Black Onyx

  BLACK ONYX

  A Superhero Thriller

  VICTOR METHOS

  1

  The spear narrowly missed Dillon’s head as he sprinted through the dense Amazon jungle vines and into an open clearing. Another spear rocketed toward his legs, and he jumped as it imbedded itself into a tree. He was on the grass now, dashing for the safety of the trees on the other side of the clearing. He turned on his blue tooth by tapping it.

  “James! James, please tell me it’s not tea time or something!”

  “I’m here,” a voice said on the other end.

  “If you’re gonna get me outta here, now would be a very good time.”

  “Did you not find the Yanomami to your liking?”

  He glanced back to the dozen or so naked men, painted red and yellow, chasing him like a pack of lions after an injured gazelle. “Let’s just say we have a difference of opinion about conflict resolution.”

  “Give me one moment.”

  Dillon heard the whiz of an arrow and felt a burning sting in his arm. He pulled the arrow out and continued sprinting until he got into the thick brush and the trees began absorbing the projectiles. Within a few moments, his vision began blurring.

  “James…I think they got me with something.”

  “What?”

  “Higher interest rates. What the hell do you think?”

  “The GPS is loading very slowly, hold on.”

  Dillon leaned against a large tree, his heart pounding in his chest, his shirt sticking to him with sweat. He knew the Amazon would be humid, but he had no idea that he wouldn’t be able to stay dry for even a second. He glanced up. The branches hung low enough that he could reach them. He grabbed the first one and pulled himself up. Using his legs to push, he got up about twenty feet just as the Yanomami men ran underneath him. He watched them, holding his breath, as they sprinted away and disappeared like ghosts into the jungle.

  “I’ve got you,” James said in his ear. “Our plane is two kilometers to the northeast of your location.”

  “I’m American, James. I don’t know what the hell a kilometer is.”

  “It’s about one and a quarter—never mind, just go northeast. You do use directions in the States do you not?”

  “Don’t leave without me.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it. You have our passports.”

  Dillon climbed down, breathing heavily. He adjusted his backpack, which contained the item he had come for: a seventh century Mayan crown encrusted with jewels. He checked to make sure it was there. He felt it, running his fingers along the glimmering stones, and then zipped up his pack. As he was about to turn away, he noticed the young Yanomami standing in front of him, his bow held taut with an arrow pointed at Dillon’s face.

  “Oh, wow. Hey. Hi, how ya doin’? Um, my name’s Dillon Mentzer. Maybe you heard a me? I was interviewed in Outside magazine like four months ago. Little piece but you know, you take what you can get.”

  The Yanomami smiled. He lowered the bow. He placed it down on the ground and held up his fists.

  “Oh, hey, I haven’t been in a fight since like second grade. But I think I whopped that guy pretty bad so you may not want to do this.”

  The Yanomami approached. Dillon held up his hands.

  “I don’t want to fight you, really. Look, you were all very nice and I’m sorry things turned out this way, but you know, stuff happens and we have to move on.”

  Before he could blink, a fist bashed into his jaw and sent him sprawling onto his back. Dillon saw stars and the little man stood above him. He got to his feet and put his hands up.

  “All right, have it your way.”

  He began circling the man. He jabbed at him and hit the man square in the nose. The Yanomami didn’t even flinch. He jabbed again and then swung with a hook and the Yanomami ducked, came up with a punch into the kidneys and then slammed him twice in the face. Dillon was on his back again. He was feeling dizzy, like he could go out at any moment. As he forced himself to stand, he picked up a handful of dirt. The Yanomami came in and Dillon threw the dirt into his eyes, causing the man to shriek as he was blinded.

  Dillon grabbed the backpack and sprinted away. He quickly checked the compass on his iPhone, which said he was heading north. He adjusted for northeast and then didn’t look back as he ran. He felt funny, tingly. A calm euphoria was coming over him and he had a dopey grin on his face. A strong urge was there to just lie down in the shade, and he had to fight it with everything he had.

  Eventually he couldn’t run anymore so he walked. The jungle vegetation was sparse here, and he didn’t have much trouble as he came to a landing strip and saw the small puddle-jumper plane with two men standing next to it.

  He stumbled over.

  “Hey gang,” he said, leaning on the plane.

  Niles, tall with black hair and a dignified stare, said, “Are you drunk?”

  James said, “He’s poisoned, actually. Only a man in his twenties can be poisoned and still run through the jungle. Come on, we need to get him to a hospital. Help him up.”

  Niles lifted Dillon by the legs and James grabbed his upper body. He slipped off the backpack and put him in the plane, strapping him into his seat.

  “I got it, James,” Dillon mumbled, his eyes closing. “I got it.”

  2

  Miguel Almanza drove through a section of Juarez, Mexico few people dared to go. Seated in the Mercedes next to him was a white male known to him only as John, looking nervous and pale.

  It wasn’t that the neighborhood they were in was a seedy part of the city; actually the opposite. Miguel could see that John was staring at the opulent mansions as they drove up the hill out of the city.

  “I didn’t know there were homes like this here.”

