Vlad Dumitru Radu, known then as Darry Ransom, now going by the name of Barry Cantrell, had saved Stormy’s life. The two of them were forced to hide out in the wilderness area for days while a battle between misinformed and poorly led federal agents and a band of innocent campers, hikers, river rafters, and militiamen raged all around them.
Long years before Stormy met “The Man Who Could Not Die,” as the mysterious and elusive Vlad had been dubbed, Stormy had carefully put together Vlad’s life story. It had been a pet project of hers since high school days. This time, Vlad knew he was caught.
But before Stormy could make up her mind about filing the story, the pristine wilderness had erupted in battle and they’d had to run for their lives.
Now, a year later, Vlad had once more changed his name and location, but with technology advancing at nearly mind-boggling speed, his running and hiding was becoming increasingly more difficult. He did not know how long he could continue evading not only the press, but also the relentless pursuit by the men and women hired by the billionaire industrialist, Robert Roche. Roche wanted Barry for study, in hopes of learning the secret of eternal life. That was a joke, as far as Barry was concerned, for there was no medical reason for his stroll through the centuries, no gene that gave him the powers to shape-shift, no gland that gave him the ability to never age. He and the others like him—and there were more than a few—were that way because a higher power so decreed it. If Robert Roche wanted the secret, he might consider prayer. That was the only response Barry could possibly give him.
Barry did not possess magical powers. He could not make articles disappear; he could not snap his fingers and produce wondrous things, all materializing in a puff of smoke. He simply did not age and could not die, and he could shape-shift at will. But the ability to shape-shift was nothing new. Indians had known of shape-shifters for thousands of years. Barry knew the white man could learn a lot from the American Indian; they had only to listen and believe. But while many listened, few believed. And therein was the hitch.
* * *
“You could call him and tell him you’re on the way,” Ki Nichols said to Stormy, sitting in her office in New York City.
“No phone,” Stormy said with a grimace. “You know how he feels about phones.”
Ki laughed at her friend’s expression. Then she sobered. “Stormy? What are you two going to do? How are you going to work this out?”
Stormy, nicknamed the Ice Queen because of her sometimes standoffishness, but mostly because of her astonishing Scandinavian beauty, sighed and shook her head, a thick strand of very blond hair falling out of place, almost covering one eye. “We take it one day at a time, Ki. Or one visit at a time. Barry realizes that technology is rapidly catching up with him. But he’s made up his mind to resist going public for as long as possible.”
“Do you fault him for that?”
Stormy shook her head. “No. Not now. Maybe at first, but certainly not now.”
Ki closed the door to the office and sat down. “He’s really talked about going public?”
“In a roundabout way, yes.”
Ki stared at her. Ki’s hair, worn short, was as black as a raven’s wing. While Stormy was tall, Ki was almost petite. But while Stormy was city born and reared, Ki had been raised on a working farm in Missouri, and could be as tough as wang leather. Ki was one of the top camera-persons in the business, and liked to work with Stormy. Both of them had been known to take incredible chances in getting a story. “Explain roundabout.”
Stormy fiddled with a pencil, tapping it nervously on her desk. “Barry knows these two things to be fact: The military wants to study him. The CIA wants him as an agent. He knows but can’t prove that the billionaire industrialist, Robert Roche, hired those mercenaries to come after us last year in Idaho. Roche wants to see if he can learn the secret of eternal life from Barry.”
“I’ll bite. Can he?”
Stormy shook her head. “No. All Barry knows is that it is a gift. He’s firmly convinced, now, that the Almighty gives certain people that gift. As far as his ability to shape-change, he says that shape-shifters have been on the earth for thousands of years. He says it’s all in the mind. He told me it took him years to finally learn how to control the shape-shifting.”
Ki nodded her head. “Changing the subject only slightly, how do we get to this little town in Arkansas to watch the Speaker of the House glad-hand?”
“We can either fly into Springfield, Little Rock, or Memphis and rent a car.”
“You ready?”
Stormy grinned. “I thought you’d never ask!”
* * *
The Speaker of the House, since he, or she, is next in line for the Oval Office should anything happen to the president and vice president, is provided security when he travels. They can be Secret Service, FBI, or Deputy U.S. Marshals. Local police, sheriffs deputies, and state police or highway patrol (and there is quite a difference between the two) are also used, at the discretion of the local, county, and state officials. If the police and sheriffs departments are small ones, the visit can put a hell of a strain on local authorities. And Sheriff Don Salter and Police Chief Russ Monroe did not have large departments.
“Hell, the Speaker travels all over the country,” Don said to the police chief, the morning after his unexpected visit with Barry. “There’s never been any trouble. At least not that I know of.”
“Those other areas didn’t have Jim Beal and Victor Radford,” the chief reminded the sheriff.
Don leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk. “Russ, we have one of the largest militias in the state located not twenty miles from here. We have about a hundred people who subscribe to the Tri-States’ philosophy living just outside of town. They’ve never caused any trouble.”
