Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  “Sun Tzu said it is always better to take the defensive when strength is insufficient,” Takakura muttered. “First to be victorious with your life, then do battle.”

  Tipler smiled and nodded. “Well put, my friend. And that is why I will tell you ... as best I can ... what you confront. Forgive me, if it seems I do not, at first, make sense. Indulge me. First, listen closely, and hear a small analysis. Nothing I say shall be ultimately irrelevant, as you will soon see. Nor will I test your patience. Nathaniel, do you remember the Arctium lappa on the far side of the stream at our first campsite?”

  Scowling, Hunted nodded.

  Arctium lappa, or burdock, as it was commonly known, is a bush with a huge dome of head-size leaves elongating to a sharp point. It commanded a large area of a bank, for even one bush of burdock with its mushrooming bowl top of green leaves will usually shade a wide expanse of soil and other plants.

  Tipler followed, “And do you remember how this plant aided you when you were sick last year? The time when you were injured and feverish in the Canadian Rockies?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Hunter said. “I made tea from the leaves. It got rid of the fever.”

  “Exactly,” the old man nodded. “And do you remember how you used Euratorium perfoliatum when you broke your leg near your cabin not five years ago? How the tea you made from the leaves caused the leg to heal twice as quickly?”

  “Yes.” Hunter had no idea where the old man was going with this, but knew the time was not wasted, especially if it helped them to understand what horrendous force was probably even now pacing around the small compound outside, slavering, searching, staring at the logs and debating its next move.

  “Plants, roots, herbs, all of nature is a laboratory,” Tipler said, and coughed violently for a long moment before continuing. “If one only knows where nature’s secrets lie, the world can provide untold bounties. And that is only the world we know. But ten thousand years ago this area we inhabit was probably the most ecologically diverse land the world has ever known. Yet for years the earth has been suffering the extinction of probably 100 species of animal or plant every day. So the creatures and plants that inhabited this area in that time were far, far more diverse than what we know now. Imagine that unspeakable volume of medicinal qualities? Imagine what secrets they contained? And imagine, what if a race of people, a species similar to Homo sapiens, had known those secrets?”

  No one spoke.

  Hunter and Bobbi Jo exchanged glances.

  “Yes.” Tipler nodded, smiling. “Already you see. For if some ancient ancestor of man had known which plants enhanced strength, which ones promoted healing, produced paranoia, granted voyages of the imagination, increased musculature and bone density and inhibited aging, what would such a race have resembled after a hundred generations of subsisting on this rich treasury of physically and psychologically altering substances?”

  Hunter stared at him. “They would have assimilated some of the qualities into hereditary genes?”

  “Exactly!” Tipler snapped his fingers as he laughed. “I knew you would understand, Nathaniel! Variations of a genetic pattern would have developed!”

  “So you’re saying that thing out there is some mutated form of ancient man?”

  “I am saying more, my boy.” Tipler leaned forward. “I am saying that that creature out there is a species that was quite probably physically superior to Homo sapiens even without the assistance of that plentitude of nature’s medicines. Yet in altering their DNA through dozens of generations of substance usage, in selecting strength and predatory perfection over their higher qualities of reason and conscious thought, that particular species was left with only one thing to dominate their minds.” He paused. “And that is the Unconscious.”

  Hunter squinted. “The Unconscious?”

  “Yes, Nathaniel. That part of the mind that responds as it will respond, regardless of the conscious interruption of morality, community, responsibility, love, or temperance. All of the higher qualities that make us men. Those things that have built civilizations and make us proudly human! Yes, I am saying that what lurks for us outside that wall”—Tipler pointed with condemnation at the logs—”is the unconscious mind of man unleashed on the earth in the body of a being that should have been extinct from the planet over ten thousand years ago!”

  Half submerged in shadow, Taylor spoke. “So what in the world’s it doing here now?”

