Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (17 page)

“You’ve seen Tim?”

Washington nodded. “With Fallows. He seems quiet, withdrawn.”

Eric felt an aching in his chest. It must be what a man dying of thirst feels when he can smell the fresh water over the next dune. Eric gestured for Washington to lead the way and the tall black man started walking. Eric didn’t think about the Russians or what they were doing here. He thought only of Tim. And Fallows. The rest was none of his business.

Now that Washington knew for sure who Eric was, he seemed even more talkative, almost friendly. “After a couple years of pranks, I became frustrated. The KGB financed my schooling here at UCLA, hoping I would come back and eventually be able to join the government. But things move slowly in South Africa. Meantime, they recruited me for this special assignment. They needed people who could convince the locals we were Americans. Bolinski, now he learned his American in spy school. I thought he overdid the bad grammar myself, but — ”

Three muffled pops sounded, like balloons breaking. Eric dove to the ground. When he looked up he saw Washington leaning against a tree, three large holes in his chest. Slowly he slid down the trunk until a broken branch hooked on one of the holes in his back and held him suspended there.

“Next shot takes your head, Eric,” a voice called. The voice came from above, from someone perched sniper-style in a tree. Considering the darkness, the gunman had to have a night-scope.

Eric tossed away his crossbow and stood up, hands on top of his head.

Three men came crashing through the brush, each carrying automatic weapons. They grabbed Eric roughly, one of them jerking Eric’s arms behind his back and slapping handcuffs on his wrists.

A minute later a lanky Vietnamese man carrying a rifle fixed with a night-scope sauntered in. He walked over to Washington’s body, poked the chest with the muzzle of his Weatherby Mark V rifle. Blood dabbed the metal tip. He nodded at one of the other men. “Strip the body and bring the clothing back with you.”

The man slung his M-16 over his shoulder, unhooked Washington’s body from the tree trunk, and began pulling off the clothes.

The Vietnamese man walked up to Eric, a sly grin on his face. “Hello, Eric.”

“Hello, Nhu.”

“Surprised to see me?”

Eric shook his head. “Wherever Fallows goes, his cronies are sure to follow.”

“He’s waiting for you, Eric.”

“Looks like the waiting is over. For both of us.”

Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.

Herman Melville

“Hey. Wait up, guys.” D.B. fastened the last button of her blouse as she ran after Wendy and Spock. They were marching toward the Primate Propogation Center. “What’s the hurry?” she said as she caught up to them. She gave Spock a quick tickle in the ribs and a pat on the head. Spock raised his hairy arms for more tickling.

Wendy kept walking. Spock ambled beside her, swinging forward on his knuckles.

D.B. noticed for the first time that Wendy was carrying a hacksaw and a hatchet. “What’s up?”

“Work.”

“Yeah, I heard of that stuff. Causes cancer.” D.B. smiled, but Wendy’s eyes stayed solemn and straight ahead. Okay, a little curt, D.B. thought, but hey, maybe she just wasn’t a morning person. Eric was pretty grouchy in the mornings too. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all until lunch. “I didn’t hear you come for Spock.”

“You were still asleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Thanks. That was the best sleep I’ve had in months. Something about having a friendly gorilla in the room made me feel safe.”

“Sometimes it’s better than having a man sleep over.”

D.B. gave her a look. “Yeah?”

Wendy shook her head. “I don’t mean sexually.”

“No, of course. I just, well, was, you know, curious . . .”

Wendy laughed.

D.B. watched Wendy as they walked and realized there was something different about her this morning. She wasn’t guarded like yesterday, but she was tense, angry. Maybe worried. D.B. grabbed Wendy’s arm and pulled her around. “Where’s Eric?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? Gone where? Hunting? To the bathroom?”

Wendy shrugged. “Gone.”

Spock thought the two women were playing so he hopped up to them and stuck his face between them. Wendy pushed him away. “Not now, Spock.”

D.B. sat down on the ground as if she’d just been struck hard in the stomach. She tried to breathe deeply through her mouth, but each breath burned her throat. Tears blinked down over her face. “He’s coming back, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“He went after Fallows. But how’d he know where to look?”

