The Lost City

CHAPTER NINE

Chastain staggered back along roof, his arms flailing as he went and a look of unbridled terror on his fat face. He tried to stop himself going over by clawing at the air. It was pointless, but he was driven by instinct to survive.

“What the hell was that?” Lea screamed.

“Luis!” Hawke yelled. He pointed to Luis who was on the rise halfway between the mansion and the Jeep. He was waving one of the grenade launchers in his hand.

“Well bugger me,” Scarlet said, impressed.

“National Service!” the young Colombian called back.

But then they heard a scream and turned to see Chastain go over the edge and fall inside the panthers’ enclosure. He landed in what he had smugly described as the dining room.

“Please…!” he screamed. “ Oh, Jesus H. Christ, help me!”

“Call me crazy,” Lea said coolly from the viewing platform, “but I don’t think he can hear ya.”

Clyde moved first, rising to all fours on his powerful haunches and turning his broad, square face toward the new arrival.

Chastain stumbled back a few yards to the edge of the cage, almost surprised when he walked into it. “Please… you can’t do this to me.”

“I thought you said it was fun?” Lea said.

Bonnie now got up and joined Clyde.

Chastain raised his head and saw his own chopper slowly rising above the training area, with Kruger, Saqqal, Jawad and Rajavi all safely on board. He waved a fist in the air and screamed. “You bastard, Saqqal!”

“Looks like you need to learn how to make better friends,” Hawke said, strolling over to join Lea as she climbed down from the platform.

Clyde growled, and began to pace up and down in front of Chastain. It was a low, deep growl that they all felt as much as heard.

“He sounds hungry,” Lexi said. “When was the last time you fed them again?”

“I think he said four days ago,” Reaper said.

“Ouch,” Scarlet said. “Poor little kitty cats…”

The black panthers were now getting agitated.

“Did you know,” Ryan said at last, “that all black panthers in Asia are leopards, but all black panthers in South America are jaguars?”

“I did not know that, mate,” Hawke said. Ryan’s voice was harder now, without the levity. Hawke thought he sounded ten years older than the last time he had heard him speak.

“Neither did I,” Scarlet said. “Good to have you back, Ryan.”

“Thanks.”

“Yes, I damn well knew that!” Chastain said. His voice was now a desperate whisper as he sought to calm the angry panthers a few feet from him. “Just please get me the fuck outta here and you can have whatever you want, I swear!”

“We can have whatever we want already, darling,” Scarlet said.

“C’est vrai,” Reaper added, rolling a cigarette. His eyes were fixed on the thin line of tobacco in the folded paper, but he could hear and smell the panthers as they closed in on the former Delta soldier. All that was between him and the wild animals now was the partition gate.

“They are so beautiful,” Lexi said. “It’s just such a shame to keep them locked up like this.”

She threw the lever and the partition gate began to creak open.

“You can’t do this to me!” he shouted.

Hawke scanned the area and saw Corzo sprinting across the training area toward the Kiowa. Kruger made no effort to stop for him, but he got there all the same, leaping for his life and slamming into the portside skid. As the chopper ascended above the jungle canopy and disappeared into the west, Carlos Corzo was still dangling off the skid and hanging on for all he was worth.

“Hope the bastard falls off,” Lea said, and then she heard a deep growl a few feet behind her. She turned to see Bonnie and Clyde crawling under the gap in the dividing bars and approaching Ross Chastain with hunger in their eyes.

“Please!” Chastain said, pleading with them one last time. “Let me out.”

“Goodbye, Chastain,” Lexi said, and slammed the vine-covered gate behind her as she left the cage area. As a horrendous mix of human screams and jaguar roars drifted above the vines, Lexi dusted her hands off and faced the others. “Don’t go in there. It’s a clawful mess.”

“Oh, please,” Scarlet said, rolling her eyes, but Hawke laughed.

“Love it.”

Lea was still shaking as Hawke put his arms around her and held her tight. She liked the way it felt when he held her close. She felt safe, and for just a moment it was okay to let her guard down… the guard she had kept up since her father was taken from her. The buzzing wasp of hatred and regret that was behind every thought she ever had.

When she was in Joe Hawke’s arms the wasp went away and she could breathe again. She was no fool. She had seen the way he’d looked at Maria Kurikova, and she had an idea there might be trouble with Alex Reeve on the horizon, but what else could she do?

She knew no one else in the world and all she’d ever wanted was peace and happiness. For a time, Richard Eden had offered it to her, but now even that looked like it was about to be taken away. Life was a hurricane, and Joe Hawke was her storm shelter. Solid, reliable, and always ready to take her in. Now, just seconds after almost being turned into cat food by Ross Chastain, she was so grateful to be alive she saw things with a renewed clarity.

“Come on you lazy bastards,” Scarlet said. “Kruger’s getting away.” She flicked her cigarette into the bull grass and walked over to their weapons. “And we all owe Luis a beer.”