Savage (Jack Sigler / Chess Team) Read online

  Queen gave a three count, and at the word “Go!” both she and Rook laid down covering fire while Mulamba clambered over the rail and dropped to the ground.

  “Your turn!” Rook shouted. He triggered another burst as she rolled over the rail. For a moment, she caught sight of Mulamba, on the ground and looking dazed, and then she hit. The impact jolted through her, sending a throb of pain up from the soles of her feet to her knees, but she remembered her own advice and tucked into a roll to reduce some of the effect. She came up searching for a target, saw movement and fired.

  Rook landed beside her and rolled into a crouch, sweeping the barrel of his Skorpion back and forth, looking for someone to shoot. When no return fire came, he pivoted and scooped Mulamba off the ground. Queen turned in the direction of the parked car and ran. Rook stayed right behind her, half-dragging Mulamba.

  Smoke billowed from every window of the farmhouse, obscuring everything to either side, but she could hear distant shouts and then the report of machine pistols. The mercenaries that had been covering the rear of the house were coming around to join the fight.

  Queen rounded the front end of the vehicle, finger poised on the trigger of her SIG, but found only sprawled bodies. At least that much had gone in their favor. Rook and Mulamba ducked down next to her, and as Rook fired blind into the smoke, Queen tried the door.

  Unlocked.

  She crawled inside and a quick search revealed a key under the driver’s side floor mat. She slotted it into the ignition and gave it a turn. The engine turned over almost right away, but as it settled into an idle, she could hear a rattling noise. Some of Rook’s shots had perforated the hood and found their way into the car’s mechanical guts. It was running, but there was no telling how long it would continue to do so.

  The window above her shattered, spraying her with glass fragments, but she stayed focused on the task of contorting her body into the driver’s seat while keeping her head down. Rook fired out the Skorpion, and then tossed Mulamba into the backseat.

  “We’re in! Punch it!”

  Bullets hammered into the car, drilling right through the metal panels. Queen winced as a fragment dug into her right thigh, but she didn’t let off on the accelerator. The car fishtailed a little as she wheeled it around, throwing up a spray of gravel, and then she straightened it out, aiming for the driveway.

  The rattling noise from the engine intensified to an earsplitting crescendo and the smell of burning metal filled the interior of the vehicle. Indicator lights on the console flashed, telling her what she already knew: this was going to be a short ride.

  The noise of the engine tearing itself apart nearly drowned out every other sound, but Queen realized that she no longer heard the distinctive crack of rounds striking the car. She raised her head and saw that they were almost to the end of the drive. A glance back showed the farmhouse, fully wreathed in smoke and fire. She also saw a pick-up truck, loaded with armed mercenaries, rolling out from behind the curtain of flame.

  Queen eased off the gas a little to make the turn onto the road, but when she pressed it again, the response was sluggish. She floored the pedal, but the engine continued to clatter.

  Their rented sedan was a tiny speck in the distance, perhaps five hundred yards away. “Come on,” she said, willing the car to hold together just a little bit longer, but the universe rejected her plea. The engine gave a final sickening thunk, and the clattering ceased altogether, plunging them into near total silence.

  “Stay with Joe!” Rook shouted, and he was out the door before the car could come to a complete stop. He bolted toward their car, running all-out like an Olympic sprinter.

  Queen had no intention of leaving Mulamba behind, but staying with him wasn’t the same as staying put. She threw her door open and swung out of the seat, only remembering the wound in her thigh when the first step sent a stab of pain through her entire leg.

  Pain she could handle, but the tissue damage was another story. The bullet fragment had gouged into her quadriceps, and now the entire muscle was inflamed. She steadied herself against the car, ignored the agony and begged her muscles to keep going just as she had pleaded with the engine a moment before. Unlike the car, her body listened.

  Mulamba, still in a daze, was slow to exit, but as soon as his door was open, Queen grabbed his arm and dragged him along. Her leg throbbed with every step, threatening to collapse beneath her, but through sheer force of will, she stayed on her feet and kept moving, almost faster than Mulamba could manage.