  With a deep sigh, Tipler sat back, raised his brow briefly. “Ah, Taylor, that is a question that we have yet to answer. But I do know this.” The elderly professor fixed them all with a penetrating gaze, “What is outside that wall is a being that kills at the slightest impulse. A type of...of proto-human, if you will, that understands neither mercy nor compassion, but will fulfill the slightest whim, the slightest impulse, simply because it is there. It is unrestrained by thought. Unrestrained by the inclination to stay its hand against the most common or meaningless or wanton act of wholesale murder. Its only drive is the fulfillment of subconscious desire. Any desire. And it will fulfill the slightest want. You cannot reach its mind because, frankly, it does not possess a mind as any of us recognize such a thing. It possesses only whatever dark and violent impulses and desires are hidden and repressed in the cerebral cortex—that most primitive form of man. And there is nothing ... nothing that it will not do, simply because it desires. And, tragically, because whatever race that bred it used generations of alteration by nature to enhance its predatory powers and unconscious essence, it has the power to do much, indeed.”

  Hunter felt whiteness in his breath, a slight adrenaline surge. He looked at Takakura and the Japanese was staring solidly at him. They made no gestures, said nothing. With a glance he saw that Bobbi Jo had quietly closed her eyes, was leaning her head back against the wall. Taylor had taken his Bowie knife and was scrawling slowly in the dirt. His bent face was hidden in shadow. He remained silent.

  “Professor,” Hunter asked, “how do we kill this thing?”

  Tipler nodded his head. “We will know, my boy, when we know who created it.”

  Ghost lifted his head, ears straight. Hunter looked at the log wall. “Game time,” he whispered to Bobbi Jo.

  He lifted his rifle as he rose.

  Chapter 12

  It was three A.M. when Chaney arrived at Brick’s home, located near the diner. But Brick went to work at five, so Chaney knew the retired marshal would be awake.

  He parked on the street—a necessity since Brick’s driveway was filled with several Lincoln Continentals in various stages of repair. Or, as Chaney often mused, demolition. And once more it occurred to him that the big ex-marshal possessed shockingly little in the way of culture or taste.

  He knocked on the door and Brick answered in seconds, already dressed for work in white painter’s pants and white T-shirt. He waved as he led Chaney inside, wiping his hands on a towel. “Hey, kid, I was expecting you last night.”

  “Got held up.” Chaney sat down at the table. Without invitation he began finishing an omelet.

  Brick looked back. “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure.” Chaney chewed a moment. He hadn’t been aware of how hungry he was.

  “So, you ready for a couple things?”

  “Sure,” Chaney said. “I stumbled over a few things myself. Maybe some of it’ll add up. For once.”

  Brick grinned. “This little adventure up north, it’s military, but not really. The military is only present for contingencies.” He belched. “Seems that the NSA has been utilizing abandoned army radio posts near the lower half of the Arctic Circle. World War II stuff, mostly. They were closed for a long time, then opened one after the other about six years ago.”

  “Yeah, but what were they reopened for?”

  “Well ...” Brick paused, looked thoughtful. “I heard some street talk. Don’t know how reliable. Not my regular people.”


  Chaney waited. “And ...?”

  “Well, I hear that they were doing something that needed some serious isolation, in case of some kind of accident.” He looked dead at Chaney “Could be germ warfare, biological warfare, that kind of shit. Maybe some new anthrax or smallpox. Bacteria. Could’ve even been somethin’ dealing with nerve gas or toxic agents, but it was somethin’ that they didn’t want getting away from ‘em in a populated area.”

  “So,” Chaney mused, “that could account for why they wanted these stations as far away as possible. They screw up and they can vaporize any * mistakes with a couple of fuel air bombs. Not much collateral civilian damage.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Brick responded heartily, “you could fry twenty square miles up there and not hit anything but caribou and trees. Then call it a forest fire, which is what it would be, and play stupid.” He grunted. “They’d get away with it.”

