Devil's Gate

44

A CHILL RAN UP KURT’S SPINE that had nothing to do with the soaking wet conditions. He stood forward, careful not to react. With one hand, he waved Joe over.

“You find anything?” he asked a little louder than necessary.

“Nothing,” Joe said. “He’s gone.”

Kurt nodded his head toward the door behind him. Joe glanced at the door, which was slightly ajar. He nodded. He understood.

“All right,” Kurt said, “let’s get out of here.”

But instead of getting out, he put his hand back on the round knob. Taking a deep breath, he shoved it open with a snap of the wrist.

There was a sudden squawking and the sound of scampering and skittering feet, but no one was there. Kurt saw a cage filled with toucans and some other brightly colored birds he didn’t recognize. Behind them another cage held a huge iguana the size of a thirty-pound dog.

As the birds settled down, a few feathers floated through the air.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Joe mumbled.

Kurt had to agree, but seeing more wet tracks on the floor told him for certain they were onto Ion’s trail.

“Some kind of pet store,” he said, although he couldn’t imagine taking the giant iguana, which looked like a small dinosaur, for a walk.

He glanced back at the door. The wooden frame was broken and splintered where it had been kicked in. Ion must have pushed the door shut once he’d gone inside, but damaged the way it was, it couldn’t be latched again.

Kurt’s eyes moved upward. A sign read “Rare and Exotic”—apparently, it meant the animals.

There were two aisles in the long narrow store. In the center stood a row of stacked cages; on the sides were larger enclosures, some with bars, others with clear plastic walls and doors.

Kurt pointed to the right, and Joe moved toward that aisle. Kurt took the other one.

As he moved down his aisle, Kurt saw a Komodo dragon sleeping under a dim light. Lemurs and monkeys and a sloth slept in large cages in the center. A caracal, a wild cat with tawny fur and black ears, occupied a medium-sized cage beside them.

Treading softly, Kurt listened for movement. He heard noises, but they sounded like the snores and shuffles of the animals as far as he could tell. Then he heard a clink like metal on metal. Silence followed and then another metallic sound.

Footsteps came next, but not two at a time. There were four.

They stopped, and Kurt heard a low growl. Suddenly, there was a hiss and a roar and the crashing of cages.

The monkeys woke in a start and screeched and banged the bars of their enclosure, and another roar went out from some larger cat.

Kurt lunged around the corner to see Joe squashed into the thin space between the top of the monkey cage and the ceiling. A juvenile leopard swatted at him, with its teeth bared and its ears flat against its head.

Kurt grabbed what looked like a bowl of food and threw it at the leopard, hitting the animal in the shoulder. It turned his way in shock, let out another growl, and then ran the opposite way toward the front of the store. Kurt watched it until it slipped out through the gap in the open door.

“Remind me to call animal control when we’re done,” he said as Joe clambered down.

Before Joe could answer, a shadow moved near the back of the store. This time, it walked upright.

Kurt ran that direction. Ion had made it to the rear exit and was pulling on it with all his might, but the steel door was locked tight. And unlike the front door, it was designed for security, not looks. He pulled and then pounded on it with his shoulder, and then turned and stared at Kurt.

Desperate, he tried to race past Kurt, but Kurt grabbed him and flung him back into the door. He darted for the other aisle, saw Joe, and stopped.

In a last desperate act he pushed a fish tank off a shelf toward Kurt. It crashed to ground and exploded, sending glass, water, fish, and a flood of tiny blue pebbles across the floor.

Somewhere in the tank, Kurt guessed, there were piranhas or some other kind of tropical fish, but he didn’t care at the moment. He jumped back. Avoiding the main impact, he looked up in time to see Ion making another break for the front door. This time, Kurt lowered the boom, clotheslining the elusive little man and body-slamming him to the floor.

Dazed and defeated, Ion looked up, surrounded by blue gravel and flapping fish.

“This could have been so much easier,” Kurt said, grabbing him by the lapels and yanking him to his feet.

“I’m not going to give you anything,” Ion said.

“You don’t even know what I want,” Kurt replied.

“You want Andras,” Ion said. “I know you’re looking for him.”

Maybe that’s why he’d been so resistant.

“He’ll kill me if I talk to you,” Ion explained.

“Not if I kill him first,” Kurt said.

“You’ll never kill him,” Ion said. “He’s always been ahead of you.”

“You’d better hope you’re wrong about that,” Kurt said. “Because you are going to tell me where he is.”

“Whatever you do to me, it won’t be worse than what Andras will do,” Ion said.

Kurt realized that was probably true. A handicap of being a decent human meant that, barring the worst circumstances, he wouldn’t stoop to the darkest levels of inhumanity. And that meant people like Ion would always be more afraid of someone like Andras than they would be of him.