  Behind them, perhaps two hundred yards away, the pick-up full of mercenaries burst out of the driveway and skidded onto the road. Queen reached back and fired the SIG, emptying the magazine. The truck was well outside the effective range of the pistol, but Queen wasn’t shooting in hopes of hitting someone. She was just trying to buy them a few more seconds.

  She saw Rook reach the car and yank the door open…the left door. Wrong side, Rook. He threw his head back and shouted, “Friggin’ backwards England!” She heard him despite the distance, and for a second, she wondered why his curse hadn’t come through on the comm link, but then she remembered that he had sacrificed his glasses during the escape.

  Rook didn’t let his frustration slow him down. He leaped across the hood and got in on the right side. A moment later, the car’s tail lights flashed and its backup lights came on. A cloud of rubber smoke rose up and half a second later, she heard the squeal of tires, time delayed because of the distance the sound had to travel.

  This is going to be close, she realized. She and Mulamba were at the mid-point between the sedan and the pick-up full of mercenaries. The latter had the advantage of moving forward and a higher range of acceleration, but as long as they were moving away from it and toward Rook, there was a chance. She considered trying to reload the SIG, but wasn’t sure that she could juggle one more task.

  Move your ass, Rook!

  She started and nearly tripped as a loud report sounded right behind her. It wasn’t the mercenaries, but Mulamba, firing the Skorpion Rook had given him. He let off two long bursts and more than a few of his rounds found their target, sparking off the truck’s hood, shattering the headlights and windshield. The pick-up swerved and slowed, and Queen thought maybe he had hit the driver as well.

  Another shriek of tires and grinding brakes signaled Rook’s arrival. He had swerved out into the road at the last second, and now idled beside them. Queen got the rear door open, pushed Mulamba in, and then climbed in after.

  “Go!”

  Rook was already going, accelerating down the straightaway as fast as the car would go, not exactly street-racer fast, but enough. “And remember to drive on the left!”

  Rook muttered a curse, and Queen felt the car swerve into the other lane. Behind them, the pick-up was starting to move forward again, but Mulamba’s volley had definitely taken the wind out of their sails, and Rook was able to increase their lead to the point where it was clear that the mercenaries had given up the chase. A few minutes later, they passed a string of emergency vehicles—police cars and fire trucks—responding to the towering column of black smoke, and Rook slowed to a less conspicuous pace.

  “Well, that didn’t quite go according to plan,” he said, “but I think we’re clear.”

  Queen finally allowed herself to breathe normally. She widened the hole in her blood-soaked jeans to fully expose the injury that now throbbed in time with her heartbeat. At the center of the oozing wound was a piece of dark metal that looked almost like a tiny shark tooth. She massaged the surrounding tissue until it was close enough to the surface for her pluck it out with her fingernails. She would need stitches to close it, but that would have to wait a while longer.

  She glanced over at Mulamba. “Are you all right? Any injuries?”

  The Congolese president stared back at her for a moment as if uncomprehending, but then broke into a broad smile. “I am free! Thank you, thank you so much.”

  Rook looked over his shoulder. “Introductions
all around. Joe, Queen…Queen, Joe.”

  “Queen? That is your name? And he is Rook? I see now. You are chess pieces. And I must be the king you are meant to protect.”

  Rook laughed aloud, and Queen found herself chuckling, not so much at Mulamba’s mistake as at the idea of King needing protection. “Not quite, Mr. President…Joe. But we are going to make sure you get back home safely. No offense, but things have gone completely to shit since you’ve been away.”

  “No offense taken.” Mulamba’s elated smile slipped a little. “If I am truthful, things there were completely shit before I left. That is what I have been trying to change.”

  Queen nodded, but she was only half-listening. She held a hand to her ear, as if keying a concealed microphone and spoke aloud. “Blue, we need transport to the Congo.”

  She was hoping to hear him say that Crescent II was already on the way. At Mach two, they could have Mulamba back in his office in Kinshasa by dinnertime, and that would be the end of it. But Deep Blue never got the chance to say it.

