by Cherry Adair
“The man believes that the antichrist is alive and well and living in Las Vegas, for Christ’s sake! The coordinates on one of the disks indicate the missile is pointing in that direction. He’s stockpiled God only knows how much sarin gas and other biohazards and chemicals down there. He’s been collecting weapons and arms like baseball cards for years. Saving them for October thirteenth at 3:33. Precisely. That’s less than forty-eight hours.”
She gave him a steady look. “I can get you in faster.”
“Jesus, Taylor. How can you ask me to put you—a civilian—into that kind of danger?”
“You didn’t ask. I’m offering.”
“I don’t want you within a thousand miles of him. You heard what we said out there. He has a missile in that mine. Possibly a nuclear weapon.”
“I know, I—”
“He’s planning on blowing up an entire city of over a million people in two days. Do you think for a moment that a man who would go to such lengths as to duplicate Dante’s levels of hell to protect what’s his won’t have a fucking army there to protect it as well?”
“No, but—”
“Have you ever fired a gun?” She shook her head. “Ever held a bloody gun?” Taylor shook her head again. “Know what it feels like to be shot? It feels as though an animal is ripping open your flesh with its teeth and claws, and then someone pours acid over the open wound. That’s what it feels like! You bleed. Real arterial blood. You could die!”
Hunt closed his eyes, then opened them again, his face stark. “Jesus bloody Christ, Taylor, don’t ask me to—”
She put two fingers over his mouth. “I’m not saying I’m not scared. I’d be a fool if I wasn’t. This situation is terrifying. And to be honest, I know I’ll be a lot more terrified once we get there. But I have to go with you. If there’s anything resembling a safe, or a combination lock, or a keypad, anything—I’m the only one who’s skilled and experienced enough to get you through those levels. And with only two of the five disks, I’m guessing you’d need what I can do.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “It won’t work.”
“Of course it will. Stop being stupid and stubborn. You know damn well I’m the very best there is,” Taylor snapped. She wasn’t bragging. She was the best. And they both knew it. It had taken T-FLAC, with all of their considerable resources, working around the clock, to find her in San Cristóbal. And that was because Hunt had wanted the best of the best.
“You’re too bloody independent.”
She smiled a little. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He looked at his watch, his expression grim. “How good are you at taking orders?”
“Usually, not very,” she told him honestly. “But in this instance, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”
“No hesitation? No explanations?”
“Yes.”
“You better be bloody sure, because once we’re there, there won’t be time to negotiate or give explanations. I’ll be your commander just as I am for my team. I give the orders. You obey them. Immediately. No question.”
“I can live with that.”
“See that you do. Your complete compliance could very well mean your—or a member of my team’s—life or death. Now, what’s your one condition?”
Thirty-three
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12
JOHANNESBURG
SOUTH AFRICA
José Morales kept his head bowed and his bloody back straight as he knelt on the cement floor of the small stone chapel behind his home outside Johannesburg. Everything had been in readiness when he had arrived in South Africa two days ago. While Constantine finalized the last few details to Morales’s satisfaction, small matters only, José had gone directly to the chapel. He had knelt before the shrine for hours.
God was pleased. Filling him with power and strength.
José’s anticipation level was high, and his euphoria rose with each passing hour. He felt God’s presence more powerfully when he was here.
He had not eaten in three days. Had not slept in two. Rhythmically, he scourged his own back again with the short-handled leather whip. “Solamente Dios. Solamente Dios. Solamente Dios. Solamente Dios.”
Only God.
His voice was hoarse as he repeated the chant over and over for hours on end. The rough hemp of his robe bit like fire ants into his knees. “Solamente Dios.”
When God granted him another vision, he could rise.
It would be time.
“Solamente Dios.” José didn’t flinch when the sharp teeth of the metal-studded leather whip bit the flesh of his back, wet and raw, exposed from the repeated lashings. “S-Solamente Dios.”