  “Yes,” Miguel said, “this is nice. But down there, no running water for the poor and they make two or three dollars a day here. Some of them have twenty people living in a house. But El Sacerdote is changing all that. He pays people fifty dollars a day just to be scouts or send messages. The police, they make a hundred dollars a day.”

  “He pays the police salary?”

  “Not salary, cómo se llama, special money.”

  “Bribes,” John said. “Does he pay that to all the policemen?”

  “Si, all the police.”

  “What you called him, El Sacerdote, I’ve heard that before. It means like holy man or something doesn’t it?”

  “Priest. He is a holy man, si.”

  “Really?”

  “Si.”

  They turned right, up the hill, and wound around it several times, having a panoramic view of the city below and the bridge into the United States just six miles away. At the top of the hill was a mansion that looked like something a Roman emperor might have built. Miguel saw John’s eyes widen and it made him grin.

  He called up at the gate and a guard came down to open it, a man with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back. He waved them through and Miguel parked the Mercedes in front.

  “Don’t worry, John. If he want you dead, he just kill you. He no bring you to his house.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  The two men stepped out of the car and walked up the steps past another guard to the front door of the mansion. Another man opened it for them and a woman was standing there. Miguel knew her as Sandy, but he’d seen her in several pornographic movies before he ever got to know her. She was standing in a white dress, El Sacerdote’s favorite color, with high heels. Miguel caught John staring at her chest and he hit him with his elbow to divert his attention.

  “He’s waiting for you Miguel,” she said.

  She turned and led them back through the mansion. It was decorated with art worth millions of dollars and busts of long dead kings. The hallway
leading outside to the pool had marble statues of animals on either side.

  “They’re all predators,” John said.

  Miguel hadn’t noticed it before, but he was right. All the animals were tigers or sharks or bears. Many of them in attack poses. At the far end were the stuffed heads of two Siberian tigers El Sacerdote had shot and killed on a hunt in Russia.

  Several nude women were in the pool and some men were there too. Miguel recognized one as an American movie star but couldn’t remember any movies he’d been in. At the far end of the pool, lying back on a lounge chair, was Sebastian Valdez: El Sacerdote. His sunglasses covered his eyes and he appeared to be asleep.

  “Hello Miguel,” he said calmly.

  “Hola El Padrino.”

  El Sacerdote lifted his glasses. “John, how are you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Life in the DEA treating you well?”

  “It’s a living I guess.” He glanced to Miguel and then back. “I was told you wanted a meeting with me?”

  “Yes, apparently word has not reached everyone in your organization that I am to be allowed to run my business.”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “One of your men arrested one of my men yesterday. Possession with intent to distribute a class one controlled substance. Cocaine. A lot of cocaine.”

  “So?”

  “So it displeases me,” El Sacerdote said, sitting up now.

  “Just pay the bail and have your lawyers make a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. They’ll play ball.”

  “Oh, they’re already released from custody, that is not why you are here.”

  “Why am I here then?”

  “To watch.”

  “Watch what?”

  The women screamed. Several men were hauling two crocodiles, each at least eight feet long. They slipped one in the pool and it dove to the bottom. The women jumped out of the pool, running to their towels and covering themselves as if that would protect them. The other crocodile was released as well and it dove into the deep end and remained perfectly still.

  “They are miracles of evolution,” El Sacerdote said. “They have no mercy, no remorse. They have one objective only—the furtherance of their own life. And they will destroy anything in their path to achieve that end. They will, I think, outlive our species.”

  Just then a man was dragged from a shed by the house. He was in a suit caked with dried blood. His face was beaten and bruised and he couldn’t walk so the two men hauled him next to the pool. One of them pulled out a knife and looked to El Sacerdote.

  John said, “That’s Phil Stack. He’s a field agent under my command. What the hell happened to him?”

  “I told you.”

  “He arrested your guys and you kidnap him? Release him. Right now. I’m not kidding. Unless you want a shitstorm of DEA agents kicking down your door you release him right now.”

  “As you wish.” El Sacerdote nodded to the men. The one with the knife cut Phil across the face, releasing a torrent of blood, and let him go. He fell forward into the pool.

  “What the hell are you doing!” John screamed. “Let him go!”

  “I did.”

  “Get him outta there.”

  “You’re free to do it. Go ahead. I warn you though, my crocs have not eaten in many days.”

  The croc at the deep end, slowly, almost imperceptibly, began to rise.

  “Get him outta there, I’m not kidding.”

  “Perhaps you would like to join him?”

  John didn’t say anything. Miguel stepped back and looked away. He wasn’t about to watch this.

  El Sacerdote stood up and walked to the edge of the pool. He held up his hand and one of the women ran over with a cigarette and lit it before giving it to him.

  “No interferences, no arrests,” he said.

  “He didn’t know,” John said pleadingly. “He’s new. He just got transferred.”

  “Well, now he knows, doesn’t he?”

  The croc drifted just underneath the surface toward the scent of blood. The second one was aroused now and had also drifted up to just below the surface. Phil was conscious now. He was floating on the surface, his arms and legs instinctively attempting to keep his head above water. His eyes caught John’s.

