The Fields of Lemuria (13 page)

Sonofa
bitch.
Can I catch one fucking break?

Then Pollard said through the radio, “Keo. I know you’re listening.”

He couldn’t help himself. He felt the smile coming and didn’t try to stop it. A guy like Pollard would have gone far in his old organization. Smart, ruthless, and most of all, completely single-minded when he set his sights on a goal.

Too bad that goal is to kill me, otherwise we could have been best pals.

“I know you’re there,” Pollard continued through the radio. “I want you to know that I’m going to find you. It might take a day. Or two. Maybe even a week. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I’m a patient man. But you know who doesn’t have two days or a week? Your friend Norris.” The radio went silent for about ten seconds before Pollard finally returned, except this time he wasn’t addressing Keo when he said, “Don’t be shy.”

Keo braced himself, knowing full well whose voice he was going to hear next even before he actually heard it.

“Get the hell out of here, kid,” Norris said through the radio. He was out of breath and in obvious pain. “Go, and don’t look back. You hear me? Don’t—” Norris didn’t finish. He was interrupted by the sound of something solid hitting flesh, then something
(someone)
falling.

Pollard again. “He’s a tough old man. But he’s an old man, Keo. He’s not going to last for much longer.”

Keo unclipped the radio and raised it to his lips. “Pollard.”

“Keo,” Pollard said. “It’s good to hear your voice. I was starting to think I was wrong, that you weren’t smart enough to take one of the radios off my men.”

Keo pushed off the tree and continued walking through the woods. The radio made too much noise, but moving at least kept him from being pinpointed by another passing patrol.

“That’s a first,” Keo said.

“What’s that?”

“No one’s ever accused me of being smarter than the average bear before.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Keo. A man of below-average intelligence wouldn’t have forced me to chase him all these months.”

“Aw, I’m touched.”

“What kind of name is Keo, anyway?”

“Dan was taken.”

“Hunh.”

“That’s what Dan said.”

Pollard went quiet for a moment, which made Keo’s alarms go off. He looked around him, expecting a black-clad figure (or two) to rush out of the trees at any moment. The only sound, though, came from his own footsteps.

“How is all of this going to go down, Keo?” Pollard said.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? The way I hear it, you’re the man with the plan.”

“The way I see it, you’re going to make me chase you for another few days. But eventually I’m going to corner you, and when that happens, I’ll snuff you out. It’s inevitable. I have the manpower. The firepower. And the most crucial part of all this? You’re running out of real estate. There are only so many inches of this park you can hide in before I cover everything.”

“Yeah, but can you cover everything before nightfall? The way
I
see it, you can only search for me in the daylight. After all, we both know we don’t own the night anymore, don’t we?”

“No, we certainly don’t.” A slight pause, then, “There is another option. One that will put an end to this and make both of our lives easier. Mine more than yours, of course, but I think you can see the benefit in it too if you look hard enough.”

“I’m listening…”

“I don’t want Norris. I want you.”

“How sweet.”

Pollard might have chuckled. “Let me finish.”

“Go on…”

“I’m willing to let Norris live if you walk over to me, at, say, five this afternoon.”

Keo stopped walking.

“It’s a good offer,” Pollard continued. “But obviously it would depend on how much you like your friend. I realize he’s an old man, so I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t think his life is quite as valuable as yours.”

Norris.

“What do you think about my offer, Keo?” Pollard asked.

“I don’t think very much of it,” Keo said.

“Yes, well, it’s the best you’re going to get these days. Why don’t you take a few hours to think about it. Just think fast, though. Time is not on your side. Or Norris’s.”

“Five?”

“Five,” Pollard repeated. “Do we have a deal?”

“I don’t know. You sure your boys won’t put a bullet in me as soon as I stick my head out there? I just saw two of them shoot a couple of their own in cold blood.”

He thought Pollard might have sighed. Maybe the ex-officer had even done it for Keo’s benefit. “They’re civilians, unfortunately. We’ve done our best to train them, but as you probably know from your own personal experiences, there are people meant to carry guns, and people who bitch about them loudly on TV. I think we both know which group we belong to, don’t we?”

“You don’t know anything about me, Pollard.”

“Oh, I know plenty. Maybe not all the details, of course, but I know you and I were built for this new world. What were you before the shit hit the fan, Keo? A soldier? A mercenary?”

“Close, but no cigar.”

“When I was in military intelligence, I heard stories about private organizations that hired out to the highest bidder. Even the government spooks tread lightly around them. A few of them don’t even have names. Some just go by numbers.”

“Old wives’ tales,” Keo said. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter now. Not anymore. What you were then isn’t who you are now. Isn’t that right?”

Keo ignored the question and said instead, “Let me think about your offer.”

“You do that,” Pollard said. “You have until five to decide. Or until my men find you. Whichever comes first.”

“It’s awfully reasonable of you and doesn’t sound like the maniac who’s been stalking me for the last three months at all.”

Pollard laughed through the radio. “Five o’clock, Keo. You have until then before I put a bullet in the back of Norris’s head.”

The radio went silent.

Keo clipped it back to his hip and walked on.

He didn’t hear anything else through the radio for the next thirty minutes as he picked his way cautiously through the woods, making as little noise as possible. He stopped every now and then to listen for approaching footsteps. It didn’t surprise him that he couldn’t hear any more back and forth on the radio. Pollard had recalled his patrols, and they were getting the new frequency in person back at their base right now.

