by Tom Abrahams
“Linh,” said Smith calmly, “I know things. That’s all you need to know. Please let me finish. May I finish?”
Linh nodded.
“You will not report what you saw here. Ever. If you do, we will send these three men to find you. They’ll do whatever they have to do. That’s part one. No report, new job. Stay quiet. Got it so far?”
Linh nodded.
“Part two. To make your silence a little more palatable, we will deposit a healthy sum of money into an account on a monthly basis. That money is yours. We will also provide your parents with an alternative reality for how your uncle died. We will take care of the paperwork, photographs, everything that makes his death kosher and not a result of the VX-99 Marine. Still with me?”
Linh’s eyes narrowed. “VX-99? What’s that?”
“That’s our code name, nothing more. I should have said Ma Trang. Got it?”
Linh nodded.
“Part three, and this is new because you just brought her to my attention, you call Molly and enlist her help in getting you back into the country. That keeps our fingerprints off it. We might be able to grease the skids a little bit with MI5.”
Linh glanced past Smith’s shoulder and saw the mercenary’s leader looking at him. The man named Womack. His hands were on his hips. He was frowning. Linh didn’t know the man any more than the few hours he’d spent with him, but he could tell Womack had left something of himself in that jungle. He wasn’t the same man he’d been before the hunt for the Ma Trang. His eyes shifted back to Smith. He sighed.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
Smith winked. “Not really. Let’s be honest, though, Jimmy Linh, none of us really have choices, do we? You think that thing over there, pacing back and forth in that cage, had a choice?”
Linh shook his head without looking. He couldn’t look at the Ma Trang anymore. He wanted to go home. He wanted to live as normal a life as possible. If that was possible.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do what you ask.”
“Good,” said Smith. “Let’s get started. I’ll find you a phone and you can make your calls. I’ve already got a script written for what you need to tell that boss of yours, Gertrude Wombley. It’s some of my best work. And if Molly gives you a hard time, we’ll make it right. She’ll be putty.”
— 30 —
Frederick, Maryland
April 30, 1980
Rick Gibson could hardly contain himself. He’d not slept for three days. Now, after a dozen years, one of the original VX-99 Marines was coming home.
Gibson ran his fingers along the front page of Lieutenant Trevor Brett’s personnel file. He knew the Ma Trang was Brett. The transmissions Smith had sent him over the last forty-eight hours had confirmed it.
He took a bottle of Liquid Paper and shook it before uncapping the internal brush. He ran the brush across three letters in Brett’s file. Gibson pulled the piece of paper close to his lips and blew gently on the liquid, drying it as he did. He then slipped the document into his IBM Selectric typewriter and typed KIA over the letters that had previously occupied the space. He then cranked the paper to the bottom of the page and began typing.
AWARD OF THE BRONZE STAR MEDAL—By direction of the President under the provisions of Executive Order 9419 4 February 1944 (sec. II WD Bul. 3, 1944), and pursuant to authority in AR 600-45, the Bronze Star Medal with Letter “V” device for heroic achievement in connection with military operations against an enemy of the United States is awarded posthumously.
Gibson had already forwarded the recommendation to General Reed. Reed had made sure the award was approved and Brett’s remaining family made aware of the honor. He was pulling the page from the typewriter when Starling bounced into the room.
The scientist had more energy than he’d shown in days. Maybe it was the raise Gibson had given him, the promotion to senior research fellow, or the idea that this time they would get it right. There was promising parallel research about the concurrent use of viruses that interested both the scientist and the major.
“They’re here, Major Gibson.”
“Good.”
Gibson stood from his desk and followed Starling through the maze of hallways. Gibson walked with a renewed purpose. They’d been so close to losing his life’s work that now it was as if he’d been reborn.
They reached a secure lab in the middle of the facility. Inside was General Reed, a scruffy-looking man in fatigues, and a cage containing Trevor Brett. Gibson adjusted his uniform jacket and keyed himself into the room with Starling.
