The Eighth Trumpet (The Jared Kimberlain Novels)

by Jon Land

  Kimberlain realized his best chance, his only chance, was to keep moving. He darted from the cover of the couch and dove behind Mendelson’s desk. Again the water jet traced his path, the last edge of it slicing open his other side with a feeling of ice sliding down his shirt. Kimberlain twisted the other way, and the motion brought him next to Mendelson, still alive somehow, with his eyes twitching and focusing on a piece of paper beneath the hand that remained attached. Another burst from the water-jet gun forced the Ferryman even lower. Warm blood soaked his shirt on both sides. He felt himself weakening and began to wonder how much more spray the gun could hold. Captain Seven had guessed six seconds’ worth, but obviously that estimate was low.

  He heard its wielder coming and grabbed reflexively for some damp earth from the nearest potted palm. As the woman’s shape lunged over the desk with the deadly barrel leading, Kimberlain tossed the dirt upward into her face. Her weapon tore a chasm from the floor where he had been, and before she could recover, Kimberlain threw himself on her and grabbed for the water-jet gun.

  Their fight for control of the weapon twisted and turned the length and breadth of the room. In the course of their wrestling, the woman compressed the trigger. An entire wall split in two, followed by fragments from the ceiling. At last the conference table collapsed, with its legs severed. The woman was good with her feet and used them effectively against the Ferryman’s knees. He could feel himself weakening considerably from loss of blood. His concentration on the weapon left his groin exposed, and she rammed into him with something that felt like a brick. He bit his lip to cling to consciousness while his feet wavered beneath him. He felt himself slipping away and knew his next move was the only one that mattered.

  The Ferryman changed his strategy and went with the woman’s move instead of against it; he let her have the gun, let her think she could fire it. And when she brought it up, Kimberlain grabbed the bore at the absolute last instant and forced it hard into the dirt of a potted plant just as the woman pulled the trigger.

  The dirt clogged the barrel and jammed the mechanism. That, Kimberlain had anticipated. The rest he hadn’t.

  The charge of water going down at fifty thousand feet per second and jammed with an incredible suddenness sought the only other possible route of exit: the other end of the gun. The jet blasted upward in a single stream and exploded at peak velocity from the opposite side, the entire weapon shattering as it shot out. The jet sliced through the woman’s body armor and penetrated her flesh. Her mouth gaped with an awful soundless scream. The impact smashed her backwards against the far wall, and she left a trail of red on it as she slid down, hate-filled eyes clinging to life as they locked with the Ferryman’s.

  “You will pay,” she rasped through the gurgling of frothy blood in her mouth. “You will all pay. One million will die before fifty million. The—”

  That was as far as she got. A spasm shook her, and her eyes locked open.

  Kimberlain sank to his knees in pain and exhaustion. His eyes were level with the dead woman’s shoulder, exposed now since the rupturing of the water-jet gun had shredded her blouse. He wiped his eyes and squinted, not believing what he saw imprinted on her flesh. But it was there. It was there!

  A tattoo of a smiling death’s-head with a spear running through it from temple to temple.

  The woman was a Hashi!

  The Ferryman moved back toward Mendelson with his thoughts in a frenzy.

  The Hashi! Here, now, a part of this! What had Zeus said about explosives? Could there be, might there be a—

  Mendelson was dead, but he had managed to scrawl something in his own blood on the piece of paper beneath his hand. Kimberlain started to reach for it, eyes already taking in its message. Three numbers, followed by two letters: 719, 720, 721 PS.

  He heard the door slide open and tried to swing fast. But the wounds to his sides drove pain through him, and he nearly toppled over.

  “Don’t move,” ordered a tall blond woman after the door had closed behind her. She was wearing black jeans and boots, and she was holding a gun. The pistol looked too big for her, but she held it confidently. It seemed to Kimberlain that her eyes too had focused on the dead woman’s shoulder, on the Hashi tattoo. “Slide the piece of paper over to me,” she ordered next. “Use your left hand.”

  The blonde came closer but kept enough distance to assure him she was a pro and a good one. Yet if she was another Hashi, a backup for the secretary, he would have been dead already. So who was she?

  Kimberlain did as he was told. The blonde leaned over and lifted the bloodied sheet of paper from the carpet. Before he could contemplate moving, the woman had backed up well out of range, still showing her pistol. Without speaking again she retreated through the door, which closed again instantly.

  Fighting down his pain, Kimberlain lunged to his feet and bolted forward. He pushed the button that should have opened the door again.

  Nothing. The woman must have shorted it out on the other side, thinking she had left him trapped. But he could still make use of Mendelson’s private elevator in the closet. If it whisked him down fast enough, he might find the woman and give chase. A moment later he was in the small compartment, descending, pressed against the wall for support.

  The doors opened at the far end of the lobby level, apart from the main congestion of those coming and going. The Ferryman tried to move quickly toward the nearest exit, but he was too weak. He had lost more blood and was feeling extremely dizzy as he emerged at the side of the building and started around toward the front. He was dimly aware of his heels clicking against the layered brick and cement inlay design, color-keyed to mesh with the brown marble of the building. It looked rusty to him, almost like blood.

