The Devil's Game (The Game Trilogy Book 2)

by Sean Chercover

  “I’ll take a little water, thank you,” he said. He could feel the pulse throbbing in his neck.

  “Thought so,” she said, splashing a little water in his glass. She sat back, lifted hers in a toasting gesture. “Hey Mr. Phrasebook, how does one say cheers?”

  “Skal,” said Daniel, clinking his glass against hers.

  “Skal,” she said.

  They sipped the smoky, peaty Scotch. Daniel said, “And the moral of the Master Distiller story is . . . instead of feeling embarrassed for not knowing, you should feel proud for wanting to learn. Or is there a twist coming?”

  Stop flirting, you idiot. This will only end in tears . . .

  “There’s always a twist,” she said, her green eyes reflecting the firelight, “and I’d like to face it without blinders on, if you don’t mind.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I know there’s something you’re not telling me, and if you want to continue to study my case, you are going to have to open up. You cannot feed me just so much of what you know.” She sipped her drink. “But I propose we table that discussion until after our field trip. You asked me to trust you. I’ll give you a day. When we get back here tomorrow night, you are going to tell me everything you know about my condition, or we are going to part ways. Sound reasonable?”

  “Eminently,” said Daniel with a grateful smile. “Thank you for the day.”

  Kara put her glass down. “Well, I’m glad we can both be such reasonable people.”

  And then she kissed him.

  He tried to break the kiss, really he did. But this was a hell of a kiss, a kiss destined to be revisited in future fantasies, lips so soft, tongue so warm, need so naked.

  He did break the kiss, finally. “Kara, I—”

  “No, don’t.” She slid back a foot, picked up her drink. “I’m sorry, I know we shouldn’t. It’s just, ever since the tabloid press branded me Dr. Crazy . . . it’s just been a very long time since a man looked at me the way you look at me.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to . . .”

  “That much is obvious,” Kara smiled. “Has been for a while.”

  “Really? I thought I was being subtle.”

  She laughed, almost choking on fine whisky. “Oh, Daniel. Okay, I’m just going to say this so it’s out in the open: Julia told me you two used to live together—”

  “No—no, it’s not that at all,” said Daniel. “Julia and I are good friends. We tried to be a couple, twice, and it didn’t work out. Neither one of us wants to try it a third time.”

  “So, is it the priest thing? Julia said you’d been a priest for . . .”

  Daniel laughed. “Believe me, the best thing about leaving the priesthood was being released from the vow of celibacy.”

  “Okay. So we’ve got this mad chemistry going on—which by the way, you have been doing a terrible job of hiding on your end—but you won’t, and it’s not because of Julia or because you were a priest . . . Wait. Is it because I’m a case study to you? Is that it? Because if that is it, after the way you’ve led me on, I will slap you.”

  “No. God, no.” Daniel took her hand in his. “Look, there’s nothing I can say right now that’s not lame. I just need you to trust me . . . like the other thing, let’s just say we’re tabling this for future discussion.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “Because we can both be such reasonable people.”

  Kara sipped her drink. “Okay then,” she said, “consider it tabled. But if you don’t want me to kiss you, you have to stop flirting with me.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “This last year especially, it’s been . . . before today . . .” It came out like a self-conscious confession. “I haven’t even left my neighborhood for the last eight months. And here I am chasing dreams in Norway with a mysterious man who knows something he’s not telling me.” She rested her palm on Daniel’s chest and he stroked her hair.

  After a minute, she said, “Is it okay if I just . . . stay here, for a bit?”

  It was not okay at all. It was about as far from okay as Daniel was from New York.

  “Of course it’s okay,” he said, and hugged her a little closer.

  25: CINNAMON GIRL

  The GPS led them over increasingly steep terrain, deeper into wilderness, and now the roads were packed gravel and Daniel felt better about renting the BMW SUV instead of the M5 sedan he’d have preferred on the highway.

