The Milestone Protocol, Ernest Dempsey [100 best novels of all time txt] 📗

glance over his shoulder. That wouldn’t make things any better, and it might even slow him down.

Fifteen yards to go.

Ten.

He was almost there.

Buri reached out his hand as he neared the exit. The strange sounds from the other animals seemed to crescendo. Then a fearsome roar drowned out all the other noise.

With a last anguished effort, Buri summoned the remains of his strength and jumped for the door. He felt himself leave the ground and, for a second, believed he might reach the latch.

A sharp, horrible pain pierced the calf of his right leg. It was instantly followed by the feeling of something powerful clamping down. He fell over at the waist and struck the ground headfirst while his right leg was held in the tiger’s maw.

Buri screamed in agony, both from the pain and the sight of his leg. He tried to kick, to wriggle free, but the beast’s grip was true, its fangs sinking deep into muscle, tendon, and cartilage.

For a split second, the tiger let go of the wounded appendage, and Buri scrambled backward, dragging the bloody leg on the ground. The predator looked down at him as it might a wounded deer, then it growled and pounced.

A camera near the ceiling in the corner captured the grisly scene as the tiger ripped apart the screaming man, seeming to toy with him, until at last Buri’s voice was muted in a final gurgling effort. Then his head fell still on the ground, eyes staring upward without sight, while the animal feasted under Odin’s vengeful gaze.

8 Plovdiv

Sean sipped a cup of coffee as he peered through the window at the streets of Plovdiv below. Rooftops sprawled out over the city in the hills, some with terracotta tiles, others with more conventional roof coverings.

He’d been up for over an hour, his fitful sleep finally giving way to the crack of light seeping through the dark-blue curtains drawn across the window. Sean experienced a touch of insomnia on occasion, typically when he was in the field or had something pressing to do.

Last night, however, fear had been the culprit.

He’d kept his thoughts from Kevin so as not to worry the archaeologist. And Sean wondered, after his roommate went to sleep, if the man had noticed Sean was hiding something. He’d been grateful when Kevin quickly fell asleep after two generous pours of scotch.

Sean glanced back down at his phone, the spare he kept for contacting only two people. It was a burner, a device that could in no way be linked to him or the two people he’d messaged late in the night.

He read the message for the third time in five minutes. Then he looked at the headlines regarding the murder/suicide involving Valentin Svoboda in Prague. Sean knew the discovery by Kevin and the murder were no coincidence. It was a hit, an outright assassination. But why?

The media trashed Svoboda’s name for being involved with a mistress, despite most politicians and captains of industry participating in the same kinds of activities. That kind of thing was not only ignored by most, but encouraged to some level.

The words of the tablet ran through Sean’s head again, the symbols at the bottom burned into his memory. He never really believed he would see the day when this happened. He’d heard things, of course, but nothing more than rumors. Still, one indelible truth persisted in Sean’s mind.

They are making a move.

The tablet was clear, at least to him. It confirmed Sean’s deepest, most ludicrous suspicion, and it sent a twinge of fear through his chest. The feeling wasn’t for himself or his own safety. He could survive, and if not, he’d long ago accepted that death was a part of his journey. It was the innocent people of the world that filled him with worry. The thoughts of children all over the world, especially, brought on more anxiety than Sean had ever felt.

He exhaled at the thought of so many people out there, simply going about their day, trying to eke out a living, or the children attending school, playing with friends. None of them ever had a clue what was really going on behind the scenes.

Sean had watched, from a distance, the arguments of people on both sides of the political fence. It was an election year in the United States, and the division of the American people had reached a new low. The chasm between factions was like the deepest trench in the ocean, uncrossable and impossible to ignore.

All the while, he’d wondered if his suspicions were true.

His friend President Gwen McCarthy was embattled in a bitter campaign against the other party’s candidate, and the election had been raging through the entire year.

She was the one who’d sent the text message to Sean, likewise from a burner phone that no one else could access. Sean no longer worked for the government, but she preferred to keep him close by just in case. He had his relationship with the previous president, John Dawkins, to thank for that.

Sean had often wondered if there really was a shadow government pulling the strings, how much John and Gwen really knew. He believed they weren’t involved, or he chose to believe, that they—like everyone else—were merely puppets in a grander scheme.

He knew he sounded crazy for even thinking that sort of thing, but here he was, getting confirmation from the president herself. She wasn’t naïve to the threat, which meant she was doing all she could with the limited power of her position to make a difference for the people of the nation and the world.

“You’re up early,” Kevin said in a groggy tone.

Sean didn’t look back at him in the nearby bed. Instead, he continued to gaze out the window at the city. “I usually am.”

“You also made coffee.”

“Yep. It’s pretty good, actually. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. There’s still enough for two more pots over there, along with what I made a half hour ago.”

Kevin thanked him and climbed out of bed,