He felt her smoothness and firm rounded flesh pressing to him, a long warm coolness, cool outside and warm within. Their mouths were tightly pressed together, hands probing. The feeling became a scalding coolness. He felt that chest-aching, tight-held loneliness that was Matt Reece giving way, and he was cut adrift within new sensations.

  They made love, or to be more precise, he fucked her. She needed comfort, and he gave himself freely. And in his giving he became happy, unthinking, and he felt a great delight pushing him on. He became a tender counterpoint to her ferocity until they both cried out. Her passion collapsed, and they fell into slumber with her in his arms.

  Later, the rain fell hard enough to wake him. The curtains swayed into the room, and a wet breeze washed over him. He stretched and realized that she was there, curled beside him, breathing lightly and regularly. He kissed her smooth shoulder, which did not wake her. He lay awake feeling the long, seeping luxury of his fatigue, and the tactile happiness of their bodies touching. He felt this new development in their relationship should lead to something. That destination remained a mystery, but he knew it couldn’t just stop here. Making love was not an endpoint; it was a beginning. It had to be.

  She opened her eyes and snuggled closer. He held her, feeling her heart beating in gushes. He asked her to marry him and said they could have a fine life here on the island nurturing the animals. He’d do his best to make her happy.

  She buried her face into the soft of his neck and laughed. There was kindness in that sound, but it was also tinged with mockery. “Darling, you’re not yet a man.”

  “There are countless ways of being a man. Mine is to voice my soul.”

  “Oh dear, how can I respond to that?” She closed her eyes, and he held her until they fell back to sleep.

  THE SOUND of an engine cranking to life awakened them. Lilikoi draped a robe around her and walked to the porch. He stumbled into his pants and followed.

  They found Songoree behind the wheel of the Dodge, gunning the engine. Lilikoi slipped an arm around Matt Reece’s bare waist, drawing him near to make their new situation clear. Songoree leaned his head out of the cab and spat, giving Matt Reece the impression he was pissed.

  Matt Reece felt a chill and wished he had grabbed his shirt. He was about to invite Songoree into the house for coffee, but Lilikoi said, “What do you need the truck for?”

  “To load up the jet. Boss man’s sending his prize off-island. I brought your horses back. They’re in the stable. Saddles and bridles are in the tack room.”

  “I don’t suppose they filed a flight plan?” she asked.

  “Naw. We only know he’s leaving tonight with a full load of fuel and a little going-away present I hooked up in the landing gear. Something to give him a warm reception when he reaches his destination.” He spat again, and said, “The boss man sent me to fetch you. He wants you to bring your lover boy to the Moloch house.”

  Matt Reece realized they were talking about a plot to murder Kenji. He felt strangely apathetic about it, as if they were talking about a horse with a broken leg.

  She said, “If that’s the plan, then I’ve got a little present of my own, one that will fix that fat bastard and his ice princess once and for all.”

  “They ain’t worth it, girl,” Songoree said.

  “I know.”

  “Then don’t do anything dumb.”

  “Too late.”

  “Let it go, girl. Just chock it up to rotten luck and let it go.”

  “The nature of this war is changing the rules. For the first time, rich white pigs will suffer the same fate as the rest of us. He brought death to this island, and it’s time he explained why to his maker. I intend to arrange that meeting.”

  Songoree gunned the engine. He waved as the Dodge swung around and headed toward the highway.

  Matt Reece assumed his fledgling romance with Songoree was now over. What had hardly spread its wings would never fly. He stood shivering until the truck was out of sight.

  Chapter Forty-four

  THE CALIFORNIA deserts never looked lovelier, Declan thought as he peered out the window of his hospital room. He had suffered a second heart attack and survived another surgery. After two attacks, he couldn’t accept the idea he would leave this bed alive. When businessmen and politicians betrayed him, he always found a way to best them, and in some cases, crush them as a warning to others. But now the betrayal came from within. The only thing that could save him was the formula. He might have survived had President Harrington chosen a different path, but there was no going back now.

