The Gift of the Dragon (37 page)

Grant’s face went white, and his eyes snapped open as his brief daze passed. Suddenly, Jacob felt his ankle catch fire again as Grant’s free hand twisted it. Recoiling involuntarily, Jacob let up enough for Grant to throw him off and, gasping and a little unsteady, regain his feet. Jacob got up also, putting most of his weight on his right foot.
 

Grant had the wall behind him, and he put a foot up and kicked off it, slamming his shoulder into Jacob’s side. This blow knocked Jacob off balance and into the other wall of the small room.
 

Grant’s palm heel punched him in the chin, rocking his head back against the wall. Jacob managed to strike back hard with his left, slamming into Grant’s eye.
 

This gave Jacob enough time to grab the .45 and bring it up and point it directly between Grant’s eyes. Instinctively, Jacob shouted, “Freeze!”

Both Grant’s hands came up before Jacob could shoot, grabbing the gun between them and pulling it forward and to the side. Jacob fired, but the bullet went wide.

Realizing his rookie mistake, Jacob had no time for another action as Grant swept his foot and whirled his gun hand to his right. Grant then twisted the gun out of Jacob’s hand, reversed it, and then brought it around in a rapid backhand arc.
 

The gun barrel connected hard with the side of Jacob’s head, and the bad scene went black.

Callan

“So you don’t know what is on this tablet or how to open it. And you don’t know where Alice Sangerman is.”

“Right.”

“Then I have no more time for this unprofitable chat.” Callan’s knife flashed, and blood flowed from Laird Northwin’s throat. Choking, he tried one last time to break free from his chair, but the duct tape held. Blood poured down his grizzled chest, and Laird Northwin's last breath bubbled out of his neck. Callan did not stop with the knife. He pulled out his silenced pistol and emptied it into Northwin’s head, leaving nothing left but a bloody mass that looked like a ball of raw hamburger mixed with relish.

“Freak!” Jacob Castellan yelled, edging his chair away from the spreading pool of gore.

“Who, me? You will be the one who killed him, Jacob Castellan, ex-FBI agent, current drunk.”

“I’m undercover now, Grant. My people will be here soon, and you’ll be behind bars where you belong.”

“Your people, right. Northwin seems to have a lot of photos of you, Castellan. 'Seemed,' I guess I should say.” Callan tossed a folder on the table. “And all these articles about how you killed your sister looking for drugs.”

“That’s all part of my cover.”

Callan took a deep breath, remembering one of his favorite Clausewitz sayings:
Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind.
“Northwin is not my only source.” He sat down on the desk, facing Castellan and Northwin’s still-dripping body. “You have to decide now,” Callan made a show of looking at the open folder and tracing Castellan’s name with his finger, “Jacob. Do you want to end up like my old friend here?” Callan picked up the picture of Alice and Jacob on a boat, showing him the back. He read the note on the back, “Old wooden bridge, September 11. A few days ago, you were with Alice Sangerman. Where is she now?” Callan watched Jacob’s eyes intently as he said it. They were caged. Castellan knew where she was.

“She’s safe from
you
, bastard.”

Callan nodded. Get him talking. “I
am
a bastard, you know. My father was a Russian artilleryman. My name used to be Grabin. Dear old Dad passed through Mother’s village and left me behind. So how was she?”

“What?”

“I read here that Northwin’s boys found you and Alice all shacked up at your sister’s house. A handsome young man like you. Surely an old cougar such as Alice wouldn’t let you escape without a taste.”

“What are you talking about? You’re insane.”

Callan noted how Castellan’s eyes flickered during that exchange.
So something did happen between them.
 

“I’m insane? No, that won’t happen for many years yet. You, on the other hand, are a firm believer in many half-truths and several outright lies. Does that make you mad? Or merely stupid?”
 

Still watching Castellan’s eyes closely, he could tell the man had no idea what Callan’s words meant.
She didn’t tell him about
Andracia
.

Callan’s head throbbed where Castellan had pistol-whipped him. He decided to turn up the heat. He slammed the picture down on the table and shouted, “Stop lying to me! Where is she?” Callan punctuated his outburst by catching some of Castellan’s brown hair in his vise grips, and pulling a chunk out. That got him a somewhat satisfying yell of shock and pain.

