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Authors: John Farris

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The Fury and the Terror (41 page)

BOOK: The Fury and the Terror
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"Muhammad Ali taught my brother, and Kieti showed me. He never could knock me out when we traded punches, but I floored him twice."

"Follow me and shoot anything that looks the least bit unfriendly."

"You mean like
that
?" Bertie said as the gryphon with Chauncey's small neat head rose from concealment behind the Ford Expedition, unfurling a seven-foot spread of wings in the stifling murk around them.

"An excellent example. What is it?"

"Put her down," Chauncey said. "And I'll let you live."

"Body of a lion, wings of an eagle, the face of an angel," Bertie said admiringly. "A one-woman menagerie. I forgot to mention, you smell worse than jackal shit." Bertie shouldered the rifle and said to Tom, "Where do I shoot this whatcha-call-it?"

"I've changed my mind about letting you live," Chauncey said, and launched herself at Bertie with outflung claws.

Bertie fired the first of two rounds from the double-barreled hunting rifle, breaking a wing. The gryphon's flight plan was canceled and it smashed facedown into a flowerbed ten feet from where Bertie was standing. Glared at Bertie through a loose garland of uprooted red and white petunias.

"Oh, you bitch," Chauncey said, trying to move the smashed wing, digging up more of the garden with her lion's claws as she crept forward, gathering herself for a leap. "But you only have one bullet left."

"Eat it," Bertie said, firing again. The heavy bullet tore through Chauncey's small neat mouth and exited in a sprayed mash of hindbrain. The gryphon collapsed.

"Let's go!"

Sherard, limping badly, carried Eden the rest of the way to the SUV. Bertie sprinted past him, got in behind the wheel. The engine was running. As soon as Sherard had Eden tucked inside they took off.

"Nice shooting," he commended her when he'd caught his breath. "Too bad we can't have it mounted; a gryphon would make a nice conversation piece at the old homestead." His hands were shaking. He looked back once, at the pall of smoke, and had a glimpse of creatures he couldn't identify gathering around the fallen gryphon. Lightning flashed over the bay as they drove around it. Rain beat down on the SUV. It was a dirt road, fast turning slippery, but they were in four-wheel drive.

"Will they come after us?" he asked Bertie.

"They probably stick close to home. We can only hope. What next?" Bertie asked, intent on her driving.

"Just put Moby Bay behind us. Do you know who or what they were?"

"Shape-shifters. Other than that, I'd have to get hold of one and delve into their genealogy. I'm not that interested. Tell me something. Is it normal to feel this horny after you've been in a bad scrape?"

Sherard laughed. "Is there any thought you're not willing to express?"

"To you, no."

"It's quite normal. First the adrenaline of fear, then the marvelous realization you haven't been killed. Then you want a smoke and a drink and above all you're driven by the survival instinct to—"

"Propagate the species.
Yes
."

"We're three now," Sherard reminded her.

"But Tom. I've waxed an old lady and a gryphon already today, my adrenaline is spouting through my ears, and—" she concluded in a querulous lisping voice, "Bertie wanth to get
laid
."

"We aren't out of this yet. Our priority is to locate a decent airport, lease a jet."

"Yes, sir." Bertie kept her eyes on the narrow empty road in the booming thunderstorm, sniffed a couple of times. Tears drained from her wide-open eyes. "I was just being smart-ass. Trying to keep my mind off ... certain things. Actually I'm exhausted and ready to scream."

"I know."

"And you keep making fists."

"I know."

"You shouldn't have given up tobacco. I don't really care, as long as you don't smoke in our house once ... we're ... married." She cried harder, loosing big gusty sobs in response to thunder above them and thunder in her heart. "If we live that long."

"We'll be okay. Maybe I should drive."

"I'm doing just fine, damn it!"

In the seat behind them Eden groaned softly, awakened by the rocking of the SUV on the twisty, unpaved road.

The mobile phone rang.

Sherard and Bertie glanced at each other. She wiped at one soggy eye, shuddered, and almost drove off the road.

"Shit!"

The phone continued to ring. Sherard rubbed his jaw, then shrugged and answered cryptically. He listened for a few moments.

"Yes. I know your voice. Yes. I understand." He glanced back at Eden. "We've bagged our limit on the license, and now we're on our way." Bertie looked worriedly at him. Sherard shook his head slightly, continued to listen. "I see. Very well. I'll want to confirm this, of course. Yes, there's a number I can call. Once I have verification you may expect us later tonight."

He put the digital phone back in its slot on the dashboard.

"Who was that?" Bertie asked.

"Senate Majority Leader Buck Hannafin. Forget about the airport. Looks as if we're staying in California. We'll head south, sticking to back roads for a while. When it's safe to do so we should stop. I have to find a pay phone to call Katharine."

CHAPTER 45
 

WASHINGTON, D.C. • MAY 28 • 10:42 P.M. EDT

 

"I
nteresting news," Rona Harvester said over the secure phone in her executive mansion study, which was decorated with Plains Indian artifacts and a painting of Rona mounted on the Appaloosa gelding Clint had given her for their fifth wedding anniversary. She had just returned from the Watergate hotel and hadn't kicked her shoes off yet. She had a fiery corn between two toes of her left foot. It had been giving her pure misery for the last hour and a half. "But what can we do with it?" she persisted.

"Probably nothing yet," Victor Wilding said cautiously.

"You gave me the impression we had Hyde by the balls."

"Only if some Air Force property was jeopardized today. Hyde committed serious breaches of procedure by grabbing those Conan stealth helos off their pads at Travis. They haven't been certified for active duty by the Pentagon. You know what those fucking helicopters cost; they'll be howling at High Command. But AG's on her third or fourth honeymoon with Hyde since he covered her ass before Judiciary on the Alfiero matter."

