Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2), Jack Lively [ebook voice reader txt] 📗

one buckshot. I liked the combination. Recharged the internal magazines. Same for the Remington. A gentle breeze had come up from the ocean. The water was glowing. I was calm and centered. I sniffed the clean air. The briny smell was the calm part, the hint of cordite and blood were the exciting part.

There was nowhere I would rather be.

I was quietly slipping the bolt on the last .308 round when I heard the sound.

Someone moving in the thicket. I kept still. If they hadn’t shot me yet, it was only because they didn’t know I was there. Both Breachers were at my feet. I slung the Remington over my shoulder and picked up one of the shotguns. Then I saw movement in the brush. I got the Breacher up and hot. My finger brushed the trigger back and tightened up the slack.

I saw the face first, a pale oval outlined in shadow. A woman. She was standing in the thicket, looking at me with wide eyes. Not an enemy. The woman looked bad, like she’d missed breakfast, lunch, and dinner for weeks, if not months. She was coming through the branches and she wasn’t alone. A cluster of figures followed in her wake. They looked like something out of a news report on refugees from an industrial disaster or a civil war.

I said, “Come through. I’m not going to hurt you.”

They were dressed in loose, dull clothing. As if they had been wearing the same outfit for so long the colors had come out. They were a mix of young and old, male and female. The flesh was wasted and unnaturally pale, almost glowing in the dim moonlight. Like they’d been kept underground. I counted six of them, unarmed. They didn’t look like they had enough strength to hold a weapon.

It was impossible to tell the woman’s age. Old and young, all at the same time. Or perhaps a young person who had grown old real fast. The skin was loose, hanging off desiccated flesh in folds.

Her voice was cracked and hoarse. “Please. There are more of us up at the property. They wanted to take us out on the bus. Everyone’s scared.”

When she spoke, I saw the inside of her mouth. The fine hairs rose on the back of my neck. Because when she opened her mouth, the only thing I saw were toothless pink gums gleaming wet in the moonlight.

I stepped to the next one, an older man.

“Open your mouth.”

He was embarrassed, looking away from me, but opened up just the same. Pink toothless gums.

I said, “The radiation.”

The man nodded. He shifted his eyes back at me, like he was going to have to trust me now. I figured these were people who had been made to handle nuclear materials. The man’s sad eyes stuck on me, hungry for something. As if continuing to hold me in his gaze would guarantee deliverance, or at the minimum, understanding. He began to say something. His mouth opened. Wet and pink. But nothing came out except a few droplets of saliva on the lip. He licked them away, eyes never leaving mine. The group was staring at me. An endangered organism with twelve eyes, each one full of sorrow. I didn’t know how long these people had to live, but it wasn’t going to be years or decades, more like weeks or days.

I looked at them, taking my time, examining the faces looking back at me like the living dead. Radiation poisoning. None of them had teeth. Just like the body Ellie had found at the fence this spring. She had said he had no teeth.

It occurred to me that we had been misreading the situation. This was not some kind of master criminal enterprise. It was a failed project. The corporate people were bailing out right now, cutting their losses.

I was looking at losses.

A triple burst of gunfire rapped out from the direction of the house and outbuildings. It was followed by another. Two snare drum rolls, filtered and slightly dampened by the trees. The little sad cluster of victims flinched and ducked their heads. Those were NATO rounds from one of the assault rifles these mercenaries carried, another Tavor bullpup. I ignored it for the moment.

I addressed the woman, the leader. “You said something about a bus.”

She nodded. “Yes, the green bus.”

The entire situation finally clicked into place in my mind. The mystery became a puzzle. The mini-bus at the cruise ship. Green Gremlin. The cruise ship’s special hospital facilities. They were moving out the casualties to the Emerald Allure, cutting their losses. There was no way of guessing what the Mister Lawrence people planned to do with them. Maybe dump them in the Arctic, make them disappear somewhere. The whole concept was insane, which had not prevented them from committing to it. I didn’t know what country was being used for the flag state, but I did know that if the Emerald Allure got to international waters there might not be an easy way of stopping them.

I got out Willets’ phone and dialed Ellie. She answered on the first ring. Her voice was hot and heavy, rushed and anxious.

“Keeler.”

I said, “Two things. One, you need to get the Port Morris cops to the Emerald Allure cruise ship. Make sure the boat doesn’t leave the dock. Second, you need to get to the front gate of the property. I’ve got people here. I’m sending them up to the gate, they’ll need help. Copy?”

Ellie didn’t answer immediately. I looked at the phantom faces, watching me watching them. Ellie’s voice finally crackled down the line. “Copy that. We’ll be there.”

“Any news from Chapman?”

“No. But Smithson got FBI cooperation, there’s a team from Fairbanks landing at the airport in half an hour.”

The tinkle of another triple burst filtered through the trees. I hung up the phone.

The woman in front of me looked back over her shoulder and shuddered.

I said, “You need to get to the front gate. Think you can make