He knew that if others had seen him as he made this dark journey—a spectral image of fangs and monstrous talons, tirelessly, relentlessly closing the distance to his prey—they would have beheld the purest image of physical perfection, of ultimate predatory might.
No, he told himself, he was not afraid of the man.
The man had wounded him, but he would wound him no more. For when he had the man in his grasp again, the end would be quick. And the man would know he had been defeated; he would know true fear. As all of them had known fear before ... before ...
Again, images came to him.
Screaming/descending through night to crush flesh/brains, hot blood, wet fangs, red throat/consuming, consuming/war that was won/glory, leaping, ecstasy/green forest in sunlight, others who challenged and were defeated/red-white images on stone with shadows dancing before flame/ blackness burning/roars/fear and screams, fleeing, descending/confusion within/war within/ turning, war within/fighting, hurt, fleeing/anger, cold, fear/white blood/war-death behind him/tiger beneath, kill, eat/ falling together, white ice/white . . .
He had forgotten where he lay.
War?
A long time he waited …
No answer came.
He drove the images from his mind, attempting to remember where he lay beneath this cold cloud dome of bright white, and it returned to him. They could not see him yet, he knew, but soon he would be observed. But it would be too late.
Humans ... so frail.
They could never be as he was. Because they would never know the night as he knew it with the rage and the flame and the hunger that was satisfied only by the blood.
Yes ... the blood.
Their blood …
Chapter 19
It required ten minutes to remove the screws attaching the aluminum ventilation cover to the smooth cement wall. When he had finished, Hunter stared down into a long square shaft. It was easily large enough for a man and he had a fairly good idea where it led. But he didn’t know if he had time for a thorough inspection of what lay below.
Hunter raised his face to the tiered ceiling, listening, but he heard no sounds of gunfire, no alarms—nothing. Yet the lack of declared, open combat was not comforting.
He was confident that the creature would attack tonight, cunningly and quickly. He suspected that when the alarms sounded, the battle would already be half lost.
As he stood there, Hunter contemplated every aspect of the situation. He dissected each incident from the first research station destroyed to the dispatch of the hunting team, the suspected sabotage, the creature’s manlike intelligence yet feral nature, and its passionate search to find an unknown treasure.
And he knew whatever lay below held the answer to all those questions together, was confident that the secret hidden there would be the nexus of a mystery that had cost so many lives, and still threatened the world.
If he was going to move at all, it must be done quickly.
Hamilton—no fool, though Hunter held him in contempt—would doubtless soon notice his absence and order a search. It was a chance that he’d have to take. He’d deal with that complication when the time came.
By instinct or habit—it didn’t matter, he knew the purpose—he felt for his Bowie knife, half removing the wide ten-inch blade before sliding it downward into the sheath.
He had no other weapon except the device he had constructed in secret before the track had begun, the snare that had already twice saved his life. And even now he carried the slate-gray stick of steel with its killing loop of titanium wire in his belt.
If the moment came, he would use it, though he doubted a situation requiring that desperate measure would end in survival.
Descending the shaft like a mountain climber, wedging his body into the corner, Hunter silently lowered himself into the darkness.
The updraft was colder than he had anticipated, and he suspected that the computer equipment hidden below required an uncomfortably chill atmosphere. It took him less than a minute to cover the distance in absolute quiet—and he found himself staring through the grill at the back side of a large off-white computer.
Unlike the floor above, this grill could be pushed out without the removal of screws, and Hunter entered what he knew already was a vast, open laboratory. The air was still. And although he had not yet looked, he knew it was one enormous chamber.
There was an unmistakable sense of space in the way the air hovered – of a room high and deep – that he hadn’t encountered anywhere else in the complex.
He bowed his head and listened, hearing the drone of numerous terminals. And somewhere in the distance, measuring the length of the room by sound alone, he discerned soft voices.
Angling toward the far end of the computer, away from the voices, Hunter looked into the room and saw only random equipment—it could have been any science complex. Then he looked more boldly and there, with their backs turned to him, were four white-coated lab technicians revolving around a multi-monitored computer dais. In the center of the room, a long cylindrical tube rose from the floor almost to the stark-white ceiling. Although it was filled strangely with darkness, it was clearly an object of importance. The entire chamber seemed designed around it.
Conditioned to avoiding the uncanny instincts of tiger and bear, Hunter effortlessly avoided the dulled, civilized senses of the technicians as he covertly crossed the chamber. And for a split second he imagined how truly easy it had been for the creature to slay them—civilized weaklings with senses atrophied by disuse and insulation. If it were not plainly before their eyes, they would not see it.
Trapped in their routine, they would not notice him or his actions. The only thing that could make them notice would be one of their machines. These were men and women who had surrendered to machines the very abilities and responsibilities that had once made them superior. And if he had been the predator and they the prey, he could have ended it quickly. How much easier it had been for the beast when it had stalked the corridors of the other facilities, effortlessly snatching them from futile hiding places into a roaring world of fang, blackness, claw, and death.
