Primary Valor, Jack Mars [black female authors .txt] 📗

shut andlooked at Ed. Even this close, Luke could barely see Ed’s face under the hat.

“Let’s go,” Ed said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

6:15 p.m. Central Standard Time (7:15 p.m. EasternStandard Time)

La Sierra de San Simon (St. Simon’s Saw)

Near Honduras

The Caribbean Sea

 

 

The heat was like an oven.

When the door opened, Darwin Kingstepped from the sleek private jet to the top of the stairway. The sun was farto the west, but it didn’t matter. He wore a handmade suit of summer linen, andthe air conditioning on the plane had let him forget how hot it could get hereon the island. He climbed down the narrow steps to the airstrip’s tarmac.

He held a satellite phone to hisear, listening to information that annoyed him. As soon as the plane’s wheelshad touched the ground, he was on the phone. He had an empire to run, andempires didn’t like to wait. The information annoyed him because he didn’tunderstand it yet. The man on the other end was talking too fast.

Darwin was a large man. He stoodabout six foot two, and he weighed 220 pounds. His shoulders were broad, andhis hands, his feet, all of his extremities, were huge. His head was big. Hisjaw protruded. Everything about him was big.

He liked to say that he inheritedhis father’s size and his mother’s good looks.

He was one of three passengersdisembarking from what had probably been designed as an eight- or ten-seater,but was now laid out like someone’s living room. The other two passengers werebig men like himself. One had dark hair and a goatee. One had a blond crewcut. Theirfaces were blank and impassive. They had hard eyes, devoid of things thatDarwin didn’t like—things like hesitancy, nuance, empathy. These men were hereto remain alert, and when the time came to act, to act without thought, orremorse, or judgment.

Darwin was fond of the Easternconcept of non-action. It didn’t mean not acting. It meant acting completely,naturally, without the emotional baggage humans liked to carry around. Think ofa lioness chasing down, killing, and eating a wounded gazelle.

The men were obviously youngerthan he was, and slightly larger, but those weren’t the only differences. Hiddenunder their sports jackets were shoulder holsters and handguns with high-capacitymagazines.

Bodyguards. Darwin King did notlike surprises, unless he was the one springing them. And on the rare occasionswhen he was surprised, he liked the surprise to be neutralized quickly.

“Tell me again,” he said into thetelephone. “But more slowly, and strip out all the nonsense this time.”

“The deal fell through,” a man’svoice said. “Our guys were there with the product. We were on time, in the appointedplace, everything we promised.”

Darwin pictured the product inquestion. Soviet-era mortars, anti-tank rounds, heat-seeking missiles. It wasgood stuff, still functional, and kept all these years in climate-controlledconditions. It was not up to date in the sense of being “smart,” of course. Thesewere not weapons with tiny high-tech brains, weapons that could think forthemselves. But the people who wanted them could barely think for themselves,either.

Darwin’s clients—Third Worlddespots, ragtag rebel militias, Central African security firms guardingprecious metal deposits in dense jungles—tended to live in the past. Theirworlds reminded Darwin of photographs he used to see in magazines during hischildhood in the late 1950s. The United States was surging into the space agefuture, while much of the human race stayed right where it had always been.

It was still there now. And itneeded weapons.

“And the client?” Darwin said.

“The bag man disappeared,” thevoice said. “Just gone. Never made it to the meeting place.”

“Any idea where he is?”

“No one seems to know,” the man’svoice said.

Darwin sighed. “He’d better bedead.”

“That’s what I told them.”

Darwin looked at the pale blue skyand sighed. The veins stuck out on his thick neck, and on his forehead. For amoment, it seemed like he could feel the blood pulsing through them. He took adeep breath. It could be stressful, running an empire. But so what? An empirerequired an effective, confident emperor, and he was that.

“What else?” he said.

“They think we did it.”

Darwin’s free hand balled into afist.

“They think…”

“Yes, that we disappeared theirbag man before he reached the meet.”

“And the money?”

“Yes.”

Darwin thought about it. Somethingunspoken began to dawn on him. A smile broke out on his face. He gave certainof his field lieutenants a great deal of latitude to seize opportunities. Itdepended on the client, and what the potential pushback was. In this case, theclient was weak, a disloyal politician with a long history of corruption, whowas trying to stockpile weapons for a run at the throne. The man’s position wasprecarious, to put it mildly. Who was he going to complain to, the UnitedNations?

“Did we?” Darwin said. “Did we dothat?”

There was no answer.

“Feel free to speak plainly,” hesaid.

Darwin had graduated from theplace where you had to be careful about what you said on the telephone. Let themlisten in all they wanted. He was above that station in life. He owned people,people who would do him favors, people who would protect him.

“Yes,” the voice said. “We did.”

Darwin almost laughed in delight. Along, quiet moment stretched out between him and the voice on the line. Darwincould almost hear the other man smiling as he delivered this news.

“Is the product safe?” Darwinsaid.

“We moved it to a secure location.”

“Terrific. Then do this. Get intouch with the client. Tell him we’re very upset. He wasted our time, and putour people in a difficult position. But we understand that these things happen,and we still want to deal. We’ll meet him partway. If he can raise seventy-fivepercent of the original purchase price, we can close with him. Tell him nofunny stuff this time. If we smell any trouble at all, we walk, and he can tryto take the capital with pea shooters and slingshots.”

“Will do.”

Darwin nodded. “Good job.”

He hung up the phone.

A silver Rolls-Royce had pulled upand was waiting for him. A black SUV was parked in front of it, and anotherblack SUV brought up the rear. The bodyguards rode in the SUVs. Darwin walkedover and slid into air-conditioned comfort in the back seat of the Rolls.

Elaine sat in the car, waiting forhim.

She was thin and very pretty,almost as