Thriller: Stories To Keep You Up All Night

Kowalski made one complete circle. Nothing.

He crossed toward the main building. Something nagged at the edge of his awareness. He scratched his skull in an attempt to dislodge it—but failed.

He climbed atop the full-length wooden porch and tried the door handle. Latched but unlocked. He shoved the door open with one foot, weapon raised, ready for a full-frontal ape assault.

The door swung wide, rebounded, and bounced back closed in his face.

Snorting in irritation, he grabbed the handle again. It wouldn’t budge. He tugged harder.

Locked.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

The collision must have jiggled some bolt into place.

“Are you inside yet?” Rosauro asked.

“Just about,” he grumbled.

“What’s the holdup?”

“Well…what happened was…” He tried sheepishness, but it fit him as well as fleece on a rhino. “I guess someone locked it.”

“Try a window.”

Kowalski glanced to the large windows that framed either side of the barred doorway. He stepped to the right and peered through. Inside was a rustic kitchen with oak tables, a farmer’s sink and old enamel appliances. Good enough. Maybe they even had a bottle of beer in the fridge. A man could dream. But first there was work to do.

He stepped back, pointed his weapon and fired a single round. The silver razor-disk shattered through the pane as easily as any bullet. Fractures spattered out from the hole.

He grinned. Happy again.

He retreated another step, careful of the porch edge. He thumbed the switch to automatic fire and strafed out the remaining panes.

He poked his head through the hole. “Anyone home?”

That’s when he saw the exposed wire snapping and spitting around a silver disk imbedded in the wall plaster. It had nicked through the electric cord. More disks were impaled across the far wall…including one that had punctured the gas line to the stove.

He didn’t bother cursing.

He twisted and leaped as the explosion blasted behind him. A wall of superheated air shoved him out of the way, blowing his poncho over his head. He hit the ground rolling as a fireball swirled overhead, across the courtyard. Tangled in his poncho, he tumbled—right into the eviscerated corpse. Limbs fought, heat burned, and scrambling fingers found only a gelid belly wound and things that squished.

Gagging, Kowalski fought his way free and shoved the poncho off his body. He stood, shaking like a wet dog, swiping gore from his arms in disgust. He stared toward the main building.

Flames danced behind the kitchen window. Smoke choked out the shattered pane.

“What happened?” the doctor gasped in his ear.

He only shook his head. Flames spread, flowing out the broken window and lapping at the porch.

“Kowalski?”

“Booby trap. I’m fine.”

He collected his weapon from his discarded poncho. Resting it on his shoulder, he intended to circle to the back. According to Dr. Rosauro, the main office was in the rear.

If he worked quickly—

He checked his watch.

8:45 a.m.

It was hero time.

He stepped toward the north side of the hacienda. His bare heel slipped on a loop of intestine, slick as any banana peel. His leg twisted out from under him. He tumbled face-first, striking hard, the weapon slamming to the packed dirt, his finger jamming the trigger.

Silver disks flashed out and struck the figure lumbering into the courtyard, one arm on fire. It howled—not in agony, but in feral rage. The figure wore the tatters of a butler’s attire. His eyes were fever bright but mucked with pasty matter. Froth speckled and drooled from lips rippled in a snarl. Blood stained the lower half of his face and drenched the front of his once-starched white shirt.

In a flash of insight—a rarity—Kowalski realized what had been nagging him before. The lack of monkey corpses here. He’d assumed the monkeys had been cannibalized—if so, then why leave a perfectly good chunk of meat out here?

The answer: no apes had attacked here.

It seemed the beasts were not the only ones infected on the island.

Nor the only cannibals.

The butler, still on fire, lunged toward Kowalski. The first impacts of the silver disks had struck shoulder and neck. Blood sprayed. Not enough to stop the determined maniac.

Kowalski squeezed the trigger, aiming low.

An arc of razored death sliced across the space at knee height.

Tendons snapped, bones shattered. The butler collapsed and fell toward Kowalski, landing almost nose to nose with him. A clawed hand grabbed his throat, nails digging into his flesh. Kowalski raised the muzzle of his VK rifle.

“Sorry, buddy.”