Pollard wasn’t a dummy. Far from it. Which meant saving Norris had just gotten much, much harder. Not that it hadn’t been before, but now…well, now his chances
really
sucked. At least, if his goal was to save the ex-cop and get out of this alive.

That was, of course, the ideal outcome. A dead man couldn’t very well join Gillian at Santa Marie Island, could he?

His watch ticked to 2:25 
p.m.

Just a little more than five hours until nightfall, but less than three hours until Pollard ended Norris’s existence with a bullet to the back of the head. Keo didn’t doubt the man would do just that if he didn’t show up at five.

2:26 
p.m.

Running out of time…

He waited over
an hour before the first patrol finally stumbled across him. Keo watched them walking in front of him, oblivious to his presence. He didn’t blame them for not noticing. He hadn’t moved in over thirty minutes, and he wasn’t entirely certain his legs would react the way he wanted them to when the time came.

Fortunately when it was time his body responded just fine, and he pushed himself up with his left arm. His right was gripping the MP5SD, and Keo rose to his knees and took aim from behind the bush.

Two men. Black-clad. Army boots. Assault rifles in front of them.

They had been very quiet, and he wouldn’t have heard them coming if they hadn’t been walking less than ten meters from where he was lying. He couldn’t see their faces, and frankly, he wasn’t interested in finding out what they looked like. He had learned long ago that it was easier to kill a man when you didn’t bother learning his life story.

He shot the first one in the back of the head, the sound of his gunshot equal to that of a cough, but still loud enough to make a bird above him take flight. There was no echo, which was the point of having a built-in suppressor.

As the man collapsed, Keo swiveled to the right and shot the second one in the throat. He was aiming for the head, but the man was in the process of going into a crouch when he saw his buddy go down. A throat shot was just as good, though, and the man was bleeding and gagging as he sank to his knees.

Keo rushed forward, checking around him for signs of another patrol. When he was sure there wasn’t one more in the area, he returned his attention to the two men. One was on the ground on his stomach while the other was on his back, still alive. Both of his hands were wrapped tightly around his throat, trying in vain to stop the blood gushing through his fingers.

He shot the man twice in the chest to put him out of his misery.

The second one had bled all over his clothes, which made him a lost cause. The first one, except for the hole in the back of his head, was for the most part spotless. Keo did his best to ignore the blood trickling out of the man’s forehead, where the 9mm round had exited, as he stripped him of his assault vest, then shirt, pants, and boots.

Even as he swapped out his T-shirt and pants for the dead man’s clothes, Keo wasn’t entirely convinced just looking the part was going to get him any closer to Pollard without being shot on sight. After all, the two in the last patrol had gunned down both Fiona and Rupert anyway, even though they were clearly dressed as one of them. Still, having something that could
potentially
be an advantage was better than nothing. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself.

He collected the two dead men’s weapons—identical M16s, neither one with any sort of mounted optic. Which likely made these two part of Pollard’s more expendable soldiers. Hell, even Fiona and Rupert had the more mobile and fully-automatic M4s. The M16s were old and clunky and only capable of three-round burst firing.

This is where Norris would grunt and say something like, “If we didn’t have bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

Norris. He had to save Norris. Whatever happened from this moment on, he had to at least try. He owed the old-timer that much.

Keo tossed one of the M16s and slung the other one, then shoved a couple of spare magazines into his pack. Any more and the bag would be too heavy. Right now, he needed mobility and speed.

He grabbed one of the radios and headed off, still moving west toward the shoreline. North would take him right into Pollard’s stronghold and likely the bulk of the man’s forces. West took him around the shoreline, and if he was lucky, he would be able to circle all the way around and approach the park visitors’ building from the rear without being seen.

If
being the operative word, of course.

*

He thought about
Gillian, sitting on the beach on Santa Marie Island in the Gulf of Mexico, just off Galveston, Texas. Long black hair glistening under the oppressive southwest heat. Soaking her toes in the cool water and smiling. Bright green eyes looking out at the ocean, waiting for a boat to arrive.

He would be on that boat.

And all he had to do to make that happen was survive today, then find a small enough boat that he could sail with just two people. A sailboat like Mark’s, so they wouldn’t need to scrounge up fuel for a motor.

Yeah, shouldn’t be too hard.

It took him until almost four in the afternoon to circle the park, using the western shoreline as a guide. Having to stay as far away from the roads, the parking lots, and the camping spots as possible contributed to the ticking clock. Robertson Park was ninety-five percent woods and five percent civilization, so it didn’t take a lot of effort to stay hidden; it just took a lot of time. That, unfortunately, was something he didn’t have in abundance these days, but today in particular.

He knew he was close when he started hearing the roar of ATVs. He went into a crouch beside a large tree as the sound got louder. He didn’t have to wait long before three men on all-terrain vehicles appeared across the wide main road, which led into the park and curved its way through the woods.

All three riders were wearing green and black paint over their faces, the barrels of rifles jutting out behind their shoulders. He was surprised to see them riding one-to-a-bike and not doubling up. He wondered what they would do if he stepped out into the road now and picked them off one by one.

But that was a moot point, because the vehicles soon disappeared south down the road, leaving thick, swirling clouds of dust in their wake. They looked as if they were in a hurry and knew where they were going instead of just patrolling. Well, he had left two bodies
somewhere
down in that direction…

He glanced at his watch: 4:15 
p.m.