by Jon Land
“Let’s go.”
Kimberlain climbed on board and found a second agent waiting to greet him.
“I’m Special Agent Greeley and this is Special Agent Hawks.” The two men flashed their IDs. Hawks went back to the task of closing the door. “We’ve got com link with Washington and Quantico. No reason to waste the trip. We’ll get started on the way, if you don’t mind.”
Kimberlain sat down and fastened his seatbelt. This Lear was a technological marvel even Captain Seven would be proud of. There were three television screens, two fax machines, four telephones, and a pair of computers that were obviously attached to modems.
“We can start with where Leeds can be found,” the Ferryman began, as the jet streaked into its takeoff.
Captain Seven had narrowed the field to remarkably few prospects, one of which stood out above the rest: an island called Devil’s Claw located forty miles out to sea due east from the border of North and South Carolina. Isolated and undeveloped, it was technically not part of either state but at various points had been possessed by both. Its topography and jagged, rock-strewn shoreline made it uninhabitable, and with a hundred more desirable islands within close reach of the shore, no one paid any attention to it anymore.
The name Devil’s Claw referred to the island’s general form. It was a massive range of hills with a single flat plane five hundred acres large sitting square in the middle. Five tall hills dominated the area enclosing the plane, as the captain described it, each coming to a narrow peak that might have been a talon. From above, the single plain looked like a palm of an upturned claw.
“That can wait,” the agent named Greeley was saying, after twisting in the seat ahead to face Kimberlain, “until the director is on line.”
The Lear was banking upward through puffy white clouds as thin as the jet’s exhaust plume in—
Something scratched at Kimberlain’s spine. They hadn’t refueled the jet at the airport before taking off again. No way the Lear could have enough fuel to manage the return flight to Washington… .
The agent named Hawks was leaning forward in his seat, working one of the television’s controls.
“I have the director now,” he said, and a staticky picture appeared on the screen. Then it sharpened in the same instant Kimberlain’s seatbelt retracted and dug into his stomach. His hand was halfway to his gun when he realized the belt had trapped it against his body. He was struggling to extract it when another pair of men lunged from concealed positions in the rear of the jet and steadied machine guns upon him.
“Welcome,” said the image of Andrew Harrison Leeds that now filled the screen before the Ferryman. “It’s so nice to have you aboard.”
The Seventh Dominion
Devil’s Claw
Thursday, August 20; 11:00 P.M.
Chapter 28
FROM VERMONT, HEDDA and Chalmers drove west toward a secluded estate overlooking the Hudson River in Highland, New York. Two of the other Caretakers were already present when they arrived, and the rest trickled in over the course of the next six hours, as a cool summer night replaced the day. They had flown into the country from safe houses where Chalmers had stashed them in cities all over the world. One after another rental cars slid into an old barn on the outskirts of the property and the drivers made their way to the main house.
Finn, Ishmael, Kurtz, Marner, Iago …
They were a group like none other Hedda had ever encountered. At first glance utterly different in appearance, they were alike in the way they carried themselves and in their eyes, hollow and blank, impossible to read. They were her eyes, predator’s eyes she had looked at in the mirror, but never really seen until now.
This was what she was… .
But she had been someone else before. Chalmers had steadfastly refused to tell her anything more about her true self, and Hedda realized it was pointless to press him. He was holding the truth hostage; she would get it only if she played her role on Devil’s Claw.
When all The Caretakers were accounted for, the group adjourned to the living room of the large house, which had been emptied of furniture except for a large table. On it rested a detailed mock-up of the island. Clay formed the five hilltops that rose over the single flat plain. Miniature wooden buildings represented a small town complete with roads and traffic lights. A dangerously short airstrip lay on the edge of the plain beyond the buildings.
The Caretakers gathered around the table. Hedda wondered if any of them knew more of the truth than she did, but guessed they didn’t. After all, only she and Deerslayer had been involved directly with Chalmers’s operation. To the rest this might have appeared just another mission.
“You were all on … this island … once,” Chalmers told the assembled group. “You became … who you are … on this island… . I know none … of you remember … it. It’s been … two years since … I was there… . But it must … be destroyed … if all of us … are to survive.” He turned her way. “Hedda?”
“The hills,” she proposed, without missing a beat. “We wire them with explosives to cause an avalanche. Entomb the buildings and the people.”
The Caretaker named Finn ran his fingers over the model town, stopping at the airstrip. Hedda noticed they were long and slender, like a piano player’s.
“Then this strip would be our only way off the island. Means we’d have to secure the town and bring a plane down for pickup once the explosives are ready.”
“How many?” one named Bloom asked Chalmers.
“Depends. Several … hundred at … least. Even more … perhaps.”
“Like us?”
“Some worse. Many … worse.”
The Caretakers gazed about the room at each other.
“But we … may be too … late to get … them all.”
“Why?” Hedda asked.
“Because they … may have already … been dispatched… . But he’ll be … there. I know … he’ll be there.”
“Perimeter security?” a Caretaker named Marlowe asked.
