Sherry stood shaking to her feet and sucked hard at the fresh sea breeze. A smile spread her mouth wide and she wanted to scream. Not with terror, but with relief and joy and the pleasure of life.
The waves lapped against the beach and then hissed in retreat. She lifted her eyes and felt the wind cool against her neck as the palm branches swayed above. She spread her arms wide, turned slowly on the soft sand, and laughed aloud.
On the third twirl she saw the black-cloaked man walking over the water, and she knew he was coming to plant his seed in the beach, but she didn’t stop. Let him do his deed. She would enjoy the sun and the wind while she could. When the acid rains came, she would stop. And die.
Are you ready to die, Sherry?
Yes.
The familiar vision rolled forward in stunning reality.
But one thing changed this time. Not in the vision, but in her understanding of it. This time when the mushroom grew, she saw that it wasn’t a mushroom at all. No, of course not! How could she have missed it? It was a cloud.
The kind of cloud that grew out of a bomb blast.
CASIUS AWOKE on a cot and slowly sat upright. The events of the night came to him haltingly as he lifted his hand to the bruise on his right shoulder. His captors had used a tranquilizer dart. And they’d also shot the woman and the priest. They held them elsewhere.
Sherry.
A small ache burned in his chest at the thought. He’d led the woman into the jungle; she was now his to deal with. It was a wrinkle to this whole operation he could do without. But a wrinkle that was beginning to haunt him.
Casius swept his eyes around the prison. The room was ten by ten—cinder block. Empty except for this one bed. No windows, one door, all white. A brazen bulb glared on the ceiling. The bare mattress he sat on looked like something they’d found in an alley, grayed with age and stained with brown rings. It smelled of urine.
He carefully checked his body for wounds or breaks but didn’t find any. They had taken him easily. They had either been exceptionally lucky or they possessed a security system far more advanced than he would have expected.
Casius leaned against the wall and rested his head back.
His wait ended within the minute. A scraping sounded at the door.
So now the game would begin in earnest. He settled his stiffened muscles and let them come.
The soldier who entered came in gripping a nine-millimeter Browning revolver in both hands. An eye patch rested like a hole over his right eye. He was Hispanic.
Another man stepped past the door and Casius felt his chest tighten. Short-cropped, black hair with a streak of white topped the man’s hollow face. He was looking at Abdullah Amir. The man bore a surprising similarity to his brother. Casius’s hand twitched instinctively on his lap and he calmly closed his fingers.
The man stood with his arms limp at his sides, eyeing Casius with drooping eyes. He wore a white cotton shirt with short sleeves and tight maroon pants that ended an inch above black leather shoes. Casius felt a thin chill break down his spine, and he suddenly wondered if he could pull this off. The whole thing.
A corner of his mind had expected this, of course. But now looking at Abdullah, the truth of it all hit his head like a sledge and he wondered if he’d overestimated his mental strength and patience.
By Abdullah’s raised eyebrow, he saw Casius’s fear. “You think I’m a ghost?” he asked.
Casius swallowed and regained composure, his mind still reeling. The man could have no clear fix on his identity. At least not yet.
Abdullah stared, unwavering. “Who are you?”
Casius suppressed the instinct to launch himself into the man now and be done with it. He glared at the man without answering, gathering his resolve to play his cards as planned.
“Abdullah,” Casius growled softly.
The Arab’s eyes registered a flicker of doubt. For a moment he looked nonplussed.
Casius spoke before the man could utter a word. “Your name is Abdullah Amir. I killed your brother ten days ago. You look very much like him. Your brother was an effective terrorist—you should be proud.”
Casius smiled and the man blinked, stunned to silence. Every muscle in his thin body went taut, baring veins at his neck and forearms.
“You killed . . . Mudah is dead?” Abdullah sputtered. For a moment Casius thought Abdullah might shoot him there, on the spot. Instead he regained his composure slowly as if he could flick it on and off between those ears. It spoke well of his strength, Casius thought.
“CIA.” Abdullah spoke as if he’d just swallowed a bitter pill. Now a different glint flashed through the man’s eyes. “And what is your agency doing so deep in the jungle?” he demanded.
