The Avenger (2 page)

They'd been expecting him for so long they'd grown inured to the smell of their own fear. Holt barred his teeth and crept steadily forward.

He reached the secret camp just as the mottled sky gave way to the pink tinge of dawn. The rain had ceased, and the muffled humidity blanketed the area of packed dirt where Idi Kanumba pushed back the flaps of his tent and walked to the river's edge.

A giant beast of a man, Kanumba yawned loudly and scratched his bare chest. He stretched in the morning air and glanced toward the two stations where his guards stood at attention. Satisfied, he unzipped his trousers and urinated a steady yellow stream into the water.

Watching, Holt curled his lip.
Even animals don't piss in their drinking water.

He reconnoitered from his hiding place, noting with care the number of bodyguards, the weapons they carried, and the level of alertness they showed. Smaller than their leader, the guards looked quick and wiry. Each carried a .45 Auto GLOCK and a hunting knife on his belt. Even with the accuracy of the GLOCKs, Holt figured he could easily take out the first two guards with a single blow.

The third man dangled an Uzi from his right hand and carelessly slung an AR-15 assault rifle over his left shoulder. Though his posture was casual, his eyes had the wary look of a veteran fighter. He'd be the man to watch, the only one who'd put up a decent fight.

The fourth man was Kanumba. The beast who'd assassinated over one hundred thousand of his own people and buried them in mass graves outside Zichecola City. Some of them were healthy, young rebels. Most were women and old men. Many of them were children.

Why had he murdered them?

Better to ask why the winds blow or the rains fall. He murders because it is his nature. And he can get away with it. But no more.

Holt uncoiled his body and braced the knife blade, his single weapon, between his teeth. First, the Uzi guard. Just as the ebony-faced man snarled and lifted his weapon, Holt buried his dagger hilt-deep in the guard's right eye socket.

He pounced on Kanumba before the leader could react enough to zip up his fly. Slashed his throat in a gnashing of steel against muscle and tendon that nearly severed the head from the body. An arterial spray gushed onto the attacker's face, arms, and torso. By the time he turned to confront the remaining two bodyguards, his body was as slick as an ancient sacrificial offering.

Slippery and wet, he slid on his ass along the grassy marsh at the water's edge, and with a swipe of one leg toppled the two remaining guards. Both men landed with a thud. He stepped behind each, and in a practiced motion, yanked their necks to the right. They crumpled at his feet.

Finished.

Holt stared at the carnage around him, then retrieved his weapon and wiped it in the tall grass. Already the flies began to hover around the sticky, darkening pools of blood. The man inside the warrior struggled to overcome the wave of nausea that swept through him, but the beast within howled in triumph.

By the time he'd finished digging shallow graves for the bodies, dismantling the tent, and dispersing the supplies, the sun shone high in the eastern sky. The temperature had risen twenty degrees, and the sounds of insects pierced the silence of the forest like angry wasps. He washed in the river, sluicing blood from his arms and face, rinsing his torso. He welcomed the cool relief of the water against his fevered flesh, the return from the dark place.

The miniscule changes that heralded his transformation back to the man he'd been when he set off from Johannesburg yesterday had already started by the time he finished cleaning up. The muscles contracted, the skin color stabilized, the indefatigable strength ebbed. When he sniffed the air, he no longer detected the heavy coppery odor with the fine olfactory senses of the animal.

His nerves prickled as human feeling returned.

At last Jackson Holt dressed in clothes he'd uncovered in the tent and set off toward Zichecola City, twenty miles to the east. The sun dappled in his eyes as he marched. With each step he relived the thrill of the knife blade to the vulnerable flesh, the strength that coursed through his body, the heady adrenaline rush of victory. But, as always, when the warrior's body returned to itself, he felt a terrible reckoning. At the final return of his humanness, he stared at his hands and observed their mortal trembling.

In his mind Holt repeated the mantra that grounded him as he moved silently to the rhythm of the chant. It became a roar in his head, gradually banishing every bloody image of his mission.

Invictus. Invictus. Invictus.