“Gibson,” said General Reed. He was pointing at the scruffy man. “This is Nick Womack. He’s responsible for retrieving your…lost property.”
Gibson offered a hand to Womack. “Thank you for your help,” he said with a strong, genuine grip. “How was the flight back?”
Womack smirked. He shrugged. “Long,” he said, exhaling as he spoke. “You’ve probably been briefed on it, but I lost two men and a third is bad off.”
Gibson eyed Reed before acknowledging Womack. “I’m sorry for your loss. I can assure you, however, the recovery of this asset is… It’s world changing.”
Womack tucked his tongue in his cheek and raised an eyebrow. “World changing, huh?” he said, the words dripping with suspicion.
“Without a doubt,” said Gibson. “Without. A. Doubt.”
Womack thanked the major for the opportunity and excused himself.
“Thanks again for your service,” said Gibson. “I’m sure we’ll call on you again.”
Womack nodded. The major smiled, bowed slightly, and then turned his body to the cage as Womack exited the room.
This was Gibson’s first look at the new and improved Trevor Brett. He gasped with wonder and exhaled to a quickened pulse. His palms were sweaty. This was like seeing a present unwrapped and under the tree on Christmas morning. The corners of his mouth twitched into an uncontrollable grin.
Lieutenant Brett didn’t look human. Not really. Yet, in some way, in those yellow eyes streaked with blood, Gibson saw the man he’d met so many years ago in that tent.
He stepped to the cage and wrapped his fingers around the bars. Brett was strapped tightly enough he wasn’t a threat, so Gibson pressed his face to the cage.
“Hello, Lieutenant Brett,” he whispered. “Welcome home.”
Brett’s eyes blinked, both sets of lids sliding forward and back. He cocked his head to one side and smacked his sucker lips.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Gibson wondered if Brett recognized him, if there was some part of the young soldier still inside the beast of a warrior they’d created, he’d created. Of course, VX-99 hadn’t done exactly what they’d anticipated. It had created for them all sorts of problems, sleepless nights, questions without answers. But looking into their creation’s eyes, Gibson considered it all worth it. The sacrifices would be worth the price of blood. In the end, Brett and the other men in his lost platoon would help Gibson continue and perfect the VX-99 program. It needed perfecting. It had to be perfect, and Gibson believed, especially now that he once again had its origin in his grasp, he could mold the project into what he’d envisioned.
The major studied Brett’s features, his eyes lingering on the mutations that were most prominent. There was a beauty to the creature’s hideous features. Something majestic about him. The lips and teeth, the extremities, the sinew of the muscles, and of course the eyes. Oh, those eyes. They were reptilian in their coldness, but Gibson saw something human in them. Brett was still in there. The longer he stood there, his gaze locked with the Ma Trang, the more convinced of it he became. As feral as Brett appeared, there was something calculating inside him.
The monster leaned forward, muscles straining against virtually translucent skin and the binds straining against his muscles. Gibson held his spot at the bars to watch Brett strain harder against the binds and iron shackles.
Brett leaned his face as close to Gibson as he could get. His eyes blinked again. H
is lips popped and then they stretched into what looked like a grin.
“You,” snarled Brett. “You did this to me.”
The words hung in the air between them, sticking to Brett’s fetid breath. The dank, rotten odor filled Gibson’s nostrils. He winced at the strong scent, his lips quivering. He tried not to react, imagining that Brett could sense fear or apprehension or shock.
Brett’s eyes blinked, but his gaze was fixed. His lips popped. His talons curled into fists.
Gibson felt the thick, hard beat of his heart in his chest, neck, and temples. He tried not to look away from the beast. He knew from his studies of predators that he could not show any weakness.
“What you did to me is nothing…” Brett hissed, his voice full of gravel.