Kneeling behind a black computer terminal—several monitors built with sophisticated networking into a polished altar-like display system—he studied it carefully. He saw blood-analysis charts, the complex breakdown ratios of heme units, electrolytes, receptor cells and genomes, and nodded.
Yes, of course ...
Years of association with the world’s greatest scholar of genetics allowed him to understand the data easily; it was a molecular diagram of a DNA strand.
Hunter lightly touched the keypad, scrolling the information, analyzing the coding sequence, and estimated that the dual strand of DNA was predominantly human. Moving carefully to avoid sound, he typed in Directory/pause. And instantly—damn fast computer—he was staring at a screen-sized list of file names with a breakdown of subtopics included in each. He moved the cursor to the file named “Species” and hit enter.
What greeted him next, in full color and with amazing accuracy of detail, was a computer simulation of what he had hunted and challenged and fought through the mountains for the past three days. Nor was it a placid picture, but rather a moving image of primal power, muscles tensed in rage, hands clenched in irrepressible contraction with claws upraised—an image he knew all too well.
Alert to the location of everyone in the laboratory—some had strolled closer and were seated less than twenty feet away—Hunter scanned the files one by one, searching. He opened up a search mode, grateful that he had taken the years to familiarize himself with computer technology, and typed in HD-66.
What opened to him was no surprise:
Prototype of unknown species’ DNA synthesized at North Ridge Laboratory for purpose of injection and experimentation. Unsuccessfully tested on species N-5, N-6, and N-7 with molecular breakdown of host indi
genous DNA recorded at 9:31:23 hours of implementation. HD-66 serum refined with molecular removal of 91.3 identifying Homo sapiens dual-strand proteins and isolation of transmitter molecules and receptor genes.
IMPLEMENTATION: 00:00:00 Hours
IA Injection unrefined HD-66 serum at 11:29 A 6 Hours into host organism.
2B Successful absorption of refined HD-66 serum by indigenous host DNA at 28:41:34 Hours: 0 percent.
3C Destruction of host indigenous DNA by refined HD-66 serum at 31:54:25 Hours: 52 percent.
4D Complete molecular breakdown of host indigenous DNA to HD-66 at 45:52:03 Hours: 100 percent.
FINALIZATION: All host systems terminated and destroyed in accordance with Level IV Biohazard Containment Procedures 0-010-000. Experiment terminated with nitrous oxide and host organisms destroyed at 72:13:43 Hours.
Refinement of HD-66 re-implemented at 13:00:00 Hours . . .
Hunter read more, a percentage analysis of lymphocytes, T-cells, granulocytes, monocytes, a diagnostic of the response neural network to generate white cell production ...
Following every movement in the room by sound, Hunter returned to subject listings and something caught his attention. An instinct, almost like a ghostly touch on his shoulder, caused him to wonder what the video file “Security Video, Station One” contained.
The decision was made as he saw it, and he opened the file to a grainy black-and-white projection with the time—45:14:42 hours—displayed prominently in a lower corner of the screen. Sweating with the stress of hovering so close to the lab personnel, Hunter saw a security video of a large laboratory similar to this one bustling with generic technicians who seemed so nameless, faceless, and lifeless. But on the far side was a glassed-in chamber—a cell of sorts—where a man sat motionless and alone on a blanketed cot.
Without Hunter’s direction the camera switched angles to show the man more closely. And for a moment Hunter stared, all the while following with his eyes two more personnel who had walked across the room and now stood six feet away.
He blinked sweat from his eyes.
What happened next made his skin crawl, chilling him even as he felt his heart rate increase, his breath deepen. For the man had fallen onto his face, writhing in pain. Then he clawed at his shirt, his eyes, and his face and began screaming, howling. He tore off his shoes and for a moment vanished beyond the camera angle, and when he writhed back into view Hunter was horrified . . .
Slowly at first, and then with appalling acceleration, the man’s face altered, widening and distorting—transforming—and his hair fell in clumps and waves as he continued to scream and claw at himself. And then, in a maddened frenzy of rolling, beating upon any inanimate object that touched him as if it burned with fire, his body was grotesquely twisted by some tectonic collision of cells, hideously deforming him before he ...before it...lay in a stillness far deeper than death.
Hunter recognized the primordial outline of that form, though far smaller in this video than it had since become. And he knew his enemy. Knew finally where it had been spawned, and how.
Recovering consciousness and breath, the creature rose slowly, sullen and sneering, from the floor.
On the left side of the monitor, the glass wall was visible, and Hunter saw innumerable technicians staring in horror, holding clipboards close. He did not need to see their faces to read their fear. And as the creature inhaled deeply, almost with savage satisfaction at his altered state of being, there was an unnatural stillness in them all. Then, striding forward with remarkable slowness, it simply walked into the six-inch Plexiglas, shattering it spectacularly with a hammer-like blow, and was among them.
Hunter did not need to see what happened next.
One less mystery.
Hunter raised sullen eyes to the suspended cylindrical type that hung inside an electromagnetic field—he understood the process because the bare copper wiring that domed the top and bottom of the cylinder fairly hummed with energy—and knew that inside that darkness lay another answer.
