Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

KIRA WAS WATCHING, too. She couldn't help herself. She was now cuffed and tied to a captain's chair near the Prizrak 's massive control panel. In the seat next to hers, Cal Savage leaned in toward the monitor.

"Perfect. Perfect! " He was admiring the POV from Lial's brooch camera. Kira could see how impressed he was with her skills.

"The poison," he said. "Her formula."

The image rose and fell slightly every second or two. Kira realized that it was from Lial's breathing. In less than a minute, blood started to cake on the chins and shirts of the two brothers. Their eyes were frozen open. Kira saw Lial's right hand reach out. The pad of her middle finger rested on Nils's neck, just below the angle of his jaw. Then Lucas. The camera's angle tilted and swirled as Lial stood and turned toward the exit. There was a moment of black. Then her face filled the frame.

"Done," she said softly into the lens.

The screen turned to static.

Savage turned toward Kira. "Your turn, Ms. Sunlight."

Kira tensed her muscles, looking for an opening. Any chance to make a move. But she was trapped. Was this where it was going to end? She realized that she didn't even know which of the seven seas she was floating on.

But fear was one thing she would not show. Ever.

"Do you get off on making snuff films?" she asked. "Is that your thing?"

Savage gave her a twisted smile. "I had hoped to see you die, if that's what you're asking. I definitely would have watched that." Savage turned back toward the monitor. "But now I have a much better idea."

Kira's mind flicked through the possibilities. None of them pleasant.

Savage picked up a video controller and selected another input. "I'm about to give you an assignment, Ms. Sunlight. Your chance to live a little longer."

The screen lit up with jerky handheld footage. The time code in the corner was from six days earlier. The scene was midday, bright sunlight. The camera moved along a path through thick tropical foliage. It stopped at a clearing, where a shallow pit had been dug out of the orange-tinted soil.

In the pit were bodies. Maybe a dozen men. Swarms of insects buzzed across the lens as the camera moved closer—close enough to show horrific gunshot wounds. Limbs were nearly torn off, bones exposed. Heads were shattered, some missing jaws or eye sockets or entire craniums. Brains and gore mottled the men's khaki uniforms. Kira inched forward in her chair, scanning quickly for Doc's face. Please, God, no… But the dead men were all young and Black.

"What happened here?" said Kira. "Why am I looking at this?"

Savage seemed to be observing the footage with clinical detachment, sometimes freezing a frame to study an image before moving on.

"This footage was taken near one of my financial interests," he said. "A copper mine. Remote location. A week ago, the mine fell into the wrong hands." He tapped the screen. "These men were my employees. My overseers and guards. Obviously, they were poorly armed, or inadequately motivated."

"Copper?" said Kira. "Copper for what? Your own line of cookware?" She was sure that she knew the real answer. She just wanted to hear it from him.

"Don't play the na?f, Ms. Sunlight. You know as well as I do that a by-product of copper is cobalt, and cobalt is the rock that now runs the world. Extremely profitable. This mine is an investment I can't personally attend to. But it's one I don't intend to surrender."

"So send Lial," said Kira. "Retribution seems to be in her wheelhouse."

"I have other plans for Lial. Other needs. This job is yours."

For a moment, Kira flashed to what would have happened if she'd been classmates with Cal Savage at school. She realized that she would have found an opportunity to drown him.

Kira glared at him. "Work for you ? I'd rather drink one of Lial's cocktails."

"That would be a shame," said Savage. He had the tone of a man with an ace up his sleeve. "Look what happened the last time you were incapacitated."

He clicked to another image with his controller. This time Kira recognized the scene right away, and it made her heart race. It was the tiny island—the place where, for a short time, life had been perfect.

It was night-vision footage, a ghostly grayish-green. But the picture was clear and sharp. The image showed a pan of the island. The coconut grove. The lean-to. Then the camera pointed toward the water and zoomed in. Kira twisted in her chair. She saw bodies rolling in the surf. She counted six. The boys!

She rocked back and forth, trying to loosen the bolts that held the chair to the deck. "Doc!" she shouted. She could feel her face burning with rage. " Is he dead? Did they kill him, too?"

Savage gave her his sick little smile. "On the contrary," he said. "The evidence will show that Doc Savage wielded the murder weapon. And island culture, I'm afraid, does not look kindly on killers."

"Doc would never hurt those kids!" Kira shouted. "Never!"

"I'm happy to see that your sympathy is with children," said Savage. "My copper mine is filled with them. I need you to go there. Discourage the men who are milking my asset. Make them regret their actions." He stared at her. "Or shall I just order up that drink?"

Kira stopped struggling. She relaxed her jaw and calmed her mind. In an instant, she made the kind of cold calculation that had helped her survive her brutal education and the lonely years after her escape.

She realized now that there was only one way off this floating prison. Only one way to find out if the man she loved was dead or alive. Sometimes the worst choice is the only choice. Her eyes turned steely and her voice evened out.

"Give me the coordinates."