulance, and he had no intention of falling victim to it like the FBI agents had.

  “Now we go back,” DeShear yelled. “I take you in, and you go to prison.”

  The shadow shook his head, shouting. “You can’t be on their side. You know what they’ve done. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

  DeShear saw no gun in the killer’s hand, but that could be a trick. It could be in his belt, and it could be fired at any moment.

  “I’m not on anybody’s side,” DeShear said, the roar of the waterfall eating his words.

  “Killing me allows them to continue. You know that, and you know they have to be stopped. You want that as much as I do.”

  DeShear took a step backwards, keeping his gun aimed at the killer. The shadow was too close to the edge. One bad step could send him down the cliff and into the churning water below.

  “You know I’m right,” The Greyhound said. “You saw the graves. That’s a part of your nightmare now, like it’s been part of mine.”

  DeShear blinked sweat out of his eyes. “Let’s go back to the hotel. Talk about it there. Plead your case to the press. Get some public sentiment.”

  The shadow shook his head. “I’m all busted up. Hauser took my arm.” He took another step along the edge of the cliff. “Those steps did the rest. I can barely hold myself upright.”

  Strong guy, to be standing after all that.

  “You won’t shoot me,” he said. “You can’t. You see that I’m right.”

  “Let’s not shoot each other. Deal?” The mist from the massive waterfall made the gun slippery. DeShear tightened his grip. “There are other ways.”

  “Like what, send them a sternly worded letter? I got a congressional inquiry, and they put the lead senator on their Board of Directors. They held all the cards until I started killing them. Your IRS trick sure isn’t going to stop them. But my way works. It got their attention. And it will get other people’s attention. This will make it stop. My way.”

  “That’s not for me to decide.”

  “I didn’t say it was.” The Greyhound held his finger to his chest. “I made the decision. After all they did to me . . . it was
mine to make.”

  The two men stared at each other in the darkness, the roar of the waterfall filling the air.

  DeShear lowered his gun. “Come with me.”

  The Greyhound held his ground, unmoving, as clouds of mist floated up in the distance. Slowly, he nodded his head.

  The clearing burst white with light, the crack of a large rifle blast booming through the night. The Greyhound jolted backwards.

  DeShear dropped to the ground, turning in the direction of the gunshot. In the pale moonlight, soldiers from the Indonesian army came into view. Wading their way through the brush, they burst forward.

  Twisting, The Greyhound’s arms grappling for vines and leaves as he arched backward. His fingertips flicked over a few branches, then he disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

  DeShear sprinted forward, staring at the water below. It raced past, a dark and powerful force of energy, rushing over the edge of the cliff and crashing into the black water below. He stood there, his heart pounding. No one could live through that. But if anyone could, The Greyhound would.

  If we don’t find the body, we might never know if he’s really dead.

  The soldiers came closer, shouting and waving at him.

  DeShear turned to the water, and jumped.

  The icy cold of the river shocked his system, but only for a second. The water threw him forward and over the edge. His stomach climbed to his throat as he fell, a roller coaster without cars, plummeting forever into the darkness, then the terrible crash and churning of the water below. He kicked and rolled, his lungs aching, fighting to find the surface, depleting himself as he clawed the water crushing him.

  It lasted forever, fighting the dark water, his exhaustion turning his arms and legs into heavy bricks, but at last his lungs found air. He strained to push himself upwards through the water, breaking the surface again and again to greedily suck bites of air with his last ounces of strength.

  The water past the falls was calm, a drastic difference from the churning monster above. The current pushed him to the edge where the river turned, and the sandy bottom met his dragging feet. With aching arms and rubber legs, he inched onto the riverbank and collapsed.

  He lay there on his back, gasping, the moon staring at him through the trees.

  Beyond him, a twig snapped in the brush. He mustered the strength to turn his head, spotting the shadow of a tall, athletic man, a silhouette in the moonlight, lumbering through the brush. The shadow stopped, seeming to look at him.

  DeShear swallowed hard, panting as he lay on the wet riverbank. He had no gun, and no strength. He would lose any fight right now, and maybe the stranger knew it. He stared at the man, and the man stared back at him.

  Then the stranger turned and walked away.

  Chapter 38

  The soldiers radioed for a Jeep, and within an hour, they’d found DeShear and gotten him back to the Viceroy hotel lobby. Lanaya wrapped him in towels and a robe, insisting a medic from the Indonesian army check him over while she asked a thousand questions. Camilla’s team was scouting the grave site, sending pictures to her in the lobby—her makeshift command post—as she sat next to DeShear and guzzled coffee.

  “Yes, it’s possible he got away.” DeShear shrugged. “My guess is, he drowned.”

  “The man you saw at the bottom of the falls,” Lanaya said. “You claim he walked away—but The Greyhound was limping.”

  “Yeah.” DeShear nodded. “But he could have been faking at the top of the falls.” He pushed away the intern’s hand and climbed off the couch. “Look, I don’t know for sure. But I don’t think he’s a threat anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Just my gut.” DeShear sighed. “He could have killed me in the jungle just by waiting around a corner and ambushing me. He had a gun, and I’d have never seen him until it was too late. He could have shot me at the top of the falls, too, in the clearing. The shots he fired when I was chasing him were to get me to stop following him. I think he missed on purpose. And if he really was the guy I saw walking away from the river, he could have dropped me right then and there. I was done, exhausted from fighting the river. I had nothing left, and it was obvious.” He shook his head, his eyes focused on the floor. “He had me several times, and never made a move. And I could have killed him, too, at the edge of the falls. I didn’t shoot him. We both just . . . I think we decided not to shoot each other.”

