Once Dead Read online

  Also by Richard Phillips

  The Rho Agenda: The Second Ship

  The Rho Agenda: Immune

  The Rho Agenda: Wormhole

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2014 Richard Phillips

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  ISBN-13: 9781477824108

  ISBN-10: 1477824103

  Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014932945

  Dedicated to my wife, Carol, whose love and encouragement has made writing such a pleasure

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  CHAPTER 99

  CHAPTER 100

  CHAPTER 101

  CHAPTER 102

  CHAPTER 103

  CHAPTER 104

  CHAPTER 105

  CHAPTER 106

  CHAPTER 107

  CHAPTER 108

  CHAPTER 109

  CHAPTER 110

  CHAPTER 111

  CHAPTER 112

  CHAPTER 113

  CHAPTER 114

  CHAPTER 115

  CHAPTER 116

  CHAPTER 117

  CHAPTER 118

  CHAPTER 119

  CHAPTER 120

  CHAPTER 121

  CHAPTER 122

  CHAPTER 123

  CHAPTER 124

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Jack Gregory felt strong hands shove him into the moonlit alley, only dimly aware of the half-dozen men that encircled him as his focus shifted to the man that waited in the center of that ring. These self-appointed referees had brought them together here for two reasons: to watch a death match between Americans and to make sure Jack wasn’t the one who walked away. And if that was how things went down, that was fine with him. Priest Williams wouldn’t be walking away either.

  The Calcutta slums bred hard men and women. By the time children reached the age of thirteen, they’d already experienced more work and hardship than most Americans would endure in their lifetimes. The residents of this particular neighborhood bore no love for Americans in general or CIA operatives in particular. Carlton “Priest” Williams, an ex–Delta Force mercenary, fell into the first category. Jack fit the second.

  As he looked at the mercenary’s muscular torso, shimmering with sweat in the moon’s pale glow, Jack’s hatred for the man filled his veins with ice. Airborne Ranger, Green Beret, Delta Force. Priest’s mere existence screamed betrayal of all that America’s Special Forces stood for. Because of Priest, Jack’s brother’s body lay in an unmarked grave somewhere in Waziristan. Not his head, just his body. A burlap bag containing Robert’s decaying head had been left on Jack’s hotel room pillow. That delivery had propelled him into this alley, into this night.

  Priest launched himself at Jack, moving with surprising speed and agility for a man his size, but his right cross failed to land. Shifting his weight left, Jack’s side kick buckled Priest’s right leg, bringing him to his knees. Immediately Jack was behind him, his right arm encircling Priest’s throat. Struggling to prevent Jack’s left arm from completing the choke hold, Priest rolled forward, throwing Jack over his head onto the sewage-strewn ground, coming to rest straddling Jack’s body.

  As heavy blows rained down onto his face and neck, Jack grabbed Priest’s left hand, whipping his right leg up to lock beneath Priest’s chin. Levering Priest’s arm outward against the pressure of his leg, Jack felt the arm break, sending Priest’s gargling scream echoing through the alley. Shifting his weight, Jack continued to twist the broken arm, rolling the bigger man onto his side as Jack’s feet sought their fatal lock around Priest’s neck.

  The slash of twin blades across his back took Jack by surprise, sending him rolling to his feet to face his new attackers. All six men who formed the circle around the two combatants held the foot-and-a-half-long, boomerang-shaped knives called Khukuri. It was the signature weapon of the local Nepalese gang who called themselves the Ghurkaris. Blood dripped from the blades of the two men to his left.

  With a rage-filled scream, one arm dangling uselessly at his side, Priest bull-rushed him. Although Jack sidestepped this new attack, the movement brought him too close to those that encircled them and he suffered a new cut higher up on his back. As he spun away, two more slashed across his chest. The wounds weren’t deep enough to be dangerous, the bloodletting intended to weaken, not to kill. The vision of a Madrid bullfight swam through his head. Picadores.

  Priest’s left hook caught him high on the head, sending Jack staggering backward, taking another cut on his right side before he recovered. Priest followed up with a spinning side kick aimed at his head, a mistake that allowed Jack to hook Priest’s foot beneath his right ar
m. The leg sweep that followed dropped Priest onto his broken arm.

  Lifting the leg, Jack put all his power into a kick that caught Priest in the groin. As a knife again sliced at his back, Jack released Priest and lunged sideways, catching the knife wielder by the wrist and thumb, his motion twisting the arm over and back, opening the man’s throat to the blow that crushed his windpipe. Before the knife could slip from the dying man’s fingers, Jack redirected it into a second gang member’s stomach.

