Carrion Comfort (107 page)

“Se niority, man,” called Jackson, his voice barely audible. “I was Soul Brickyard when you was just a bulge in your daddy’s britches. Stay low, bro.”

“Fuck you, too, Stu,” said Catfish, but there was no reply and he guessed they were out of range. He pocketed the CB and moved quickly and quietly back to his alley, checking every shadow to make sure the Voodoo Lady hadn’t sent out any other troops.

He had been sitting in his hidey-hole between a garbage can and an old fence less than ten minutes and was fast-forwarding and freeze-framing one of his favorite memories of Belinda in bed at the Chelten Arms, when there was the merest whisper of sound in the alley behind him.

Catfish came up fast, flicking his stiletto open even as he rose. The man behind him was too big and too bald to be real.

Culley slapped the knife out of Catfish’s hand with a sweep of his massive palm. With his right hand he seized the thin black by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

Catfish felt his air cut off and his vision fading, but even as the massive vise of flesh lifted him off the ground he kicked the man-mountain twice in the balls and slapped his hands over the bald dude’s ears hard enough to burst ear drums. The monster did not even blink. Catfish’s fingers were going for the dude’s eyes when the hand on his throat squeezed harder, impossibly hard, and there was a loud snap as Catfish’s larynx broke.

Culley dropped the thrashing, gasping black man onto the cinders of the alley and watched impassively. It took him almost three minutes to die, the broken larynx swelling to stop any air from passing. In the end, Culley had to hold the thrashing, bucking body down with his massive, booted foot. When he was finished, Culley retrieved the knife and performed a few experiments to make sure the colored man was dead. Then he went around the corner, picked up Howard’s unconscious form, and effortlessly carried both bodies across the street and into the house where the only light was the green glow from the second floor.

The rain began again before they were halfway to Mt. Pleasant. Jackson tried raising Catfish on the CB, but the storm and ten miles of distance appeared to be defeating the small radios.

“Do you think he’ll be all right?” asked Natalie. She had discarded the web belt of C-4 as soon as she had entered the car, but retained the EEG monitor. If a theta rhythm appeared, an alarm would sound. The fact did not reassure Natalie much. Her main hope lay in Melanie’s reluctance to this point at challenging Nina’s control. Natalie wondered if she had signed her own death warrant by telling the old monster that she was not Nina’s cat’s-paw.

“Catfish?” said Jackson. “Yeah, he’s been through a lot. Man’s no fool. Besides, somebody got to stay behind to make sure the Voodoo Lady doesn’t go away.” He glanced at Natalie. The wipers beat monotonously at the rain-streaked windshield. “We got a change in plans here, Nat?”

Natalie nodded.

Jackson shifted a toothpick from the left to the right side of his mouth. “You’re going to the island, aren’t you?”

Natalie let out a breath. “How’d you know?”

“pilot lives out this way. That who you called this afternoon and say hang around, maybe you have some business for him?”

“Yes,” said Natalie, “but I was thinking of tomorrow after all this is over.”

Jackson moved the toothpick. “Is this all going to be over tomorrow, Natalie?”

Natalie stared straight ahead through a window made opaque by the downpour. “Yes,” she said firmly, “it is.”

Daryl Meeks stood in the kitchen of his trailer, his thin form wrapped in a ratty blue bathrobe, and squinted at his two dripping guests. “How do I know you’re not two black revolutionaries trying to get me involved in some crazy plot?” he said.

“You don’t know,” said Natalie. “You just have to take my word for it. It’s Barent and his group who are the bastards. They have my friend Saul and I want to get him out of there.”

Meeks scratched at gray stubble. “On your way in, did either of you two notice that it was pouring rain with Force Two gale conditions?”

“Yeah,” said Jackson, “we noticed.”

“You still want to buy a plane ride, huh?”

“Yes,” said Natalie. “I’m not sure what the going rate for this kind of excursion is,” said Meeks, pulling the tab on a Pabst.

Natalie pulled a heavy envelope out of her sweater and laid it on the kitchen table. Meeks opened it, nodded, and sipped his beer.

“Twenty-one thousand, three hundred seventy-five dollars and nineteen cents,” said Natalie.