Kowalski aimed for the open mouth and pulled the trigger, closing his eyes at the last second.

A gargling yowl erupted—then went immediately silent. His throat was released.

Kowalski opened his eyes to see the butler collapse face-first.

Dead.

Kowalski rolled to the side and gained his legs. He searched around for any other attackers, then ran toward the back of the hacienda. He glanced in each window as he passed: a locker room, a lab with steel animal cages, a billiard room.

Fire roared on the structure’s far side, fanned by the growing winds. Smoke churned up into the darkening skies.

Through the next window, Kowalski spotted a room with a massive wooden desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

It had to be the professor’s study.

“Dr. Rosauro,” Kowalski whispered.

No answer.

“Dr. Rosauro…” he tried a little louder.

He grabbed his throat. His transmitter was gone, ripped away in his scuffle with the butler. He glanced back toward the courtyard. Flames lapped the sky.

He was on his own.

He turned back to the study. A rear door opened into the room. It stood ajar.

Why did that not sit well with him?

With time strangling, Kowalski edged cautiously forward, gun raised. He used the tip of his weapon to nudge the door wider.

He was ready for anything.

Rabid baboons, raving butlers.

But not for the young woman in a skintight charcoal wet suit.

She was crouched before an open floor safe and rose smoothly with the creak of the door, a pack slung over one shoulder. Her hair, loose and damp, flowed as dark as a raven’s wing, her skin burnt honey. Eyes, the smoky hue of dark caramel, met his.

Over a silver 9mm Sig-Sauer held in one fist.

Kowalski ducked to the side of the doorway, keeping his weapon pointed inside. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name, señor, is Condeza Gabriella Salazar. You are trespassing on my husband’s property.”

Kowalski scowled. The professor’s wife. Why did all the pretty ones go for the smart guys?

“What are you doing here?” he called out.

“You are American, sí? Sigma Force, no doubt.” This last was said with a sneer. “I’ve come to collect my husband’s cure. I will use it to barter for my marido’s freedom. You will not stop me.”

A blast of her gun chewed a hole through the door. Splinters chased him back.

Something about the easy way she had handled her pistol suggested more than competence. Plus, if she’d married a professor, she probably had a few IQ points on him.

Brains and a body like that…

Life was not fair.

Kowalski backed away, covering the side door.

A window shattered by his ear. A bullet seared past the back of his neck. He dropped and pressed against the adobe wall.

The bitch had moved out of the office and was stalking him from inside the house.

Body, brains, and she knew the lay of the land.

No wonder she’d been able to avoid the monsters here.

Distantly a noise intruded. The whump-whump of an approaching helicopter. It was their evac chopper. He glanced to his watch. Of course their ride was early.

“You should run for your friends,” the woman called from inside. “While you still have time!”

Kowalski stared at the manicured lawn that spread all the way to the beach. There was no cover. The bitch would surely drop him within a few steps.

It came down to do or die.

He bunched his legs under him, took a deep breath, then sprang up. He crashed back-first through the bullet-weakened window. He kept his rifle tucked to his belly. He landed hard and shoulder-rolled, ignoring the shards of glass cutting him.

He gained a crouched position, rifle up, swiveling.

The room was empty.

Gone again.

So it was to be a cat-and-mouse hunt through the house.

He moved to the doorway that led deeper into the structure. Smoke flowed in rivers across the ceiling. The temperature inside was furnace hot. He pictured the pack over the woman’s shoulder. She had already emptied the safe. She would make for one of the exits.

He edged to the next room.

A sunroom. A wall of windows overlooked the expanse of gardens and lawn. Rattan furniture and floor screens offered a handful of hiding places. He would have to lure her out somehow. Outthink her.

Yeah, right.

He edged into the room, keeping close to the back wall.

He crossed the room. There was no attack.

He reached the far archway. It led to a back foyer.

And an open door.

He cursed inwardly. As he made his entrance, she must have made her exit. She was probably halfway to Honduras by now. He rushed the door and out to the back porch. He searched the grounds.

Gone.

So much for outthinking her.

The press of the hot barrel against the back of his skull punctuated how thick that skull actually was. As he had concluded earlier, she must have realized a sprint across open ground was too risky. So she had waited to ambush him.

