Jamie Freveletti - Running Dark

“You see that?” Banner yelled to Rickell.

Rickell angled toward the vehicle.

Banner was a foot from the car when the men reached him. He swung around to face them. They were two swarthy-faced foreigners with undisguised hate in their dark eyes. One carried a knife. Banner tried to see if the other was armed, but the man’s hand was covered in shadow. The knife wielder stepped forward, his hand flying out to stab. Banner stepped off the line of attack, grabbed the man’s arm, holding it away from his body while he pulled back to punch the man with his right hand. The man tried to yank his arm out of Banner’s grasp. Banner held it tightly while he pistoned his fist into the man’s nose.

The sound of collapsing cartilage echoed through the narrow lane. The second man was on Banner, grabbing him around the neck, doing his best to haul Banner’s face down toward the pavement. He plunged a needle into Banner’s skin where the neck met the shoulder. Banner felt the surge of some unknown chemical enter his veins. His skin heated like it was on fire. It might have been adrenaline running in his system, but the force of it was unlike anything he’d felt before. He pulled out of the other man’s grasp with an ease he shouldn’t have possessed. The man had such a grip on Banner that the maneuver caused Banner’s flesh to twist as he wrenched his throat free. He felt his skin abrade from the friction, creating a burn across the back of his neck.

The Eroscenter door flew open, and the manager catapulted out of it with a policeman’s baton in his hand. He swung it in an arc, catching the first man across the arm that was still holding the knife. The attacker dropped the weapon with a cry of pain while blood poured out of his nose from Banner’s punch. He was off, running back down the lane. The second man released Banner in an instant. He sprinted away, following the other guy. Banner stood still, his breath heaving. The passenger door on the car opened, and Rickell stepped out. He gazed at Banner but remained silent.

“Are you okay?” the manager said. “I saw you being attacked. The camera recorded it.” He indicated the camera over the Eroscenter’s door. Before Banner could answer, Frau Kartiner stepped out of the entrance, a worried look on her face. Behind her hovered the young cocktail waitress.

Banner took a deep, steadying breath. The strange fizz ran through his veins, and his skin crawled. He wanted to continue fighting. When he saw Frau Kartiner, his urge to fight turned into something different. The force of his desire made his body heat up and his mouth go dry. He stared at her, unable to take his eyes off her.

Frau Kartiner’s eyebrows flew upward, and she took a step back. Color suffused her face. The cocktail waitress watched them both, but when she saw Frau Kartiner’s face redden, she bestowed a fascinated look on her boss. The manager stared, too.

“Are you injured?” Frau Kartiner’s voice was a whisper. Banner didn’t trust himself to speak. What he needed was for her to move away.

“Thank you,” Rickell said. The waitress and the manager turned to acknowledge him. Banner and Kartiner stayed frozen. “We’ll be going now. Banner?” Rickell prodded Banner.

Banner swallowed a dry gulp. “I owe you all.” He was surprised at how normal his voice sounded.

Frau Kartiner’s face relaxed. She smiled a genuine smile. “You be careful. You are welcome. Anytime.” She emphasized the “Anytime.”

Banner slid into the driver’s seat, put on his belt, and drove out of the narrow lane. After a minute of silence, while he negotiated his way through the busy area, Rickell shifted.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“We’ve been poisoned.”

Rickell was silent so long that Banner thought he didn’t hear him.

“What are the effects?” he said at last.

“I’m not sure. Some sort of heightened fight-or-flight response. Old behaviors renewed—it’s why you gambled. Emma Caldridge, the chemist we’re using for the cruise-line rescue, thought maybe it was an adrenaline by-product, or a dopamine enhancer, she wasn’t sure.”

“Was she poisoned, too?”

“Yes. As were Cooley, you, and now me. You have a jet at your disposal?”

“I fly commercial. Why?”

“I need to fly to Berbera, and I need the Redoubtable to pick me up.”

“You found the cruise liner?”

“We did. It’s under attack, but well outside the zone. We need to finish this thing.”

Rickell hesitated.

“Don’t give me any more international-law craziness. It’s outside the zone. The insurgents can’t reach it for the moment. Please arrange for the Redoubtable to send a helicopter to take me the rest of the way. It’s about time we shut this whole pirate crew down.”

“You had some intelligence about this ship before it sailed, didn’t you?”

Banner nodded. “But it was incomplete. The German conglomerate that owned the ship thought maybe one of the crew was dealing drugs from various ports. We heard that a group of European arms traders were on the ship in preparation to attend an auction to buy some more product. I borrowed an agent from the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense Agency to sail with the ship.”

“Who?”

“Cameron Sumner.”

“The Colombian disaster.”

Banner sighed. “I wish everyone would stop saying that. The Colombian thing is over. We did nothing wrong.”

Rickell nodded. “I know. I’ll help wrap that up when I get back.”

They drove for a while, Banner navigating the narrow streets to hit the main road to the airport. He heard Rickell chuckle.

“I was losing that game, but I was ahead overall. For the first time ever, I was ahead. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have put it all back on the table. But thanks to you I’m ahead. It’s a good way to go out.”

A half hour later, Banner pulled the car up to a spot on a road near the runway at the Frankfurt airport. He killed the engine and sat in the silence.

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to know that the gambling returned because of a poisoning,” Rickell said. “Have you ever had an impulse that you couldn’t control?”

Banner thought about the moment he’d wanted to continue fighting, and when he stared at Frau Kartiner. He’d controlled himself, but just barely.

“No, but I’ve been close,” he said.

“Well, it’s a frightening thing when your body craves what your mind rejects.”

Banner didn’t reply.

Rickell reached for the door. “Thank you for getting me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t die out there.”

Rickell slammed the door and walked away.

50

BANNER’S PHONE RANG TEN MINUTES AFTER HE LANDED IN BERBERA,Somalia. He glanced at the readout. The number listed was unfamiliar. He punched the green button.

“Banner here.”

“It is Giovanni Roducci.”

Banner snapped to attention. Roducci wouldn’t call him if he’d had an opportunity to speak to Stromeyer. Something was up. “Yes?”

“I have just learned that both you and Major Stromeyer may be targeted for death.”

Banner did his best not to let his mouth drop open. “Who’s targeting us?”

“A man called the Vulture. He is a corporate raider from Europe. Lots of money that he spreads around. No one really knows his true identity, because he operates out of a tangled mass of offshore shell corporations, but it is believed his influence reaches into the highest levels of society. Unfortunately, he uses the influence to harm those who get in his way.”

“How have I gotten in his way?”

“You haven’t. You got in the way of a Somali warlord. This warlord cut a deal that included wiping Darkview off the planet.”