Altar Of Eden

For a moment a rich smell of blood filled his own nostrils, almost overpowering in its intensity. Then it was gone.

The examiner’s face rose before him. Hands gripped his shoulders and dragged him down until Jack was nose to nose with the beastly form. Jack smelled its fetid body, noted each eyelash, heard the rasp of its breath. Fingers remained clamped on his shoulders. He felt the raw muscular power in that grip.

But it was the eyes that held Jack’s full attention.

Pupils dilated as Jack stared. It was like peering down into a dark well. He sensed that the abyss had no bottom-but it was far from empty. Something strange stared back out at him.

The static in his head ratcheted up to a volume that threatened to crack his skull. It felt like his brain was trying to squeeze out his ears. As he rode a wave of agony his sight suddenly narrowed until he seemed to be hanging over that bottomless abyss.

He was trapped there for a breath-then the beast shoved him away, and Jack stumbled back into a tree. The pressure in his skull receded to a dull throb.

The creature turned and headed away. The other beasts swung like one body and vanished back into the forest.

Jack remained standing, trembling.

What the hell just happened?

The beast who had confronted him glanced back before disappearing. Cold eyes stared at him, then down to the shotgun at his feet. The message was clear.

Mack stumbled over to Jack. “What now, boss?”

He crouched and retrieved his weapon. “We go with them.”

“What?” Bruce asked, aghast. “They’ll tear us to pieces.”

Jack knew his teammate’s warning was not without merit. For the moment he had passed some test of fire here. What that test was he didn’t know-and passing it scared him as much as it relieved him.

But he was also under no delusion. This was no warm welcome. They simply shared a common enemy. Nothing more. He remembered the coldness in that attention and knew that the uneasy truce would last only as long as this war.

After that… it would end.

“Let’s go,” Jack said.

They hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when a rattling roar rose from the other island. Jack rushed forward to a break in the hillside forest. Through the branches, he got his first view of the villa on the other island.

From a concrete bunker atop it, the black snout of a massive gun smoked and chattered. But it wasn’t aimed toward them. It fired toward the cove, still hidden out of sight behind the shoulder of the other island.

But he could guess the target of that savage barrage.

The Thibodeauxs’ boat.

Chapter 52

Duncan stood before the arc of windows in the security nest. Overhead, the gun battery blasted away from its bunker. The chugging roar of the chain-fed autoca

At the first sign of trouble, the fishing charter had opened throttle and shot toward the beach. Its bow lifted high, pushed out of the water by some powerful engines, more than expected from an ordinary fishing boat. This observation was further supported when the first rounds of the ca

The craft’s hull had to be reinforced with armor plating. Gunru

Then something strange happened.

From the stern end of the fishing charter, a Zodiac raft dropped into the water. It shot away like a black rocket, riding two pontoons.

The Bushmaster ca

Out in the water, the Zodiac hightailed it toward the northern edge of the cove. It bounced across the waves as guards along the beach opened fire. Return shots sparked from the raft, accompanied by the smoking trail of a rocket-propelled grenade. It struck the beach and exploded, throwing sand high and shredding a palm tree.

As guards scattered from the beach the pontoon boat continued its flight across the waters, looking like it was trying to circle out and head toward the sandy spit that co

Before Duncan could assess that threat, a greater concern arose.

A man, popping into view atop the bridge of the fishing charter, balanced a long weapon on one shoulder. He knelt down and angled the black tube of a rocket launcher toward the villa.

Motherfuck-

Duncan twisted away from the window as smoke blasted out the back of the weapon. A rocket roared straight at him-or rather at the gun battery above him. Either way, he didn’t want to be here.

He dove toward the door.

LORNA STOOD FROZEN with Malik and Be

Everybody held their breath, then the first child began crying. In seconds, it spread like wildfire among the children. A day-care worker-a round-bellied Chinese woman-tried in vain to console the group, but they refused to calm down. The girl in Lorna’s arms buried her tiny face and continued to tremble.

“We’re under attack,” Malik said.

“Stay here.” Be

Co

“What’s going on?”

“Commander Kent radioed down. The boat in the cove opened fire on us. Believes they’re pirates.”

Pirates? Lorna tried to fathom such a thing. She had heard stories from Kyle about roving bands of marauders who plied the Gulf waters and hijacked ships at sea or ransacked homes along the coasts. Even an oil rig in the Gulf had once been attacked.

Be

“He said I should keep everyone here.”

“Bullshit. I’m not some child to hide in a hole.”

Malik joined his boss. “If there’s a problem, I need to get back to my lab. Secure our viral samples in case this problem escalates. If we lose those samples, we’ve lost everything.”

Be

Malik waved to the day-care worker in the room. “Come with me. I’ll need a hand.”

Co

Be

Malik followed his boss.

Co

With the door sealed, the rattle of the raging firefight muffled to a dull popping. Still, she could tell it had begun to escalate. Alarm bells joined the cacophony, along with distant muffled screams.

What was going on?

She didn’t know, but her mind fought for some way to turn this chaos to her advantage. If she could break out, reach a radio, maybe even a boat…

But what then? Even if she could get off the island, what hope was there to escape through pirate-infested waters?

As she held the child the others drew toward her like moths to a flame, needing reassurance, growing quiet. She had to protect them, but was there another way out of here?

With her heart pounding, she hurried to an open door at the rear of the nursery. She popped her head through, seeking some means of escape. Rows of raised cribs lined both sides of a long narrow room. Only these cradles were made of steel and had lids that locked.