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

He exhaled a long stream of smoke.

“Just don’t hurt it, okay?”

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

10:50 p.m. Central Standard Time (11:50 p.m. EasternStandard Time)

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

Near Honduras

The Caribbean Sea

“I want them found,” Darwin Kingsaid. “Now. Tonight.”

He sat on his private terrace, astrong vodka tonic in one hand, the telephone in the other. He stared down atthe guttering remains of the cabana, which once housed the old hotel bar. Acrew was out there, watering down what was left of it. Acrid smoke was stillrising into the sky.

Honduran soldiers were everywhere,sweeping the property to see if there were any more intruders. They’d found twodead dogs in the dog run. They’d found a body washed up on the beach, alongwith a small inflatable motorboat.

Now they were everywhere. Nowthey were finding things. Where were they an hour ago? They were supposed tohave been on high alert.

“Mr. King, our pilots describe theplane as breaking apart on impact,” a deep male voice on the phone said. Thevoice spoke English slowly and formally, carefully enunciating every syllable. Itwas the voice of someone who grew up speaking Spanish, then learned to speakEnglish through years of schooling. It was also the voice of someone whothought it important to communicate clearly.

“Do you understand?” the voicesaid. “The plane is in pieces in the deep wilderness. I believe your… people…are dead now.”

“I don’t care what you believe,”Darwin said. “If they’re dead, I want to know that for a fact.”

“My friend, the plane went down inan isolated region. There are mountains. The terrain is steep. The jungle isdense and forbidding. It is a difficult area to reach, it is raining thereright now, it often rains, and the visibility is not good. It will be verydifficult to send anyone there before daylight.”

“General…” Darwin began. He didnot want to hear anything from this man except agreement.

“Darwin, please be reasonable.”

Reasonable. That was a wordthat made alarms shriek in Darwin King’s mind. You did not become Darwin Kingby being reasonable. And you did not respond to a violent invasion, arson,murder, kidnapping, and theft by being reasonable.

In his mind, Darwin could stillsee his dead bodyguards, bleeding out on the stone tiles of the second floorhallway. It was an affront so large, so impossible, that he almost couldn’tabsorb the magnitude of it.

“General, shut up! Just shut up. Okay?I don’t feel like I need to remind you who our mutual friends are. I don’t feellike I need to remind you of the things I know about you, about your brother,about the things you’ve both done. I don’t feel like I need to remind you of myreach, but I will. I will reach right into your home, if I want. I will destroyyou, sir. I will destroy you in every possible way. I will take everything awayfrom you. Your position. Your family. Your very life. Do you understand me?”

“Darwin,” the man said, but thevoice was smaller now, less in command than a moment ago.

“Do you understand me?” Darwinsaid again. “Do you even know who you’re dealing with?”

“Yes. I do. Of course.”

“Then put your men in helicopters,or airplanes, or jeeps, or however you do it. I don’t care. And send them up tothe site of that plane crash. Someone very important to me was on that plane. ElaineSayles was on that plane. You know Elaine.”

“Yes, I do, and I regret yourloss.”

“It isn’t a loss yet! It isn’t aloss because you’re going to send men up there right this minute. And you’regoing to go up there with them and personally oversee this mission. Elainemight still be alive, and if she is, you’re going to find her and help her andrescue her.”

Darwin paused and took a breath. Elaine.She had been with him for so long, it was like there had never been a time whenthey weren’t together. She was his kindred spirit. No one in this worldunderstood him as completely as Elaine. The idea that she might be gone… Ithurt. It was going to take a lot to get in touch with and process that loss.

But the anger... The anger waseasy to process.

“The man who took her, I want himtoo. I want him dead. And I want his head, here, delivered to me, on a plate.”

This was good. This was right. Thesewere the correct instructions. Medieval people knew more than modern peopleabout the way to do things, the way to fix things. The way to make this rightwas to have that man’s head. Not figuratively, not as a metaphor for somethingelse, but to have his actual, physical head here, cut off so Darwin could lookupon his agonized face.

“Do you still understand?”

“Yes. Yes I do. And if the girl isthere, and alive?”

Darwin shook his head. The girlwas what had caused all this. Taking that girl had set these events in motion. Zorn.If Jeff Zorn hadn’t owed him all that money, none of this would have happened.

“Darwin?” the voice said.

“Just kill her,” Darwin said. “Getrid of the body. I never want to see her again.”

“Yes,” the voice said.

“Keep me informed of yourprogress,” Darwin said.

“Of course.”

Darwin hung up. He took a sip ofhis drink, then another. He stared out at the night for a long moment. Even thenight was wrong. Usually, the lights on the grounds here were muted, and hecould see the stars, and maybe the moon, and the way it played on the water farbelow.

Now there were bright lights onall over the property. Spotlights were constantly sweeping the dense foliage atthe edge of the grounds. He could not see the stars, or the sea. It was awful.

He picked up the phone again. Hetook a deep breath. There were people in the real government, the Americangovernment, who he was never supposed to call. These were people who were toohigh up now, old friends who’d had to distance themselves. The vice presidentwas one such person, but there were others.

Darwin knew what they thought ofhim. He wasn’t a fool. They thought he was the dirty one, the sick one, theuntouchable. They stayed away because he was the monster in the closet. But ifthat’s