He waited five, ten, fifteen minutes, his back pressed against cold stone. Dim lights at the cemetery’s major crossroads came on, but they were few and far between. What was Xavier waiting for? he wondered. Or was this all a wild goose chase designed to frighten him off the case?
He was straining his ears trying to hear some sound of life when uncertain footfalls from the direction of the gate drew his attention. Pressing back against the crypt, he watched a short, thin man approach the designated plot and look around nervously. Then he coughed, as if that might attract attention.
Michael tensed, listening for evidence that the man was being followed. There was none. Nor could he see anything. But in this gloom, that wasn’t surprising.
Drawing his gun, he waited several minutes longer before calling out. “All right, put your hands in the air and turn around.”
The man froze, then obeyed. “I can’t see you,” he complained.
“That’s the way I want it.”
“Are you from the DEA?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God.”
“Who are you, and what do you want?” Michael questioned.
“Gilbert Xavier. I want to turn myself in.”
“Why?”
“I need protection.” Xavier’s voice rose pleadingly.
Michael stepped forward and frisked the little man. He wasn’t carrying a weapon. Up close, he looked like a frightened weasel. “And why should I be interested in you?”
“I’m the chemist who made the street drug called Dove.” He eyed Michael’s gun. “Could you put that away?”
“All right.”
Michael holstered the weapon. “Go on.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Who do you want protection from?”
The words came out in a rush like the confession of a mortal sin. “Jackson Talifero. He lured me down to Royale Verde. Offered me a lab, test subjects, anything I wanted. I thought the man was interested in finding new drug therapies for certain psychoses. But that’s not his purpose at all. He wants to produce Dove to finance a takeover of the island. He’s a devil, a madman. I got away, but he has thugs out looking for me. I don’t want to go back. That’s why I want to turn myself in to you.”
Though the information was riveting, Michael’s face remained impassive.
“Don’t you believe me?” Xavier questioned.
Michael didn’t answer. “How did you come up with this particular meeting place?”
“She suggested it.”
“Who?”
“The priestess. The one who first came to me at the university with the idea of purifying some of her plant compounds.”
“What priestess? What are you talking about?”
“She told me she was going to contact you.”
“We didn’t meet.”
He was about to ask another question when the white slab in front of tomb 105 gave way with a resounding crash. Blinding light spilled forth from the interior. One of Michael’s hands went to his eyes, the other reached for the gun under his arm, but he couldn’t see to shoot. Xavier screamed but the sound was choked off abruptly, as if someone had wrapped a hand around his windpipe.
Whoever had been in the crypt was counting heavily on the element of surprise and the blinding light. Dark, crouching figures came at him, but Michael could see nothing distinctly. He tried to turn away from the brilliance, but a large hand grabbed his throat, pulling him back. Instinctively he kicked out with his foot and felt his shoe connect with soft flesh. He had the satisfaction of hearing a low groan as his would-be assailant went down.
“Watch it,” an excited voice warned. “He fights like Jhoon Rhee.”
Michael recognized his old friend Lonnie. He also heard the shuffle of several pairs of feet closing in around him. He turned away from the light, but it didn’t help much. It was as if a hundred flash bulbs had gone off in his face. Still, his hand groped toward the holster.
“Pull the gun and you’re a dead man, Rome,” another voice advised. “We have you boxed in.”
He was still too blinded to see them, but somehow he doubted his adversaries were bluffing.
“Toss your piece on the ground—nice and easy—and put your hands up,” Lonnie ordered.
Under the circumstances there seemed no alternative. “I’ll surrender if you turn off the spots.”
“You don’t have a choice.” But someone cut all but a dim light.
That gave him a chance, at least. Maybe, when his vision cleared, he could fight them off and rescue Xavier, if the chemist were still alive. With a sigh of resignation, Michael tossed the gun onto the ground and raised his hands. Immediately one of the thugs behind him aimed a kick at the small of his back. He pitched forward, unable to see the ground, yet he was able to break his fall with the palms of his hands.
“That’s something on account for what I owe you,” Lonnie grated.