The beast’s body relaxed, the chains clinking as they rattled and twisted between the cuffs. Brett flexed his hands and the joints cracked. He tilted his head to one side and then the other, the air pockets in his neck snapping like popcorn. He slurped back the thick saliva that threatened to drop from his lower lip. He rolled his shoulders and exhaled through his nose. His broad nostrils flared and his eyes never left Gibson’s. He was playing a game. He was teasing Gibson and Gibson knew it.
Lieutenant Brett was the one restrained, but he was also the one in control. Gibson couldn’t deny the aura surrounding the beast. It was more than monstrous. It was ethereal. There was something palpable about the creation’s ascension to something more than a normal man could ever be.
Gibson went to speak when Brett’s jaw popped wide, the hinges cracking like a frog. His tongue ran the rim of his lips, and then the beast spoke again.
“What you did to me is nothing…compared to what I will do to you.”
A chill ran through Gibson’s body, but he steeled himself and offered what he hoped was a defiant grin. He kept his face pressed to the bars, not willing to give an inch to the monster and his threat.
“I admire your spirit,” he said, hoping the condescension wasn’t lost on the monster. He let go of the bars and stepped back. He waved his hand around the room but never lost eye contact with Brett.
“It would have been a pity for all of this,” he said, “that is to say everything that’s happened, to have dampened your enthusiasm for the job.”
Brett didn’t react. He didn’t blink. He didn’t snarl. Nothing flared or popped or smacked. He just stared unblinkingly at Gibson. It was almost as if he’d melted into the shadows of the cell like a chameleon.
Gibson rapped on the bars with his knuckles. The bars clanged and echoed.
“We’ll be moving you,” said Gibson, certain now that nothing was lost on Brett. “You’ll be in a secure facility, where we can more properly assist your…transition.”
The reptilian eyes flitted as Gibson moved toward the door, reminding him of eyes on a Dalí-esque baroque painting on which a warped central figure followed the observer no matter where he or she moved in a room.
Gibson spun on a boot heel and took a purposeful step toward the guarded door. General Reed stood there, blocking the exit. The major had forgotten the general was still in the room.
Reed cleared his throat as Gibson approached. He glanced past the major at the cage and then narrowed his focus on his subordinate officer.
“So what’s your plan?” asked the general. “You’re moving him?”
“Yes, sir,” said Gibson. “We’ve got a facility not far from here. I think it’s better suited for the type of testing we want to pursue.”
“This is as secure a location as you’ll find, Major,” said Reed. “Are you sure it’s worth taking the risk?”
It wasn’t a question despite the interrogative. Gibson knew it. He also knew there were too many prying eyes and ears at this facility. He wanted privacy.
“With all due respect…” Gibson started, but let his words trail off, knowing the general’s feelings about that phrase.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said the general. His tone indicated he didn’t believe the major had a clue. “While I’m a believer that past performance isn’t an infallible indicator of future wins and losses, it’s pretty damn close. And your past performance—”
“I’ve got a plan, General,” interrupted Gibson at the same moment his eyes widened with the realization he shouldn’t have cut off his superior. He almost swallowed the end of the word general.
Reed bristled. “Do you, then?” he asked flatly. The expressionless look on the general’s face turned upward, as if he’d smelled something rotten. Without saying another word, Reed scratched his chin, nodded, and turned his back on Major Gibson.
The two guards at the door followed the general, leaving the major alone in the room with his creation. Gibson listened to Brett’s raspy breaths.
“You’ve got this, Major Gibson,” Brett mocked.
The sound of the S in his last name was like a snake flicking its tongue. He stood there for a moment, his back to the cage, until a bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air.
The major shuddered. His throat tightened. His muscles tensed. He said nothing and marched from the room, leaving Ma Trang alone in his chains, cackling and crying out in defiance.
— 31 —
Odenton, Maryland
May 1, 1980
The shrill alarm woke Major Rick Gibson from his brief and uneasy sleep inside his underground quarters at the edge of a secure, registered facility adjacent to Fort Meade. His immediate disorientation gave way to the measured panic of a seasoned officer. The first thing he did was go for his gun, a Beretta 1911 that rested on the nightstand. Then he glanced at the analog clock on the wall across from his bunk.