  “Please,” he gasped, water going into his mouth.

  John turned away. “Get him out, please. It won’t happen again.”

  “Are you certain? Because I’m not so sure. A minute ago you were saying DEA agents were about to kick down my door.”

  “It won’t happen. I’ll spend time with new transfers and explain how things work out here. Please.”

  El Sacerdote smiled. He nodded to his men. They grabbed Phil by the shoulders as the crocs were slowly traveling over and pulled him out. He lay on the cement, gasping for breath and coughing. El Sacerdote put his foot on his chest as he took a puff of cigarette.

  “You know, my pets are still hungry.”

  He flung around and grabbed the woman who had brought him the cigarette by the back of the neck. She screamed as he slammed his fist into her face, breaking her nose and causing blood to cascade down over her bare breasts. El Sacerdote kissed her, then flung her into the pool.

  The crocs approached. The woman tried to climb out and El Sacerdote, laughing, kicked her back into the pool as the first croc got ahold of her.

  Miguel made the sign of the cross and kept his eyes focused on the city below. He heard the terrible sounds of screaming and the crunching of bones.

  “What’s the matter, Miguel?”

  He looked over and saw El Sacerdote looking at him. “Nada, El Padrino.”

  “Good,” he said, puffing at his cigarette. “Then come watch.”

  Miguel walked over and stood by the pool. He felt faint as a severed hand floated up near the drain but he didn’t look away. If he showed weakness, he wouldn’t be of any use to El Sacerdote and would be joining the woman in the pool.

  When it was over, John lifted Phil, and Miguel followed them out. They got into the car as Miguel pulled away and drove back down the hill toward the U.S./Mexico border, none of them speaking a word.

  3

  The first thing Dillon saw as he opened his eyes was the ceiling fan. It was elegantly decorated, a deep brown with gold trim. He watched it twirling in the noonday heat of a Honolulu summer and felt sweat on his forehead. He sat up and saw Niles and James at a table eating fish with white wine. The patio doors were open revealing the Pacific outside and an ocean breeze was blowing in.

  Dillon moved his arm and felt the bandage wrapped around his shoulder. His vision still wasn’t a hundred percent and he felt lightheaded.

  “You guys didn’t take me to a hospital?” he asked.

  “We did. In Brazil. You’ve been heavily drugged the past few days,” James said.

  Images came to his mind. A dirty hospital bed with an even dirtier ceiling.

  “Where’s the backpack?”

  James pointed with his fork to the front room. Dillon walked over and opened it, pulling out the crown inside. He ran his fingers over the jewels.

  “Have you had it appraised yet?”

  “He’s flying in today. Of course, we’ll have to pay him triple his normal fee to keep quiet. The Brazilian government wouldn’t be too happy about us stealing their national treasures.”

  “I didn’t steal it, I traded for it. They just didn’t know what they had.”

  Dillon put the crown back and went and sat out on the patio. Some teenagers were playing volleyball on the beach, their bodies golden brown. Further out, some surfers were taking hits off a joint before wading into the ocean.

  “Dillon, we wanted to speak to you about something.”

  “What?”

  “Would you like to come in and sit down?”

  “No thanks.”

  James exhaled. “We’re getting too old for this, Dillon. This was it, the last hunt.”

  Dillon turned to them. “What? You’r
e ditching me?”

  “We’re not ditching you. We’re too old, Dillon. I’m fifty-six years old, I should be thinking about retirement.”

  “Oh, what, you’re gonna go sit in some condo in Florida and wait to die?”

  “Actually, we were thinking of buying a place on the Riviera.”

  “James, you can’t retire, we just barely got good at what we’re doing.”

  He wiped his lips with a linen napkin. “You know, you may wish to consider leaving as well. Not paradise, I mean, but the business.”

  “I travel around the world making lots of money working for just a few days. What exactly would I leave that for?”

  “Treasure hunting is not exactly a stable career, Dillon. I know you have that streak of daring in you. Do you remember on Everest when you tried to ski down? You nearly killed yourself coming off a steep ledge and when we found you, you were laughing. Lying on your back with two broken legs and laughing.” He shook his head. “I know you think that’s you and that will always be you, but people change. They have the capacity to choose who they are. You can simply choose to be somebody else.”

  Dillon was quiet a moment. “Niles, you on board with this?”

  “Afraid so, my friend. You’d be surprised how different the view is from close to sixty rather than thirty.”

  Dillon stood up. “That’s fine, I don’t need you guys anyway. I don’t need anybody,” he said, storming off the patio onto the sand.

  “Dillon—”

  “No, it’s fine. You guys go lay on a beach and wait to die. I’m gonna live life though, thank you.”

  He walked away from the house and down the beach, the sun blaring down on him. Near the surf, laid out on a towel, his neighbor Jaime was sunning herself, her glasses pulled up over her eyes. Dillon came and sat next to her.

  “Back so soon?” she said, without moving.

  “We got what we went for.”

  “And what was that? Oh, wait, you can’t tell me.”

  “You know me well.”

  “Are you like a drug dealer or something?”