The Viper

“The most beautiful animal on earth,” said the man behind the desk. His voice had a purring quality as disconcerting as the snake’s approach. “Not only beautiful, but sensitive. She wraps herself around you, and while she is doing that, she is listening. Listening to your heartbeat. She tightens herself around you, focused on the beating of your heart. She hugs you even tighter. So tight you can’t breathe. Tighter and tighter, crushing your veins, your arteries. Tighter and tighter until there is no more heartbeat. Until there is only silence. That is how she knows you are dead. The silence of your heart gives you away. Imagine that Mr. Gurney—a creature that listens for your heart to stop, so she will know you are dead. So she can devour you.”

As if responding on cue, the gigantic snake reached Gurney’s tethered ankle, its weight passing over his foot, as it began to coil itself around his leg. Its weight was as shocking as its scarlet eyes. Its girth was nearly that of a man’s thigh.

“What do you want from me?” cried Gurney, easily managing to sound petrified.

“Nothing, Mr. Gurney. Nothing at all.”

“This is crazy! I’ve done nothing to harm you. Nothing!”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

As the creature continued coiling itself around Gurney’s leg, rising higher, its weight began to affect his balance. As he staggered in a desperate effort to remain upright, he caught sight of a second snake, larger than the first, emerging from under the wet foliage. As it moved toward him, the one that already had him in its grip had risen above his leg and was wrapping itself around his hips. He twisted himself around to face Valdez, Valdez’s father, and the linebacker with the Uzi.

“You can have whatever you want! Just name it!”

Valdez’s father folded his hands on the desk and produced a glazed smile. “Peace of mind, Mr. Gurney. That’s all. Just peace of mind.”

Despite Gurney’s frantic efforts to stop it, the snake was wrapping itself around his midsection and moving higher. Valdez was looking at Gurney with a mixed expression of satisfaction and hatred. He leaned down toward his father and said something Gurney couldn’t hear. His father continued watching for another long minute before opening the center drawer of the desk and handing Valdez a 9mm Sig Sauer.

Thank God, thought Gurney, who’d begun to fear that the plan he and Valdez had devised would fail. But the key goal had finally been achieved. Valdez was armed and could deal with his unsuspecting father and the man with the Uzi.

But instead of doing so, he came out from behind the desk and, with a vicious smile, walked across the floor to a spot a few feet from Gurney. He slowly raised the pistol with a rock-steady hand until the barrel was on a direct line with Gurney’s heart.

Gurney could feel the blood draining from his face as his mind was filled with the horrible, despairing conclusion that the greatest—and last—mistake of his life had been to trust Emma Martin’s opinion of Valdez.

Valdez pulled the trigger.

The muzzle blast in the concrete room was deafening.

74

GURNEY STAGGERED IN SHOCK AT THE SOUND OF THE shot. But he remained standing—stunned and confused.

Valdez stared at him, appearing not to comprehend what had happened. He stared at the pistol, then turned to his father with a look of angry bafflement.

“What the fuck is going on?”

The man gestured to the pistol. “Bring it to me.”

Valdez walked to the desk and handed it over.

His father ejected the magazine, inserted a new one from the desk drawer, and handed the weapon back to Valdez.

“Try again.”

Valdez walked back to his position in front of Gurney and aimed again at his heart. This time, instead of a sadistic smile, he gave Gurney a small nod, then whirled around toward the desk and fired a rapid series of shots, smashing the guard with the Uzi against the wall and his father against his chair, upending it onto the floor.

He pivoted back to Gurney, put a point-blank shot in the head of the giant snake, blowing half of it away, and a shot in Gurney’s ankle restraint, severing it. He handed the Sig to Gurney. “Seventeen shot magazine, ten left, you’ll need them.”

He bounded around behind the desk and grabbed the Uzi from the guard’s body, as the door in the back wall was flung open and another Uzi-brandishing guard burst into the room.

Gurney hit him with two center-mass shots just as a third guard appeared in the now-exposed hallway beyond the open door. He fired two more shots, and the man went down hard.

The heavy coils of the partially headless snake were loosening around Gurney’s stomach and descending toward the floor, making it possible to step free of them. He backed away from the larger python-like snake that was moving steadily toward him and aimed the Sig at its head.

“Stop!” cried Valdez. “Leave that one alive!”