Even with only three of the required five disks to guide him, José Morales knew that his God could again lead him through each level of the mine. His God, after all, had given him the skills and contacts to execute the design. His God would help him again—disks or no disks. All he needed was his God. His light. To show him his true path. “Solamente Dios. Solamente Dios. Solamente Dios.”
He had seen the seven levels in a vision. As clearly as if he’d been right there. In his vision, God had led him to South Africa and shown him the mine. “Solamente Dios.”
Building it had been an act of devotion, a labor of love, as well as a necessity. In his line of work, he trusted no person. Only God. The devious complexity of the mine provided him with a foolproof place to store the spoils of his labors. Over the years, many lives had been sacrificed so that God’s prophecy of his, José Morales’s, greatness could come to fruition.
“Solamente Dios.”
The whip cracked in the stillness.
Tiny bits of metal gouged the torn flesh of his back.
And every pain was offered as penance.
As sacrifice.
“Again,” he muttered as the whip slowed. Instantly, agony erupted within. “Sola—Solamente Dios.” Again. And again. “Solamente Dios. Solamente Dios.”
His God would never fail him.
As his vision dimmed, he begged for guidance.
Thirty-four
The condition Taylor had stipulated was that her sister Amanda be protected and kept safe while she was gone.
That Taylor had a sister was news to Hunt.
In the dossier T-FLAC had compiled on her, there were several minor references to a baby in the Reno, Nevada, apartment. But they hadn’t been looking for information on an infant. And since her mother was gone and Taylor had been about ten at the time, no one had thought anything about it. It was her adult life they’d shone the spotlight on.
And Taylor, being Taylor, had purposely omitted Amanda from her life story.
Hunt didn’t blame her for wanting to protect the girl. Seventeen-year-old Amanda Kincaid had Down syndrome and lived in a private-care facility just outside Zurich.
Much to Taylor’s relief and gratitude, Max, after being given the information, immediately arranged to have the girl and her attendant transported to the T-FLAC training facility in the French Polynesian Marquesas Islands. Paradise Island was unspoiled, and beautiful; Mandy would have a wonderful vacation. And the entire island was run by and crawling with T-FLAC operatives. There was nowhere in the world safer.
After Taylor called the school and spoke to Kim Butler, her sister’s attendant, Max had gone to pick up Mandy himself. He’d personally deliver her and Kim into the hands of four T-FLAC operatives waiting for them in Germany. They’d leave first thing in the morning.
Once her sister’s safety had been confirmed, and reconfirmed, Taylor spent several minutes talking to Amanda on the phone to prepare her for her fun “vacation.” Then, satisfied that Mandy was safe and well, Taylor was all business. She added a few things to one of several prepacked bags she kept at the ready and within minutes was accompanying the team to Kloten Airport.
And Hunt would’ve given his left nut to have her on the flight to Paradise Island with her sister instead.
As soon as they were air
borne, everyone gathered in the aft cabin to discuss strategy. Since Morales favored everything from arcane Machiavellian puzzles to high-tech wizardry, his seven levels of hell could consist of just about anything. Via computer, they were sent twenty-year-old schematics of the mine, the only ones HQ had been able to find, and more satellite photographs and topographical maps of the area.
A deep, narrow river snaked between the gently rolling hills. No roads. No airport. Thermal imaging showed approximately a hundred people in a small village nearby.
They’d fly into Jo’burg, an eleven-hour trip, and should be able to make their way to the location of the mine by late afternoon the following day. Leaving just hours to locate the missile and deactivate it.
“Analyze what you have. When we get more on this end, we’ll shoot it over to you,” Wright told them, then signed off.
Taylor rose from the table as the screen went dark. “Is that it?”
Hunt stood too. “For now. Why don’t we all try and get some sleep?” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll reconvene in three hours, rehash what we have then. Taylor can sleep in here.” Her skin looked translucent, her eyes paler blue surrounded by the smudges of fatigue.
“No thanks. I want to study some of this stuff. Can you print it for me?”
