Season Of The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 1) (13 page)

One
down
, he thought grimly.
Two to go
.

Jack brought the Saiga to his
shoulder before quickly peering over the counter and catching sight
of Boardman. The big man was pointing his weapon down at the floor,
trying to take aim at the writhing mass of fur, claws, and teeth
that was Alexander, still latched onto Sansone’s face. A detached
part of Jack’s mind was surprised: there should have been blood
everywhere from the mauling the cat must have been giving the
woman, but there was none. None at all.

Boardman saw Jack and brought up his
Uzi, pulling the trigger before he was on-target and sending a
stream of bullets plowing into the wall on the living room side of
the counter. Jack pulled the Saiga’s trigger, and Boardman was
flung backward, the Uzi spinning out of his grip as he somersaulted
over the couch.

So, they
are
wearing body
armor
, Jack thought absently as Boardman
struggled to his knees, gasping, before Jack finished him off with
a second round, the flechettes penetrating the weakened chest
armor. Boardman slammed against the front wall of the living room
before falling over on his side, dead.

Jack ran quickly into the living
room, swapping the half-empty magazine for the fresh one as he
went. Alexander fled past him, back into the kitchen, finally
having had enough of Sansone. He was limping badly, but otherwise
seemed unharmed. Jack brought up the shotgun as he turned the
corner into the living room, and was stunned to see Sansone
standing right in front of him, her blue eyes blazing with
unbridled rage. He was shocked to see that there wasn’t a scratch
on her, which was simply impossible. He knew from painful
experience – mostly accidental on Alexander’s part – that the cat’s
claws, not to mention his teeth, were long and incredibly sharp.
Sansone’s face should have been little more than a bloody,
lacerated rag.

With her standing less than three
feet away, his shotgun leveled at her abdomen, Jack fired. Sansone
bent double, as if a massive hammer had hit her in the stomach and
sent her flying. She tumbled over one of the armchairs and rolled
to a stop against the hearth of the fireplace.

Keeping the gun trained on her, Jack
was moving in closer when she began to slowly sit up.

No goddamn
way
, he thought. He could tell from the
patch of skin under her blouse, visible now beneath the shredded
FBI jacket, that she wasn’t wearing body armor. And there was still
no blood, no sign of injury.

With the weapon’s muzzle aimed dead
center between her breasts, he fired again. The impact slammed her
body back against the stone hearth.

She slumped forward and lay
still.

Jack stood there,
shaking from the adrenaline rush, feeling like he was going to
vomit.
You’ll have time for that
later
, he told himself. Keeping the Saiga
pointed at Sansone’s body, he slowly moved forward, then reached
out with a foot to kick her over and get a better
look.

He yelped in surprise as she grabbed
his ankle with both hands and levered him backward. Firing by
reflex, nearly blowing his own foot off, he missed hitting her in
the face by inches and instead blasted a chunk of stone out of the
fireplace.

Jack screamed as her grip on his
ankle tightened so much that he was afraid the bones would snap.
Then he found himself flying across the living room. He landed hard
on the coffee table, losing the shotgun as his gun hand slammed
into the table’s edge. He slid to the floor in a cascade of
magazines and photo books as Sansone stood up.

This is
impossible
, his mind gibbered at him as
she moved toward him, the skin of her breasts clearly visible
through her tattered FBI jacket and blouse. He looked desperately
for the shotgun, but it was on the far side of the coffee table,
out of reach.
Run, you
moron!

Jack scrabbled backward, then turned
and ran for the front door just as the living room picture window
imploded, sending shards of glass flying through the room. Jack
tripped and went down, banging his head against the wall near the
door. Stunned, he rolled over in time to see two dark human shapes
somersault through the window and roll to their feet, facing
Sansone.

One fired a shotgun, blasting her
back against the counter, before the other newcomer leaped on top
of her and jabbed a stun baton, the tip flickering like lightning,
into her gut.

Even as deaf as he was from the gun
battle, Jack could hear Sansone’s unearthly screech again, far
louder than it had been when Alexander had attacked her. He saw her
body go rigid, and the man with the shotgun quickly set it down.
Extracting a huge syringe from a plastic box strapped to his leg,
he held it over Sansone’s chest while the one with the shock baton
continued holding it against her skin, the flickering blue light
filling the room with its glow. Then, as if on a cue that Jack
couldn’t see, the man holding the syringe suddenly plunged the
three inch long hypodermic needle into her chest and pressed down
on the syringe’s plunger.

Sansone’s screeching abruptly
ceased, and her body lay still.

Jack, shaking like a leaf, slid
himself back against the wall into a sitting position. The floor
around him was slick with blood. His own, from the splinters in his
shoulder and glass cuts in his hands. Jesus, he thought. What the
hell?

The front door beside him suddenly
opened, and a third intruder entered his home. The black-clad
figure, this one clearly a woman from the shape of her body under
the tactical combat gear, knelt next to him. Looking at her eyes
through the black mask she wore, he saw that one was brown and the
other blue.

Naomi Perrault.

He didn’t know what to think. Had
she been involved in Sheldon’s and Jerri’s murders, or was she one
of the good guys? Or were there any good guys in this mad
affair?

“Perrault,” he said, “what the hell
is–”

In a smooth motion, she brought up a
stun baton, the same type as her compatriot had used on Sansone,
and jabbed Jack almost gently in the ribs before he could finish.
He cried out involuntarily as every muscle in his body went rigid,
completely paralyzing him.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” he heard her say
through the ringing in his ears from the gunfire. She took a
syringe from a small pouch attached to her combat webbing, then
jabbed it into his arm. He barely felt the sting. “This will put
you to sleep for a while. We’ve got to get you out of here
quickly.” She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll talk
soon. I promise.”

