Page 72 of Ace
Oh yeah, RJ remembered now. He was going to Jacksonville. Yes sirree Bob.
Pulling away from his parking place, RJ stepped on the gas and headed west toward the airport. Man, them folks at the Center for Disease Control were running out of time—if the Fish and Wildlife folks had even called them yet. Who knew? Maybe his clever little virus worked faster than he thought. Maybe all them birds and them do-gooder folks who wanted to save the world were already dead. A man could hope.
The miles passed and the sun dipped low in the west. It was one of those rare, perfect Louisiana days when everything had gone right for a change. Traffic was reasonably light. The sky overhead was darn near blue instead of smoggy or hazy gray. There weren’t a cloud in the sky. Even the humidity hovered at a decent, breathable level. If only he owned Gran Mere’s property. That was what he’d wanted out of her crappy little houseboat—the title to her land.
Sanctuary would’ve made the perfect location for another clinic, maybe a laboratory, butted up against the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area like it was. No one would’ve bothered him while he worked on his elixirs and spells there. It was secluded. Private. He could’ve lived like a hermit while he manufactured more special combinations. More viruses. More death.
That was what RJ craved, to see humankind brought to its knees for a change. All them dogs, cats, and birds Savannah left behind would’ve made perfect lab rats. They were already trapped in cages and kennels. She’d kept them healthy, clean, and fed. In justmonths, he could’ve been rich, and no one would’ve been wiser. Hell, he might even mix up another batch. Only he’d sell this one. It’d be the antidote. Folks would have to pay if they wanted to live.
If they couldn’t, well, he weren’t any different than most pharmaceutical companies in the world now, was he? They over-charged for life-saving drugs all the time, and, boo hoo, people who couldn’t afford to pay, died. Who cared? Not the rich bastard CEOs of those multi-billion-dollar enterprises. Not elected officials or law enforcement neither. Not even the bully machine out of Hollywood cared unless one of them got infected.Hmmm. Infect Hollywood.That idea actually felt—perrrrrr-fect. Yup. Everyone would know his name then.
But RJ needed to get his hands on Sanctuary first. The area was desolate enough, which had made it ideal for Savannah’s stinking dog pound. She thought she’d rehabilitated feral dogs and cats? That’d be the day. All she’d done was stick her uppity nose in other folk’s business, then act all high and mighty cuz she’d gotten her way and took their property from ’em. But RJ knew she’d only gotten what she’d wanted cuz of who Gran Mere really was. Scary, that was what. Scary powerful.
No, she wasn’t!
RJ rubbed a quick hand over his chest at the sudden twinge that always came with the thought of Gran Mere’s powerful name. He’d only messed with her the one time she’d caught him with a crack pipe. He’d blubbered like a stuck pig that day, trying to convince her it was his first time, that he’d never do it again. ’Course, she fell for it, even gave him the benefit of the doubt. But then she cursed him was what she did. Every time he even thought of lighting up and melting some rocks, his chest hurt like he was having a heart attack, only he knew better. He was a bonafide physician, after all. He had science on his side. It weren’t no heart attack. It was Gran Mere’s curse.
With the sun glaring through his windshield, RJ made his way across Jefferson bridge, over the levee and past the rice paddies. Cranking the wheel, he passed the chewed-up plot where Gran Mere’s houseboat used to stand. Good riddance to that garbage scow.
Yet she’d been another surprise, maybe even what you could call a damned rude awakening. RJ had no idea the old bag owned as much land as she had when she’d passed. Who knew she’d lived like a pauper while she squirreled away hundreds of thousands of dollars? Right under his nose, too. Must’ve been why Savannah always seemed to have whatever she wanted. The best part of Gran Mere’s property. All them gadgets to keep her precious Sanctuary secure. That boat—
Damn them both to hell!
Yup, damn them women both to hell, and damn Fontenette, too. The houseboat should’ve been RJ’s. That was the deal, his ketamine in exchange for the boat and Savannah. But Fontenette went and got hisself raided by the FBI. Must’ve shot his big mouth off to the wrong folks. How else would the FBI have known what Bruce was up to?
RJ still hadn’t figured that one out. Those birds were Fontenette’s first foray into illegal smuggling. It usually took years of backdoor sales and a shit load of investigative work before Fish and Wildlife had enough evidence to press charges. But this time, instead of FWS raiding Fontenette’s place, the FBI showed up and pulled a magic act of their own. They were the ones who’d executed the warrant. They were the ones who had Fontenette now.