"Then it would be Clint's call, wouldn't it? I mean, of course, my call. And you know how I love squeezing big-time
cojones
."

"Careful, Rona. I'd like to be rid of him too, but he holds a lot of chits in this town. The Bureau's black files are as deep as our own."

Rona changed the subject but didn't abandon it. "So we know from the intercepted NSA satellite photos that Eden Waring is definitely in Moby Bay, California."

"Is, or was just a few hours ago. Positive ID. The Conans were last heard from en route to Moby Bay. They're long overdue back at Travis. According to the senior crew chief of the stealth wing, there were no provisions for a midflight refueling. The choppers would have been at bingo fuel no later than 1930 hours PDT. For the last couple of hours there's been a violent spring storm thrashing around that neck of the woods. No further coverage from the satellite has been received."

"What are the possibilities?"

"The helos are on the deck somewhere, sitting out the blow. Or else they got to Moby Bay, picked up the girl, made a run for it down the coast. An effective search can't be conducted before daybreak."

"I'm thinking about what happened to TRANSPAC 1850. I mean, what do we believe
really
happened?"

"According to the black box, something or someone was seriously fucking with the avionics. It seemed almost deliberate."

"Kelane Cheng. Her brain waves against a mere machine. No contest. What if Eden Waring has the power of Kelane? Aren't there psychics who can make it rain just by staring at some clouds?"

He didn't reply immediately. He was drinking something.

"Yes. A standard exercise in our training program."

"If Cheng could change the course of a DC-10, maybe Eden Waring could brew up a helluva storm to meet some incoming choppers. Maybe, nothing! I
love
this girl! I've got to meet her."

"She could be dead too, by now," he said, with a yawn that she took to be resignation.

"I don't think so. We're going to find her. Victor, if Bob Hyde is dead,
c'est la guerre
. But in case he pops up again, and empty-handed, I think we should have the ceremonial sword ready for him."

"Other than todaysh—
day's
—activities, the best thing we have on Hyde is that he likes an occasional golden shower from a teenager."

"And if a couple of dead stealth pilots turn up in the wreckage of those Conans?"

Wilding didn't answer immediately. Rona heard ice cubes chinking together in a glass as he swallowed.

"Then the Joint Chiefs will drag out the old rugged cross. Not even Allen Dunbar will be able to help Bob Hyde then."

"And Clint, I think, should do a brief TV appearance accepting with great sorrow the Director's resignation. How much time will you need to prepare that? Better make it a dark suit and subdued tie deal; you know, like for a funeral."

"Twenty-four hoursh"—he cleared his throat—"
hours
, give or take." Rona didn't miss the drag in his voice, the slurring.

"You don't sound too cheerful, lover." She was going to ask him what he was drinking, thought better of it.

"Tired is all."

"Damn, I wish we could be together tonight! But I've still got rows to hoe, probably won't catch more than twenty winks with Clint next door. I have to admit, having him back so close gives me the skin crawls. As if I'm about to be haunted."

"Not you. Nothing gets to you, Rona."

She didn't like that. Not that she felt insulted. It was the inference that he was down, way down, tonight. Focused on every waning heartbeat of Robin Sandza out there in Plenty Coups. Wilding himself was a young man in sound physical condition. All of his doctors agreed on that. But cases of otherwise healthy people dying from dread were documented in medical annals. No denying that Victor was, if not in a state of dread, sliding in that direction. Now what was she supposed to do? Any medication he took other than aspirin had debilitating side effects. The antidepressants unleashed extreme mania and violent paranoia, which during previous episodes had resulted in the purging of formerly trusted deputies at MORG. Right now Rona needed him stable and sane, strong in her purposes.

"Why don't you turn in, Victor? Tomorrow's a holiday, my schedule's light. We'll spend quality time together."

"Good. I'm going to read a little more, until I'm sleepy."

"What are you reading?" she asked carelessly.

"
Revelation
."

CHAPTER 46
 

BASKING ROCK AREA, CALIFORNIA • MAY 29-30 • 6:43 P.M. – 12:20 A.M. PDT

 

G
eoff had flown sixty miles down the northern California coast from Moby Bay when problems with the Conan helo's avionics forced him down. A finger cove afforded the only level strip of beach he could locate along this wild stretch of shorqline. The shadowed beach was part sand, part rock. He underestimated the length of the combat helicopter. The shrouded tail rotor struck a large boulder just before touchdown, and the helo tipped violently to port. The body of the headless pilot, which had been draped over the right-hand cockpit seat, was flung against him. Sparks from the rotors striking the rocks showered in through the hole in the window beside him.

Geoff cut the ignition, but within a few seconds there was a haze of smoke in the cockpit. He heaved the body off him, unbuckled, and tried the radio. It didn't work. He hoped that the emergency beacon, reporting the helo's location, was operating, but much of the cockpit instrumentation was unfamiliar. A small miracle he'd made it this far.

Robert Hyde, strapped down in the cabin, was bleeding from an ear and appeared semiconscious. Geoff got him out of the helicopter, went back to look for a medical kit and survival gear.

The ocean was alight but, the cove, with steep forested walls on three sides, had begun to darken. The tide was coming in. He judged from the high pile of driftwood and flotsam at the end of the cove that almost all of the beach would be underwater at high tide.

He returned with the supplies to where he'd left his father sitting with his back against a wave-polished chunk of driftwood. Robert Hyde looked up at him, although holding his head erect seemed to give him vertigo.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know, Dad."

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm okay. Broke a couple of teeth. How about you?"

"Headache. My head is ... feels mushy on this side."

Geoff looked at him. His father's hair was matted with blood above the trickling ear. "Better not touch it. They'll find us before long. We'll get you to a hospital. That may only be a scalp wound."

BOOK: The Fury and the Terror
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