Meeks scratched his head. “Dumped the whole PLO piggy bank out for this one, huh?” He took a long swallow of beer. “What the hell,” he said, “it’s a nice night for a flight. You two wait here ’til I get changed. Help yourself to a beer if it isn’t against KGB rules.”

Natalie watched the rain move across the yard and field in curtains that obscured the small hangar under spotlights forty yards away.

“I’m going too,” said Jackson.

She looked around and said in a preoccupied tone, “No.”

“
Bullshit
,” growled Jackson. He lifted the heavy black bag he had brought in from the car. “I got plasma, morphine, battle dressings . . . the whole fucking kit. What happens if you pull off this freakin’ dust-off and the man needs a medic? You think of that, Nat? Say you get him out and he bleeds to death on the trip back— you want that?”

“All right,” said Natalie. “Ready!” called Meeks from the hallway. He was wearing a blue baseball cap with the legend YOKOHAMA TAIYO WHALES in white stitching, an ancient leather flight jacket, jeans, green sneakers, and a gun belt with a pearl-handled, long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 protruding from the holster. “Only two rules,” he said. “One, I say we can’t land, it means we
can’t land.
I still keep a third of the money. Two, don’t pull that god-damned Colt out again in the backseat unless you plan to use it, and you damn better not think of settling any arguments with me that way, or you’ll swim the whole way back.”

“Agreed,” said Natalie.

Natalie had been on a roller coaster once, with her father, and had been smart enough never to go on another one. This ride was a thousand times worse.

The cockpit of the Cessna was small and steamy, the windscreen was a wall of water, and Natalie was not even able to tell when exactly they had left the ground except for the fact that the bumps, bounces, slews, and sideslips grew wider. Lighted from below by the red glow of the instruments, Meek’s face looked both demonic and moronic. Natalie was sure that her own appearance was equally moronic with the added element of pure terror. Every once in a while Jackson would bounce around the back-seat and say, “Shit, man,” and then there would be silence except for the rain, the wind, assorted tortured mechanical sounds, thunder, and the pitifully inadequate tiny noise of the engine.

“So far, so good,” said Meeks. “We’re not going to be able to get above this crap, but we’ll get past it before we get to Sapelo. So far everything’s copacetic.” He turned to Jackson and said, “Nam?”

“Yeah.”

“Grunt?”

“Medic, one hundred first.”

“When’d you DEROS?”

“Didn’t. Me and two bros got fucked up on an LRRP when some little ARVN Kit Carson dude tripped his own claymore while we were in our NDP.”

“Other two make it?”

“Uh-uh. Sent ’em home in zip-locks. They gave me another ribbon and didi-maud me Stateside just in time to vote for Nixon.”

“Did you?”

“Shee-it,” said Jackson. “Yeah,” said Meeks. “I can’t remember the last time any politician did me a favor neither.”

Natalie stared at the two of them.

The Cessna was suddenly illuminated by a bolt of lightning that appeared to pass through their starboard wing. At the same instant a gust of wind tried to toss them upside down while the bottom seemed to disappear as they dropped two hundred feet like a cableless elevator. Meeks adjusted something above him, tapped at an instrument that showed a black and white ball rolling drunkenly, and yawned, “ ’Bout another hour and twenty minutes,” he said, stifling another yawn. “Mr. Jackson, there’s a big Thermos back there somewhere by your feet. Some Twinkies and stuff, too, I think. Why don’t you have some coffee and pass some up? I’ll take a Hostess Ding-Dong. Miz Preston, you want something? First-class fare entitles you to an in-flight snack.”

Natalie turned her face to the window. “No thanks,” she said. Lightning rippled through a thunderhead a thousand feet
below
her, showing fragments of black clouds racing by like tatters of some witch’s gown. “Nothing just yet,” she said. She tried closing her eyes.

S
aul throttled back and let the speedboat slide in to touch the dock. The green light at the end of the pier blinked on, sending its unheeded signal to the empty Atlantic. Saul tied up, tossed his plastic bag to the dock, and stepped up, dropping to one knee on the pier, keeping the M-16 ready. The dock and surrounding area were empty. Untended golf carts sat waiting where the asphalt road ran south along the shoreline. There were no other boats tied up.