  There are moments when surprise and shock are your only allies and Jack embraced this one, falling upon the other four, wielding a Khukuri in each hand. Taking another cut across his chest, he slashed the throat of the nearest gangster and spun under another thrust, his long knife removing the attacking hand at the wrist. His subsequent thrust spilled the man’s guts onto his dying friend.

  Sensing movement to his left, Jack twisted sideways, but not quite fast enough. A razor-sharp blade pierced his left side below his ribcage, just before Jack’s counter-thrust dropped the man on his face.

  The last of the Ghurkaris stepped backward, but when Jack staggered, the Ghurkari lunged to fill the opening, a look of shock widening his eyes as Jack’s right heel caught him in the throat, crushing his trachea and dropping him to the ground. The blow left the man gagging, vainly struggling to draw breath through his broken air passage. Jack watched as his battle came to a rattling, wheezing end, then returned his attention to Priest.

  But Priest was gone.

  Taking a half-dozen steps forward, Jack swept the alley with his gaze, but there was no sign of the man. A wave of frustration engulfed him, sapping the last of his strength and dropping him to his knees. Then, as the Nepali knives slipped from his bloody fingers, the ground rose up to kiss him good night.

  Sister Mary Judith limped slowly through the darkened slum that had been her home the last forty-eight years of her fading life. Her right shoe hurt her foot more than usual tonight. But her bunions weren’t likely to get better. And compared to the poor people whose souls she sought to save and whose bodies her clinic treated, she had no complaints.

  Tonight that clinic had failed a three-year-old child and the woman whose tears still dampened Sister Mary Judith’s shoulder. Malaria had taken the little girl from her mother’s arms and into God’s. Salara. Such a beautiful name. A name that had been repeatedly sobbed into her left ear as the mother wept in her old arms.

  She was so lost in the memory that she failed to notice the running man until he staggered into her, knocking Sister Mary Judith to the ground. Although pain lanced through her left hand, she did not cry out. But the cry of pain from the running man followed him into the darkness.

  Rubbing her wrist, the sister flexed her fingers. It wasn’t broken. She’d always been blessed with strong bones and, thankfully, her advancing years had failed to rob her of that blessing. Apparently, the Lord needed her bones strong so she could continue to aid these people.

  Struggling back to her feet, Sister Mary Judith glanced in the direction the man had disappeared. What had he been running from? Not really running. More of a barely controlled stagger, with one arm hanging limply at his side. Something had so terrified him that he had forced himself to flee despite injuries that would have curled a strong man into a fetal ball.

  Turning to look in the direction from which the man had come, a new thought occurred to her. He couldn’t have come that far from whoever had injured him. If it had been a gang fight, perhaps others lay injured or dying.

  Sister Mary Judith turned her steps in that direction. Despite their appallingly violent deeds, she had no fear of the gangs. She moved among them every day, an old nun who posed no threat to anyone, so unattractive that rape never crossed their minds, her clinic so undersupplied and futile that it offered nothing worth stealing. A doctor to set bones and sew up open cuts, boiled rags for bandages, boiled water for washing wounds, a few old surgical instruments, a surgical table, some basic antiseptics, some cots, and an old woman’s faith and hardworking hands. Nothing more.

  At the entrance into the alley, she smelled death before she saw it, a smell that overwhelmed this place’s underlying stench. The smell propelled the old nun forward, adding an increased urgency to her shuffling steps. Over the years her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness night brought to these backstreets and alleys, but tonight’s moonlight eliminated the need for that talent, bathing the alley in its ghostly glow. And in the midst of that pale light, seven bodies drained their life’s blood into the mud.

  Sister Mary Judith moved among them, kneeling briefly beside each victim to place a finger on the carotid artery. One man had fallen facedown several steps from the cluster of bodies, as if he had tried to pursue the one who had fled the alley. And like the fleeing man, this one was shirtless, although, in the moonlight, it seemed he wore a shirt of blood. There was so much of it that the nun gasped when she felt a faint pulse in his throat.

  Despite her advancing years, Sister Mary Judith was strong. Nevertheless, the thin layer of skin that covered the hard muscles beneath was so slick with warm blood she had difficulty turning the man onto his back. When she achieved it, her hope that she could save him withered within her soul. Like his back, his chest and arms were covered in shallow cuts. Worse, a deep wound penetrated his left side. Removing her scarf, the sister wadded it into a tight ball, pressing it as deeply into the wound as she could manage before rising to her feet and rushing back the way she had come.