“We’re looking for a killer,” Casius said. “Perhaps you, Abdullah. Are you a killer?”
The man found no humor in the question. He looked at Casius carefully. “What is your name?”
“Your family is in Iran. In the desert. What brings you to the jungle?”
The Hispanic guard shifted his one good eye to Abdullah, his gun still leveled unwavering at Casius’s head.
“Why did you kill my brother?” Abdullah asked.
Casius considered the question. “Because he was a terrorist. I despise terrorists. You’re monsters who kill to feed a blind lust.”
“He had a wife and five children.”
“Don’t they all? Sometimes wives and children die too.”
Moisture beaded the Arab’s upper lip and glistened under the ceiling bulb. Casius felt his own sweat trickle past his right temple. His vision clouded with that familiar black fog and then cleared.
“You yourself are a killer,” Abdullah said. A fleck of spittle stuck to his curled pink lip. “The world seems to be full of monsters. Some of them kill for God. Others drop bombs from ten thousand feet and kill for oil. Both kill women and children. Which kind are you?”
A small voice whispered in his mind.
You are the same as he
, it said.
You are both monsters
.
Casius said the name slowly, before he realized he was saying it. He felt a tremor take to his bones, and he fought for control.
When he spoke, he could not stop the anger that tightened his voice. “You, Abdullah Amir, are a monster of the worst kind. How many have you killed in your eight years on this plantation?”
A SMALL warning bell was ringing in the dark, Abdullah thought. Set off by the agent’s last statement. But he could not place it. What he could place was the simple fact that the CIA must now suspect his extracurricular activities. It was why they had sent this reconnaissance. Maybe his brother had talked under this assassin’s knife. Either way, the operation was now in jeopardy.
Jamal’s order had new meaning now.
The dark-haired man reminded him of a warrior, displaced in time, stripped of his clothing for some ungodly reason, still covered in his war paint. They had found only a knife on him. Well, then, he would have this man killed with a blade. Across the neck, perhaps. Then he would have his gut ripped out. Or maybe in the reverse order.
“According to the CIA’s records you put a few people down, coming to this valley,” the man said to Abdullah. “This was once a coffee plantation and there was a mission station nearby—both of which had to go. But it seems that fact bothered the CIA as little as it did you.”
The last statement made Abdullah blink. This agent knew about the CIA’s involvement? And by the flicker of the man’s eye, he obviously did not approve.
“But that’s not my concern,” the assassin said, holding his gaze. “Jamal, on the other hand, is my concern.”
Jamal? This man knew of Jamal! “What is your name?” Abdullah asked again.
“Casius. You know of Jamal.”
Abdullah felt his pulse pound. He did not respond.
“I’m not sure you realize what kind of trouble has just landed on your doorstep, my friend, but trust me—your world is about to change.”
“Perhaps,” Abdullah said evenly. “But if so, then yours as well.”
“Tell me what you know about Jamal, and I’ll walk out of this jungle without a word. You realize my absence alone will raise red flags.”
Abdullah felt a smile form slowly on his lips. The man’s audacity struck him as absurd. He was here, under a gun, and yet he seemed comfortable issuing threats? “If I could give you Jamal’s location right now, believe me, I’d do it eagerly,” Abdullah said. “Unfortunately, Jamal is thinner than a ghost. But then I’m sure you know that, or you wouldn’t be chasing him through this godforsaken jungle. He is not here, I can assure you. He has never been here. You, on the other hand, are. A fact you don’t seem to appreciate.”
“Jamal may not be here, but he
is
your puppeteer, Abdullah, isn’t he? Only an idiot would think differently.”
Heat flared up Abdullah’s neck. What did the man
know?
Casius shifted his gaze. “Your brother spoke quite freely before I cut him. Evidently your competence was of some concern to him. But really, if you read between the lines, I think it was more Jamal who regarded you as stupid.” The man looked back into Abdullah’s eyes. “Why would Jamal feel obligated to take over an operation you had perfectly under control? This was all your idea, wasn’t it? Why did he take over?”