“He took one of the prisoners.”

Spock made a hand signal at Wendy. Wendy shook her head and signed back to him. “He wants to know if you have strawberry belly.”

“What’s that?”

“A couple years ago he got into a carton of strawberries I bought and ate them all. He was sick for two days. He thinks you have the same look he had.” Wendy put her arm around D.B.’s shoulder. “Eric will be back for you.”

“If he can.”

Wendy nodded. “Meantime, you’re welcome to stay here with me and my friends.”

“I should follow Eric, try to help him.”

“Suit yourself,” Wendy said. She started into the Primate Center, paused, looked back at D.B. “Only you don’t know where he is or how to reach him. What if he comes back for your help and you’re gone, nowhere to be found?”

D.B. glanced up into Wendy’s dark eyes. “You seriously think I’d fall for that bullshit?”

“Okay, part of it’s bullshit. But part is true. This is the one place he could come to if he needed help. Right?”

D.B. sighed. “Right.”

“Okay then.” Wendy tossed the hatchet to D.B. “Make yourself useful.”

D.B. used the hatchet as a cane to push herself to her feet. Her legs still felt a little wobbly. Without Eric she felt weak, deflated. Even the world around her seemed harsher, more threatening. More real. Despite Eric’s own self-doubts, she knew that he was an island of sanity and humanity in a world preciously short on both. He was one man doing the right things for the right reasons.

Slowly D.B. followed Wendy into the Primate Center. Inside she found Wendy leaning over the dead body of Bolinski. She was pulling his clothes off.

“I recognize that wound,” D.B. said. “Eric’s crossbow.”

“Yes. He killed this one and took the other as his guide. Help me with these shoes, would you?”

D.B. knelt down at Bolinski’s feet and unlaced his left boot while Wendy tugged at the right.

“You slept with him last night, didn’t you?” D.B. asked.

“With Bolinski?”

“Stop it.”

Wendy nodded. “Yes, Eric and I made love.”

“What was it like?”

“Surely you have had sex before.”

“I don’t mean sex. I had a lifetime of that one month.” She fingered her choke collar. “From the pigs who gave me this.” She pulled a sock off Bolinski’s foot. “No, I mean with Eric. What was he like?”

Wendy looked surprised. “You mean you two have never slept together?”

“We sleep together every night. Only that’s all we do. Sleep. He’s hung up about my age.”

Wendy didn’t bother with undoing the buttons on Bolinski’s shirt. She grabbed his lapels and tore, popping buttons all the way down the shirt front. One button landed in D.B.’s hair and Spock picked it out. Then ate it.

“That’s why I ask,” D.B. continued. “I know sex has got to be better than the experiences I’ve had.”

Wendy stopped fussing with Bolinski’s clothing a moment and looked over at D.B. She sat down next to Bolinski’s arm and pulled her legs up to her chest. “My first time was in China. I lived in Nan-yang with my mother and her brother’s family. There was a boy my age, sixteen. He repaired bicycles in his father’s shop. Once he took me to the shop at night when it was closed. Right there on the work table among the greasy tools, axle nuts, derailleurs, and broken spokes, we made love. Both for the first time. He was so nervous he trembled.”

“And you?”

“I thought we must be doing it wrong.”

D.B. laughed. “That’s what I thought my first time. Stevie Hodell in his parents’ cabana at the country club. They were rich.” D.B. raised an eyebrow. “What about Eric?”

“Don’t build it up, D.B.,” Wendy said. “It was only one man, one night. Sex is not competitive. At least it shouldn’t be.”

“More bullshit.”

“Okay. A little bullshit. It’s just that it’s hard to describe.”

“Not when it’s bad, it’s not.”

Wendy laughed. “You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, it was like this: with some guys, you get the feeling during sex that having an orgasm is the whole reason they are with you. With Eric, I felt that sex was just one of the things he wanted to do with me, no more or less important than talking or eating or gardening. As if my company was the most important thing, regardless of what we were doing. And that’s all the details you get.” Wendy placed the sharp teeth of the hacksaw on Bolinski’s arm, right below the shoulder. “Grab an arm and start cutting,” she said to D.B. “We have mouths to feed.”