“Nothing we … can’t bypass.”
“But a direct land or sea approach is out of the question.”
“Yes. Of … course.”
“Then our first requirement,” Iago said, “is a means of access.”
“Followed by immediate securing of the airfield and surrounding area,” Kurtz added, “while the hills are mined with whatever explosives we elect to use.”
“Trenching dynamite,” Fagin said. “I’ve worked with it before.”
“The problem,” Chalmers broke in, “is … that I don’t … know what security … they have in the … hills. Once they … know we’re there …”
“Two teams, then,” Hedda concluded. “One takes the airfield and secures the town while the other plants the explosives. That way, if we trip something up on the hill we can hold back any emerging force.”
“We’ll need the plane to be circling,” Finn said. “A beech 1900 can take us all; it can handle a short runway. Fuel might be a problem, though, depending on how long we’re in the zone.”
“Do we blow it from the air, then?”
“No,” Fagin responded. “The runway, once we’re all on board …”
The plan continued to evolve through the night, the give and take constant. Discussion of the general plot gave way to specific team assignments. They would have only until the following morning to complete the logistics; the rest of the day would be needed for obtaining supplies and making final arrangements. The raid would come that evening.
The late morning found Chalmers and Hedda alone long enough for her to probe him once more.
“Why?” she asked him.
He gazed at her questioningly.
“Why are you doing this? Is it for you? For us? I want to understand, Chalmers, because maybe it will help me understand myself.”
“You were mine … all of you… . An experiment.”
“What do you mean?”
“To see how well … the recondition
ing … process worked.”
“The island …”
“Yes, after you … left. It was … my idea. I had … recruited you … you and the others… . I had done … it before … a long time ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There were other … Caretakers before … you. Different … but the same.”
“Pomeroy told me.”
“I recruited … them too.” Chalmers touched the socket plugged into his throat. “Until this. I … was relieved… . But then I was … needed again.”
“To recruit us,” Hedda picked up. “But you went against whoever was controlling things. You saved us.”
“Because I … figured out … what you were … really wanted for … I couldn’t allow … it. You were mine.”
Hedda suddenly felt chilled. “The TD-13! We were supposed to have something to do with the poison, weren’t we?”
“No. After … the poison.”
“How?”
Chalmers shook his head. “Not time to … hear it yet.”
“When?”
“After we’re finished … on the island.”
Fragments …
That’s all Kimberlain’s mind could grasp. A room, small and windowless. Voices without context. Chains lacing his arms and legs to a small cot, heavy chains fastened into concrete walls. And darkness interrupted only by flashes of memory.
His last clear thoughts came aboard the Learjet. Andrew Harrison Leeds, smiling ear to ear, had appeared on the screen.
“How nice to see you again, Ferryman.”
Kimberlain had given up going for his gun and raised his arms in the air. He waited for an opening, already sensing it wasn’t going to come.
“I know it’s rude of me not to greet you personally,” Leeds told him, “but circumstances dictate I be elsewhere.”
“Your ninth dominion, Leeds?”
The madman’s eyes filled with genuine admiration. “Most impressive, Ferryman. You make me regret my attempts to dispatch you before we could at least talk. I must try to enlist you in my legion, mustn’t I?”
“So long as you’re prepared to be disappointed.”
“You could never disappoint me, Ferryman. You are the only man who approaches my level—you and Peet, of course.”
Kimberlain’s eyebrows flickered.
“Yes, I know you and he have joined forces. He told you that, of course.”
Kimberlain said nothing.
“Your eyes speak for you, Ferryman. I must say I am most jealous, but I am taking steps to alleviate that. I know where you have been hiding him. A few brief moments with me and I’m sure he will return to his old ways. And there’s also the matter of that FBI agent… .”
“Talley …”
“Yes. Most attractive, isn’t she? A shame I must use her for my plan.”
Kimberlain calmly pushed his arms outward in an attempt to break his bonds, but the seatbelt gave not an inch. His eyes never left the screen. He knew that a camera was broadcasting his picture back to the madman, wherever he was.
“You have no one to blame but yourself, of course,” Leeds continued.
“How?”
“I simply tapped her access lines. I knew you would be calling to provide my opportunity, but I never expected you would actually discover my island.” Leeds’s eyes scorned him. “You should know better than to drag anyone who doesn’t belong into our world. Only bad things can happen to them. Must I always be teaching you lessons, Ferryman?”
“I’m a slow learner.”
“Apparently so. You didn’t learn when I enlisted your services back when they called me the Candy Man. I knew you would cooperate. You would never suspect that someone would be able to control you. The final lesson is that your true place is with me.”
“And if I don’t come with you, you’ll kill me like all the others who don’t fit into your grand scheme, right?”
Andrew Harrison Leeds smiled. “How worthy you are, Ferryman… .”
“And where are you taking me?”
“Just where you wanted to go, of course: Devil’s Claw Island.”
The Ferryman watched the screen as Leeds’s face broke into a grin. At the same moment he felt one of the madman’s henchmen jab his arm with a needle. He felt groggy almost instantly but never really passed out. His mind slid through different dreamlike levels of consciousness, all sense of time and perspective lost. How he had gotten from the plane to this windowless room he could not say.