Hunt didn’t argue, figuring she was already at her emotional limit. “Sure.” He nodded to Fisk to activate the printer. “I’ll bring it through when it’s done.”
Daklin leaned back in his seat and waited until Taylor left the room. “Can she do it, do you think?” he asked.
Fisk didn’t wait for Hunt to answer. “I’d like her to teach a few classes to the rest of us. Shit, man, she’s tops. She has moves I’ve never even heard about.”
Hunt was ambivalent about it. He was glad to hear Fisk say she was good. But he also wanted to hear that Fisk was as good as Taylor, so he could send her back home. “And you know this how?” he asked T-FLAC’s best chance without Taylor.
“Went snooping in her office back at the condo while you were . . . elsewhere.” Fisk grinned. “She has every safe manufacturer’s codes, schematics, and blueprints—thousands of them, all marked up with notes. Smiley faces on the ones she’s breached. And just looking at the jobs she’s pulled in the last few years?” Fisk whistled. “She’s scary good.”
“Better than you are?” Hunt demanded, knowing the answer, and hoping for a different response anyway.
“Think toddler and marathon runner.”
“Precisely what I was hoping, and exactly what I was afraid of,” Hunt said, taking the sheaf of papers Fisk handed him from the printer. As much as he loathed having Taylor involved in T-FLAC business, he knew she’d be an integral part of the operation. And a huge asset. But now, for the first time, he wasn’t only thinking about a successful op. He was also concerned about Taylor.
It had been a hellishly long couple of days. The members of his team were trained to subsist on very little sleep. Taylor, however, was not. At least not by T-FLAC standards. Since she was here, despite his objections, she needed to be in top form in order to do her job.
“She’s not going to be capable of anything if she doesn’t get some sleep,” he told Fisk, and started for the door. “Let me know if HQ makes contact.”
She looked up as he settled into the wide leather seat beside her. It didn’t take a mind reader to hear Taylor’s thoughts loud and clear. He answered before she could voice them.
“You spoke to her not an hour ago. Didn’t she say she’d just eaten the biggest banana split in the ‘whole wide world’ and was happily watching TV with Kim?”
Taylor had spoken to her sister twice since they’d been in flight. And to Kim Butler three times. The girl was having the time of her life in the hotel in Germany. She was safe, secure, and happy.
“I know. Thank you.” Taylor closed her eyes for a second—a quick prayer, Hunt thought—then she looked down at the papers in her lap. “As long as I know Mandy’s safe, I’m good to go.
“It’s strange that we’ve both been after Morales for all these years,” she mused, rotating the stiff muscles in her neck. “He has this interesting habit of giving—” Hunt slid his fingers beneath her hair and started massaging the stiff cords in her neck.
“Oh, Lord, that feels wonderful . . . Giving Maria things he ‘acquires’ from museums. How do you think he reconciles that with his hellfire-and-brimstone philosophy?”
Hunt’s body tightened when she moaned as he dug his thumb into a particularly tight tendon.
“I’ve retrieved a couple of things from him.” She flipped a page, but he could tell her eyes weren’t scanning. “A lovely Fabergé egg. And, of course, the Barter sapphires in San Cristóbal. But what I really want, my Holy Grail, are the Blue Star diamonds Morales ‘acquired’ six years ago from the Romanov Collection in St. Petersburg.”
“And what will you do when you have them?” Hunt asked, still massaging her slender nape. He enjoyed watching the play of light on her hair as his wrist shifted the strands.
She turned to look at him, her sleepy eyes so clear and blue they took his breath away. She smiled. “I’ll win,” she said simply, and flipped a page.
“He’s one sick puppy,” she went on. “It doesn’t take a shrink to figure out why this guy thinks like he does. Look at this. He was stuck in Abadia de Solo Dios abbey at the age of nine by his prostitute mother. Weird how such a bad guy can be so obsessed with religion and yet still do such incredibly vile things, isn’t it?”