She didn’t even hesitate for any witty repartee…not that he’d be a good sparring partner anyway. Only a single word of consolation was offered. “Adiós.”

The blast of the gun was drowned by a sudden siren’s wail.

Both of them jumped at the shrieking burst.

Luckily, he jumped to the left, she to the right.

The round tore through Kowalski’s right ear with a lance of fire.

He spun, pulling the trigger on his weapon. He didn’t aim, just clenched the trigger and strafed at waist level. He lost his balance at the edge of the porch, tumbling back.

Another bullet ripped through the air past the tip of his nose.

He hit the cobbled path, and his skull struck with a distinct ring. The rifle was knocked from his fingers.

He searched up and saw the woman step to the edge of the porch.

She pointed her Sig-Sauer at him.

Her other arm clutched her stomach. It failed to act as a dam. Abdominal contents spilled from her split belly, pouring out in a flow of dark blood. She lifted her gun, arm trembling—her eyes met his, oddly surprised. Then the gun slipped from her fingers, and she toppled toward him.

Kowalski rolled out of the way in time.

She landed with a wet slap on the stone path.

The bell-beat of the helicopter wafted louder as the winds changed direction. The storm was rolling in fast. He saw the chopper circle the beach once, like a dog settling for a place to sleep, then lower toward the flat rocky expanse.

Kowalski returned to Gabriella Salazar’s body and hauled off her pack. He began to sprint for the beach. Then stopped, went back, and retrieved his VK rifle. He wasn’t leaving it behind.

As he ran, he realized two things.

One. The siren blast from the neighboring jungle had gone silent. And two. He had heard not a single word from Dr. Rosauro. He checked the taped receiver behind his ear. Still in place.

Why had she gone silent?

The helicopter—a Sikorsky S-76—touched down ahead of him. Sand swirled in the rotorwash. A gunman in military fatigues pointed a rifle at him and bellowed over the roar of the blades.

“Stand down! Now!”

Kowalski stopped. He lowered his rifle but lifted the pack. “I have the goddamn antidote.”

He searched the surrounding beach for Dr. Rosauro, but she was nowhere in sight.

“I’m Seaman Joe Kowalski! U.S. Navy! I’m helping Dr. Rosauro!”

After a moment of consultation with someone inside the chopper, the gunman waved him forward. Ducking under the rotors, Kowalski held out the satchel. A shadowy figure accepted the pack and searched inside. Something was exchanged by radio.

“Where’s Dr. Rosauro?” the stranger asked, clearly the one in charge here. Hard blue eyes studied him.

Kowalski shook his head.

“Commander Crowe,” the pilot called back. “We must leave now. The Brazilian navy had just ordered the bombardment.”

“Get inside,” the man ordered Kowalski, the tone unequivocal.

Kowalski stepped toward the open door.

A shrieking wail stopped him. A single short burst. It came from beyond the beach.

In the jungle.

Dr. Shay Rosauro clung to the tangle of branches halfway up the broad-leafed cocoa tree. Baboons gibbered below. She had sustained a deep bite to her calf, lost her radio and her pack.

Minutes ago, after being chased into the tree, she had found that her perch offered a bird’s-eye view of the hacienda, good enough to observe Kowalski being led out at gunpoint. Unable to help, she had used the only weapon still at hand—her sonic shrieker.

Unfortunately, the blast had panicked the baboons below her, their sudden flight jostling her branch. She’d lost her balance…and the shrieker. As she’d regained her balance, she’d heard two gunshots.

Hope died inside her.

Below, one of the baboons, the dominant male of the pack, had recovered her sonic device and discovered the siren button. The blast momentarily scattered the pack. But only momentarily. The deterrent was becoming progressively less effective—only making them angrier.

Shay hugged the tree trunk.

She checked her watch, then closed her eyes.

She pictured the children’s faces…her partner’s…

A noise drew her attention upward. The double whump of a passing helicopter. The leaves whipped around her. She lifted an arm—then lowered it.

Too late.