  At the front of the building, the lunchtime crowds of Congress Street swallowed him up. His eyes probed ahead as he wavered through the mass, searching for a blond head while holding his arms pressed to his sides to keep the blood hidden by his jacket. He caught a glimpse of a black sweater and boots beneath a blond head twenty yards ahead and started to run.

  Hardly into his dash, everything turned slow. The world started spinning.

  And the Ferryman tried to grasp the air so he wouldn’t fall off it as he tumbled to the ground.

  The Fifth Trumpet

  St. Andrew Sound

  Friday, November 20; 7:00 P.M.

  Chapter 17

  “A PHONE, DAVID. Just get me a goddamn phone!”

  Kimberlain slammed his fist against the hospital bed in disgust, bolts of pain searing through him from the motion.

  “Careful, Jared. Might strip your sutures off.”

  Kimberlain felt a rush of cold replace the pain. “I remember reciting Mendelson’s message. Did you write it down?”

  “Right here,” Kamanski told him, turning his eyes to the night table. “Don’t waste your time. It’s just gibberish.”

  “The fuck it is,” the Ferryman came back, remembering now. “Numbers,” he muttered. “In sequence.”

  “719, 720, 721, followed by PS.”

  “What about the woman? I gave you a description.”

  “Sure, of a blond woman in black. Only maybe ten thousand of them in the city. I put out an APB.”

  “She was there to see Mendelson too. She must be part of what’s going on, maybe a different part we’re not even aware of.”

  “Which part, Jared?”

  “Look, Hermes, there’s something you’d better get through your bureaucratic skull, and fast. We’re not facing a single madman here. What we’re facing is a whole society of killers called the Hashi. Sound familiar? They wear a certain tattoo on their right shoulder, and they’re utterly ruthless.”

  “Hold on a—”

  “No, Hermes. There’s more. That secretary was there to kill me, not Mendelson.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it? Well let me tell you something else. Mendelson said ‘they,’ the people who ordered the weapon, had the right credentials. He belie
ved he had worked with them on something else that was probably legitimate that had also utilized the water-jet principle. So Mendelson was a risk to them all along, but they could have eliminated him at anytime. Instead they waited until I met with him.” With that Kimberlain felt even colder. “Which means they knew I was coming. Somehow they knew I was coming.”

  “You’ve got more immediate problems to worry about. Just so you know it, there’s a pair of Boston police officers outside your door. Technically you’re under arrest, though they’re still calling it protective custody. The police have two dead bodies in a downtown office building and a wounded man unconscious on the street they’ve already pinned to the scene. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to help. We’re both just private citizens now.”

  “You let me worry about my pending incarceration. That way you can go home with a clear head and bring me everything you can on Jason Benbasset tomorrow morning.”

  “Jason Benbasset, the billionaire?”

  “The only one I know of, Hermes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Even if I was under arrest, I’d be allowed a phone call. Now bring me a damn phone!”

  Kimberlain’s second call was to Dominick Torelli’s private number. Actually it took the dialing of two others to track down the don at his favorite Atlanta restaurant.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Kimberlain?”

  “Lisa’s not safe, Mr. Torelli.”

  “I told you to call me Dom. I just checked in. Everything’s fine.”

  “Double the guards, hire an army. That’s what you’re up against.”

  Torelli sighed. “You’ve learned something new.”

  “Not much that would mean anything to you. Just the name of the group that was probably hired to kill her and the others in the first place. They don’t miss very often, and almost never twice.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and the tension spoke for itself.

  “I checked you out, Mr. Kimberlain,” Torelli said finally. “Lots of people speak quite highly of what you stand for, what you do. Lots of them are scared. I also understand our paths have crossed before, not directly but through an intermediary of mine in Chicago.”

  “I sent flowers and candy. Should be up and around by now. “

  “Oh, I know he deserved it. What I don’t understand is why you agreed to involve yourself. I like that in a man, Mr. Kimberlain. It’s something we don’t see enough of anymore.”

  “We were talking about Lisa.”

  “I’ll get more of my personal soldiers to her within hours. Fly down myself as soon as I clear up a little business. Make you happy?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Good night, Mr. Kimberlain.”

  Beep … beep … beep …

  Quintanna stood before the black plasteel curtain, waiting for its occupant to respond to his report.

  “You assured me that matters were under control, Mr. Quintanna. You assured me that Kimberlain would be eliminated at the first available opportunity, and now you say that opportunity has passed with failure.”

  “One attempt has failed. The next one will not.”

  “And what if Mendelson passed on information pertaining to the substance of my plan?”

  “He knew nothing of the substance.”

  “But Kimberlain now knows of your people’s involvement and can only conclude there is far more to the plot than he originally believed.”

  “I am more concerned about the presence of this woman at Mendelson’s office,” said Quintanna. “Her description matches that of a commando who single-handedly destroyed our stronghold in Nice. That same stronghold contained the plans for Spiderweb and the Rhode Island. If she managed to salvage them somehow, if that was what brought her to America on a trail that eventually led her to Mendelson, then, yes, we must face the fact that crucial elements of the plan are no longer secret.”