  “No!” Mulamba cried. “I cannot go back. Not yet.”

  Queen worked her jaw, trying very hard to stay calm. “Mr. President, maybe you didn’t understand what I just said. Your country is on the brink of civil war. If you don’t go back, millions of people will die—your people.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “Even I cannot prevent that now. I must go to Belgium.”

  “Listen, we just put our asses on the line to get you out of that place back there. Our friends are in your country, knee deep in it so that you’ll have somewhere to go back to. So don’t tell me it’s too late.”

  Deep Blue’s voice sounded in her head. “He might not be wrong, Queen. Things have taken a turn for the worse.”

  Queen clenched her teeth, but before she could reply to either man, Rook spoke up. “What’s in Belgium? I mean aside from the world’s best waffles.”

  Mulamba, evidently excited at the prospect of being able to tell his story, leaned forward, sticking his head over the back of the passenger seat. “In Belgium, I hope to find the truth about what happened on the day that Henry Morton Stanley found Dr. David Livingstone.”

  “And why is that so important?”

  Mulamba’s voice dropped to a hushed, almost reverent whisper. “Dr. Livingstone found something in his journeys. Something of which the world has no knowledge. Something that will save Africa.”

  16

  Near Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  Bishop’s awareness returned in a jumble of disconnected pieces. His perceptions made no sense without the context of memories, which at the moment, were elusive.

  Hot, humid air, reeking of rot and smoke…a jungle…Africa. Why?

  A dark-skinned woman lay a few feet away…Felice, her name is Felice, but how do I know that? A man lay motionless just beyond her. Knight. Why isn’t he moving? A ringing in his ears from the explosion… Explosion? The mortar shells… Someone had been dropping mortars on them.

  The pieces came together in a rush that was almost painful in its urgency. He scrambled up, then almost collapsed as a wave of dizziness washed over him. The head rush, brought on by the effect of gravity pulling blood away from his brain, passed after a moment, and he saw, thirty yards beyond Knight, an enormous crater, still smoking from the shell that had detonated there just a few seconds earlier.

  He didn’t know why the attacking force was not still raining hell down on them, but he wasn’t going to wait around for them to realize their mistake. He scooped Felice up with one hand, throwing her over his shoulder like a bag full of laundry, then hoisted Knight onto the other shoulder, and took off running toward the green wall of jungle.

  Shots sounded behind him. Tree branches and leaves disintegrated as bullets tore through. That at least explained why there hadn’t been any more mortars. The rebels, believing that the first volley had accomplished its intended purpose, had stopped firing and sent out a party to investigate. Bishop kept running, pushing through a tangle of vegetation that tore at his arms and legs and threatened to pull the human cargo off his shoulders, but he fought through, and after a moment, he found himself in the relative openness of the forest floor.

  The tree branches were spaced widely enough for him to move unimpeded. High above, the foliage grew together to form a ceiling that shut out nearly all sunlight, leaving the jungle floor as dark as dusk. Bishop now understood why Africa, with a sun-scorched desert that was bigger than the entire United States, and endless miles of open grasslands, had earned the nickname ‘the dark continent.’

  He could no longer hear the report of rebel guns behind him, but he didn’t mistake that for safety. They might have stopped shooting so they could chase him down. In the eternal night beneath the jungle canopy, it was difficult to tell whether he was being followed, but he had to assume that he was, so he kept running as if the hounds of Hell were biting at his heels.

  He gradually became aware of an insistent pounding against his back. At first, he assumed that it was his M240B machine gun on its thick nylon web sling, swinging back and forth in time with his footsteps, and he tried to ignore it. Finally, when the beating grew more insistent, he stopped to shift his load, and that was when he realized the sensation wasn’t coming from his gear.

  “Put me down.” The words were grunted, breathless and not at all familiar. It wasn’t Knight. Felice? “I can walk. Put me down.”

