James Rollins: Bloodline

The machete flashed in the sunlight.

A gunshot cracked loudly.

The man crumpled backward, half his skull shattering away. The blade flew away harmlessly. Tucker stared at his pistol. The shot had not come from his weapon.

Up the street, a new trio appeared. Two men and a woman. Though dressed in street clothes, they all had the stamp of military about them. The leader in the center held a smoking SIG Sauer.

“See to him.” He pointed to the bleeding young man on the ground. His voice had a slight Texas accent. “Get him to a local hospital and we’ll rendezvous back at the evac point.”

Despite the concern about the injured man, the leader’s gaze never unlocked from Tucker’s eyes. From the hard contours of his face, the close-cropped black hair that had gone a bit lanky, and the stony edge to his storm-gray eyes, he was definitely military.

Likely ex- military.

Not good.

The leader crossed over to him, ignoring Kane’s wary growl. He offered a hand to help Tucker up.

“You’re a difficult man to find, Captain Wayne.”

Tucker bit back any surprise and ignored the offered hand. He stood on his own. “You were the ones following me. Earlier this morning.”

“And you lost us.” A hard twinkle of amusement brightened the man’s eyes. “Not an easy thing to do. That alone proves you’re the man we need.”

“Not interested.”

He turned, but the man stepped in front of him and blocked the way. A finger pointed at his chest, which only managed to irritate him further.

“Listen for one minute,” the man said, “then you’re free to go.”

Tucker stared down at the finger. The only reason he didn’t reach out and break it was that the man had saved Kane’s life a moment ago. He Owed him that much-and perhaps even a minute of his time.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The offending finger turned into an open palm, inviting a handshake. “Commander Gray Pierce. I work for an organization called sigma.”

Tucker scowled. “Never heard of it. That makes you what? Defense contractors, mercenaries?” He made his disdain for that last word plain.

That dark twinkle grew brighter as the other lowered his arm. “No. We work under the auspices of DARPA.”

Tucker frowned, but curiosity kept him listening. DARPA was the Defense Department’s research-and-development administration. What the hell was going on here?

“Perhaps we can discuss this in a quieter location,” the commander said.

By now, the man’s partners had gathered up the wounded young man, shouldered him between them, and were headed down the street. Faces had begun to peer out of windows or to peek from behind cracked-open doors. Other figures hovered at the corners. Zanzibar often turned a blind eye to most offenses, but the gunfire and bloodshed would not be ignored for long. As soon as they left, the bodies would be looted of anything of value, and any inquiries would be met with blank stares.

“I know a place,” Tucker said and led the way.

6:44 P.M.

Gray sipped a hot tea spiced with cardamom. He sat with Tucker Wayne on a rooftop deck overlooking the Indian Ocean. Across the waters, the triangular sails of old wooden dhows mixed with cargo ships and a smattering of tourist yachts. For the moment, they had the hotel’s tiny restaurant to themselves.

At the foot of the building, a small spice market rang and bustled, wafting up with a mélange of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, and countless other spices that had once lured sultans to this island and had fueled an active slave-trading industry. The island had exchanged hands many times, which was evident in its unique blend of Moorish, Middle Eastern, Indian, and African traditions. Around every corner, the city changed faces and remained impossible to categorize.

The same could be said for the stranger who was seated across the narrow table from him. Gray placed his cup of tea onto a cracked saucer. A heavy-bodied fly, drawn by the sweet tea, came lumbering down and landed on the table. It crawled toward his cup.

Gray swatted at it-but before his palm could strike the table, fingers caught his wrist, stopping him.

“Don’t,” Tucker said, then gently waved the fly off before returning to his thousand-yard stare out to sea.

Gray rubbed his wrist and watched the fly, oblivious to its salvation, buzz lazily away.

Tucker finally cleared his throat. “What do you want with me?”

Gray focused back on the matter at hand. He had read the former army ranger’s dossier en route to the Horn of Africa. Tucker was a superb dog handler, testing through the roof in regards to emotional empathy, which helped him bond with his subjects, sometimes too deeply. A psych evaluation attributed such a response to early-childhood trauma. Raised in North Dakota, he had been orphaned when his parents had been killed by a drunk driver when he was a toddler, leaving him in the care of his grandfather, who had a heart attack when Tucker was thirteen. From there, he’d been dumped into foster care until he petitioned for early emancipation at seventeen and joined the armed services. With such a chaotic, unstable upbringing, he seemed to have developed an affinity for animals more than humans.

Still, Gray sensed there was more to the man than just psychiatric evaluations and test scores. At his core, he remained a mystery. Like why he had abruptly left the service, disappearing immediately after being discharged, leaving behind a uniform full of medals, including a Purple Heart, earned after one of the nastiest firefights in Afghanistan-Operation anaconda at Takur Ghar.

Gray cut to the chase as time was running out. “Captain Wayne, during your military career, your expertise was extraction and rescue. Your commanding officer claimed there was none better.”

The man shrugged.

“You and your dog-”

“Kane,” Tucker interrupted. “His name’s Kane.”

A furry left ear pricked at his master’s voice. The small shepherd lay sprawled on the floor, looking drowsy, inattentive, but Gray knew better. His muzzle rested against the toe of Tucker’s boot, ready for any signal from his partner. Gray had read Kane’s dossier, too. The military war dog had a vocabulary of a thousand words, along with the knowledge of a hundred hand gestures. The two were bound together more intimately than any husband and wife-and together, with the dog’s heightened senses and ability to maneuver in places where men could not, the two were frighteningly efficient in the field.

Gray needed that expertise.

“There’s a mission,” he said. “You would be well paid.”

“Sorry. There’s not enough gold in Fort Knox.”

Gray had prepared for this attitude, readied for this eventuality. “Perhaps not, but when you left the service, you stole government property.”

Tucker faced him, his eyes going diamond-hard. In that gaze, Gray read the necessity to speak warily, to play the one card he had with great care.

Gray continued, “It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours to train a war-service dog.” He dared not even glance toward Kane; he kept his gaze fixed on Tucker.

“Those were my man-hours,” Tucker answered darkly. “I trained both Kane and Abel. And look what happened to Abel. This time around, it wasn’t Kane who killed Abel.”

Gray had read the brutal details in the files and avoided that minefield. “Still, Kane is government property, military hardware, a skilled combat tracker. Complete this mission and he is yours to keep, free and clear.”

Disgust curled a corner of Tucker’s lip. “No one owns Kane, commander. Not the U.S. government. Not Special Forces. Not even me.”

“Understood, but that’s our offer.”