Glancing at a bleeding abrasion on Joe’s arm that matched the claw pattern of the leopard, Kurt suddenly had an idea. There had to be something in this “Rare and Exotic” pet store that was a little less evolved.

He grabbed Ion by the neck and dragged him across the floor.

“Where shall we put you?” he mumbled, stopping in front of one cage after another. “The monkeys are too smart for you. The sloth might mess you up, but we don’t have all night.”

With Ion looking at him as if he were crazy, Kurt dragged him up to the Komodo dragon’s enclosure. The giant lizard had not moved a muscle despite the commotion.

“Now, this guy might do,” Kurt said, putting his hand on the door and working the double-levered latch.

“What?” Ion shouted. “Are you crazy?”

As Kurt managed to get the door open, the lizard’s tongue flicked out and sampled the air. A single eye opened, but it didn’t move.

Ion tried to squirm out of Kurt’s grasp, but Kurt grabbed a collar off of the shelf beside him. It had a long stick attached to it. It looked like some kind of animal control device that allowed the keeper to either push or pull the animal as needed, especially designed to keep a dangerous mouth away from a trainer.

In his own way, Ion had a dangerous mouth, but Kurt needed it to open.

He pulled the collar over Ion’s head and onto his neck and shoved him forward with the pole, pressing Ion up against the open door.

“I don’t know if this is the right choice,” Joe said.

Kurt looked back at him.

“I mean, the dragon,” Joe said.

“No on the dragon?” Kurt asked.

“Something about their bite,” Joe said. “It’s poisonous. But not like a cobra. They bite and then leave their victim to die. It takes days.”

“Huh,” Kurt said. “You’re full of surprises, Joe. Since when do you know about lizards?”

“Worked at a zoo one summer,” Joe said.

“Was there a girl involved in this story?”

“Callie Romano,” Joe admitted.

“Of course.”

Kurt yanked the stick collar back, and Ion was dragged across the floor and almost fell on his face. As Kurt shut the door, the Komodo dragon closed its eye and went back to sleep.

“So what do you suggest?” Kurt asked, beginning to enjoy himself.

Joe moved slowly down the row of enclosures. “How about this?”

He stopped in front of one of the largest enclosures in the small store. Eight feet deep and six feet wide, with some foliage, a small pool of water, and brown dirt on the floor. There was also a box with a grate over the top just outside it. A pair of large rats crouched inside the box.

Kurt looked into the larger enclosure. What he first thought was part of a tree moved a bit.

“Reticulated python,” Joe said, looking at the notes on the front of the clear plastic door. “Nocturnal hunters. They can reach almost thirty feet in length,” he added, “though this one is supposed to be only twenty-two.”

“Constrictor,” Kurt said, thinking aloud. “A twenty-two-foot, two-hundred-seventy-pound snake. Perfect.”

“You’re not going to—”

Before Ion could finish his sentence, Kurt had flipped the latch on the door, swung Ion in front of the opening and shoved him backward. He splashed down in the snake’s water pit.

Kurt opened the collar, pulled it over Ion’s head, and withdrew it. Joe slammed the door and pinned the latch.

“This thing’s handy,” Kurt said, looking at the stick collar and putting it down.

Ion got to his feet and looked around. Incredibly, the snake had already begun to move. Just its head and neck, sniffing around, nothing aggressive so far, but it seemed interested.

“I’ve been to a couple zoos,” Kurt said. “Honestly, never even seen one of these things move before.”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “The pythons in zoos are fed all the time, and they get so fat and overweight that they don’t do much of anything. But see how thin this one is.”

Joe pointed. The snake didn’t exactly look thin to Kurt, but he played along.

“He does look a little skinny,” Kurt said.

“Probably been starved for months,” Joe said.

By now Ion had moved toward the door.

“Why would they starve him?” Kurt asked.

“The owners of these places sell to rich collectors who want to see the snakes in action, crushing something and eating it,” Joe said. “So they keep ’em hungry until a buyer comes around. That what the rats are for.”

Kurt had no idea if Joe was serious or just making this stuff up, but it was a good shtick.

The snake was cooperating too, sliding down from the ledges near the back of the enclosure and beginning to stretch out.

Ion came up to the door. “Let me out of here, Austin.”

Kurt ignored him, instead looking at some type of poster describing the python. He looked at Joe. “It says here these things can eat a goat.”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Joe said.

Kurt looked into the enclosure. “He’s not much bigger than a goat. I wonder if it can get him down.”

“I don’t know,” Joe said. “He’s got a big head.”

Kurt turned. “He does have a big melon. Bet his neck gets tired holding it up.”

Ion went to speak and then froze. The snake had moved up behind him, its tongue had flicked out and grazed his thigh.

Kurt wondered if it would bite him first or just start coiling around him. Before it did either, Kurt decided to give Ion another shot at freedom.

“You want to tell me about Andras?” he asked, the joking nature of his voice long gone.

“I can’t,” Ion whispered.