The police chief shook his head. “Oh, hell, Don! I’m not talking about those people. Those are good, decent, law-abiding folks. I wish to hell we could follow the Tri-States’ doctrine. We’d all be a lot better off. I can talk to Jim Beal, but Vic Radford is a hater.” The chief sighed. “Don, I’ve known you since you were just a boy. You know how I feel about certain things. I don’t have a lot of use for black folks. And we don’t have to get into the reasons why I feel like I do. You know why . . .”
The sheriff nodded his head in agreement. Don felt pretty much the same way as the chief.
Russ said, “I also know that for every one bad black person, there are twenty-five good, decent black folks. And I’m not going to tolerate any good, decent person, regardless of color, getting hurt by the likes of Victor Radford and his neo-Nazi nuts.”
Don smiled and waited. Russ would get to the point, maybe, in his own time. This part of Arkansas was almost one hundred percent white, and the citizens were determined to keep it that way. And Don understood why the citizens wanted that. It did not take a rocket scientist to interpret crime statistics.
Blacks did travel through this part of the state; but they did not stay long, and few ever attempted to buy property. The blacks who did stop for gas or food or lodging were not mistreated, but they were met with a solid wall of silence. If they visited a real estate agent and requested to see listed property, they were shown property, for there is a federal law against housing discrimination, but those blacks who did buy property didn’t stay long. As of this writing, there is no federal law, yet, against not speaking to someone, regardless of color.
Sheriff Salter stirred restlessly in his chair. He decided to push the issue. “Russ, is there a point to all this?”
The chief looked at the sheriff. “Don, I don’t entirely disagree with what Jim Beal has to say.”
“I know. Neither do I. But Radford is an idiot.”
“I’ll certainly agree with that.” The chief tapped the badge on his chest. “But you and me, we’re wearing these.”
“That’s right. And because we do, we have to push personal feelings far into the background. Where is all this going, Russ?”
“I get word
that both Radford and Beal are up to something no good.”
“Russ, there are maybe ten black families in the whole damn county. They’ve been here for years and years. They’re as Iaw-abiding as anyone I could name. Are you saying that Beal and Radford are going to make some sort of move against them?”
The chief shook his head. “No.” He smiled, then chuckled. “Do you recall the time, years back, when Radford first started his movement, and he went out and burned that damn cross on Lucas Wilson’s front yard?”
Don laughed. “Yeah. Lucas shot him in the ass with a Sweet Sixteen. Took the doctor about half the night to pick out all the birdshot. Vic had to eat standing up for a month.”
The chiefs smile faded. “Well, it’s a bit more serious than that now. According to what I hear, Beal and Radford are gearing up to pull something during the Speaker’s visit.”
“Pull what?”
“I don’t know. I do know that I’ve got at least one of their men on my department, just like you do. But I don’t know for sure who it is.”
“They’re not stupid enough to try to harm the Speaker. Hell, Cliff Madison is a conservative Republican. He believes in the right to own and bear arms. He wants to repeal the assault weapons ban. Why would Beal and Radford want to harm him?”
“I don’t think Beal does. But Vic and his people are something else entirely. I’ve been trying to find out more, but I’ve hit a brick wall. Look, what do you know about this new fellow who just moved in, this Barry Cantrell?”
“He’s all right. I checked him out and I had men tailing him for a time. He’s clean.”
“Awful young fellow to be keeping to himself the way he does.” The chief rose from the chair with a grunt and a rueful smile. “I’ve had it after this term,” he said. “I’ve been in law enforcement for damn near forty years. That’s enough. I’ll be sixty-five soon and I want to go fishing and relax some.”
“You’ve earned it, Russ.”
“Sure have. See you, Don.” He tossed what Don felt was a very strange look, then walked to the door. Without looking around, he added, “Keep your powder dry, boy.”
* * *
“Two more security people are being added for this trip,” Congressman Madison’s chief aide told him. “The Secret Service is providing them. They’ll be out of the Little Rock office. Agents Warner Lenox and Susan Green.”
Cliff Madison leaned back in his office chair and looked at the aide. “Why the added security?”
The aide shrugged. “No reasons given, sir. I would guess it’s due to the current political climate.”
Cliff smiled. “And what would that be, Ed?”
The younger man returned the smile. “The conservatives are on a roll.”
“Yeah,” the Speaker said. “And don’t we just love it!”
* * *
The message light was flashing on Stormy’s answering machine. She punched the play button and then walked to the closet for a suitcase. The first voice message was from a man who’d been trying to date her for months.
“I’ll give him an A for persistence,” Stormy muttered, ignoring the crux of the message.
The second message was from her stockbroker, telling her he’d just made her a nice chunk of change.
The third message was from her office, confirming travel reservations to Memphis and the confirmation number of a rental car.
But the fourth message stopped her in her tracks, the suitcase in her hand forgotten. The caller had disguised his voice, muffling it in some way. “Your life is in danger, Miss Knight. Don’t go to Arkansas.”
Stormy set the suitcase on the floor and replayed the messages. But after repeated playings, she still did not recognize the voice. She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged it off. Death threats were nothing new to people who were constantly in the public eye. They all received them, and usually the threats turned out to be nothing.
But still . . .