  They passed the time in relatively easy silence, listening to his iPod. The discovery that they shared a love of reggae pleased Daniel inordinately. A relief after the awkward start to the day, both Daniel and Kara a little too careful with their words, a little too aware of their body language.

  At one point during breakfast, when they both reached for the salt and their hands met unintentionally, Daniel saw a chance to break the tension.

  “That was not flirting,” he said, “that was just a shared love of salt.”

  “Not to worry,” said Kara, “I had a long think this morning, and I promise you are in no danger of being kissed again.”

  “What? You mean, ever?”

  “See, now you’re flirting.”

  “Mea culpa,” said Daniel. “But I wasn’t about the salt.”

  The gravel road came to an end. Daniel stopped.

  “Road ends,” said the English-accented fembot voice of the GPS.

  “Gee, thanks,” said Daniel.

  “Destination is north 853 meters, on the right,” said the fembot.

  Daniel looked down the rocky hill to the valley floor. He put the car in low gear. “A little bumpy, but it’s doable.”

  “This is nothing,” said Kara with a wide grin, “when I was a teenager I had a dirt bike.”

  Daniel tried not to think of Kara on a dirt bike. He failed miserably, of course—like telling yourself not to picture an elephant makes you picture an elephant. So he went ahead and pictured her on a dirt bike.

  “Ready when you are,” said Kara.

  “Right.” He lifted his foot off the brake.

  It took a few minutes to cross the 853 meters but Daniel got it done without damaging the rental. He pulled the key from the ignition and got out. Kara put on her sunglasses, took a few steps, and came to a dead stop.

  She stood silent for a few seconds, then said, “It’s real. It’s really real. I mean a photograph was weird enough, but this is . . .” She scanned the ridgeline along the northern horizon. “The ridgeline, the way the sun hits the trees . . . even the smell of the place . . . it’s like walking right into my dream.”

  Daniel took stock of the immediate area. A half-dozen large bedrock outcrops to their left, almost a story in height. A hundred yards to the right, a small stream, flowing south. The rest of the area just a field of rocks and wild grasses, punctuated by bursts of little pink wildflowers. “Why don’t you show me where things stood in your dream?” he said.

  Kara turned and walked through the tall grass. “Over in this area, there were maybe ten or fifteen small buildings, not in a circle exactly, but with a common area in the middle.” She continued walking. “There may have been a well in the center, I’m not sure . . .”

  “Kara, watch your—” Kara pitched forward and fell, disappearing into the tall grass. “—step.”

  She was back on her feet before Daniel reached her. “I’m okay, I’m fine,” she said. “Slightly bruised ego is all.”

  “Telemark landing,” said Daniel. “Straight tens from the judges.”

  She laughed. “Not very Grace Kelly, I’m afraid.”

  “More Katherine Hepburn,” said Daniel. “Looks good on you.”

  “Hey—flirting,” Kara warned, still smiling. She brushed dirt off her sleeves, then off her palms.

  “Right, sorry.” He reached out an
d wiped some dirt off her forehead. “This is not flirting, this is checking for a bump.”

  “I’m fine, I didn’t hit my head. I just rested it on the ground in shame.”

  “Oh. Okay then.” Daniel brushed the tall grass aside, pointed down. “See here? This raised line of stones? It goes straight out . . .” He followed the line a few yards, found the corner. “Then it turns ninety degrees. It’s the foundation of a very old building.”

  Kara stopped. “Oh my god. The village was real.”

  “The village was real.” Daniel walked a little farther, swishing the tall grass aside with his hand. “Look, there’s another one over here.”

  Kara stepped over to him. “This is incredible . . .”