The chopper lifted away. The Brazilian assault would commence in a matter of seconds. Shay let her club, her only remaining weapon, drop from her fingers. What was the use? It tumbled below, doing nothing but drawing the attention of the baboons. The pack renewed its assault, climbing the lowest branches.

She could only watch.

Then a familiar voice intruded.

“Die, you dirty, rabid, motherfucking apes!”

A large figure appeared below, blazing out with a VK rifle.

Baboons screamed. Fur flew. Blood splattered.

Kowalski strode into the fray, back to nothing but his boxers.

And his weapon.

He strafed and fired, spinning, turning, twisting, dropping.

Baboons fled now.

Except for their leader. The male rose up and howled as loudly as Kowalski, baring long fangs. Kowalski matched his expression, showing as many teeth.

“Shut the hell up!”

Kowalski punctuated his declaration with a continuous burst of firepower, turning monkey into mulch. Once finished, he shouldered his rifle and strode forward. Leaning on the trunk, he stared up.

“Ready to come down, Doctor?”

Relieved, Shay half fell out of the tree. Kowalski caught her.

“The antidote…?” she asked.

“In safe hands,” he assured her. “On its way to the coast with Commander Crowe. He wanted me to come along, but well…I…I guess I owed you.”

He supported her under one shoulder. They hobbled quickly out of the jungle to the open beach.

“How are we going to get off—?”

“I’ve got that covered. Seems a nice lady left us a going-away present.” He pointed down the strand to a beached Jet Ski. “Lucky for us, Gabriella Salazar loved her husband enough to come out here.”

As they hurried to the watercraft’s side, he gently helped her on board, then climbed in front.

She circled her arms around his waist. She noted his bloody ear and weeping lacerations across his back. More scars to add to his collection. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his bare back. Grateful and exhausted.

“And speaking of the love of one’s life,” he said, igniting the watercraft’s engine and throttling it up. He glanced back. “I may be falling in love, too…”

She lifted her head, startled, then leaned back down.

Relieved.

Kowalski was just staring at his shouldered rifle.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “This baby’s a real keeper.”

Gayle Lynds

Gayle Lynds did not intend to start a series. When she wrote her first book, Masquerade, in the mid-1990s, she was simply creating a modern espionage thriller. But in those early post-Iron Curtain days, not only was there serious discussion in Congress about dissolving the CIA, the New York Times eliminated its regular review column titled, “Spies & Thrillers.” Within book publishing, the spy novel was declared as dead as the cold war.

Still, Masquerade became a New York Times bestseller. A great adventure story, it was infused with fascinating doses of history and psychology. In an odd way, Sarah Walker, the heroine, was Lynds. Both were magazine journalists, but Sarah had the misfortune to have an uncle who was a notorious assassin called the Carnivore, although she did not know this. In the novel, Asher Flores, the hero, is a CIA man of the fascinating ilk—charming, terribly smart, with the soul of a rogue. Together, Sarah and Asher must unearth the Carnivore.

Lynds went on to publish two more stand-alone thrillers, Mesmerized and Mosaic, and collaborated with Robert Ludlum to create the Covert-One series. Through it all, she continued to receive mail from fans who wanted her to bring back Sarah, Asher and the Carnivore. So The Coil, a novel about the Carnivore’s only child, Liz Sansborough, was born. A former CIA operative, Liz had played a pivotal role in Masquerade, just as Sarah and Asher would play pivotal roles in The Coil.

Liz and Sarah are two matched flames, not only in appearance but in spirit, with quick wit and the sort of personal courage that is both admirable and sometimes daunting. Costarring with Liz in The Coil is Simon Childs of MI6. For him, the “M” means maverick. Hotheaded and coolly charming, Simon reflects Lynds’s endless fascination with politics—he’s a penetration agent in the antiglobalization movement.

Lynds’s latest espionage thriller is The Last Spymaster, and will be followed by another book in the Carnivore series. The Hunt for Dmitri is part of that continuum.

It’s a Liz Sansborough story.

Which means the Carnivore must appear, too.

The Hunt for Dmitri

The French never got enough credit. The Germans never got enough control. The Romanians had a guilt complex. And the Americans hadn’t a clue. As the good-natured slanders continued, Liz Sansborough, Ph.D., peered around the Faculty Club for her close friend and colleague Arkady Albam. He was late.