But Abdullah could not dismiss the words easily. In fact, he knew this to be true. Jamal
did
think of him as stupid—every communiqué dripped with his condescension. And now this assassin had forced the same information out of his own brother before slicing him open.
A tremble ran through Abdullah’s bones. He had to think. This man would die—that much was now certain—but not before he told Abdullah what he knew.
The fool was staring at him as if he were the one doing the interrogating. His eyes glinted fierce, not in the least cautious. He obviously knew more than he was saying.
“I want Jamal,” Casius said. “His offense of me dates back eight years and has nothing to do with you. You tell me how Jamal makes contact with you, and I will make sure your operations stay well covered.”
Abdullah raised an eyebrow. “If it’s true that this operation is really under Jamal’s thumb, why would I give a killer information that might lead to him?” he asked.
Casius drilled him with an unblinking stare. “Because if
Jamal
isn’t killed, I’m quite sure he’ll kill you. In fact, if I were a betting man, I might say you were already dead. Your usefulness is finished. You’re now a liability.”
Abdullah came very near to grabbing Ramón’s gun and shooting Casius then. Only the man’s arrogance kept him alive. That and the tiny voice that whispered in his ear. Something was amiss.
His face twisted with contempt. He turned his back on the man and left without another word. If Casius had any useful information, it was now immaterial. The man was dead already.
Abdullah spoke as soon as the door slammed shut. “Prepare the bombs. Have them ready to ship,” he said, and his voice held a tremor.
“So soon?”
“Immediately! Jamal is right; we cannot wait.”
“Send them to detonate?”
“Of course, you idiot. Both. We send both and then tell their government they can stop their detonation by complying with our demands, as planned. But we will detonate them anyway, after the Americans have had a chance to wet themselves. Injury to insult—the best kind of terror. Release our people or we will blow a hole in your side.” He grinned. “We will shove in the knife and then turn it. Just as planned.”
“And the others?”
Abdullah hesitated. He’d nearly forgotten about the woman and the priest. “Kill them,” he said. “Kill them all.”
CASIUS NEEDED a distraction.
As soon as the door had closed, he was pressed against it, willing his heart still so he could hear unobstructed. They had clicked off ten paces before pausing at what could only be the elevator by the faint whir that started just after their final step.
It took him ten minutes to settle on his course of action. His cell probably lay beneath the ground, on the basement level. The steel door had been bolted, leaving him hopelessly penned in. The only movable objects in the room were the wooden bed, the thin mattress, and the glaring light bulb. Otherwise the cell provided nothing usable.
An hour after Abdullah and Ramón left, two others that Casius assumed must be guards descended on the elevator and took up positions in the hall— one opposite his cell and one next to the door.
He knew he had very little time. As long as Abdullah thought he worked for the CIA, the Arab might hold him alive, hoping for leverage. But the minute the man learned that he was on the run from the CIA, Abdullah would kill him. And Casius doubted the CIA would have any problem forwarding the truth.
Working very quietly, Casius removed the mattress from the bed and propped the wooden frame on its end, directly under the light, so that anyone entering the room would see only the frame at first look. He then ripped strips of cloth from the mattress and mounted the frame under the light. He unscrewed the white-hot bulb until the light blinked off and let it cool before removing it completely.
Working by feel in the darkness, Casius wrapped the bulb in the cloth strips and then squeezed the glass in his palm. It imploded with a snap, slicing into his forefinger. He bit his tongue and carefully removed the cloth, taking the broken glass with it. He felt for the tungsten wire. It remained intact. Good.
Casius reached for the ceiling, found the light fixture, and guided the bulb into its socket. The tungsten wire glowed a dull red without the vacuum.
He tore another strip from the mattress and wound it around his bleeding forefinger. He took a deep breath and mounted the frame again. He grabbed a handful of stuffing from the mattress and lifted it to the glowing wire. The dry material smoldered for only a moment before catching fire.
Casius dropped to the concrete, shoved the flaming material into the mattress, and set it against the far wall. He retreated to the wall behind the door and watched the fire grow until the room blazed orange. Waiting until the last possible moment, he drew a last deep breath of clean air from the room and waited.