  “Okay” Chaney leaned back. “They wanted containability. But to contain what? What else could they have been trying to contain besides the bacteria or virus stuff?”

  “Got no idea.”

  “Well, hell, Brick, take a guess. You know this business.”

  Brick sniffed, frowned a little. “Well, everything seems to point to the germ stuff but I can’t say for sure. Nobody’s talking. So I pieced a lot of this together from gossip.” He paused. “Okay, we know the NSA runs the scam, which tells us exactly nothing. ‘Bout like usual. I knew that going in. So I checked with a buddy of mine who works the air logs at some airbases up there. I asked him to go back and look at the logs and see what kind of stuff was flown into those areas during the time when the facilities were being reopened. Took him a little while, but he got back to me. Seems there was a company that had a lot of special shipments, and to each facility. That’s nothing definite, there were some others. But one of ‘em in particular caught my attention, for damn sure.”

  “What was it?”

  “It’s called MEAM. Don’t know what it stands for. But my buddy tells me that they were shipping ...oh, just weird stuff. Nothing that made any sense.”

  “What do you mean?” Chaney was intrigued.

  “Well.” Brick took a breath. “The orders say they were sending perishable stuff that had to be, and this was stressed, ‘handled with care.’ But the manifests say it was always something like ‘office equipment,’ or wiring or construction materials. Well, you know right off that that’s bull. These goons weren’t shipping hubcaps and coffeemakers and marking ‘em ‘handle with care.’ So I did a run on them, and found that MEAM is just a big-ass multi-mother company. Then I asked my buddy to see where the flights originated from, and he finds out that all the special-care flights— and remember that each facility was stocked by these flights—originated from Kansas City.”

  Chaney knew where it was going. “So what does MEAM own in Kansas City?”

  Brick smiled. “I taught you well.” He laughed. “Okay, so they only got one place in Kansas City. And you’re gonna love this. It’s a big-time medical manufacturing company called Bio-Genesis. And they do it all: drugs, hospital equipment. Hell, they supply hospitals and universities throughout the country. There ain’t nuthin’ they can’t get their hands on if they don’t make it themselves.”

  Chaney shook his head a moment before looking away. “Those sons of bitches.” He paused. “What about seismological equipment? Do they manufacture stuff to monitor the motion of tectonic plates, maybe subterranean X-ray equipment?”

  Brick scowled. “Earthquake stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. If they do, they can’t make too much of it. Seems like they’re mostly a medical equipment manufacturer. Drugs. Some of that fancy electron microscope stuff. A first-class outfit.”

  Chaney knew Brick had probably discovered half of this stuff with a quick trip to the public library. He had simply accessed the variety of electronic services and examined annual corporate reports.

  Brick himself didn’t even own a computer, considering them unnecessary and intrusive. But when he had to he was a master at obtaining information electronically. And a library was the best place to do it because, if the company was watching closely enough, it would be tracing the identity of the tracker. Now all they would have would be an unknown user at a public library in Washington, a far cry from knowing a particular identity and home address. He took a minute before Chaney spoke, trying to set one piece of information against another, and it didn’t fit at all with what he’d already discovered, so it was pretty clear; somebody was lying.

  “This thing is ugly, Brick.”

  “Yeah, kid, I figured that out already.” The big man squared off. “Listen—and you know this, but I’m gonna tell ya anyway—sometimes the right answer is the one right in front of you, but you don’t see it ‘cause your brain is looking for something complicated. It’s stuck in grandma’ low like an old Lincoln with a bad transmission. So listen to me. What if this is just a legit government enterprise to develop some serums for bacteria or something like that? And somebody wants what they cooked up, up there. So they try and get it covertly, can’t do it. Then they try by force, hence all the dead guys. Now, I’m not saying that that is the answer. I’m just saying don’t go running off caught up in some big conspiracy theory unless you can back it up with facts.”

  Brick was probably right; he generally was.