It was four thirty in the morning. He’d been out for thirteen minutes at most, but he didn’t remember dozing off. He’d been thinking about the day’s events and how seamlessly it had gone.
The transfer from one facility to the next had been accomplished without any notable problems. They’d sedated Lieutenant Brett with nitrous oxide pumped into his holding room before the move had begun. Brett had remained conscious, his breathing rapid and shallow, but the gas had done the trick and kept him calm.
A constant flow of N2O into the sealed rear of the military transport truck provided a backup measure of security, as had the air support and the orders to destroy every vehicle in the convoy via remote detonation if necessary.
Gibson had, of course, not been in the convoy. He’d traveled ahead to make certain the preparations near Fort Meade were to his specifications.
The facility itself was off-book and top secret. It had been the only set of permanent structures when Fort Meade opened as Camp Annapolis Junction in 1917. Two years later, when the Army officially opened the camp with larger, more modern facilities, the original buildings were modified and buried as a subterranean complex. The military renamed the secret complex ESEF, Experimental Security Enhancement Facility, and it had housed a secretive national security apparatus during World War II. ESEF had laid the groundwork for the National Security Agency’s move to the region in the 1950s. The underground complex was again modified to house experimental laboratories of varying types and sizes.
It was the perfect place, Gibson believed, for what he had in store for his prized recruit. At least, he’d thought it was the perfect place until the damned alarm slapped him awake.
Groggily, he sat up and spun his feet to the floor. The terrazzo under his feet was as the same as the air in his room, the entire facility kept at a constant twenty-three degrees Celsius with a humidity between forty-eight and fifty percent.
He sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his index finger, freeing crumbles of dried snot from the edges of his nostrils. The taste in his mouth was thick with sleep despite the lack of it.
“Great,” he mumbled to himself, feeling more exhausted than he had fourteen minutes earlier. But the anxiety and adrenaline of the moment pushed him to his feet, and he shuffled the short distance to his desk. The alarm, seconds old, was giving
him a headache, but more importantly it gave him pause. What had happened? The truth was, deep in his churning gut, he knew it involved Brett. He glanced at the clock again.
Four thirty-two.
He cursed to himself. He shouldn’t have left the lab. He couldn’t trust the guards. They didn’t fully grasp what was at stake. They didn’t know what he’d sacrificed to make this moment possible, to make VX-99 the program it was intended to be.
He was on the verge of changing the course of human history, or just history as it were. And he should have known better than to leave the lab. Even for a moment.
Brett was more than intelligent. He was evolved. He was one, three, ten steps ahead of anything some guard could anticipate. Tightening the grip on the 1911, he moved toward the door to his room. Time to stop thinking and take action.
His hand was on the door lever when the black rotary phone on his desk rang. The orange light near the handset flashed with the warbling ring that was nearly inaudible under the buzzing alarm.
Gibson set the gun on the table and plucked the handset from the phone. He was ready to ask about the alarm when the sounds on the other end of the line gave him his answer. There was the rapid-fire percussion of a semiautomatic rifle.
“Sir?” came the tremulous voice in the receiver. “Major Gibson, are you there?”
“What’s happened?” asked Gibson. He already knew the answer. And this was, after all, May Day. It couldn’t pass without a call for help.
“He’s—it’s—the—it’s loose,” he said. “That thing is loose. It’s already killed four men. We’ve got it—”
“I’m on my way,” he said and slapped the handset back into the cradle and grabbed his gun.
Gibson slid back into his fatigues, and as he hiked on his boots, he could hear Lieutenant Brett’s voice in his head. It was louder than the alarm.
You’ve got this, Major Gibson.
Gibson laced his boots and eyed the phone again. Should he alert General Reed?