Saul slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and moved cautiously toward the trees. Even if most of the security people had gone north to search for him, Saul could not believe that Barent would leave the northern approach to the Manse unguarded. He trotted into the darkness under the trees, his body tensed against the half-expected impact of bullets. There was no movement except for the slight shift of leaves in the lessening sea breeze. The lights of the Manse were just visible to the south. Saul’s only objective at this point was to get into the Manse alive.

There were no lights along Live Oak Lane. Saul remembered the pilot, Meeks, talking about how the way would be lighted for visiting dignitaries and VIPs, but the grassy walkway was forest-dark this night. Moving from tree to tree, shrub to shrub, took time. Thirty minutes passed, he had covered half the distance to the Manse, and still there was no sign of Barent’s security people. Saul had a sudden thought that froze him with a fear colder and deeper than his dread of death; what if Barent and Willi had left already?

It was possible. Barent was not a man who would expose himself to danger. Saul had been counting on using the billionaire’s overconfidence as a weapon— everyone who spent time with the man, including Saul, had been conditioned to be incapable of hurting him— but perhaps Willi’s intervention in Philadelphia or the incongruity of Saul’s escape had changed that. Heedless of danger, Saul gripped the rifle at port arms and ran along the grassy lane between the oaks, his duffel bag banging against his injured shoulder.

He had run only two hundred yards and was panting painfully when he slid to a stop, dropped to one knee, and raised the rifle. He squinted and wished he had his glasses. A naked body lay facedown in the shadow of a small oak. Saul glanced left and right, lowered the duffel bag, and moved forward in a sprint.

The woman was not quite naked. A torn and bloodied shirt covered one arm and part of her back. The woman lay on her stomach, her face turned away and hidden by her hair, arms thrown out, fingers clenching the earth, and her right leg bent as if she had been running hard when her assailant had run her to the ground. Peering around suspiciously, M-16 at the ready, Saul touched her neck to feel for a pulse.

The woman’s head snapped around and Saul caught a glimpse of Miss Sewell’s wide, mad eyes and her open mouth before her teeth clamped hard on his left hand. She made a noise that was not human. Saul grimaced and raised the butt of the M-16 to smash into her face just as Jensen Luhar dropped from the branches of the oak tree and slammed a heavy forearm into Saul’s throat.

Saul yelled and fired the M-16 on full automatic, trying to angle the fire back into Luhar but succeeding only in ripping branches and leaves above him. Luhar laughed and jerked the rifle out of Saul’s hand, flinging it twenty feet into the darkness. Saul struggled, forcing his chin down against Luhar’s powerful forearm to keep from being strangled and trying to wrench his left hand free from the woman’s bulldog grip. His right hand clawed over his shoulder, trying to find the black man’s face and eyes.

Luhar laughed again and lifted Saul in a half nelson. Saul felt the flesh in the web of his left hand rip away and then Luhar pivoted and threw him seven or eight feet through the air. Saul hit hard on his wounded left leg, rolled on a shoulder turned to fire, and scrabbled on hands and knees toward the duffel bag where he had left the Colt and Uzi. A glance over his shoulder showed Jensen Luhar poised in a wrestler’s crouch, his naked body glistening with sweat and Saul’s blood. Miss Sewell was on all fours, tensed as if ready to spring, her wild hair over her eyes. Blood ran onto her chin as she spit out a chunk of Saul’s hand.

He made it to within three feet of the bag before Luhar sprinted forward, fast and silent on bare feet, and kicked him solidly in the ribs. Saul rolled over four times, feeling the air and energy go out of him in a rush, trying to get his knees under him again even as his vision dimmed and narrowed to a long, dark tunnel with Luhar’s advancing face in the center.

Luhar kicked Saul once more, threw the duffel bag far away into the darkness, and grabbed the psychiatrist by his fringe of hair. He pulled Saul’s face up to his own and shook him. “Wake up, little pawn,” he said in German. “Time to play.”