  Daniel looked over the ancient stone foundations, picturing what the village might have looked like in 1349. “One Man Valley,” he said. “Imagine it’s 1349, and you’re a man living a bare subsistence life with all your relatives. Your brother falls ill with a violence you’ve never seen before, black lesions on his skin, sores oozing puss, coughing up blood. And then your brother’s wife. And then it spreads to your uncle and your cousins and there’s no science in your world, so you think this is some punishment from God. Everyone does. Everyone prays. But pretty soon you and the dwindling members of your clan are burning the dead bodies of your wives and parents and children, trying to stop the spread of this unholy curse. And after weeks of unanswered prayer, there are no bodies left to burn. There’s no one left but you. You’ve watched every human being you know die. You don’t know a soul in the world, and you don’t know if God has visited this curse across the entire world. It’s enough to make you want to just sit down and die. But you don’t. You hunt and gather and make fire and eat, and you leave this dead place behind. You forge into the unknown, searching for fellow survivors, for a way to survive together and rebuild.”

  Kara stepped in close. “Daniel, I—” She closed her eyes and pressed a palm against the side of her head. “I don’t feel so well.”

  Daniel took hold of her elbow. “Let’s find you a place to sit.”

  “No, I—” Her mouth opened and closed twice. “Cinnamon, I’m tasting cinnamon. Get the thing.”

  Daniel pulled out his phone and launched the voice recorder. “Recording. If the voices—”

  “Shut up.” She closed her eyes again. After a few seconds, she said, “Kara, listen: The work of men who strive to become gods . . . the work of men who strive to become gods . . .” She fell silent again, listening for more, then shook her head and opened her eyes. “They’re gone, that’s it . . . the taste is fading. That’s all. You can put it away.”

  Daniel pocketed his phone. “The work of men who strive to become gods.”

  “Whatever the hell that means,” said Kara.

  A bird called out from the hillside, a shrill cry that carried across the valley floor. That’s when Kara lost consciousness and dropped like a rag doll into Daniel’s arms.

  26: WHO BY FIRE

  Kara’s eyes flickered as Daniel lowered her gently to the ground. “What happened?” she said.

  He helped her sit up. “You passed out for a few seconds. Happened to my uncle as well. I never witnessed it, but he told me about his fainting spells, said it only happened to him a few times.”

  “Fewer the better,” she said, reaching for Daniel’s water bottle. “Taste is back.” She took a few gulps. “There was a dream but I can’t . . .” Her expression darkened. “Wait. It was a . . . a child, screaming. A little boy, filthy blond hair, screaming into a fire.”

  “Sounds like your brain was just making a movie out of the story I was telling—”

  “No, it was real. I know where it was.” Kara stood up and marched off in the direction of the rocky outcrops. “Over there, c’mon.”

  Daniel caught up with her and kept pace, following her lead. “How is that coming to you?” he asked. “Voice? Image? I can’t read your mind, you have to tell me what it looks and sounds like in there if we’re gonna figure this out.”

  Kara stopped abruptly and looked at him. “Neither. It’s more like an intuition but with absolute certainty, like how in dreams you know things without knowing how you know them.” A new intensity crept into her voice. “And I know where this boy stood.”

  She thrust an accusing finger at the third rocky outcrop, about the size of a three-car garage. “He was over there, behind that one. There’s a cave. I know it.” She strode off and Daniel followed, walking to the end of the outcrop and turning right.

  On this side, the bedrock sloped down from the height of about fifteen feet all the way to the valley floor. Long green vines hung down thickly from the top, obscuring the wall, but a few feet past the corner there was a blackness behind the vines that suggested an opening about five feet tall and four feet wide.

  “See? Cave.” She did not sound happy about it.

  Daniel grabbed handfuls of the ropy vines and used his folding pocketknife to cut them back from the opening. He put the knife away and ducked through the entrance, into a cave nobody had seen for . . . maybe centuries.

  The air inside was dry and dusty and smelled vaguely of charcoal.

  Kara entered behind him, stirring more dust up into the light streaming through the hole in the vines. Daniel moved deeper into the cave, past the daylight, shining his phone’s tiny flashlight ahead. The space was about twelve feet across, the blackened ceiling just a few inches above his head. He ran a finger against the ceiling. “Soot,” he said. At the back wall of the cave, just visible in the flashlight’s beam, was a large pile of white rocks.