Now he realized that the sedation was at last wearing off, meaning Leeds had other plans for him. Toward that end, he tried to focus his mind on the room he was confined to and devise a plan to act on when his bonds were removed.
Kimberlain’s eyes cut through the blurriness and at last focused. The room he was confined in was a perfect replica of the cells of MAX-SEC back at The Locks, right down to the six-inch meal slot cut into the door. The lighting was low, no exposed bulbs anywhere. Of course not; they were potential weapons. Kimberlain tested the irons holding his arms behind him and found no give whatsoever. Even if he managed to free himself, it wouldn’t matter, because somewhere in this room would be a camera through which Leeds would be viewing his every move.
Just as Leeds’s moves were viewed during his brief incarceration at The Locks.
“Ah, Ferryman.” The madman’s voice filled the small room. “I see you’ve awakened at last. I hope you find the accommodations acceptable.”
“I’ve seen them somewhere before.”
“As have I, for the two months I spent in The Locks, thanks to you.”
“You mean, thanks to yourself.”
“To both of us, working together. But now you are seeing things from my side. What does it look like, Ferryman? How does it feel?”
“Like you belong in here with me, Leeds, just the two of us.”
“With your manacles removed, of course.”
“That would be my thinking.”
“How many people have you put in places like this, Ferryman? How many souls have you denied expression to?”
“How many killers have I stopped from killing, you mean?”
“But now I have freed them and put you inside. The world needs to be set right, and this island is where the process starts. I wanted you to see things from this perspective so you might consider stepping out onto the other side where you have always belonged.”
“Go to hell, Leeds.”
“A short walk, Ferryman.”
And Kimberlain heard the door’s locking mechanism snap open.
Chapter 29
LEEDS HIMSELF STEPPED THROUGH the door first, followed by six of the most intimidating men Kimberlain had ever seen. He recognized none of them right away and knew that they weren’t the same men they had been when they came to the island.
Renaissance …
Leeds had had his way with them now. They belonged to him.
The madman himself was dwarfed by them. He wore a white outfit that was almost identical to standard issue at The Locks. He stepped forward with his hands clasped behind his back, as if they were bound as well. His black hair shone like shoe leather in the room’s meager lighting. His eyes were gleaming.
“How long I have waited for this moment,” he said.
“Excuse me for not sharing your enthusiasm.”
“You can if you wish, Ferryman. Just say the word.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Leeds nodded knowingly. “Yes, you are afraid, not so much of me but of yourself. I have a grasp on your true essence, the raw unbridled power that drives you. Give yourself up to that and you at last become the person you were always meant to be.”
“And I suppose you can show me the way,” Kimberlain said, realizing this might be his only chance for escape.
“Precisely why I am here, Ferryman. Let’s take a walk.”
Leeds’s half-dozen henchmen unclasped Kimberlain’s chains from the wall. He felt a hard tug and knew he had effectively been pla
ced on a leash. Pulling free was conceivable, though it would probably not gain him anything with Leeds’s guards enclosing him on all sides. They spun him around so that he came face-to-face with Leeds.
“Come, Ferryman, and view my work.”
There was a tug on his leash, and Kimberlain stepped into the corridor just behind Leeds. Doors lined the corridor every ten feet or so. Leeds touched a button on the wall, and the overhead lighting snapped on. Corridors adjoining this main one became visible. Leeds began to walk and beckoned Kimberlain to follow him. Again the Ferryman flirted briefly with the notion of launching an attack.
The madman approached one of the doorways and stopped. Kimberlain felt a tug on his leash and stopped as well. Leeds flipped a switch next to the door frame, and the lighting inside snapped on. There was a man stirring something on a stove. Kimberlain could see the stove wasn’t plugged in. He wondered if the pot was empty as well.
“I believe you know this man as Chef Fred,” Leeds said. “Poisoned an entire community of college students. Well over a hundred died, and investigators were able to connect him to fifty more deaths in restaurants and cafeterias. Arsenic was his poison of choice, but it was discovered during the investigation that he placed assorted other extras in the food he cooked over the years.”
“Sentenced to The Locks. One of the eighty-three you took out with you.”
“Yes. They’re all still here.”
“How’d you organize it all? Never mind the logistics, I’m talking about getting all the inmates to cooperate.”
Leeds smiled. “Simple, Ferryman. I speak their language—when it’s necessary to speak at all.”
Leeds flipped the switch and pressed on. He stopped two doors down and turned on another. The first thing the Ferryman saw was heavy, commercial-strength furniture that had been broken up and lay in pieces everywhere. The next thing he saw was a monstrous, shirtless black man snapping wooden fragments with his hands.
“Randford Dobbs,” Leeds announced. “Family man with a bad gambling habit. Football team he had bet on blew a ten point lead in the last two minutes. Dobbs killed his wife, three children, and six neighbors before the police shot him. He thinks the game is still going on.”