Michael groaned. Let them think he’d been hurt.
Lonnie’s foot kicked him in the ribs, turning him over. It was all Michael could do to keep from grabbing the bastard’s leg and sending him sprawling. But his vision was coming back. He could see five or six men around him. Two looked like bouncers. In any case, as soon as the bright spots cleared, he was going to attack.
In the background, Xavier found his voice; but it was half an octave higher than it had been two minutes ago. “What are you going to do to us?” he quavered.
“You’re going back to continue your vacation on Royale Verde. The narc’s going to have a quiet rest here.”
Michael didn’t like the sound of that. If he were going to be dead either way, he might as well go down fighting. As one of the bouncers leaned down toward him, his body tensed. Grabbing the man’s massive shoulders, he flipped him over in such a way that the thug landed between him and the rest of the group.
In the darkness Lonnie cursed. “Cut out the fun and games, Rome,” he advised.
The man Michael had surprised came back to life. In the next moment they were wrestling on the ground. Others circled the adversaries, ready to take Michael on if he emerged victorious. He didn’t get a chance to find out how many challenges he could have withstood.
“Hold him still for a second, Jack,” a voice commanded. The bouncer redoubled his efforts, pinning Michael to the ground. He was getting ready to throw off the hold when he heard a whooshing sound and felt a sharp stinging pain in his hip. His body went limp and, almost simultaneously, his senses dulled. It was an effort to hold on to consciousness.
In the next moment Lonnie was squatting beside him. Reaching down, he took Michael’s slack jaw in his hand and jerked his face up. “You’re going to die, Rome. But it’s going to be slow. You’ll have a lot of time to think about what you got yourself involved in down here.”
Michael’s vision swam. They had given him some sort of powerful paralytic. When he tried to squeeze his fingers into a fist, they remained lifeless at his side.
“We’re going to give you a proper New Orleans-style burial. But it won’t be in the vault we came out of. That one’s too nice and dry and airy because it’s been a drug drop for the last year. No, we’re going to put you in a real crypt in the old part of the graveyard.”
Lonnie snarled out an order and the other bouncer picked Michael up like a sack of grain and slung him over his shoulder. His head banged against the man’s back with every step, but he didn’t have enough strength in his neck to stop the motion. The helplessness brought a feeling of panic. They were going to bury him alive, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Finally he was deposited roughly on the ground. When Lonnie leaned down again, Michael could only stare back blankly. “How do you feel now, Mr. DEA hot shot? In case you’re wondering, you’ve had a low dose of phenodryl. It will start to wear off in a couple of hours so you can enjoy all the sensations of suffocating. Pleasant dreams.”
Michael felt himself hoisted up again. Though his senses were dulled, he could tell that he had been set down on a cold slab. The clouds had dissipated so that he could see the open dark sky. The points of light were like comets with tails. Though he strained to see more clearly, they slowly faded from his vision. Then abruptly the stars were gone and he felt suffocating dankness close in around him. Stone grated against stone just before he was encased in total blackness. He tried to curse, but nothing came out of his mouth.
Chapter Eleven
J
essica threw down the science fiction novel she’d been staring at for the past fifteen minutes. She couldn’t concentrate on slug invaders from Titan when she was worried about Michael.
It was very possible that he’d called her early. At least the phone had been ringing when she’d come up the steps around five-thirty with a heavy bag of groceries. By the time she’d unlocked the door and made it into the kitchen, there was nothing on the other end of the line but a dial tone.
After wasting ten minutes debating whether she should bother him, she fished his number out of her pocketbook and dialed. There was no answer, and the woman at the desk finally volunteered that Mr. Rome had left in a hurry just minutes before. He might have been keeping an urgent appointment at the university. But somehow Jessica didn’t think so.
Two hours later she couldn’t shake the conviction that Michael was in some sort of trouble. Was she operating on intuition or raw emotion? she asked herself. And why should her emotions be tied up with Michael Rome’s safety? She barely knew the man. Yet when fate had catapulted her into his arms, he had kept her from falling into the abyss. Though neither one of them had been able to acknowledge it, the experience had forged a bond between them. He’d cared about what happened to her that night, and she cared very strongly about what happened to him now.