  She ended his lofty ambitions, and he couldn’t console himself with the knowledge that she might live forever, but he had only days left, perhaps hours. He was barely fifty years old. There was so much more he could accomplish.

  Air Force One sat on the tarmac. The ground crew had refueled it, and it would soon take to the air, leaving him behind; there was symbolism in that. That’s how he knew he was done for, because even if his heart was strong enough to recover, as Dr. Wong said, he was Harrington’s prisoner. She controlled his fate, and she had no reason to keep him alive.

  It was somehow fitting that he would die at a military base, far from the parks and restaurants and theaters and malls where civilization gathered to enjoy life. He spent his life making weapons, which left no time for social activities. How much had he missed in his quest for power? Art and culture he wielded only as a tool to grease the skids of the high echelon. He became a stranger to his wife and two children after a messy divorce, and lost those he once considered close friends. Love, friendship, the arts were sacrificed on the altar of ambition. And now, was there anyone left to weep at his funeral?

  Yes, and he stood only a few feet away. He reached out an arm to Liam, who took his hand. As soon as Liam touched him, the desolation locking his chest relaxed.

  The engines of Air Force One throttled up.

  Liam nodded at the window. “There she goes.”

  For the first time in his life, he didn’t give it a second glance. It now belonged to another life, one that no longer concerned him. He gazed into Liam’s eyes, and he saw that same ambition that drove him and Diane McCarthy.

  “My children,” he said. “Can you bring them here? Christ, I’m having trouble remembering what ages they would be now.”

  “I’ve contacted them, and Deloris. They’ll all be here by midafternoon.”

  “Just like Diane, always a step ahead of me. Christ, what would I do without you?”

  “Hopefully in a few days you’ll be out of that bed and we’ll find out.”

  “You talked to Deloris?”

  “She was charming and concerned about you.”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “I got the impression she never stopped loving you. And so you know, Mark is twenty-three and Grace celebrated her twenty-first birthday last week. You sent her a red Mercedes convertible for a present. She couldn’t stop bragging on Facebook.”

  His eyes misted, and Liam squeezed his hand.

  “If I ever get out of here—”

  “When, not if. It’s time you start believing the doctors.”

  “Okay, when I get out of here,” he said, apologetically, “I want to take my kids someplace safe, away from all this killing.”

  “I hear Tasmania is lovely.”

  “What the hell’s in Tasmania?”

  “A shitload of virgin forests that nobody would ever drop a bomb on. And let’s face it, there’s nothing like nature for restoring the soul or putting problems into perspective.”

  Yes, he thought, there were so many truths he’d forgotten, like the fact that he was only one of the trillions of creatures that shared this planet. And that he and the human race, with its triumphs and follies, might soon become nothing more than a blip in history, an ugly blemish on this planet. He could feel the winds of eternity blowing through his soul. Christ, he’d squandered so many years thinking he could make a difference and be appreciated for it. What a joke.

  He had a sudden inspiration. “Look into a ship, something for long-distance sailing. That way I won’t be tied down to one location. I want to see it all, or what’s left of it.” That idea came from a memory of the time before he married, when he’d sailed from Peru, through the South Pacific to Singapore. He reached back to see the glistening deck and the peaceful swish of water passing the prow. That was over thirty years ago and had been a time of contentment.

  With a bit of a start, he realized he was planning a future, and that his soul still yearned. He promised himself each day, each hour, would be a universe of experience. He would, for the first time in three decades, really live. If only….

  HE STILL held responsibility to the people at Golden Eagle. Liam canceled his appointments and left his staff to pick up the pieces. Declan owed it to the senior associates to break the news as soon as possible and leave them some kind of structure to keep going. There were issues to settle, in the boardroom and in his own mind, before he began the task of unwinding his affairs.