Our Lady of Fatima University, Sacramento, California

Chapter Two

Teddy Burrows was an irresistible ass.

If Olivia had been a fraction more pugnacious or a smidgen less charmed by him, she'd have passed him off to another professor. This time she gave him a verbal set down.

"I'm sorry you don't agree with the morals clause," she said with a specious smile, "but this is a private Catholic university. We all have to sign the paper. Even me."

"I just don't get it," Ted argued. "It's not like I'm aiming for the priesthood."

The remark brought a ripple of laughter from the other doctoral candidates enrolled in Olivia's seminar. She suppressed a sigh and decided to pick her battles. Ted was famous for walking to a different drummer.

"Anyone can opt not to sign the proper paperwork, of course," she reminded them, looking around the room. "It's up to each individual candidate to decide if he or she wants to pursue an advanced degree here at Fatima."

She checked the clock on the wall at the back of the classroom and decided to let them go early. "Your advisors will be listed on the department bulletin board by noon tomorrow." She smiled broadly. "Good luck."

Watching them shuffle out the door, all seven masters and doctoral candidates in the Department of Ancient Studies, she stuffed her papers into her worn briefcase. Had she ever been that young and innocent? She thought briefly of the miserable little house on Main Street and her mother's drinking bouts.

Ted Burrows waited for her outside the classroom door.

"What question can I answer for you, Mr. Burrows?" She walked briskly down the hall toward her office as Ted scurried after her.

Burrows quirked his lips in a lopsided smile. "I was wondering, hoping actually, if you could assign Dr. Randolph as my mentor."

She hesitated. She'd planned to assign Christopher Waverly as Ted's mentor. The young professor seemed a better fit for Ted than the stuffy Howard Randolph, whom she shared an office with.

"Please?" Ted had a puppy dog look on his face.

Maybe Randolph could knock some cockiness out of Ted, she mused. "I'll think about it." She slipped into her office, closing the door firmly behind her.

#

Olivia ignored the stack of papers on her desk and stared out her office window to the university's grassy quad. Matching candidates for advanced degrees with the most suitable mentor was no easy task. She wanted to do a good job, prove herself to the Chancellor.

A soft knock sounded on the door and a curly-haired girl pushed her way in. With skin like creamed coffee and a smile too sweet for a person going into law enforcement, Keisha Johnson was a favorite advisee. She was also a freshman in one of her advanced history classes.

"Dr. Gant?" said Keisha. "Are you busy?"

"Not with anything very interesting. Come on in." Olivia gestured toward the plastic chair angled across from her desk.

The girl lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder. "I'm sorry to bother you, Dr. Gant." She eased her backpack to the floor before perching on the edge of the chair, looking poised for flight.

"No bother. What can I help you with?"

Keisha remained silent, chewing on her bottom lip with small white teeth.

"Do you need a program change?" Olivia knew being a freshman in an upper division course could be problematic.

Keisha gave a small shake of her head and remained as mute as the statue of Nefertiti resting on the shelf behind the desk. Her bronze features reminded Olivia of the ancient Egyptian queen. Olivia frowned. The girl had visited several times and was usually a chatterbox.
What was different now?

"There's this guy," Keisha whispered after several long moments. "Well, a man really."

Boy troubles, then, Olivia thought, holding back a smile. "Is he a student here?"

"Sort of."

Olivia smiled gently. "How can one be 'sort of' a student?"

"He works here. On campus, I mean." The girl tugged at a long ebony strand of hair as if she'd straighten the natural curl out like a ruler. "I don't want to say more about that."

Something a little off with the boyfriend.
"What
do
you want to say?"

"We're involved. Sort of."

There was that phrase again. How was a couple "sort of" involved? Olivia nodded encouragingly although she wasn't sure she was qualified to give relationship advice. Her own record with men was disastrous.

"He wants me to ... to do things," Keisha said.

An alarm clanged in Olivia's brain. This was something she understood all too well.