  Behind that brutal face, Chaney had learned long ago, was a mind as quick and efficient as a world-class computer. He took a little more time as Brick glanced at his watch; the big man gave no indication he was in a rush. He waited patiently until Chaney spoke.

  “Well, I just can’t buy it, Brick. I know what you’re saying, but something here doesn’t make any sense. Why is a medical manufacturing company supplying equipment for what is supposed to be a station monitoring seismic activity?”

  “Is that what you heard they was doing?”

  “Absolutely,” Chaney said hotly. “I was at Langley and that’s exactly what the head of the program said.”

  “Well.” Brick paused. “I didn’t look up everything they sold. There might be a division like that. Or they might have gotten some of that stuff on other flights. Even if they did, they still have to have some reason to be ordering all this bio-med stuff. Anyway, it does back up the street talk, for what that’s worth.”

  Yeah, Chaney thought, it did. Sort of.

  “But if these guys were conducting research in germ warfare, then they couldn’t have done it without classified materials,” he continued. “You can’t just go down to the library and pick up specifics for those bacilli, and you don’t want to waste time duplicating twenty years of research. So you start where others have left off” He felt solid in his suspicion. “What if they really were developing new means of germ warfare instead of a means to counteract it?”

  Brick smiled wryly. “It’d just shock the hell out of me.”

  Shaking his head, Chaney paused. “But if they were doing that, they’d be in violation of an Executive Order.”

  “Well, ain’t we a young Sherlock.” Brick laughed, setting down his coffee cup. “Look, kid, the United Nations treaty, which the United States never got around to ratifying, by the way, prohibited the development of germs for warfare. Everybody agreed to destroy what they had. End of story. Except you know that if we think some goombah out there may have something, then we might need a serum for it. Can’t be playing ‘catch-up* in a war, right?” He shook his head. “No, they don’t want to shamble around like some drunk in the dark trying to catch up to a bug some Middle East moron drops into a lake or water tower and we got cities going out left and right. No, we want to be ahead of the game. Always. We ain’t never stopped developing them after the treaty. Not completely, anyways. But we slowed our butts down a lot until we got that wake-up call from the Gulf.”

  “Saddam,” C
haney said.

  “Yeah, and that’s why they don’t want to play catch-up again. Saddam could have hit us with something as simple as anthrax and wiped us out. And that, my friend, scared the bejeepers out of everyone from the Pentagon to the White House to Ma and Pa Kettle in Podunk. Or he could have used other kinds of germs and caused a world of hurt, ‘cause we weren’t prepared. The only reason he didn’t is because he suspected—and rightly so—that we would vaporize his heathen butt and turn Baghdad into a sheet of glass. End of story. And since then, I know as fact, we’ve been putting heat on developing something that is resistant to the more dangerous forms of bacterial attack. So, then, these places might not have been dedicated to the development of more biological weapons as much as they were dedicated to developing the countermeasures. The only bad thing about that is you can’t develop serums without bacilli and virus to test them on. But, if it was legit, then why all the secrets? And what I just said, despite what I might be inclined to believe, doesn’t explain the deaths of marines. I don’t know the details, but I heard they were cut down pretty bad.”

  Chaney paused. “Which ...which just leaves us with a few obscure facts. One is that the NSA handed this company millions for medical equipment. Second, that whatever these goombahs were doing was important enough to have a Ranger platoon at each site.” He was silent a long time. “Brick, do you think someone is running black operations under government sanction, but the op’s gotten out of hand? Maybe this thing – whatever it is – is just a disguised attack so people can reach whatever these fools have developed up there?”

  Brick was studious a long time. “Likely,” he said at last.

  “That’s what I’m beginning to think,” Chaney mused softly, almost to himself.

  Seemingly morose, Brick began wiping his hands on a dishrag. “Well, you ain’t got the nuts and bolts to make that call. You gotta have more hooch. You know that.”