They’d almost snagged RJ in that raid, too. Made him sweat just thinking about how close he’d come to getting caught. Whew. He’d been toasting his success with Fontenette in the man’s elegant den, when he’d gotten one of his premonitions. If not for stealing that ambulance and kidnapping Boniface, RJ knew he’d be in jail alongside Bruce.
Life just wasn’t fair sometimes, but things were about to change. Yes sirree, Bob. Things were about to change.
Yessssss. They are……
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Savannah listened in, psychically watching Director Chase’s conversation with FWS from Keller’s Intensive Care Room. She’d had to board Red and Galahad at a nearby kennel, promising her dogs she’d be back as soon as she could. At the moment Tucker was leaned against his FBI SWAT van alongside the highway between Jacksonville and the National Guard Base in Northeast Florida. He was trying to play good cop, but he was mad. Dressed down in black jeans and a black FBI polo, he’d connected with two FWS agents, Senior Agents Collins and his assistant agent, Camilla Brinkman, while on his way to Camp Blanding. Brinkman was a hard one for Tucker to work with. Always a pain in his ass.
Savannah now knew the Deuces Wild team was an FBI unit in its infancy. The team totaled four agents, five counting Tucker. Eden and her husband Ky wereout looking for Doctor Rudy John. An agent she hadn’t yet met, Tate Higgins, was flying in from California to assist them. Until today, he’d been involved with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, San Diego Sector. Eden said Tate was originally a big game hunter from Alaska. His specialty was tracking wild animals. If he couldn’t find RJ, nobody could.
Isaiah was right. Keller’s condition had deteriorated overnight. A ventilator kept him breathing while several IVs kept him hydrated and medicated. But he was seriously sick, and Savannah was worried. She’d said all her prayers and cast only threads of positivity into the universe, yet he seemed beyond her reach. Even time seemed to be working against him.
“Then we check the birds,” Tucker growled at Agent Camilla Brinkman. “Every last one of them.”
Since FWS didn’t have sufficient on-site space to accommodate an illegal shipment the size of Fontenette’s, they’d moved Fontenette’s four containers to an empty warehouse at Camp Blanding, some fifty miles southwest of Jacksonville. Savannah knew now those wooden crates in the containers had only hidden a dozen birds each instead of the thousands Keller had originally estimated. Which was good.
But because these hummingbirds were exotic and those containers comprised several of the rarest species on Earth, the world was now focused on Florida. That was bad. Yet every available hand at the North Florida Ecological Services Office had been called in to assist. Not to be outdone, the commander at Camp BlandingJoint Training Center had volunteered as many off-duty reservists as needed to help save the birds.
Which meant any military member stationed or training there, whether from the Florida Army National Guard, the Florida Air National Guard, visiting ROTC units, as well as Civil Air Patrol, was now handling, nurturing, and otherwise working to save the birds. Assorted college students, interested civilians, even Green Peace advocates had also volunteered.
Word was People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were sending a group of trained volunteers to provide what they called ‘overwatch’ to ensure no hummingbirds were injured in the course of saving them. Director Chase called it ‘interference’. PETA had already threatened volunteers en masse should a single hummingbird die while under FWS care. It seemed simply saving those birds’ lives wasn’t enough.
Yet the problem wasthose birds. While Keller lay struggling to breathe with some kind of rare toxin in his system, they were very much alive. Seemingly healthy. Fluttering throughout the industrial-sized warehouse. Establishing territorial dominance. Mating. Some had been dehydrated when the crates were unpacked, but each bird had been handled with tender care from the start, and they’d all survived.
Cadets from Civil Air Patrol hung hundreds of wires between ceiling joists in the warehouse, then hung enough plastic feeders on those wires to provide the right mixture of sugar water and nutrients to keep the hummingbirds thriving. As luck would have it, the packing paper and pots used to smuggle them had alsoprotected them from the full effect of whatever gas RJ and Fontenette used.
At the mere thought of what RJ did, Savannah reached for Keller. His hand was cold. He was so very ill. If something didn’t change his prognosis soon, she could lose him.
“But Director Chase,” Agent Brinkman replied with her usual lofty tone. “Those containers are safely quarantined. We follow strict protocol to protect endangered species. Surely you know that.”