Stormy shook her head in irritation. She had covered everything from Desert Storm to Bosnia and was a seasoned veteran; no stranger to gunfire.
Besides, in Arkansas, she would be close to Barry. And the only thing she feared when close to him was her own emotions. No doubt about it: she was deeply in love.
With a man who was almost seven hundred years old.
Three
Barry’s eyes popped open to the sounds of Pete and Repeat growling low in their throats. The clock radio read 5:10. Barry lay in his bed, every sense working overtime.
“Be quiet,” he whispered to the hybrids.
They hushed immediately.
Barry slipped silently out of bed and pulled on jeans and moccasins. “Stay,” he told the hybrids, buttoning up a dark shirt.
The day had been unusually hot, and the night was muggy, so the air conditioning was on. Despite the house being closed up, something had alerted the animals.
Barry silently walked the house, pausing to glance out of windows. He could spot nothing out of the ordinary. He opened the back door, which he never locked while he was home. It swung noiselessly on well-oiled hinges.
Barry stepped out into the warm night, staying close to the outside wall of the stone house. He sniffed the air and smiled as the odor of sweat came to him. Two distinctive smells. Males. So there were two men on his property, inside the chain link fence. He waited. The next move was theirs.
Then the two men made a very bad vocal mistake.
“If those big-assed dogs come out,” one whispered, the words very audible to Barry. The man was just around the corner of the house. “I’ll shoot both of them.”
“Damn right,” the second man whispered.
At that, Barry’s darkness-shrouded smile was not pleasant.
Barry picked up a small piece of kindling that was stacked in a wooden box on the porch and tossed it out into the backyard. It landed with a thud.
Barry heard the sounds of both men bellying down on the ground beside the house. He picked up a more substantial piece of wood and waited.
“That wasn’t nothing. Look, let’s do it. You take the back door,” the whisper reached Barry. “I’ll take the front. Remember, we’ve got to take him alive.”
Barry smiled at that.
“Right.”
He heard the faint sounds of one man moving away; then the second man came into view, standing by the edge of the back porch. Barry counted to five, then whacked the man on the head with the piece of wood. The man sighed softly and collapsed to the ground. Barry left the porch and circled around to the front of the house, staying close to the exterior wall. The other man was on the porch. Barry dropped down and crawled around the porch, coming up behind him. Silently, he stood up and stepped onto the porch, moving up to within inches of the man standing in front of the screen, his left hand outstretched.
“Looking for me?” Barry spoke in a normal tone.
The man jumped in shock and whirled around, a pistol in his hand. Barry gave him a short and very brutal right fist to the jaw, then a left to the belly, then came up with an uppercut that dropped the intruder to the porch.
Using the man’s belt, Barry quickly trussed him up, then did the same to the man in the back of the house. Then he took a leisurely stroll down the road to a neighbor’s house to call the sheriffs department.
If this continues, I’m going to have to get a phone, Barry thought.
* * *
“Ah, Vlad,” the man using the name of John Ravenna whispered. He was wide awake, lying on the bed in his New York City hotel room. “How long has it been since we last confronted one another?”
The answer was just over fifty years, during World War II, in occupied France. John Ravenna had been working for the Nazi Gestapo. Barry, going by the name of William Shipman, had been TDY’d over to the American OSS and was operating behind the lines in France, working with the French Resistance. It was just a few weeks after D-Day, and John Ravenna had captured a female member of the resistance and was doing what he loved best, inflicting
torture upon a woman in a vain effort to make her talk.
Lying in his bed in the darkened hotel room, John Ravenna scowled at the memory of what had happened next . . . just as the woman was screaming in hideous pain.
The front door to the small house burst open. Ravenna whirled around, dropping the electrified wires he was using on the woman’s naked body.
“Well, now, cousin,” John said, a cruel smile playing on his lips. “What an unpleasant surprise.”
“I’m not your cousin, Ravenna,” Barry told him.
“Related in kind, then.”
“Unfortunately, that is true.”
“You always pick the wrong side, Vlad.”
“A matter of opinion, John.”
“I suppose you’ve burst in to save the fair maiden?”
“Something like that.” Barry cut his eyes to the woman. She was not dead, but not far from that long sleep. She had been tortured for hours.
“You’re too late, Vlad.”
“A little matter of a German patrol that had to be dealt with.”
“So what happens now?”
“It would be rather pointless for us to fight, would it not, John?”
“That would be fun, of course, but yes, it would be pointless.”
“Then, goodbye, John Ravenna.”
“Auf wiedersehen, Vlad Radu.”
The two men stood staring at each other. John Ravenna was several centuries older than Vlad, and he had not ceased his aging until about age forty. He was dark-complexioned, with black hair, graying at the temples when the aging stopped. His eyes were black, usually holding a contemptuous light. He was handsome, in a cruel sort of way.
While the immortals could not kill each other, they could inflict great injury, and immortals felt pain just like anyone else. But the healing process was very swift. They could, however, use their minds to exert control over each other, and since John Ravenna was several centuries older than Vlad, he could project the greater control. Which he was now attempting to do.
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