Altar of Eden (19 page)

Then the woman would be his to dispose of as he pleased.

And he intended to be
pleased.

Jack knelt in the smoky hall beside a man bleeding to death. It was one of the enemy, maybe the very one he had shot earlier. The soldier hadn’t gotten far. From the gaping wound in his gut, he didn’t have long to live.

The soldier stared at Jack with glazed, pained eyes.

Knowledge of his death shone there.

Jack had seen it often enough in the battlefield. He placed his trust in that shine, knowing that in such moments absolution was often sought.

“There was a woman here,” Jack pleaded. “Blond. A doctor. Do you know where she is?”

Jack had already wasted too much time. As he fled the lower level he was forced to balance between caution and panic. He feared stumbling headlong into an ambush—he would be no good to Lorna if he was dead. But he also sensed that time was running out.

Where could she be?

The man croaked a single word, never taking his eyes off Jack, as if needing even this tiny bit of companionship at the end. “Captured . . .”

Jack tensed, biting back a curse. “Where did they take her?”

The soldier struggled to answer, but his eyes rolled back.

Jack gripped the man’s free hand. “Where?” he begged.

Eyes fluttered back to stare at him. The man’s head fell to the left. He stared toward an open window. A slight breeze stirred the smoke there.

“They took her out?” Jack asked.

No answer. Jack reached to the soldier’s chin and turned the man’s face toward him. Open eyes stared blankly. The man was gone.

He gave the soldier’s hand a final squeeze and shoved to his feet.

Following the only bread crumb left to him, Jack rushed to the window. He stuck his head out and searched the grounds. He saw no one. He quickly clambered out the window and landed in the wet grass. Off to the east, the sky was beginning to brighten.

He heard a truck engine roar to life from the front of the building.

Pistol in hand, he ran in that direction. His chest tightened with a cold certainty. The assault team was pulling out as dawn beckoned. And they had Lorna.

He reached the corner of the building and caught taillights through the smoke. A truck bounced out of the yard and onto the road heading toward the river.

Jack lifted the pistol, but he held back from firing.

He could just as easily hit Lorna.

Frustrated, he lowered his gun and sprinted toward the neighboring parking lot. The rolling smoke from the fires, which now licked up from the roof of ACRES, helped hide his flight.

He pounded across the gravel and reached his truck. He yanked the door, leaped inside, and keyed the ignition. Popping into gear, he smashed the accelerator. The engine roared and gravel spat out behind the spinning tires. The Ford leaped forward as Jack fought the steering wheel. He spun the truck, fishtailing in the gravel, and took off after the other.

He couldn’t let them get away.

Ahead, taillights sped down the winding entry road.

Jack flattened the gas pedal to the floor. Steering one-handed, he lowered the side window and stuck out his pistol. He fired at the other truck, low, toward the tires. He didn’t truly expect to hit them, but he hoped to get their attention, to startle them enough to either slow down or lose control.

He hit a pothole as he fired a third time, throwing his aim high.

The rear window of the other truck splintered with cracks.

Jack silently cursed. He had to be more careful.

Ahead, brake lights flashed for a second—then the truck sped faster. From a moonroof in the other vehicle, a figure climbed into view bearing aloft a rifle. Shots blasted back at him.

Jack ducked low but didn’t slow. His windshield spattered with cracks. A slug puffed into the passenger headrest.

The other truck’s brake lights flared again. The driver had to slow to make the turn onto the levee road that ran alongside the Mississippi.

Jack kept his boot pressed hard on the accelerator. If he could ram them from behind, send them sailing over the far side of the levee, he had a chance of stopping them.

The distance closed between them.

The other truck began to swing for the turn.

C’mon . . .

Jack urged more speed out of the V-8 engine.

Focused on the other truck, he almost missed seeing a man step from behind a tree alongside the road’s shoulder. He lifted a grenade launcher to his shoulder and pointed it at Jack’s truck.

Jack should have known that the assault team wouldn’t leave their rear flank unprotected. They had posted some man at the entrance, someone with serious firepower.

This all flashed through Jack’s head as he watched the rocket launcher fire, exploding with a spat of flame and smoke.

A SPATTER OF
thunder woke Lorna—so loud it felt like nails hammered into her skull. She cried out, as much in pain as confusion. She tasted blood. Her body was being thrown about as if she were on a boat in a storm.

It took her a long agonizing moment to realize she was in the backseat of an SUV. The thunder was gunfire, coming from a shooter standing next to her, halfway out an open moonroof.

She tried to lift her hands to her pounding head, but found them tied behind her back. She was thrown against the passenger window as the truck made a sharp turn onto the levee road.

