Wildfire by Ken Goddard Read Free Book Online Page A

becoming desperately afraid.
    He had spent the entire hour and a half trampling a slushy circular path around the tall concrete monument, searching for some sign of the man he was supposed to meet and feeling the icy wind cutting deeper and deeper through his light down jacket. And for the last forty-five minutes, at the end of every completed revolution, turning his head away to avoid seeing again those first two ominous lines on the monument's inscription.
    Crowley's shoes were soaked, his ears were frozen, his hands numb and weary, and his entire body was trembling now. But his uncontrollable shivering had very little to do with the cold.
    He was so scared now, so overwhelmed by a growing sense of utter hopelessness, that he thought he might drop to his knees and start to cry at any moment.
    He turned away from the long, narrow asphalt path that he'd been monitoring with such feverish intensity, to stare once again at the distant subway station. He desperately wanted to run to that station and scramble down the long stairway and jump onto the first train going out of the city of Boston. Anywhere, was fine, it didn't matter. Just as long as it was far enough away where he wouldn't ever have to face that huge, hulking, and absolutely terrifying man again.
    Then he turned back and froze when his eyes went immediately to the hunched-over figure approaching in the distance.
    Oh, my God, he's here.
    Crowley felt his arms and hands and mind and backbone, and every other part of him that he could imagine, go numb.
    Somewhere in the depths of his sanity, a voice was screaming at him to run. To go as far and as fast as he could, right now, before it was too late. But much in the manner of a small rodent that suddenly finds itself face to face with a slowly approaching serpent, Crowley quickly discovered that he couldn't run. Couldn't even move, for that matter. All he could do was stand there, with a growing sense of apprehension and dread, and watch the hooded figure with the wide shoulders and easy stride continue his approach, knowing that when he reached the statue, he would . . .
    Then, still fifty feet away, the hunched-over figure suddenly straightened up, and Crowley's eyes widened in shock.
    No, wait, it's not him! It can't be!
    William Devonshire Crowley didn't know whether to scream out his frustration or simply break down and cry out of pure relief. So rather than do either, he just continued to stand there and stare at the hooded figure of Henry Lightstone as the mildly curious covert federal agent glanced his way and then continued walking on past the statue.
    Crowley watched Lightstone disappear in the growing darkness, and then turned back to his increasingly desperate search for the man he had to find. Absolutely had to.
    "Goddamnit, where the hell are you?" he rasped again as he continued to search among the crossed pathways and bare trees surrounding the low hilltop through his ice-streaked glasses.
    He realized now that he really had no choice. He had to find the huge, hulking, and fearsome dark-coated figure and talk with him again. That was the only way that everything could be all right again. The only possible way.
    "Come on. Please. Be here," he whispered to himself as he transferred the increasingly heavy laptop computer to his less-fatigued hand. "Please!"
    Although, during the last hour and a half, it had certainly occurred to Crowley many times that he might be better off if he never saw this incredibly frightening man again.
    In fact, the more he thought about it, far better off.
    He understood now, much too late, that he had been unbelievably stupid from the very beginning. What had seemed like a lark, an adventure, when he'd first been offered the job— When was that? Only three days ago? he thought incredulously—had long since become a living, walking, hulking nightmare.
    And even worse, a nightmare with unforgettable and absolutely terrifying eyes.
    No matter what he did, no matter how hard he