  “That’s you.” Lanaya knitted her hands. “What about me?”

  DeShear patted her shoulder. “If he didn’t kill me, he won’t kill you. We’re connected, you and I. And I think he gets that.”

  “Whatever goes over the falls is never seen again.” The Special Assistant to the Prime Minister crossed the lobby, approaching them. “I hope you are recovering well, Mr. DeShear.”

  “Looks like he’ll live,” Camilla said to her. “I wish I couldn’t say that about your special friend, Dr. Hauser.”

  Dina took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It has been a long day for all of us, but as I said, Indonesia does not want trouble with our friends.” She looked at Camilla. “Your press is fond of calling my country a semi-dictatorship. Well, in a dictatorship, the news is what the government says it is. So if we say Dr. Hauser’s plane exploded on takeoff, then it did. And if we say he was not taken to a warehouse and executed, then he was not.”

  The small woman looked into the eyes of each of the three shocked faces in front of her. “Someone once said, ‘Sometimes you simply have to do what needs to be done—and often the best choice is clear, but unpleasant.’ I agree. Have a nice trip home.” She strolled past the large Christmas tree in the lobby. “You may make it back in time to do some last-minute Christmas shopping.”

  Camilla stared at her long after she had gone from view, a hint of a smile on her lips. “I don’t need to go Christmas shopping. I think I just got everything on my wish list.”

  Lanaya turned to DeShear. “What about you, Hamilton? Are you ready to go back home to sunny Florida?”

  He groaned. “I am, but I’m not sure what I’ll be going home to. My apartment burned with all my belongings.”

  “Well,” Camilla said. “When Hauser’s people were trying to make it look like you and your client torched your place, they paid your insurance premium first. It was probably to keep investigators focused on you two for the arson rap, but Harriman says Lanaya’s flight schedule checked out and so did your alibi—so you’ll be able to collect. I have a feeling that it’ll all track back to Angelus, and I don’t think they’re going to fight that claim very hard. Their best bet will be to write a big check—if they have any money left after all this.” She picked up her coffee cup. “And like Dina said, there are still a few shopping days before Christmas.” Camilla crossed the lobby to the coffee machine, stopping to talk with her agents there.

  “Wow,” DeShear said. “Maybe I’ll go on my Bahamas fishing cruise after all.”

  “Well, I will certainly be looking forward to getting home.” Lanaya rocked back and forth, smiling. “It’s been quite a while since I kissed my babies good night, and I do have some Christmas shopping left to do!”

  DeShear sat up, toweling off his damp hair. “Next time you want to go on an adventure, schedule it a little sooner. I’m bad enough at buying presents for my mom and sister as it is.”

  “I couldn’t.” The smile disappeared from her lips. “You were sick.”

  “Huh?” DeShear cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  Lanaya’s hands dropped to her lap, one massaging the other again. “I’m afraid there’s one last thing I need to tell you. I’ve been meaning to, but there was never a good time. This isn’t either, I suppose, but . . .” She swallowed hard, glancing over her shoulders. “You remember when I told you about The Greyhound—about the Gammas, the genetic group he was part of. There are others.” She lowered her voice. “You, for example.”

  “Me.” DeShear sat frozen, the implications reverberating through his head.
>
  “You were sick the week before I called on you. The flu, you said, but . . . it wasn’t. We checked. And you are the right age.”

  His jaw dropped. “The sequence? But I’m fine—I just ran a marathon through the Indonesian jungle.” A nervous laugh escaped his lips.

  She lowered her eyes. “I think, in a few more days, that will very likely change.” Taking his hand, Lanaya’s voice fell to a whisper. “I’m sorry, Hamilton. Your records came to us like a lot of others. You weren’t adopted. That was a cover story. You were born at the Arizona facility, as part of the program.”

  He looked at her, his mind racing, but the overwhelming pall of truth seeped through her words and settled in his gut.

  I’m one of the Gammas.

  Lanaya was many things, but not a liar. Not about something like this.

  His heart sank. “So, uh . . . in a few days, I’ll start in with all the symptoms.” Her words came back to him about the months of suffering the others had gone through, and the slow death that followed. “I just—I spend the next year of my life in pain at a hospital, until . . . I die?”

  Hearing himself say it out loud, when it wasn’t about someone else, was strange. As a cop and a private detective, he’d delivered bad news to people before, but this was different. It seemed like a bad joke, but without a punch line—and no one was laughing.

  “So, no cruise, I’m afraid.” Tears welled in Lanaya’s eyes. “You’ll be ill for ten months or so.” Her voice broke as she spoke. “But—but Dr. Carerra says their latest tests have shown remarkable results.” She wiped away a tear, forcing a smile. “One in five survived before, and with proper treatment, and the new meds, there could be great improvements. After what I’ve seen these past few days, you strike me as a fighter. You’ll not only beat it, you’ll lead the charge.”

  He swallowed hard, his eyes focused on the floor, empty inside. Learning of your own imminent death had a way of drowning out everything else.

  “I’m sorry I deceived you, Hamilton, but working together has helped us connect with the very people who can help you.” She sniffled. “They think there’s a good chance you’ll be fine.”