Every tango Hunt had ever dealt with had justifications for their acts. “Not so weird, really,” he said. “More damage has been done to humanity in the name of God than for any other reason. Besides,” he added, “villains don’t consider themselves villains. Sure, he had a hard life. But I know plenty of other people who were abused as kids, and they turned into upstanding members of society.”
Many of them worked for T-FLAC. “Morales was already a sociopath at nine. What were you doing at that age? Playing dress-up?”
“Taking care of Mandy. Our mother left when she was less than a month old.”
“You were responsible for an infant, alone, at nine?”
“Tenish. I grew up fast.”
“And at—what was it? Fifteen? You had twenty grand in your pocket, and the responsibility of a handicapped five-year-old? Why Europe? Why not a school in the States?”
“I saw a picture in a magazine while I was in the doctor’s office one day. Special-needs kids like Mandy sitting out on a lawn, surrounded by caring people, sunshine and flowers. It seemed like heaven to me, to have Mandy somewhere safe. I tore the page out and kept it folded in my wallet for a couple of years.
“Of course, it never occurred to me that the people in the ad were paid models, or that the place could look like something else entirely. That was what I wanted for my sister. I’d settle for nothing less. Fortunately, the ad was the real deal, and Sans Souci turned out to be as amazing as I’d prayed it would be.
“Mandy’s happy there, and they not only take excellent care of her, they love her.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Hunt kept his hand on the back of her neck, gently stroking the baby-soft skin of her nape with his thumb.
“Okay, enough about me. Why a spy?” Her voice was soft and drowsy.
Hunt did the math. Three hours into the eleven-hour flight to Johannesburg. If she crashed now, she could get in a solid eight hours. He let the silence stretch before answering.
“A recruiter from T-FLAC found me while I was in college.” He watched her chest rise and fall. Her body began to relax, and he kept his voice low. “Suggested I get a law degree. Joining T-FLAC was the best—”
He stopped talking. She was out like a light. Removing the stack of papers from her limp fingers, he set them on the nearby table. Other than the steady drone of the engines, the cabin was quiet, the lights dimmed.
He rose, and activated Taylor’s seat to a fully reclined position, then found a light blanket and d
raped it over her. She shifted to a more comfortable position on her side, but didn’t wake up as he sank into the wide seat beside her and closed his eyes.
It might be quiet, but it was like a bloody railway station as his team moved about the aircraft. He kept his eyes closed, recognizing by their footfalls who was passing.
Hunt would have liked Max’s company on the plane, but he was grateful that a man he trusted as much as he trusted Max Aries was responsible for Amanda Kincaid’s safety and well-being.
Fisk and Bishop had grabbed the beds in the aft cabin, and Savage was up in the cockpit with the pilot and co-pilot, the door closed. Navarro was sitting near the galley, close to food and, as usual, doing whatever it was he did on his laptop. Daklin was in the head taking a shower.
Hunt knew he should sleep, God only knew he bloody needed it. Instead, he rolled his head, opening gritty eyes to watch Taylor as she slept. Reaching out, he tenderly stroked the back of one finger down her cheek. Warm. Smooth. Flawless. Her lips were slightly parted, allowing a soft little sound to escape.
He felt a clench of fear in his gut. The mission was always more important than the players. This one even more so. But, oh God—he did not want Taylor within a thousand miles of Morales and his madness.
If he hadn’t been positive, without a doubt, abso-bloody-fucking-lutely—positive, that they couldn’t make it all the way through Morales’s seven levels without her extraordinary skills, she’d be on that plane to Paradise Island right now.
No ands, ifs, or buts.
God, he didn’t want her with them.
Their job once they reached the mine would be phenomenally dangerous, even before they managed to get to the lower level and Morales’s pièce de résistance: the missile.
As of yet, they had no idea whether they’d find the bloody thing loaded with a nuke, or some sort of toxic biochemical. Hard target or soft target? They had no freaking idea! Jesus.
