The Orchid: Mount Kinabalu

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Jean, Scott and Chris track Haverford to Mount Kinabalu.


Chris had insisted on piloting, two black eyes or not, and Scott was still feeling a little too guilty to argue with him about it. They were flying over the rainforest on the north side of Mount Kinabalu, skirting the edge of the ravine; no point in tipping Haverford off too soon.

"Anything?" Scott asked Jean, voice pitched to carry over the sound of the helicopter.

Jean's eyes were unfocused as she pushed her focus out, raking across the mountain side. She didn't answer for a moment as something caught at her attention and her sightless gaze tracked to the side. "There," she said. "Off that way - and he's alone."

"You don't say." Inwardly Scott may have been doing a little cheer; meeting the person who'd possessed him again was not high on his list of things to do, and if Haverford had eschewed thugs-with-guns or other kinds of backup, it just made things even simpler. Scott turned away and leaned in towards the pilot's seat. "Down there!" he told his father, pointing in the direction Jean had indicated.

"Okay," Chris said, with a wintry little smile that really would have been quite chilling under other circumstances. "Let me just find someplace to set down... there's got to be an open patch around here somewhere."

Jean, more than a little impatient, seriously considered creating a clearing for them, but instead she sat back, keeping a light touch on Haverford's mind, just in case he decided to make a run for it.

Chris would have made a fortune as a valet; he managed to 'park' the helicopter not far away from Haverford's location, descending smoothly through an opening in the canopy. The rotors sliced off a few branches on the way down, but they were down, on level ground, even, and Scott opened the doors, stepping out and offering Jean a hand.

"Who's for just walking over there and beating the crap out of this man?" Chris asked as he joined them. "I mean, why waste time with niceties?"

Scott's eyes strayed to the gun at his father's hip. "Just... no shooting him, all right?"

"Why not?"

"Because I said so, okay?" Scott was more than a little bemused when, in response to that, he got first a glare - and it was a glare, black eyes or not - and then a strangely fierce grin.

Jean snorted and rolled her eyes at the two of them. "Come on," she said. "He knows we're here." Although, weirdly, he wasn't running. Possibly it was just that he knew how futile that would be.

Scott gave his father one last uncertain look before he fell in behind Jean, letting her lead the way. Using one's wife as a human shield was rather more socially acceptable when said wife was capable of TK-shielding all three of them from any inconvenient surprises Haverford might have waiting.

But no ambushes were forthcoming. In fact, when their target finally came into view, he wasn't even looking at them. He was far too busy chowing down, rather frantically, on what had once been a lovely purple-blue orchid, to judge by the two other specimens lying there uprooted.

"You have got to be kidding me," Scott said.

"Scott. Jean." It had to be difficult to sound so casual when one was stuffing flower petals in one's mouth, but Haverford somehow managed it. "Fancy seeing the two of you here."

Jean boggled at the English man for a moment, then shook her head bemusedly. "Robert, you really are completely mad, aren't you?"

"That's unnecessarily harsh, Jean." Finishing off the flower, he swallowed, one hand going to his stomach for a moment and an oddly contemplative look descending over his features. "Well. I do hope that was the correct part of the plant..."

"You ate the orchid," Chris said, his voice flat with incredulity. "On the basis of a goddamned legend in sixty year-old papers."

"You don't seriously think that what I acquired from you was my only source, do you?" Haverford inquired.

"No, I'm sure it wouldn't have been," Jean said, stepping forward. "I know you. You research and you delve and you, quite frankly, obsess. You also get so completely focused that alternative explanations completely escape you, and it would be funny if it didn't lead to, oh, I don't know, theft, breaking and entering and, oh yes, body snatching." Her eyes flashed with anger as she glared at him.

"I must say, I do rather regret that your tantrum appears to have cost me a very valuable employee, Jean," Haverford said, as if oblivious to his impending doom. "A skill-set like his doesn't come around every day. And he hardly did any lasting damage-"

Before Jean or Chris or anyone else could react, Scott stepped forward and punched Haverford in the face. The other man went down like a sack of potatoes, nose bleeding profusely. Scott stood above him, hands still clenched into fists and his expression cold.

"Just a broken nose," he growled. "No lasting damage."

"Temper tantrum..." Jean repeated incredulously, then turned and smiled sweetly at Scott. "Can the next shot do something permanent? Please?"

"Only if I can shoot him, too," Chris said, sounding thoroughly unimpressed as he stared down at Haverford, who didn't seem to be all that eager to get back up again. "You know, Mr. Haverford, in Lowtown we have a very simple method for dealing with thieves. Even the rich and the high-bred. And really, you're not much more than a thief, are you?"

"Trying to steal my way to a higher plane of existence," Haverford said, his voice sounding a little thick. He finally sat up, his nose still bleeding steadily, and wiped the blood away from his mouth. "I rather like that."

"Yes, well, that's because you're unhinged," Jean replied, scowling.

"I'll luck out one of these days, though. You do know that." There was something very serene about Haverford's expression, the sort of confidence that was... not entirely unjustified, Scott reflected grimly, thinking about the likelihood that there was something out there in the world that might fulfill the bastard's heart's desire.

And he was just rich and obsessed enough to persist. Scott looked at Jean and let that thought slide down the link.

Jean's scowl simply intensified, because she agreed, but... #We haven't got anything we can go to the authorities with,# she said. #Your memories aren't specific enough and aren't of him doing anything illegal. We can't prove he was behind the theft in Madripoor, and even if we could, Chris is a pirate. Are the authorities going to care?# She eyed Haveford up and down, and as distasteful as she found him, they had to draw the line somewhere. #Unless we're stopping him, he walks away from this one.#

"Maybe he should walk," Scott said, almost under his breath. He hadn't meant to say it aloud; Chris looked at him, raising an eyebrow, and Scott managed a very tight smile. "Plenty of gas in the helicopter's tank, right?"

"Right," Chris said, not quite warily. His eyes had narrowed.

"So. Let's drop him out there." Scott gestured at the rest of the mountains of the Crocker Range, stretching southward from where they stood. Despite the smile, there was something very cold about the expression in his real eye. "No roads, remember? Make the son of a bitch walk out of here. Maybe he'll luck out and find a flower to eat that actually works."

"That," Haverford said, heaving himself to his feet, "is very petty, Scott."

Scott shrugged. And hit him again.

"Petty punishment for a petty thief," Jean said, grinning brightly at the groaning blond. "I like this plan. A lot. A lot a lot. One of your better plans, I'd say. Can I drop him out of the helicopter from two hundred feet up? He won't hit the ground too hard, I promise."

"I see why the two of you didn't want me to shoot him," Chris said mildly. "Too quick, right?"

Scott's conscience put up a token protest; he told it to shut up. Having to walk out of here wasn't going to hurt Haverford, and maybe it was the whole body-snatching experience catching up with him, but he really was not the mood to be the better man right now.

Jean didn't say anything directly, simply moved forward to lay her hand on Scott's shoulder, leaning into him slightly as she gazed at Haverford, who'd elected to stay on the ground this time rather than risk getting punched a third time. There was already an impressive bruise beginning to show on his jaw, and she had not one lick of sympathy.

"Get up, Robert," she said with a sigh. "You can contemplate the inadvisability of dragging us into your next crazy scheme on your hike back to civilization. Look at it this way: you clearly paid good money for those boots, now you can get some proper use out of them." Her smile was not at all charming.