  The roar of Air Force One grew louder as the jet climbed into the sky. As much as he tried to ignore the sound, it galled him that Harrington was getting away scot-free. He knew it was a remnant of his stubborn pride, but that pride was too much a part of his personality to be put aside. He thought about the antiaircraft missiles that Golden Eagle manufactured, with their heat- and motion-seeking guidance systems. It would be so easy.

  “Liam, did you ever contact Bob Howth, like I asked?”

  A splash of white light, ten times the intensity of the sun, arrived a few seconds before a double booming shockwave slammed into the building, almost pitching him from his bed. Outside, a vast roiling cloud, glowing bluish gray, spread out over the desert. Below it, the land boiled. The double boom meant AF1 was hit with two drones carrying small nuclear warheads to ensure the plane was vaporized. He assumed they had caught the jet at a position over a barren landscape, so there would be no significant injuries to humans on the ground.

  This would be the last, and finest, act of revenge in his career. Now for the follow-up, he thought. While he was stuck in this bed, he could dispatch letters to people who held real power, written in his own hand, to see what options were available to force Washington to end this war. There were plenty in the labyrinths of the capital who would jump at some kind of peace. She had powerful enemies, and now she couldn’t retaliate.

  “Liam, I’ll need writing paper and a pen. Let’s get to work on getting me the hell out of here. And before you look into sailing to Tasmania, we have unfinished business in Tel Aviv.” He held up his hand to cut off Liam’s protest. “It’s something I’ve got to do.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  THEY LOUNGED around the house well into the afternoon. After a late lunch, Matt Reece saddled the horses. Lilikoi strolled to the corral armed to the teeth, looking every bit the ninja that she did on that first day at the docks. It confirmed what he had only suspected thus far, that they were riding into a showdown.

  She handed him the flash drive. “In a tight spot, it’s our bargaining chip. Use it wisely.” He tucked it into his pocket. They mounted and rode west. Before leaving the yard, he glanced back at the house. It looked warm and inviting, yet he somehow knew that he was done with it. He turned to face the trail and did not look back again.

  An hour later, the terrain turned flat and grassy. While passing the airport, Lilikoi pointed to a red-and-silver Gulfstream G650 parked on the tarmac with a flight crew standing by. She talked about her father, claiming he was worth a hundred billion dollars. The lion’s share of his fortune he’d made by shorting subprime mortgages back in 2007 when the bottom dropped out of the housing market. In addition to the ranch on Moloki, he owned a palace in the Hamptons that boasted twenty-three marble bathrooms, a disco/ballroom and revolving dance floor, a forty-seat theater with dressing rooms for live stage performances, and a ten-thousand-bottle wine cellar. He was honored to have Dick Cheney as best man at his five-million-dollar wedding extravaganza. And because he predicted the current state of world affairs, he was poised to triple his fortune.

  He asked, “Then he had to know what Kenji was planning.”

  “I’m not sure how, but he knew, and he knew Kenji would come here once the shit hit the fan. He talked about this nuclear war over two years ago. That’s why I’ve had time to buy land on islands and gather animals and irreplaceable works.”

  He went silent, absorbing this new information.

  “If I know my father,” she said, “he’s the one who gave Kenji the idea.”

  They trotted up a gravel road running to a thick wall of stone enclosing a sizable compound perched at the western tip of the island. Two Jeeps parked at the front gate; both had soldiers manning high-caliber machine guns mounted behind the driver seat. As they rode between the Jeeps, an officer said, “Mr. Moloch is expecting you.”

  Manicured gardens encircled a mammoth, five-story, steel-and-glass, circular building with a clear dome covering the top floor. A number of bungalows nestled along the north and south walls—no doubt housing for the hired help, he thought. The western side was open to the shoreline, with vistas of the sea.