A surge of protectiveness washed over her. "Look at me, Keisha," she ground out, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to." When the girl refused to look at her, Olivia punched each phrase, "Nothing – you don't – want – to do. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Tears spilled down the girl's cheeks, powdery streams against her smooth skin. "Yes," she whispered. "You're right." She smiled, and her face became a rainbow bursting through the wet splatters.

Olivia reached for her referral pad. "I'll give you a pass to the clinic," she said. "You can talk to someone trained in this kind of situation." She wasn't sure what the situation was, but she knew in her gut it was trouble.

Keisha shook her head, picked up her backpack, and hoisted it onto her shoulders. "Thanks, Dr. Gant. You've helped me a lot."

"Keisha, wait," Olivia said, rising from her chair. "Please, you really should – "

"No," Keisha said firmly, "I know what to do now."

With a swish of her skirt and the scrape of a chair leg, the girl was gone before Olivia could say another word. Keisha had vanished by the time Olivia reached the hall. Troubled, she resolved to call Keisha out of class first thing in the morning.

Tomorrow, she thought. Surely one more day wouldn't matter.

Chapter Three

The dirty Dodge truck made its way down the winding road off Interstate 80 near the Utah-Nevada border. A quarter mile ahead squatted a single guard house where a barrier gate blocked the entrance and a solitary soldier manned the tiny wooden enclosure.

Mammoth Proving Grounds, once used to test military weapons, now consisted of little more than a few Quonset huts and a rudimentary landing field. The facility wasn't guarded securely, the truck driver thought, half expecting to drop coins in a metal repository and sail on through like in a toll booth lane. The guard stepped from the booth, his M-16 held diagonally across his chest, a serious expression on his smooth face. He looked like he was still in high school.

The driver rolled down his window, his face grimy from the dust kicked up on the drive from the highway. The soldier took in the man's appearance, ignored the friendly greeting, and stared at the truck, inspecting the wide blue sign on the door.
Houseman's Pumps,
it read.

"This is government property, sir. What's your business?"

The driver gestured vaguely toward the distant buildings. "Water pump's down. Got a request from ... let's see." He reached for the clipboard lying on the passenger's seat. "Major Redding? Says the water pump in building two needs repair."

The soldier stepped back inside the guard house and ran his finger down a list clipped to the podium. "Sorry, sir. I don't see
Houseman's Pumps
on the list."

"Got the request late last night," the driver said. "Maybe he didn't have time to call it down." He peered at the sun just breaking to the east and slanting its glow through the passenger window. "Can you phone up to verify?"

"The major's not on base today."

"Holiday?"

The guard shook his head, covering a smile. "Opening day of deer season."

The truck driver looked around at the white, glaring stretch of packed salt and rock. "No hunting in these parts," he joked.

The soldier visibly relaxed under the easygoing, friendly manner. "No sir, the high Uintas, up the canyon."

"Well," the driver sighed theatrically. "Guess I can come back tomorrow. Major Redding sounded in a hurry, but if he forgot the paper work, I guess it can wait." His voice trailed off as he shifted the truck into reverse and glanced over his shoulder.

"Hold on a minute," the soldier said, looking first to the right and then left as if the answer to his dilemma lay in the bleak landscape. The salt flats shimmered in the morning light, casting water mirages all around. "Heck, just go on in." He pressed a button inside the booth that triggered the barrier lift. "Just be sure and get a signature from whoever's in there."

"And that would be ... ?" the driver asked, glancing again at his clipboard.

"Should be Lieutenant Murphy."

"Right, will do." The driver saluted as he passed by, heading the truck another mile up the road. "Have a good day."

Odds were the guard wouldn't even look at the paperwork on his return trip.

He should've waited until dark to do this, but it'd be harder to get past the guard at night. Anyway, he'd done his homework and wanted to take advantage of the major being gone. Typically people used any excuse to get out of work. Deer season was a perfect excuse for a skeleton force.

The driver didn't encounter anyone else as he pulled around to the back of the farthest building at the base of a rock outcropping. Traveling along a worn path, he approached the aircraft landing runway. Against a shallow enclave in the rocks a natural barrier hunkered between the runway and the salt flats beyond.