They heard a sound outside in response. “Jacob!” someone shouted faintly. A woman. Castellan looked elated… then stricken.
 

“Ha! She came for you. Will
you
come when she calls you? That is the question.”

Jacob looked confused.

Callan slammed the heavy pliers against Jacob’s skull, stunning him. Then he slapped duct tape over Jacob’s mouth, wrapping it around his head to keep it in place.

Callan smiled. “No, I guess you won’t come. But don’t worry,
I
will!”
 

Alice
 

Alice woke up with a serious headache and asked herself what had happened. She remembered the sweet citrus taste of the Red Bull that Jacob brought her. And then nothing.
I fell asleep? After drinking a Red Bull? What is
wrong
with me?
 

“Jacob,” she called.
Where did he go?
She crawled out of bed and looked at herself in the mirror.
I look like a crazy woman!
Her hair stood up almost straight out, like a clown's. She didn’t want Jacob to see her like this, but she looked out of the bedroom anyway. The lights were off in the main room of the suite. “Jacob! You son of a bitch!”
 

If he had gone down to the
Endurance
alone, she would
kill
him.
If he isn’t already dead.

With her head foggy from sleep, Alice rushed from the room and then just before the door closed, she stuck her foot back to stop it. She looked insane. She needed to fix her hair. And she didn’t have a gun. Thorn’s gun should still be in her bag. She went to get it and then cursed when she found it. No bullets! Jacob must have taken the clip. Northwin would probably be armed. She would need some sort of weapon. And a place to put it, not these little Daisy Duke shorts she wore. She remembered there were army surplus combat pants in Jacob’s bag of dirty laundry. She grabbed the smallest pair. At least the bag contained
something
useful!

Alice went into the bathroom and changed into the pants. They were too big in the waist and short in the leg, but they had a drawstring that she tied tightly. They seemed as if they would stay up. The pants had a small inner pocket, where her iPhone fit perfectly.
Cool!
 

She found a twist tie and got her hair under control. Now she just needed
some
kind of weapon. She noticed the ball-shaped, black crystal faucet handles on the sink.
Better than nothing.
She unscrewed them. The heavy balls felt as though they weighed half a pound each. She took both and stuck them in her pockets and walked to the elevator. “Armed and
dangerous!
”

The ship looked deserted, but she smelled something like rusty metal as she vaulted over the side to the deck. She realized it was the smell of blood as she saw a man down in the light from the hotel.

The man’s head lay cut off, next to his bleeding neck.
 

The last of the fog left her head.

The
Endurance
had two decks in the center, the lower deck she stood on and an upper deck above that. She noticed a staircase in front of her, and she quietly crept up it to the second deck. She saw another shape dimly and approached it. Her heart beat like a drum, and she thought that if anyone were alive on this ship, they must be able to hear it.
 

As she got closer, she smelled blood again, mixed with the smell of excrement. This one got shot. And his head also lay there, cut from his body.
Who in the world does things like this?

Suddenly, she heard a shout of pain from the cabins behind the bridge in front and above her.
Jacob’s voice!

“Jacob!” she yelled and then realized she should not have. What if she alerted Northwin or his remaining men? What if someone from the shore heard her and called the police?
I want to deal with Northwin on my own!

Alice crouched down in the shadows of the mast of the ship, in the center of the deck, trying to hide. She pulled the crystal balls out of her pockets and held one in each hand.
 

She heard a door open up on the upper deck of the ship. “Alice!” The voice sounded familiar, but it didn’t belong to Jacob. She drew back into the shadows.

Alice heard nothing more for several minutes, and then she heard a sound behind her. A whisper. “Alice.”
 

She spun around and saw a man pointing a gun at her from the side of the deck about ten feet away. He hadn’t fired. Alice focused in on the man’s hand, and it seemed as if she was staring through a tunnel with the barrel of the gun at the end of it. Continuing her turning motion, she released a heavy, black crystal faucet handle. It flew true. She heard a loud crack as the ball hit the man’s gun, and it clattered to the deck.
 