The spotlights in the Great Hall illuminated eight rows of squares. Each square was a white or black tile four feet on a side. Tony Harod was looking at a chessboard that stretched thirty-two feet in each direction. Barent’s security people made soft noises in the shadows and there were muted electronic sounds from the table holding the electronic gear, but only the Island Club members and their aides stood in the light.

“It has been an interesting game to this point,” said Barent. “Although there have been several times when I was certain that it could only lead to a draw.”

“
Ja
,” said Willi, stepping from the shadows into the light. He wore a white silk turtleneck under a white suit, giving him the appearance of a negative-image priest. The overhead spots made his thinning white hair gleam and emphasized the ruddiness on the ridges of his cheeks and jowls. “I have always preferred the Tarrasch Defense. It has gone out of style since it was pop u lar in my youth, but I still consider it sound when used with the proper variations.”

“It was a positional game until move twenty-nine,” said Barent. “Mr. Borden offered me his king rook pawn and I took it.”

“A poisoned pawn,” said Willi, frowning at the board.

Barent smiled. “Fatal for a lesser player, perhaps. But when the exchanges were finished, I retained five pawns to Mr. Borden’s three.”

“And a bishop,” said Willi, looking to where Jimmy Wayne Sutter stood near the bar.

“And a bishop,” agreed Barent. “But two pawns frequently defeat a lone bishop in an end game.”

“Who’s winning?” demanded Kepler. The man was drunk.

Barent rubbed his cheek. “It is not that simple, Joseph. At this moment, black— that is my color— holds a distinct advantage. But things change quickly in an end game.”

Willi walked out onto the chessboard. “Do you want to change sides, Herr Barent?”

The billionaire laughed softly.
“Nein, mein Herr.”

“
Then let’s get on with it,” said Willi. He looked around at the people standing at the edge of shadow.

The FBI man Swanson whispered in Barent’s ear. “Just a second,” said their host. He turned to Willi. “What the hell are you up to now, old man?”

“Let them in,” said Willi. “Why should I,” snapped Barent. “They’re your people.”

“Exactly,” said Willi. “It is obvious that my black is unarmed and I’ve brought my Jew pawn back to serve in the way he was destined to.”

“An hour ago you said we should kill him,” said Barent.

Willi shrugged. “You still can if you wish, Herr Barent. The Jew is almost dead as it is. But it suits my sense of irony that he has come so far to serve me again.”

“You still contend that he came to the island on his own?” sneered Kepler.

“I contend nothing,” said Willi. “I request permission to use him in the game. It pleases me.” Willi leered at his host. “Besides, Herr Barent, you must be sure that the Jew was well conditioned by you. You would have nothing to fear from him even if he arrived armed.”

“Then why is he here?” asked Barent.

Willi laughed. “To kill me,” he said. “Come. Make up your mind. I want to play.”

“What about the woman?” said Barent. “She has been my queen’s pawn,” said Willi. “I give her to you.”

“Your
queen’s
pawn,” repeated Barent. “And does your queen still rule her?”

“My queen has been removed from the board,” said Willi. “But you can ask the pawn when she arrives.”

Barent snapped his fingers and half a dozen men with weapons stepped forward. “Bring them in,” he said. “If they make any suspicious moves, kill them. Tell Donald that I may be flying out to the
Antoinette
earlier than we had anticipated. Recall the patrols and double the security south of the zone.”

Tony Harod did not at all care for the smell of recent events. As far as he could tell, he had no way off the fucking island. Barent had his helicopter waiting just beyond the french doors, Willi had his Lear jet at the landing strip, even Sutter had a plane waiting; but as far as Harod could make out, he and Maria Chen were stranded. Now a new phalanx of security people had entered, herding Jensen Luhar and the two surrogates Harod had picked up in Savannah. Luhar was naked, all muscled black flesh. The woman wore only a torn and bloodied shirt that looked as if it came from one of the security zone guards. Her face was smeared and smudged with dirt and blood, but it was her eyes that bothered Harod the most; they were almost comically wide, staring roundly from behind dangling strands of hair, their irises completely surrounded by white. If the woman looked bad, the man named Saul whom Harod had brought onto the island looked terrible. Luhar appeared to be holding the Jew upright as they stood ten paces in front of Barent, and Harod’s former surrogate was a mess: blood dripping from his face and soaking through his shirt and left pant leg. The man’s left hand looked as if it had been run through a mangle with metal teeth. Blood fell from the dangling hand onto a white-tiled square. But something about his gaze suggested alertness and defiance.

