James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

Jack glanced to him. The question didn’t need to be acknowledged. They both knew what would happen afterward. Instead, he answered the question buried behind the other. “They’ll keep her alive at least for another day.”

Carlton joined him. “How do you know that, Agent Menard?”

“Because this was meant as a surgical strike. To get in and out fast. It didn’t turn out that way. With the deaths and all the mess here, they’ll retreat as far as possible before questioning her. Likely to their base of operations, wherever that might be.”

“I’d guess somewhere beyond the U.S. border,” Carlton stated.

“Why do you say that?” Jack asked. He suspected the same, but he wanted to hear the doctor’s estimation.

“What was done to those animals. The way they were treated. No lab on U.S. soil would be allowed to perform such abominations. But to circumvent such rules and regulations, American companies and corporations frequently set up clandestine labs just outside our borders. In Mexico, the Caribbean, South America. In fact, there are thousands of such unsanctioned labs around the world.”

Jack digested this information. He’d come to the same conclusion, mostly from the fact that the trawler had tried to enter the country through the bayou. It definitely had the feel of an attempted border crossing.

“So what do we do?” Kyle asked.

Jack faced the others, needing their cooperation. “If we’re right, Lorna’s best chance for survival hinges on the kidnappers’ continuing belief that we’re all dead. They’ll feel more secure, less panicked, if they think they’re holding the only witness. Can you all do that?”

He got nods all around, even from Zoë. Her eyes were puffy and red, but also raw with fury. Her grief had turned to a hard anger.

“Over here!” Randy called. He had run ahead of the others, following Burt’s bawl.

Jack hurried forward. He found the family hound circling a tall cypress, his tongue lolling, his tail high and proud.

Randy stood with his hands on his hips and stared up into the cypress. “What the hell did that old dog go and tree?”

Jack looked up into the branches.

Something stirred there, then called down threateningly and stridently.

“Igor!”

Jack took a step back in surprise.

Movement drew his eye elsewhere in the tree. A pair of small brown faces peered down at him through clusters of cypress needles. A feline hiss rose from another branch.

Jack gaped at the animals, trying to fathom this discovery. He’d assumed they were all killed in the fire.

“Lorna…” Zoë said, her eyes widening. “She must have released them before getting captured.”

Carlton stared up, both amazed and intrigued. “Bonded, they must have stuck together out here.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “I wonder if the terror of their flight bolstered that strange connection of theirs. Adrenaline flaming their neurons to a whole new level of synchronization.”

As the others spread around the tree Burt bumped into Jack’s leg, wanting acknowledgment. Jack now understood what had drawn the hound off into the woods. He remembered Lorna had used Burt to hunt for the cub’s littermate back in the bayou. And if Jack knew one thing about hounds, it was that they never lost their nose for a good scent.

Jack patted the hound on the side. “Good boy, Burt. Good boy.”

Kyle was not impressed. “What about Lorna? You’ve still not told us what your plan is to find her.”

“That’s because I didn’t have one.” Kyle’s face sank.

“But I do now,” Jack assured him.

For the first time since the power was cut off at ACRES, Jack felt a surge of confidence-not enough to wash away his bone-deep fear for Lorna, but it was enough.

“What do you mean?” Kyle pressed. “How are we going to find her?”

Jack pointed up the tree. “With their help.”

For once in her life, Lorna had no fear of flying. She stared at the sweep of sunlit blue water below the small plane. The sea stretched to the horizon in all directions, interrupted by a scatter of islands to the south. She felt no anxiety as the plane sped due south: no sweating palms, no palpitating heart.

She only felt numb.

Like a looped film reel, she kept picturing Jack’s truck exploding, followed a heartbeat later by ACRES disappearing into a hellish fireball.

All dead…

While she should fear for her own life at the moment, she felt nothing, hollowed out and empty. Even the pounding in her head seemed a distant thing. A goose-egg-size knot had grown behind her left ear. A vague ringing persisted on that side.

Tinnitus, she diagnosed, secondary to the injury.

They’d offered her a minimal amount of medical care, but mostly they’d been on the move. Her kidnappers had driven her to a clearing in the bayou. As the sun rose a helicopter had flown her to a waiting ship anchored beyond the barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico, then she’d been transferred onto a seaplane. They’d been in the air for over three hours, heading as near as she could tell into the western Caribbean, possibly toward Cuba.

She turned from the window as the man who had captured her ducked out of the cockpit into the main cabin. The plane sat six passengers and was luxuriously appointed in leather with mahogany accents. Whoever was financing this operation had deep financial pockets.

The man with the scarred face joined her and her two guards. He had showered aboard the ship, and his hair was fixed by gel into a greasy look. She studied the scars over his face and neck as if reading a map. He’d been attacked by some animal. Maybe a lion from the severity of his old injuries. He had never introduced himself, but she had heard one of the men call him Duncan.

He didn’t acknowledge her as he sat down next to a muscular man with a leathery face and red hair scalped into a military cut. He’d been assigned to watch over her. Not that there was much for him to do. Her hands were cuffed, but at least in her lap now. She had not offered any resistance. She was at their mercy, and so far they hadn’t treated her too roughly.

She figured she’d learn more by being compliant than by screaming and thrashing. Still, as Duncan joined them, that hollowness inside her began to fill with a burning vitriol. It dripped like bile into her heart and spread.

The bastard sat down, ignoring her. He turned to the redheaded commando. “Still no word from Daughtery. He should have reported in by now.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“When we get to the island, roust up some eyes and ears in New Orleans. I want to know what happened back there after we left.”

“Yes, sir. But you know Daughtery. Always a bit of a loose cannon. Probably ended up in the French Quarter. Got himself drunk on Bourbon Street and is sleeping it off with some whore.”

“If so, I’ll cut off his left nut the next time I see him.”

“Might not make a difference. To rein him in, you’ll have to cut ’em both off.”

Duncan acknowledged this by raising one eyebrow, as if seriously considering this option. He finally leaned back but looked little placated. His hard eyes gazed somewhere beyond the cabin of the seaplane.

She kept a sidelong watch on him, not trusting him.

He must have sensed her attention. Without moving a muscle, his gaze hardened on her.

With a sigh, he leaned forward. She noted the slack on the left side of his face, likely nerve damage. He reached to a pocket and slipped out a roll of tropical-flavored Life Savers and offered her one.

She shook her head.

He shrugged, popped one in his mouth, and sighed. “You impress me, Dr. Polk.”