“Wait!” Jack gasped as his vision
began to turn gray. “In the kitchen...my jacket...photo...” Jack
struggled to make himself understood, and Perrault leaned closer.
“Photo...frame. Important...”

She nodded in understanding before
shouting something at one of the others. When she turned back to
him, he thought about how exotically beautiful her eyes were as he
floated away into darkness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Jack, can you hear me?”

Before Jack’s eyes fluttered open,
the memories of the fight with Sansone and the other two agents
came flooding back to him. A surge of adrenaline shot through his
veins, sending his heart into overdrive, his lungs gasping for air
as he began to panic.

“You’re okay,” a woman’s soft voice,
a voice he vaguely remembered hearing before, reassured him, and he
felt a warm hand gently squeeze his arm. “You’re safe. There’s
nothing to be afraid of.”

Turning his head – that’s all he
could move – Jack saw Naomi Perrault, looking almost exactly as she
had in the photograph Richards had sent him, sitting in a chair
beside him. Despite what he knew about her, and her likely
involvement in Sheldon’s death, the sight of her helped to calm
him. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.

Behind her were two men. One was a
tough-looking Korean who stood in a deceptively relaxed posture,
his powerful arms crossed and his dark eyes riveted on Jack. The
other was a tall, thin black man with a neatly cropped gray beard
that offset the baldness of his head. He looked extremely
intelligent and equally displeased as he looked at their
captive.

Flexing his hands and feet, Jack
found that he was bound to a double-size bed by thick leather
straps on his wrists, ankles, and chest. The room was small, maybe
ten feet on a side, with the walls painted light beige and the
ceiling in a slightly lighter tone. The floor was covered in blue
patterned vinyl tile, and a dresser and standalone wardrobe covered
in a light wood veneer stood along the wall next to the bed. For a
moment, Jack wondered if he was in a hospital, except that there
wasn’t any medical equipment in the room, and the bed, other than
the straps binding him, appeared to be quite ordinary.

There were some oddities about the
room, however. The first was the light hanging overhead: it was an
incandescent fixture that was unremarkable, except that it was
suspended from the ceiling by a sturdy-looking spring mechanism.
The second thing took him a moment to figure out, but he finally
realized that the rear wall of the room was curving inward, as if
he were inside a huge dome. The final thing that leaped out at him
was that the floor and walls of the room were edged with what
looked like some sort of rubber, at least six inches thick. They
looked like gigantic gaskets, separating the individual elements of
the structure. He’d never seen anything like it.

“Where am I?” he rasped, noticing
for the first time that his throat was painfully dry. “What the
hell’s going on?”

Before Naomi could say anything,
something big, black, and furry leaped up onto the bed, right onto
Jack’s stomach: Alexander, with his right rear leg wrapped in a
bright pink bandage.

“Oof!” Jack
exclaimed, the big cat nearly knocking the wind out of him. Despite
his predicament, he couldn’t help but be relieved: anyone who would
have gone to the trouble of saving Alexander, whom he was sure
would have been ready to claw the eyes out of anyone who came near
after his fight with Sansone, couldn’t be all bad. “You stupid
cat,” Jack said, smiling in spite of everything as Alexander curled
up on his chest, already purring. Jack looked up to see Naomi
smiling, and he quickly looked away as he felt a surge of warm
butterflies in his stomach.
Get a grip,
you idiot
, he chastised himself.
Now’s not the time for a bout of
infatuation
. “Thank you for bringing him,”
he mumbled. “He saved my life.” Looking back at Perrault, he added,
“Thanks for your warning. I got my shotgun ready like you said, but
I was expecting to use it on you.”

“Jack, if you give me your word of
honor that you won’t cause any trouble, I’ll have Tan,” she nodded
to the bodyguard type behind her, “let you up.”

Tan showed no reaction to Naomi’s
words, but the academic type next to him scowled. “As I told you
earlier, Naomi, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said
angrily.

With a tight smile at Jack, Naomi
said, “This is Dr. Gregg Thornton. He’s in charge of...this
place–”

“Damn right I am,” he
interjected.

“–
and we had a little
disagreement over how to deal with your situation. But we both
agreed that I would handle this,” she finished, turning to glare at
Thornton, who glared right back at her.

If this is a good
cop-bad cop routine
, Jack thought,
watching the two of them,
they’re either
really good, or really bad
. He still
wasn’t about to give out any trust points, but his instincts were
telling him that their argument wasn’t just for
show.

“You have my word,” he told Naomi,
but was looking at Thornton, “that I won’t try anything. For now.
But,” he went on, turning to meet Naomi’s gaze, “if I find out that
any of you were involved in any way with the murder of Sheldon
Crane or the explosion at the FBI lab at Quantico, I’ll tear your
guts out.”

“This is insane,” Thornton muttered
before stalking out of the room, slamming the door shut behind
him.

“What’s his problem?” Jack
asked.

Naomi only shook her head, then said
quietly, “Tan, let him up, please.” Without a word, Tan removed the
restraints, freeing Jack. Then he stood tensely next to Naomi,
watching Jack carefully. “Thank you, Tan. You can leave us, now,”
she said. He paused, uncertain. “It’s all right. I’m
fine.”

With nothing more than a slight
downturn of his mouth, Tan turned and quietly padded out of the
room, softly closing the door. Jack was sure that he was now
standing just outside.

“I know you have a lot of
questions,” Naomi told him, “and I promise that I’ll tell you
everything that I can.”

“How about we start with something
to drink,” Jack said, catching sight of a carafe of what he hoped
was water and a glass on a nightstand next to the bed. Alexander
got off him and curled up on the bed. “I feel like I haven’t had
anything to drink in a couple days.”