He had followed the movement of the four technicians, and rose as they came around the display where he crouched. He knew that they would have cried out if he had allowed them the chance, but Hunter instantly seized one by the throat, shoving him against the chest-high computer terminal. And before the other could react he pinned him also with his Bowie knife. Holding the blade against the technician’s neck while easily controlling the first man who, not unsurprisingly, did not resist, Hunter spoke with threat to the others.
“Stay where you are!”
Already on their feet, they moved no farther.
“Don’t touch anything!” he continued. Then he shoved the two male technicians toward the other man and woman, crowding them for control. He pointed to the cylinder. “Turn on the lights. I want to see what’s inside the tube.”
The woman, not removing her eyes from Hunter, reached down carefully to the computer dais. When her hand was close, she cast a quick glance and slowly pushed a switch, and Hunter stepped away from them, staring upward at the tube. His knife hung forgotten in his hand as the image emerged before him, green light washing slowly over a bowed, monstrous head, ragged wisps of hair floating in jade liquid.
The light flooded downward—shaggy gray hair doming a broad deep forehead above a heavy brow that shaded dark eyes, high cheeks that protruded stone-like on either side of a broad, flattened nose; then a wide mouth—a wicked, frowning gash with the pinpoints of long fangs visible through the jade—hanging open. And the hugely muscled, apelike neck and gorilla chest that swelled as thick twin shields beneath the chin, and, finally, to the knotted, powerful arms, matted and dark with coarse hair. And even farther the light descended to reveal long muscular legs—not like those of an ape, but of a man, yet so overdeveloped and powerfully defined that they could have undoubtedly propelled this colossus of human evolution to shocking heights or hurled that hulking weight with a cheetah’s speed across the vined and tepid slime morasses of a world long buried beneath the awesome weight of time.
It was dead; Hunter needed no one to tell him that. And from the withered facial features, the smoothness of its flesh, he knew it had been dead for eons. Almost as an afterthought, he studied the large, powerful hands. Even the centuries had not dulled the fiendish aspect of those blackened claws.
Inhaling deeply, Hunter shook his head at the foolishness of man. Not anymore did he need anyone to tell him what they had done. Now the only question remaining ...was why.
No alarms had sounded above; he felt no compulsion to rush. Nor had the laboratory technicians moved to flee, although he would have allowed them. Rather, they stood in absolute stillness, apparently fearful that he meant them harm, which he did not.
He heard the elevator open behind him, listened calmly as suppressed footsteps approached and counted their number: six pairs of military boots and the squeak of foam-soled working shoes—the kind that Dr. Hamilton habitually wore.
Sheathing his Bowie, Hunter continued to stare with amazed disbelief at the entombed monstrosity until, ever so slowly, Hamilton halted beside him.
Absolutely no registration of anger or disappointment was visible on the scientist’s face; obviously, he was a man rarely surprised. His arms were crossed casually and his posture was that of a man admiring a fine painting. And when he spoke, a glimmering smile raised one corner of his mouth in what seemed to be admiration, even amusement, at what Hunter had discovered.
“And so,” Hamilton began pleasantly, “now you know.”
Hunter almost laughed, but it was more of a disbelieving grunt. The situation was so insane, so beyond the realm of reason and responsibility, that he didn’t know what to say. He shook his head and looked at Hamilton.
“How did you ever think to keep a thing like this secret?”
Nonchalant and amused, Hamilton smiled. “But I have kept it a secret, Mr. Hunter.”
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His confidence, again, was supreme. Hunter wondered how Hamilton truly looked upon others.
Hunter glanced around casually and counted six black-clad soldiers. “I suppose,” he said, “that you intend to kill me.”
Hamilton said nothing, and his aspect did not change.
Hunter had never seen the uniformed soldiers aboveground and reasoned that they weren’t regular military but a special contingent designed to protect this hidden level. Escape was paramount in his mind, and then he thought of Bobbi Jo above with the rest, waiting for the attack. He looked at Hamilton, shook his head.
“You really are insane, you know,” he said.
“Hmm?” Hamilton raised his brow, undisturbed. “Well, of course, there are those who might think so, Mr. Hunter. But I disagree. And, as regarding my plans for you, I believe that is self-evident. After all, we are both men of the world. We are both reasonably experienced, each in his own way, with illegal, dangerous, and dark oceans of secrets. Further, I do not wish to be indelicate by stating what is both obvious and unavoidable. And I hope you understand: I really have no choice in the matter.”
If Hamilton expected to see fear in Hunter, he was disappointed.
Hunter smiled.
“You know, Hamilton, in all my traveling, all the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, I’ve never actually killed a man.”
Hamilton took it as the insult it was intended to be. His face tightened, eyes crinkling with the sting. He didn’t attempt to polish his tone as he replied.
“Really? A shame I can’t say the same.”
***
Standing on the edge of the roof, Bobbi Jo had positioned the Barrett on a large crate, bipod extended. The huge rifle dominated the weapon-heavy environment, making the M-16’s seem like toys. Two freshly loaded clips were set on a table. She had positioned a bench behind her so she could comfortably pick off the creature with one well-placed shot after another when it penetrated the perimeter.
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