  Halfway into the cave, they found the charred fire pit, almost eight feet in diameter. “Too big for a cave of this size,” he said stepping around the pit. He aimed his light at the back wall.

  It wasn’t a pile of white rocks. He was looking at a pile of human bones.

  Kara grabbed his free hand. “My God, look how many there are.”

  Daniel stepped closer, counting skulls. “There’s gotta be over a hundred.”

  He squatted down, sifting through the scattered bones of a hand and forearm. He picked up a small skull. “No charring. These bodies weren’t burned. He glanced back at the fire pit. “They died of smoke inhalation—they were trapped by the fire, couldn’t get out.”

  “Look at this.” Kara held out a rock to him. “There are dozens of others in the pile just like it.” One edge of the rock was deeply gouged and chipped. Kara pointed to deep scratches in the sooty wall. “They were trying to dig their way out through solid rock. A desperate final act, nowhere to go. Daniel, these people were murdered.”

  How must it have felt to have been trapped here, pressed back against the wall by the intense heat, unable to escape the flames, choking on smoke, finally to grab a rock and claw against the wall, knowing it would be your final act?

  And Kara was right—somebody had done this to them. No one would build a cooking fire that large in so small a cave.

  “The work of men who strive to become gods,” said Daniel.

  He looked from the charred fire pit back to the pile of bones. At the edge of the pile, slightly apart from the rest, lay the remains of three skeletons. One small, perhaps that of a six-year-old child, the other two adults—the largest bones on top, as if the man were trying to shield his wife and child from the heat. Or perhaps not shielding, but simply choosing not to die clawing impotently at solid rock, but rather in a final embrace with the people he loved.

  A better choice.

  “I need some air,” said Kara, moving through the dusty cave toward the light.

  “Right behind you.” Daniel took flash photos of the wall and the rocks and the bones, paused on the way to the entrance to get shots of the fire pit and the charred ceiling. He brought the chipped rock Kara had given him.

  Then he heard the sound of a car’s engine outside, grabbed Ka
ra’s arm just before she stepped into daylight. “Stop.” He listened as the engine died, followed a few seconds later by two heavy thunks—car doors closing. “Stay.”

  He ducked out into the bright sun, keeping his body tight against the wall, and crept to the corner of the outcrop in a crouch. He pulled a small mirror from his wallet, palmed it, and inched it out past the edge of the wall.

  Reflected in the mirror, he saw a black Range Rover parked halfway between the outcrop and his BMW. There were two men, dressed like hunters.

  But hunters don’t carry Heckler & Koch MP5s, and these men had the hard look and cocky swagger of guns for hire. One of the men stood by the Range Rover scanning the valley through field glasses while the other began walking slowly toward the outcrops. Daniel dashed back to the cave and stepped inside.

  “We’ve got bad guys with guns,” he said.

  “Maybe they’re police,” said Kara.

  “Kara, listen to me: They are not police.”

  Kara’s look turned to a glare. Her voice was cold steel. “What have you been keeping from me?”

  “Lots,” said Daniel, maneuvering them to the side, out of the streams of daylight. “And if we’re going to have that conversation, I have to get us out of here alive.” He opened his pocketknife and stuck it in her hand. “You’re a surgeon,” he said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Look, I’m not going to let it come to that. Just stay behind me. But if I go down, slash for the eyes and throat, and block with your other arm.” He held a finger to Kara’s trembling lips. “Shh, everything’ll be okay.” He tucked the car keys into her front pocket, turned away, and moved closer to the entrance.

  Footsteps now, just outside. Daniel held the rock aloft in his right hand, waited.

  The big man ducked into the cave and Daniel brought the rock down hard against his skull, behind the right ear. The man grunted and pitched forward, hands at his sides, forehead slamming into the cave’s rock floor, submachine gun clattering to one side.