“Bitch!” he shouted, pulling his hand back. She spun again and threw the second ball straight at his head as she rolled forward.

The man ducked the second ball with a fluid nod. Alice came out of her roll and stood up, her fists raised. The feeling of knowing what to do came over her again.
 

“Hello, Alice Sangerman. I’m Callan Grant.” As the man said the last word, she saw his leg move in a blur, and she barely blocked his vicious kick. Pain shot up her arms as she stopped the kick just short of her chin.
 

The man named Grant shook his gun hand as though it smarted. Otherwise, he seemed calm. “We’ve met before, Alice. I killed your friend Sara.”
 

 
“Keyah!” Alice shouted as she kicked at Grant’s midsection with her right leg. Grant blocked it, but Alice spun into the kick and fired her left leg at the same spot. Grant blocked that also. Alice continued her spin, leaping high into the air and striking with her right leg again, this time hitting Grant solidly on the side of his neck. The force of the blow enveloped her leg, and pain shot from her shin up to her own neck.
That must have hurt him!
Grant just shook his head and smiled at her.

Alice moved in then, her hands flying. First her right palm, then her left fired up at Grant’s face. He ducked her right, but her left hit with a solid smack. Again, she felt the shock of the hit roll up her arm. Grant still didn’t seem fazed. Alice danced in again, this time rolling in with her left forearm. Grant again ducked her, blocking. That set her up for a right, and she stiffened her fingers and drove the blade of her hand into his throat.

With incredible precision, Grant’s head came down, catching her hand between his chin and his collarbone. For a second she couldn’t pull it back. Then Grant’s right fist slammed into her open stomach and it felt as if all the air she had breathed in her life left her at once. Gasping, she stumbled backward, and Grant followed with a left foot to her chest, raising a star of blinding pain from her sternum. Her teeth clenched together on her cheek as what little air she had gasped in left her again. She tasted blood in her mouth.

Grant kept coming with his left foot shooting straight for her throat. She barely managed to get her hands up in time to block it. She heard the sharp crack before she felt the searing bite of her right pinkie finger breaking as Grant’s foot shot through her guard, striking her just below her throat, flipping her backward. She hit the deck so hard it felt as though her shoulders cracked, and the back of her head bounced a few times off the hard wood. She managed to get to her feet and back into a fighting stance with her arms up.
 

Grant faced her. He didn’t seem to be breathing hard, while Alice drew huge shaking breaths, trying to regain her control.
Get back to the center!

“Look, Alice dear, I’m still interested in only one thing. That necklace Sara gave you. You have it?”

Without thinking, Alice put her hand to her chest, where the necklace lay under her shirt.
 

Grant reached out, palm up. “Come on, save us both some time and you some pain. I’ll let your boyfriend up there go too. Just give me the little dragon.”

Sara’s face flashed before Alice’s eyes then, with the look she had that night by the falls. She seemed to be crying to Alice not to give it to Grant. “I’m not going to!” Alice said to Sara’s ghost. Then she realized she had said it aloud.
 

Callan

He glared at the bleeding, panting woman in front of him. Did she have the necklace, or didn’t she? She had acted as though she had it, patting her chest when he had mentioned it. Saying she would not give it to him. But could it be a ruse? Women could be devious when cornered. Sara, poor Sara, fooled him. Faith almost did. He
would
not be fooled again!
 

Be careful, Callan. Control your instincts.
If he killed her, he might never find the dragon necklace that must be the key to unlocking the encrypted files on his tablet. If she had hidden it somewhere, she might have told Castellan where.
 

Or she might be foolish enough to have worn it to this little dance tonight. He knew but one way to find out.
Stop fooling around!

Callan fired a kick at Alice and then another and another. She ducked the first two, but the third she blocked with both hands. He heard another bone crack. She shrieked.
 

“Another finger, Alice. That makes eight more to go, right? Give me the necklace!” He aimed another hard right kick at her. This one she ducked, and he couldn’t stop before his leg glanced off the mast of the ship. That hurt, but he trained hard, and he shook it off. He swung his leg back and around again, his long legs giving him the advantage over her shorter ones.