Memory flooded back to her.

The attack, the bloodshed, the ambush in the clinic . . .

She stared out the window toward ACRES. Another truck barreled up the entry road, coming straight at them, looking ready to T-bone right into the side of this vehicle.

Lorna recognized the other truck. “Jack . . .”

Then flames flashed by the side of the road, drawing her eye to a soldier standing there with a smoking weapon.

Jack’s truck exploded. The front end jackknifed into the air, riding a fireball. It flipped onto its rear fender and toppled over onto its cab. Glass and fiery metal rained down.

The blast was so loud she didn’t know she was screaming until it was over. Someone grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back into her seat. A hand slapped her face, momentarily blinding her.

“Shut the hell up!”

Through tears, she glanced one last time out the window. The SUV was speeding down the levee road. She could not see Jack’s truck any longer. But a moment later, a muffled detonation erupted farther away from the road. A massive swirl of fire climbed into the dark sky.

ACRES.

She closed her eyes, too numb to scream. She pictured her brother and her colleagues. She prayed they’d gotten out—but even that hope was dashed with the hoarse words from the driver.

“Connor, order Daughtery to do a final sweep of the area before he takes off. Kill anyone still alive.”

Deaf, Jack lay on his back in prickly brush. He had trouble focusing his eyes. The world swam in and out of focus.

Fires raged to one side. Smoke rolled over him, smelling of oil. He turned his head enough to see the fiery wreckage of his service truck on the road.

He remembered the soldier with the rocket launcher.

Jack had reacted on pure instinct as the weapon fired. No thought, just action. He had popped the door and thrown himself away from the truck. The blast wave still caught him and flung him like a rag doll through the air into the weeds.

Must have blacked out a bit.

He lay a moment longer, unsure if he could move. It hurt to breathe. Busted a rib at least.

Then he heard the heavy tread of boots, rushing his way.

Jack pawed around him for his pistol, but he had lost it. He struggled up despite the complaint from his beaten body. He would not die on his back.

A figure rose up before him. The soldier had traded his rocket launcher for an assault rifle. The weapon pointed at his face.

“You are one tough bastard to kill,” he growled.

Jack lifted his arms. He knew there would be no mercy, no use begging. Not that he would. Instead, with his arms up, he flipped the guy off with both hands.

This earned a respectful sneer. Still, the man leveled the rifle.

Jack kept his eyes open, ready for what was to come.

A loud
crack
sounded.

Jack frowned as the gunman fell face forward, blood spewing out his nose, and almost landed in Jack’s lap.

Behind the soldier stood a wet dog of a figure. “Randy . . . ?”

His brother tossed aside the thick tree limb he’d used to club the gunman. He glanced around, swiping a hand through his soaking-wet hair, then turned his attention back to Jack.

“So where’s Burt?”

A HALF HOUR
later, Jack and his brother still combed the woods around the burning building. They had to move with care. The fire-bombing had turned the research facility into a blazing torch. Lit by flames, shadows danced throughout the woods, making the search all the more difficult and nerve-racking.

Randy had explained about the attack on the road, being forced into the river. But you couldn’t drown a Cajun that easily. He swam downstream a fair spell and crept back when he heard all the gunfire.

Traipsing the woods now, Jack couldn’t ask for a better partner. The two brothers hadn’t hunted together for years, but they fell into an easy and familiar stride with each other: one taking the lead, then the other, silently signaling, sticking to the darker shadows. Over the past years, a wall had grown between them, built by secrets and Jack’s self-imposed estrangement. As they traipsed the woods, Jack recognized how much he missed the simple camaraderie of family, how quickly that wall could drop if he’d let it.

But for now, he had a job still to do. It wasn’t just Burt whom the two hunted. They watched for any straggling members of the assault team.

Jack had confiscated the rifle from the mercenary Randy had clubbed. Unfortunately, his brother had hit the man with all his strength and caved in the back of the guy’s skull, killing him instantly.

“I was pissed,” Randy had explained. He told Jack about the roadside ambush, the crash into the Mississippi. “Fuckers almost drowned my ass.”

The death was unfortunate. Jack would’ve liked to interrogate the man, to discover where the others had taken Lorna. With the soldier dead, he had hoped to find another replacement out here. But with the sun now rising, their search came up empty-handed. They had circled the entire facility. The attackers must have evacuated the area following the firebombing.

“Now what?” Randy asked.

“We find Burt and get the hell out of here.”

With the area secure, Jack cupped his mouth and whistled sharply. Randy did the same, calling out Burt’s name. The fire’s roar fought to drown their efforts. Jack circled out again, whistling and calling more boldly this time.