  They dismounted, and a military officer ushered them into an entry hall. His name was Lieutenant Kien, and he said he would escort them through a decontamination process and to the rooftop garden where they would be served dinner. Besides Lieutenant Kien, two uniformed men sat at a security counter that had several LED displays monitoring different parts of the compound. Both had assault rifles within easy reach. Beside each man sat a German shepherd. Their eyes were burning a hole in the intruders.

  “Army-trained sentry dogs,” Lilikoi said. “Bred for savagery.”

  Kien had Matt Reece place his hand on a glass-top screen and looked into an infrared camera. He felt a slight tingling on his fingers while a light passed over his right eye. A mechanical voice said, “State your name—last name first, first name last.”

  “Connors, Matt Reece.”

  Lilikoi performed the same drill, and Kien said, “You’re cleared. Follow me.”

  A door behind the security counter slid open, and Kien led the way into an adjoining room holding a wall of lockers and three benches. “We’ll leave our clothing, weapons, and any jewelry here. Select any empty locker.”

  Matt Reece glanced at Lilikoi, and the surprise on her face told him she had not expected this level of security. Without weapons, they were helpless.

  When they stored their clothing and weapons, another door opened. Kien led the way into a windowless room with a dozen glass booths, each with a chair inside. As soon as Matt Reece stepped into the room, an alarm sounded, and a red light flashed on the wall.

  Kien turned to him. “You didn’t remove everything. Rings, a watch?”

  He opened his palm, showing the flash drive. “I’m supposed to deliver this,” he lied.

  Kien took the flash drive and inspected it. “What’s on it?”

  Lilikoi said, “That information, Lieutenant, is beyond your pay grade.” She threw her head back and laughed. “I know that’s a cliché, but I’ve always wanted to use that line.”

  Kien, with no trace of humor on his face, returned it to Matt Reece.

  “Please take a seat inside the nearest booth,” Kien said. “While you relax, scanners will monitor your health, checking for abnormal heat variations, sensing blood flow, heartbeat rate, and so forth. Once you’re deemed healthy, it’ll start the decontamination process. Ultraviolet lights will kill pollen, fungus, germs, and contaminates on your skin.”

  Lilikoi said to Matt Reece, “My father takes mysophobia to a pathological level. Now that the world is using atomic weapons, his OCD is ramped up on steroids.”

  As soon as they were seated in their separate booths, Matt Reece wet the flash drive with saliva and slipped it inside his rectum—partly to protect it from X-ray light waves, but mostly because, now that he was naked, that was the best place to hide it.

  Lights shimmered and moved up and down the booth. The air held an antiseptic odor, convincing him that he was breathing some kind of sanitizer. The tube filled with steam, hot enough for Matt Reece to break out in a dripping sweat. The lieutenant had explained this process; the steam opened pores to discharge contaminates held in the skin.

  The longer the process dragged on, the more it felt like the inside of a glass coffin. He needed fresh air. He longed to be back riding the grasslands. His solar plexus heaved, imploring him to escape. A nervy rush drove him to his feet, and he pounded on the glass.

  “Oh—” He drew in a shallow breath. “—not now.” His heart raced; his lungs were closing. He had to get out of there, but the door was locked. Anxiety wrapped itself around his chest and squeezed with such force that he fell back on the chair.

  His panic awakened that energy he called Kirby. He slapped at the glass wall. With Kirby taking control, his air passages inched open, and then more. He wasn’t sure which he feared most, Kirby or suffocation, but a breath later, he surrendered to Kirby.

  The lights stopped, and the platform in each booth rose until they came to a halt on the floor above. The door opened, and he tumbled into a room that was floor-to-ceiling tile. It looked like a Turkish hammam with racks of clothes hanging on poles on one side, a line of showers on the other.

  A moment later, Lilikoi was cradling his head, her face inches from his. “I’m here,” she said, kissing his forehead. “Breathe with me.”

  He closed his eyes and felt her empathy flowing into him. He knew that without Kirby, he couldn’t have survived that glass coffin. His lungs unclenched, but Kirby refused to retreat.