  “You knew Kimberlain. Do you also know this woman?”

  “Not specifically. But the Hashi are not without enemies.”

  “And now your enemies have become mine, Mr. Quintanna. What would you have me do about that?”

  “Postpone the operation until we have a chance to bring the situation under control.”

  “It appears you are moving in quite the opposite direction, though, doesn’t it? You fear Kimberlain and you fear the woman. I can sense it in your voice.”

  “I fear the possibility that they will eventually join forces.”

  “According to your words, then, everything I have done is now in jeopardy thanks to the bungling of your people. I came to you with the plan already set. You had merely to plug in the proper pieces, and even that task has proven too much for you.”

  “There were things I couldn’t foresee.”

  “And my operation is what suffers for your oversight.”

  “It doesn’t have to. Postponement means the choice of another event, that’s all.”

  The black curtain fluttered in rhythm with the life-support machines within. Quintanna could hear the breathing grow more labored—thicker and wetter.

  “You still do not understand, do you?” accused the voice. “There is no other event. All this must go forth as I have planned it. The circle must close as it began. There is no alternative. If we abandon one stage of the operation, we abandon it all.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s clear you don’t know what you mean. You allow yourself only a narrow view of what I am trying to accomplish. You are a scavenger, Quintanna. You wish to feed off the corpse of the world when I am finished with it, and nothing more, so of course the timing and means are of no interest to you. But the end must come as I direct. You think I have lain here and plotted at whim, accepting what is thrust at me the way a scavenger like yourself might? No, no! Man had his chance at progress, at technology, at developing civilization, and all he accomplished was wanton murder, famine, destruction, a society powered by hate instead of love. Your kind of society, of world, Quintanna. Fine. I leave it to you. I will it to you. The two of you deserve each other. In six days’ time the dawn of what is usually a happy time of year will in this case prove the dawn of something else. It will come to pass on the day I direct, because only by that means can justice be done for all the wrongs committed.”

  “Then I shall find a means to deal with the Ferryman.”

  “And the Eiseman woman, lest you forget. I am forced to rely on you, Mr. Quintanna. For now, just leave me.”

  Wordlessly, Quintanna turned on his heels and started for the elevator.

  Commander McKenzie Barlow was sitting behind the small desk in his quarters when the lock turned from the outside and Jones entered, looking frazzled.

  “We’ve just had a communiqué from COMSUBLANT requesting an update,” he said. “That’s not procedure. They know something’s wrong. Tell me what you did.”

  “Might help, Mr. Jones, if I saw the message.”

  Jones handed over a slightly crumpled bit of paper. Mac unfolded it and smoothed the edges. Its contents were simple: “Request repeat status grade.”

  “What’s it mean?” Jones demanded.

  “Nothing to worry about. They just want us to send another status report over main line instead of bouncing it off beacons. The beacon system hasn’t been updated to allow for the deep lie of a super-Trident,” Mac lied, “so that message I sent must have come through garbled.”

  “The others didn’t.”

  “We were closer to the States then, weren’t we? It wouldn’t have bothered them ordinarily, except in this case I was given some parameters that you’ve broken. If we’re straying, they’d be concerned the navigational gear is to blame. Thus, the request for an update.”

  “What else? Don’t forget your family, Mac. Don’t make me do something I don’t want to.”

  “Main-line status grade requires a listing of coordinates.”

  “But even main line will give them only a rough estimate of o
ur coordinates.”

  “Right, so we can lie and they’ll have no way of checking up. Just gotta make sure what we give them jibes somewhat with what they already suspect.”

  “Then let’s get to the com center, Commander.”

  Mac nodded routinely. The crucial part of the message his last status grade had created the need for was ready in his mind as Mr. Jones led him from his quarters.

  It was four hours past nightfall and Kimberlain was dozing when the door eased open to allow a trio of figures to enter, the middle one dwarfed by the ones flanking it.

  Tap … tap … tap …

  The sound of a cane marking the blind man’s path forward reached Kimberlain’s ears. The darkness of his hospital room was broken only by the spill of street lamps sneaking through cracks in the blinds.

  “I could come back in the morning,” Zeus said, after the Ferryman had reached above him and switched on the light.

  Kimberlain sat up. “I think I can stomach you better after my evening pain shot.”

  The old man gave him a knowing grin as his two giant bodyguards went to stand by the door. “Ah, but this time it was you who called me.”

  “Because we seem to have something in common. That doesn’t change the way I feel.”

  “Necessity heals all wounds.”

  “Not the old ones, Zeus, not the old ones.”

  “You mentioned the Hashi when you called, Ferryman.”

  “Somehow they figure into what I’ve been working on.”

  “The murders?”

  He nodded. “They’re almost certainly behind them, and with the theft of those explosives fitting in so neatly in terms of the timing …”

  “You sense a connection, eh, Ferryman? Never were one to pass anything off to coincidence.”

  “I think the C-12 plastique might have plenty to do with something I’ve stumbled on accidentally.” And he proceeded to relate to Zeus all the day’s events, repeating in the end the threat rasped at him by the dying Hashi killer.