Halfway back around, a loud crunching and snapping erupted from the deeper forest. Jack tensed, raising his rifle in that direction.

Instead of the dog, their calls drew four others out of the woods.

Lorna’s brother and her colleagues came stumbling forward. They looked haggard and ragged, but happy to see them.

That is, all except one.

Kyle came at Jack as if he was going to attack. His eyes searched to either side, then toward the smoldering fire. His voice was a tearful croak. “Lorna . . . ?”

“No,” Jack assured him, but he didn’t blunt the truth. “She got out, but the others took her.”

“Took her?” he echoed.

Before Jack could explain, a baying howl rose from deeper in the woods to the west.

Randy brightened.
“Mon Dieu!
That’s Burt!”

His brother set off into the forest. Jack followed, leading the others. He wasn’t about to leave the hound here. With the sky brightening, someone would quickly spot the column of smoke pouring into the sky. An emergency response team would be closing down on the place with sirens blazing. By that time, he wanted everyone together—and on the same page.

As they crossed through the forest Kyle kept step with him, cradling his broken wrist. “Why did they take my sister?”

“To interrogate her,” Jack said bluntly. “To cover their tracks. They’ll want to know how much was learned about those animals.”

Kyle grew pale. “Then what?”

Jack glanced to him. The question didn’t need to be acknowledged. They both knew what would happen afterward. Instead, he answered the question buried behind the other. “They’ll keep her alive at least for another day.”

Carlton joined him. “How do you know that, Agent Menard?”

“Because this was meant as a surgical strike. To get in and out fast. It didn’t turn out that way. With the deaths and all the mess here, they’ll retreat as far as possible before questioning her. Likely to their base of operations, wherever that might be.”

“I’d guess somewhere beyond the U.S. border,” Carlton stated.

“Why do you say that?” Jack asked. He suspected the same, but he wanted to hear the doctor’s estimation.

“What was done to those animals. The way they were treated. No lab on U.S. soil would be allowed to perform such abominations. But to circumvent such rules and regulations, American companies and corporations frequently set up clandestine labs just outside our borders. In Mexico, the Caribbean, South America. In fact, there are thousands of such unsanctioned labs around the world.”

Jack digested this information. He’d come to the same conclusion, mostly from the fact that the trawler had tried to enter the country through the bayou. It definitely had the feel of an attempted border crossing.

“So what do we do?” Kyle asked.

Jack faced the others, needing their cooperation. “If we’re right, Lorna’s best chance for survival hinges on the kidnappers’ continuing belief that we’re all dead. They’ll feel more secure, less panicked, if they think they’re holding the only witness. Can you all do that?”

He got nods all around, even from Zoë. Her eyes were puffy and red, but also raw with fury. Her grief had turned to a hard anger.

“Over here!” Randy called. He had run ahead of the others, following Burt’s bawl.

Jack hurried forward. He found the family hound circling a tall cypress, his tongue lolling, his tail high and proud.

Randy stood with his hands on his hips and stared up into the cypress. “What the hell did that old dog go and tree?”

Jack looked up into the branches.

Something stirred there, then called down threateningly and stridently.

“Igor!”

Jack took a step back in surprise.

Movement drew his eye elsewhere in the tree. A pair of small brown faces peered down at him through clusters of cypress needles. A feline hiss rose from another branch.

Jack gaped at the animals, trying to fathom this discovery. He’d assumed they were all killed in the fire.

“Lorna . . .” Zoë said, her eyes widening. “She must have released them before getting captured.”

Carlton stared up, both amazed and intrigued. “Bonded, they must have stuck together out here.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “I wonder if the terror of their flight bolstered that strange connection of theirs. Adrenaline flaming their neurons to a whole new level of synchronization.”

As the others spread around the tree Burt bumped into Jack’s leg, wanting acknowledgment. Jack now understood what had drawn the hound off into the woods. He remembered Lorna had used Burt to hunt for the cub’s littermate back in the bayou. And if Jack knew one thing about hounds, it was that they never lost their nose for a good scent.

Jack patted the hound on the side. “Good boy, Burt. Good boy.”

Kyle was not impressed. “What about Lorna? You’ve still not told us what your plan is to find her.”

“That’s because I didn’t have one.” Kyle’s face sank.

“But I do now,” Jack assured him.

For the first time since the power was cut off at ACRES, Jack felt a surge of confidence—not enough to wash away his bone-deep fear for Lorna, but it was enough.

“What do you mean?” Kyle pressed. “How are we going to find her?”

Jack pointed up the tree. “With their help.”