“Once that snake wraps around you, there’s nothing I can do but leave and try to shut the door behind me,” Kurt said, “so you’d better talk quick before it’s too late.”

Ion was pressed against the plastic door. He seemed as if he was barely breathing. The snake slithered past his legs and began to curve back around.

“Can it sense him?” Kurt asked Joe.

“Oh yeah. That tongue senses heat.”

The snake began to coil up as if it would strike.

Ion sensed it; he was shaking but he didn’t speak. Then the snake lunged, knocking him down, and wrapping around him.

Kurt hadn’t actually expected it to happen.

Ion screamed and struggled. Both moves were a big mistake because they expended air, and as soon as his chest cavity shrank a smidgen, the constrictor tightened.

“Austin,” he managed, freeing one arm and grabbing at the snake’s neck. “Austin…”

Ion could speak no more, and obviously he could say nothing if he was dead. Kurt opened the door and sprang into action. He looped the stick collar over the snake’s head and tightened it. Moving to get leverage, he forced the snake’s head and neck up and away from Ion.

Kurt pushed with all his might. He found it hard to believe how strong the snake was. It fought him and twisted and flipped, even with Ion still in its coil.

“Joe,” Kurt shouted. “A little zookeeper help please?”

Joe was already there. He’d dropped down beside Ion and grabbed the snake’s midsection, pulling with all his might. He arched his back and managed to create a small amount of space in its tight coil.

Thin, wet, and desperate to live, Ion squirmed free, crawled out of the pen, and collapsed on the floor.

Joe followed right behind him, and Kurt released the snake and slammed the door shut. He immediately placed the stick collar over Ion’s head again. The man didn’t even resist.

“Where can I find Andras?” Kurt asked.

Ion turned his eyes toward Kurt, his face drawn, his look that of a beaten man.

“I haven’t seen him in over a year,” Ion said.

“Bull,” Kurt said. “You were his go-to guy for work. We all know that.”

“He doesn’t need work anymore,” Ion said. “He has a permanent gig now. He hasn’t looked for action in two years.”

“And yet you saw him a year ago,” Kurt said, tightening the collar again. “Get your story straight.”

“I did see him a year ago,” Ion admitted. “But he wasn’t looking for a job. He was hiring.”

“Hiring?”

“He needed men,” Ion said. “He needed some guys who knew demolitions and ships. More than he could round up on his own.”

Kurt thought about that, thought about the pirate attack on the Kinjara Maru and Dirk Pitt’s information about the mercenary group that had loaded the superconducting material on board in Freetown. It certainly sounded like Andras had built a small army. But why?

“How do you contact him?” Kurt asked.

“By e-mail,” Ion said. “You want to go beat up a server in some office tower somewhere?”

One of the problems with the modern world: people could send and receive information anywhere at any time. The days of the dark meeting and the dead drop had passed, for the most part.

Kurt looked down at Ion. He was still holding back, Kurt was sure of it. “You know something you’re not telling me,” Kurt said. “Otherwise, you would have told me all this without the hassle.”

Ion didn’t respond.

“Joe,” Kurt said. “If you please, it’s feeding time again.”

Joe unlatched the door to the snake pen one more time. Kurt began to drag Ion over there.

“Wait… Wait,” he said.

“Talk to me,” Kurt said, “or talk to the snake.”

“He lives at sea,” Ion said. “Andras lives on the sea. He doesn’t have a home. He goes from place to place on a ship. That’s why no one can find him. That’s why he can get in and out of almost any country even though he has no citizenship or passport and is wanted everywhere. He comes ashore as part of the crew or even with the cargo.”

Now it made sense. Every time the CIA, FBI, or Interpol got a lead on Andras, he seemed to vanish into thin air like a ghost, only to pop up somewhere else a month later. It was like an international game of Whack-A-Mole. But no one had been able to figure out how he did it. Turned out he was like an evil version of Juan Cabrillo.

“What’s the name of this ship?” Kurt asked.

“It could be any ship,” Ion said.

Kurt pushed him toward the door.

“I swear,” Ion said. “Do you think he would tell me?”

Kurt relaxed. He had a better idea. “When was he last in Singapore?” he asked. “The exact dates.”

“The last I saw him was February fourth,” Ion said. “I know because it was the day after Chinese New Year, a holiday here.”

Kurt sensed that Ion was telling the truth. He glanced at Joe, who closed the door of the snake enclosure tight. The python had retreated to the back of the enclosure and coiled itself up defensively anyway.

Kurt released Ion and stood over him. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Don’t even think about warning Andras. If you do, he’ll know you ratted on him. And you’re right. He’ll do far worse than feed you to the snakes.”

“What are you going to do?” Ion asked, looking up and rubbing at his neck where the collar had choked him.

“I told you, I’m going to kill him,” Kurt said. “For your own sake, you’d better hope I succeed.”