She’d been closer to him than she had to most other human beings. Did that give her some sort of special access to his consciousness? Could she conjure up a vision of where he’d gone? Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and cleared the screen of her mind. When it was blank, she brought a picture of Michael into focus and watched as he closed the door of his hotel room and walked down the curved staircase to the lobby. She could see him getting into his car and driving away. But the images had no reality. She knew she was simply manufacturing them from her own imagination. For a moment she admitted defeat. She was about to get up and try the phone again when a feeling of helpless terror so powerful swept over her that she gasped and clutched the arms of her chair as if to anchor herself to the here and now.
The room around her swirled into blackness. Her skin grew clammy, and her sense of fear increased. It was as if damp, suffocating walls were closing in around her. For a moment it was a struggle simply to draw air into her lungs. She might have screamed if she hadn’t been panting for breath. Then as quickly as it had come over her, the terrible sensation was gone. The room snapped back into focus. Disoriented, Jessica looked around. She felt drained, shaken, and frustrated. What she had just experienced had not been a product of her own imagination. Somehow it was connected to Michael. She was as sure of that as she’d been sure the image of his getting into the car came from her own mind. Dread surged through her. He was in trouble and she had to go to him. Quickly—if she could only figure out where he was.
Her head was throbbing as she tried to think about what to do. Would Michael have gone off on a dangerous mission without informing anyone? She couldn’t imagine that he’d be that remiss. But who would he tell? The question brought to mind Lieutenant Devine. She got up and pulled a phone book from one of the lower kitchen cabinets. But after she’d located the precinct number, her hand hesitated over the dial, as she thought about opening herself up to the kind of ridicule she’d experienced twelve years ago? Yet, she had to do it for Michael.
The lieutenant was still at his desk when the phone rang.
“Devine speaking,” he answered.
“This is Jessica Duval, Michael Rome’s associate.”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Duval. Has Michael checked in with you?”
“Actually, I think I missed his call. But I’m worried about him.”
“Did he leave you a message about the old Lafayette Cemetery?”
Her heart skipped a beat, but she forced her voice to remain calm. “He told me to call you if he didn’t get back to me,” she improvised.
“Yes, well, his message said the informant he’s meeting there is nervous. He wants me to stay out of it.”
Jessica closed her eyes for a second. “Lieutenant, I’m
sure
Michael is in trouble. We have to go over there.”
“Now wait a minute. He was very clear on that. He said to wait until ten-thirty.”
“That will be too late!”
“Really, Ms. Duval, I don’t have to tell you Michael Rome is a very competent agent. He knows what he’s doing.”
Jessica fought down a wave of nausea. “Lieutenant, did Michael tell you why he was working with me on this case?”
“What do you mean?”
She had to force out the words. “I’m a psychic. I provided him with some important leads. Tonight I had a feeling of being closed in, suffocating. I know it was coming from Michael. If you won’t help, I’m going over there alone.”
“To a graveyard? Alone? At night?”
“Yes.”
Devine sighed. He’d been looking forward to going home to a Hungry Man TV dinner and a bag of microwave popcorn. He’d been too busy to pay much attention to Ms. Duval when they’d met before. He wished he had. Right now, on the face of it, she sounded like a nut—but a sincere nut, he had to admit. So she claimed to be a psychic. He’d never worked with one. But what he’d told her about Michael Rome was still true. The man was a seasoned professional, and if he’d gotten some leads from Jessica Duval, maybe she knew something that he didn’t.
“Okay, give me your address,” he said. “I’ll be right over to pick you up.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Fifteen minutes later Hugh Devine pulled up in front of the house. Jessica, who had been waiting on the steps, stood up and looked uncertainly at the black-and-white police car. The last time he’d seen her, her outfit had projected a professional image.
This evening her appearance told another story. She was wearing jeans and a dark turtleneck. With her tousled hair and pale face, she seemed very young and vulnerable. She’d told him she was in a hurry, yet her feet seemed to be weighted down with lead as she approached the police car.