Harod could figure out none of this. It was immediately obvious that Willi knew both the man and the woman— even admitting that the Jew had been a surrogate of his once— but Barent seemed to be going along with a proposition that both of these wretched prisoners had come to the island of their own choice. Willi had said earlier that
Barent
had been the one who had conditioned the Jew, but the billionaire had not brought him to the island. He seemed to be treating him as a free agent. The dialogue with the woman was even more bizarre. Harod was confused.

“Good evening, Dr. Laski,” Barent had said to the bleeding man. “I’m sorry I did not recognize you sooner.”

Laski said nothing. His gaze shifted to where Willi sat in one of the high-backed chairs and did not change even when Jensen Luhar jerked his head around to face Mr. Barent.

“It was your airplane that landed on the north beach some weeks ago,” said Barent.

“Yes,” said Laski, his eyes never leaving Willi. “A clever arrangement,” said Barent. “A pity it did not succeed. Do you admit that you came here to kill us?”

“Not all of you,” said Laski, “only him.” He did not point at Willi, but he did not have to.

“Yes,” said Barent. He rubbed his cheek and glanced at Willi. “Well, Dr. Laski, do you still plan to kill our guest?”

“Yes.”

“Are you worried, Herr Borden?” asked Barent.

Willi smiled.

Barent then did an incredible thing. Leaving the chair he had been sitting in since just before the three surrogates’ arrival, he walked to the woman, lifted her filthy right hand, and kissed it gently. “Herr Borden informs me that I have the honor of addressing Miz Fuller,” he said in a voice smoother than melted margarine. “Is this correct?”

The wild-eyed woman smiled and simpered. “You do,” she said in a thick Southern drawl. There was dried blood on her teeth.

“This is indeed a plea sure, Miz Fuller,” said Barent, still holding the woman’s hand. “It has been a source of great disappointment to me that we have not met before this. May I ask what has brought you to our little island?”

“Mere curiosity, sir,” said the wild-eyed apparition. When she moved slightly, Harod could see the thick V of her pubic hair through the opening of her shirt.

Barent stood straight-backed and smiling, still fondling the woman’s grimy hand. “I see,” he said. “There was no need to arrive incognito, Miz Fuller. You would be most welcome in person on the island— at any time— and I am sure that you would find our . . . ah . . . accommodations more comfortable in the guest wing of the Manse.”

“Thank you, sir.” The surrogate smiled. “I am currently indisposed, but when my health improves, I shall avail myself of your generous invitation.”

“Excellent,” said Barent. He released her hand and walked back to his chair. His security people relaxed a bit and lowered their Uzis. “We were just about to finish a game of chess,” he said. “Our new guests must join us. Miz Fuller, would you honor me by allowing your surrogate to play on our side? I assure you that I shall not allow any threat of capture to spoil her participation.”

The woman smoothed down the rags of her shirt and fluttered her hands at the tangle of hair, moving some from in front of her eyes. “The honor would be all mine, sir,” she said.

“Wonderful,” said Barent. “Herr Borden, I presume you wish to use your two pieces?”

“
Ja
,” said Willi. “My old pawn will bring me luck.”

“Fine,” said Barent, “shall we pick up on the thirty-sixth move?”

Willi nodded. “I had taken your bishop on the previous move,” he said. “Then you moved toward centering your king with a response of K-Q3.”

“Ah,” said Barent, “my strategies are far too transparent for a master.”

“
Ja
,” agreed Willi. “They are. Let us play.”

Natalie breathed a deep sign of relief when they broke out of the storm clouds somewhere east of Sapelo Island. The wind still battered at the Cessna and the starlight illuminated a whitecapped ocean far below, but at least the roller coaster ride had flattened out. “About forty-five minutes out now,” said Meeks. He rubbed his face with his left hand. “Head winds are addin’ about a half hour to the flight.”