  Dr. Jafar Misra’s house was less than a block away, but Sister Mary Judith felt the weight of all her years as she hurried along, holding tight to the hope that God would allow her to accomplish one good thing on this sorrow-filled evening. When she reached the narrow door, it took more than a minute for Jafar to open it to her insistent knock. It took another half-hour to help Jafar load the man onto a rickshaw and deliver him to the darkened clinic.

  By the time they had laid him on her surgery table, she could barely feel any pulse at all. She took the fact that he still lived as an indication that the Lord was not yet done with this man. If the man’s will was as strong as his jawline and lean musculature seemed to indicate, perhaps there was yet hope.

  Dr. Misra, working by lamplight, with Sister Mary Judith assisting, bathed the wounds in Betadine and sewed them closed. Then, as she tied off the last knot, as if mocking their feeble attempts to save him, their patient shuddered and passed from this world into the next.

  There was no tunnel with a beautiful light to beckon him forward. Jack Gregory hadn’t expected one. But he hadn’t expected this either.

  A pea-soup fog cloaked the street, trying its best to hide the worn paving stones beneath his feet. It was London, but this London had a distinct, nineteenth-century feel. Not in a good way either. For some reason it didn’t really surprise him. If there was a doorway to hell, Jack supposed a gloomy old London backstreet was as appropriate a setting as any.

  While his real body might be bleeding out somewhere in Calcutta, here Jack suffered from no such wounds. He stepped forward, his laced desert combat boots sending wisps of fog swirling around them. Long, cool, steady strides. A narrow alley to his left beckoned him and he didn’t fight the feeling. He hadn’t started this journey by running away and he’d be damned if he was going to end it running away from whatever awaited him.

  The fog wasn’t any thicker in the alley. The narrowness just made it feel that way. Jack didn’t look back, but he could feel the entrance dwindle behind him as he walked. To either side, an occasional door marred the walls that connected one building to the next, rusty hinges showing just how long it had been since anyone had opened them. It didn’t matter. Jack’s interest lay in the dark figure that suddenly blocked his path.

  The man’s face lay hidden in shadow, although it wasn’t clear what dim light source was casting the shadows. Still, Jack could see his lips move, could hear the gravel in his voice.

  “Are you certain you wish to walk this path?”

&nbs
p; Jack paused. “Didn’t think I had much choice.”

  “Not many do.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You’ve thought about death?”

  “Figured it was just a big sleep.”

  The shadowy figure hesitated.

  “Nothing so easy.”

  “Heaven and hell, then? Enlighten me.”

  “Keep walking this path and you’ll find out. I offer you something different.”

  “Ahhh. My soul for my life, is it?”

  The laugh rumbled deep inside the other’s chest. “I’ve been around a very, very long time, but I’m not your devil.”

  “Then what are you?”

  For several seconds, silence hung in the fog between them.

  “Think of me as a coma patient, living an eternity of sensing the things going on around me, unable to experience any of them. I know what’s happening, what’s about to happen, but I feel nothing. Such immortality is its own special kind of hell. Humanity offers me release from that prison.”

  “I’m not interested in being your vessel.”

  “I have limitations. I can only send back one who lingers on death’s doorway, not someone who is beyond natural recovery. There are rules. My host must willingly accept my presence and the host remains in control of his or her own being. His nature is unchanged. I, on the other hand, get to experience the host’s emotions for the duration of the ride. I can exist in only one host at a time and, once accepted, I remain with that host until he dies.”

  Jack stared at the shadowed figure’s face. Had he seen a flicker of red in those seemingly empty eye sockets?

  “No thanks.”

  “I don’t deny that there’s a down side. As I said, I don’t change a host’s nature in any way. But what he feels excites me and some of that excitement feeds back to my host. The overall effect is that he still loves what he loves and hates what he hates, but much hotter. He’s the same person he always was, just a little bit more so. And because my intuitions also bleed over, my hosts find themselves drawn to situations that spike their adrenaline. Because of that, few of them live to a ripe old age.”

  “So you ride these people until they die, then move on to the next person.”

  “I never said anything about this being a random selection. I have certain needs, and those can’t be fulfilled by inhabiting some Siberian dirt farmer or his wife. With all my limitations, I have a very clear sense of those who stride the life and death boundary, fully immersed in humanity’s greatest and most terrible events. I always choose a host from this group.”