The dimly lit bar was packed, every table filled. The rich aromas of wine and liquor were intense. As glasses clinked, a world atlas of languages electrified the air. Academics all, they were celebrating the conclusion of a highly successful international conference on cold war political fallout, post-9/11, which she had helped to organize. Still, there was no sign of Arkady.

The economist from the University of London grinned pointedly at Liz—the only American in their group. “I hear Russia’s economy is so rotten that the Kremlin has had to sack dozens of its American moles.”

“Only because we don’t sell ourselves cheap.” She grinned back at him. “Moscow can afford to keep your MI6 turncoats on the payroll forever.”

As laughter erupted, the sociologist from the Sorbonne nodded at the empty bar stool beside Liz and asked in French, “Where’s Arkady? He isn’t here to defend his country!”

“I’ve been wondering, too.” Liz’s gaze swept the lounge once more.

Arkady was a visiting scholar in Russian history, on campus here at the University of California at Santa Barbara since January. They had met soon after he arrived, when he sat beside her at a mass faculty meeting, peered at the empty seat on his other side, then introduced himself to her. “I’m the new kid,” he said simply. They discovered a shared European sensibility, a love of movies, and that each had pasts neither would discuss. In her mind, she could see his kindly wrinkled face, feel the touch of his fingertips on her forearm as he leaned toward her with an impish smile to impart some piece of wisdom or gossip.

The problem was, he was elderly—almost seventy years old—and so unwell the past week that he had missed all of Monday’s events, including his own seminar. He had phoned to tell her, but stubbornly refused to see a doctor.

As the lighthearted banter continued, and more people arrived, there was still no Arkady. He was never late. Liz speeddialed his number on her cell phone. No answer again. Instead of leaving another message, she toasted her colleagues farewell and wound through the throngs to the door. His apartment was only minutes away. She might as well look in on him.

The night sky was dull black, the stars pinpricks, remote. Liz hurried to her car, threw her shoulder bag across the front seat, turned on the ignition and peeled out, speeding along streets fringed with towering palms until at last she parked in front of Arkady’s building. He lived in 2C. In a rare admission, he had joked once that he preferred this “C” to the one that referred to the Cellar, Soviet intelligence’s name for the basement in the Lubyanka complex where the KGB executed dissidents and spies and those who crossed them. He barely escaped, he had told her, then refused to say more, his profile pinched with bad memories.

Liz ran upstairs and knocked. There was no answer. His drapes were closed, but a line of light showed in a center gap. She knocked again then tried the knob. It turned, and she cracked open the door. Just inside, magazines were strewn in piles. A lamp lay on its side, its ceramic base shattered. Her chest tightened.

“Arkady? Are you here?”

The only sound was the ticking of the wall clock. Liz opened the door wider. Books lay where they had been yanked from shelves, spines twisted. She peered around the door—and saw Arkady. His brown eyes were wide and frightened, and he seemed small, shriveled, although he was muscular and broad-chested for his age. He was sitting in his usual armchair, drenched in the light of his tall, cast-iron floor lamp.

She drank in the sight of him. “Are you all right?”

Arkady sighed. “This is what greeted me after the last seminar.” He spoke English with an American accent. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” He still wore his battered tweed jacket, his gray tie firmly knotted against his throat. His left hand held a blue envelope, while the other was tucked inside his jacket as if clutching at his heart. He was a man of expressive Rus disposition and ascetic Mongol habits and was usually vibrant and talkative.

She frowned. “Yes, but you didn’t answer my question. Are you hurt?”

When he shook his head, experience sent her outside to the balcony again. A gust of wind rustled the leaves of a pepper tree, cooling her hot face. As she inspected the street and parked cars, then the other apartment buildings, uneasy memories surged through her, transporting her back to the days she had been a CIA NOC—nonofficial cover operative—on roving assignment from Paris to Moscow. No one at the university knew she had been CIA.

Seeing nothing unusual, she slipped back inside and locked the door. Arkady had not moved. In the lamplight, his thick hair and heavy eyebrows were the muted color of iron shavings.