  Bishop peered into the darkness behind them. There was no sign of pursuit. He knelt cautiously until the soles of Felice’s shoes brushed the ground, and then he released his hold on her legs. She kicked like a swimmer until her feet found purchase. She wobbled unsteadily and caught herself on his shoulder.

  “You okay?” Bishop’s voice sounded strange in his own ears, as though his head had been stuffed with sawdust. It occurred to him that the exploding mortar shells might have rung his bell a little harder than he realized.

  Felice looked herself over. Her dark skin was painted with a lighter-colored coating of sticky dust, and beneath her torn clothing were too many scrapes and abrasions to count, but the amount of blood staining the fabric suggested the injuries were only minor.

  A fresh wave of realization washed over him. In his desperate panic to get away from the besieged camp, he hadn’t stopped to assess what damage he had taken. He wasn’t feeling much pain—just the ache of the exertion and a mild headache, but he knew that sometimes adrenaline had a way of masking serious injury. A glance up and down his extremities showed numerous small tears and scorch marks on his BDUs, and underneath a lot of bloody scratches, but as with Felice, none of it looked serious. Then he remembered. “Knight!”

  Knight had been closer to the blast.

  Bishop gently shifted his teammate off his shoulder and laid him on the ground. Knight didn’t stir.

  A cold knot of fear clenched Bishop’s gut. He laid a hand on Knight’s chest, felt the faint rise and fall with each shallow breath.

  Still alive.

  Then he got a look at Knight’s face and the dread exploded into a horror like nothing Bishop had ever felt before. The emotion tore from his throat in a howl that startled birds and monkeys in the branches high overhead, and in an instant, the jungle descended into a cacophony of primal rage.

  17

  Felice let out a cry of her own and clapped her hands over her ears as the bestial roar reached a fever pitch. The big man that had rescued her from the attack looked like something from a movie—a human transforming into a werewolf before her very eyes.

  She knew what that felt like.

  Darting forward, she reached out and slapped him.

  It was like hitting a skyscraper. Her palm cracked loudly against his skin, and pain shot all the way to her elbow. His howl became a snarl of animal fury as he turned on her, and in that instant, she knew he was going to kill her.

  But he didn’t. He remained where he was, kneeling, hands raised and fingers curled like claws, teeth bared and ch
est heaving as he breathed.

  “He needs you!” She tried to shout it, but the words clung to her throat like molasses. She searched her memory for something that would get through to him…a name. Knight. He called him Knight. “Knight needs you!”

  A glimmer of humanity flashed in the man’s eyes, and with what seemed like a superhuman effort, he swallowed down his rage. His fingers straightened and then his hands fell to his side. For a few seconds, he remained that way, statue still except for his rapid breathing.

  Felice was panting, too, but forced herself to move. She circled around so that the supine Knight lay between the big man and herself. She knelt and assessed the unconscious man’s injuries. She quickly saw why the bigger man had reacted the way he had.

  The left side of Knight’s face was a mess of swollen and scorched flesh, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Something ragged and misshapen, a piece of metal, protruded from the place where his eye should have been.

  Felice let out a gasp, but quickly got control of herself, lest her reaction push the big man back over the edge. She willed herself into a detached, meditative state, and bent over Knight, checking for other injuries that might be even more critical.

  His left side had taken the brunt of the mortar blast. There were more chunks of metal embedded in his upper arm. The entire limb was swollen, but the wounds were only oozing blood. There didn’t appear to be any arterial bleeding or damage to his torso.

  “I need some water. And a first aid kit if you have it. We have to clean and dress these wounds.”

  The request seemed to pull the big man back from the precipice. He unslung his gear and weapons, and produced a small satchel. Inside was a collection of combat medical equipment, bandages and other supplies. He took out a plastic bag filled with clear liquid and passed it to her.

  In the darkness, she could not read what was written on the bag, but she assumed it was a saline solution or perhaps Ringer’s lactate. Either one would work just fine for irrigating Knight’s wounds. She bit off a corner, careful not to spill too much of its contents, and then directed a stream of the liquid onto Knight’s ravaged face.