Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  The wounds torn into its muscular body were deep and terrible, but Ghost revealed no pain.

  “It’s gonna be all right, boy,” Hunter said quietly.

  Ghost blinked again, silent in his pain.

  A team of soldiers, locking and loading automatic weapons, surrounded them.

  At the sounds, Ghost tried to rise. But Hunter placed a hand on him, continuing to speak in soothing tones. He talked about everything, about nothing, about what they would do when they went home. And he talked until the awesome, courageous black eyes glazed over, and the huge chest fell still. Hunter waited another moment, his hand soft on the mane, stroking his friend. Then he solemnly bent his head.

  A frown twisted his brow as he rose, staring darkly at the weapons, the men. He feared none of them, and never would. Death would be welcome to him now. He almost invited them to shoot. Glancing across the faces, he found no leader.

  “Where’s Dixon?” he growled.

  “Get on the ground!” a soldier bellowed.

  It took a single long second for Hunter to turn his head to the voice. His countenance was deadly.

  “Make me,” he said, low.

  The soldier stepped back.

  Orders were barked, and Hunter glanced to the side to see Chaney rising, holding a hand to his bruised forehead. And Takakura was stirring, clumsily and painfully. Bobbi Jo lay where she had fallen; she made no movement at all.

  Hunter moved for her, and a cacophony of voices and orders thundered in the air; he didn’t give a damn. He reached her and rolled her over gently, checking the wounds.

  A large blue-red welt on her head revealed where she’d been struck. And a narrow gash—the wound of a single claw—streaked her forehead, the blood already drying. Another clawed blow had split her Kevlar vest at mid-torso. But after carefully removing it, Hunter saw that the claws had only barely touched the skin, though she bled heavily from the cuts.

  Despite the shouts behind him, Hunter turned to them in a low voice. “Do you have a medic with you?”

  They cared nothing for his words. Nothing for his needs.

  Bellowing now with authority, they told him what to do.

  He stared at all of them: if dying was this, so be it. He would obey no one and nothing until he had helped his friends. Ignoring the conflicting orders, he looked to the side to see someone obviously in charge striding through the detachment: Dixon.

  Hunter squared into him.

  Without expression, Dixon came up, hands clasped behind his back with a hundred rifles trained on Hunter. Smiling faintly, Hunter communicated that he knew who had true courage.

  Dixon was unfazed. He spoke boldly, frankly, and with a complete lack of concern or compassion for the suffering and sacrifice that Hunter and his colleagues had endured in the last three days. It was an attitude that Hunter had expected, but even he had not anticipated such a perfect, superlative level of pure arrogance and apathy at the death of so many; deaths that could have been prevented. Bowing his head, eyes hidden in shadow, Hunter didn’t reply.

  “Mr. Hunter!” Dixon kept his distance with the words. “I feel that it’s only right to tell you: if you do not discard your knife in the next three seconds, my men will shoot you and everyone with you stone-cold dead! You are not a soldier! I am! Believe me, I say what I mean!”

  Hunter looked into his eyes. Laughed.

  “Three seconds?”

  “Three seconds!”

  “You won’t give us more?”

  Dixon laughed. “You’re such a fool, Hunter. I am about to count. Remember. Three seconds.”

  Hunter nodded vaguely, understanding. “Okay. Count.”

  “One ... two ...”

  Hunter lifted a hand from behind his back and the Bowie knife at the same time. Dixon’s eyes widened as he saw the only bag of HD-66, the source of all they sought, poised at the tip of the blade. The slightest movement, even by accident, would split the bag and spill the precious liquid on the ground, costing them all they had schemed and worked toward for so long.

  Instantly Dixon extended his arms, his words soaring over all else as he bellowed, “Hold fire! Hold fire! Hold fire! No one is to fire! Is that clear! No one is to fire! No one is to fire!”

  Confused looks were cast at the CIA agent, and Dixon stretched out his arms as angry figures rushed from the complex behind them. Hunter recognized Hamilton. The rest, he didn’t know. He stared back at Dixon as they neared, his hands dead-steady despite the adrenaline surge he felt in his system.

  Chaney came up beside him, staring at the troops. He shook his head as he muttered, “America’s finest.”

  Hunter heard Takakura rise, gain balance. Then the Japanese bent to help Bobbi Jo to her feet, lifting her gently to sit her on the fender of a truck. She didn’t take the Barrett with her, even in her confusion knowing it wasn’t necessary. There was a pause, and then her voice cut through the tension.

  “I figured it would end in something like this,” she muttered.

  Hamilton halted, breathing heavily, beside Dixon.

  “These ...these are the men,” he exclaimed, pointing. “They are guilty ...they are guilty of sabotage!”

  Dixon never removed his eyes from Hunter.

  Smiling, Hunter never removed his eyes from Dixon.

  “I think the right of decision has passed to Mr. Hunter, Doctor,” Dixon said with cold assessment.

  Hunter looked into his face and knew that Dixon would murder them instantly if Hunter gave them the serum. Only the threat of its destruction was keeping them at bay. He lifted his chin.

  “Get everyone back into the choppers,” he said. “Now.”

  Dixon shuffled and glanced at Hamilton, who now noticed the amber-filled bag in Hunter’s rigid hand. The doctor’s face blanched and he extended his hand: “You took it! You stole the serum!” He swayed a moment, shaking his head. “Was it from ingenuity, Mr. Hunter?” he added with hate. “Or was it the vengeful motivation to kill this magnificent creature?” The doctor laughed. “Yes, I know. You did not expect to use it in this manner, but neither did you hesitate.”

  Hunter shifted his eyes from Hamilton to Dixon.

  “Tell you what, Dixon,” he said softly. “You’ve got three seconds to lay down your weapons and get out of here. Your men fly. You stay.”

  Shocked, Dixon blinked. “You can’t be serious.”

  “One ...”

  “Back in the choppers!” Dixon whirled, cupping his mouth for volume. “Get back in the choppers! All of you get back in the choppers! Move! Move! Move!”

  They hesitated.

  “Two ...”

  “Get in the choppers!” Dixon hurled an arm out, motioning violently. He grabbed the nearest soldier and flung him toward the Blackhawks. “All of you get in the choppers now! Do it now-now-now!”

  Disciplined, they dropped their rifles and ran across the short space to the choppers. Then, as a helicopter filled with unarmed soldiers, the Blackhawks lifted off one after the other until they stood alone in the glade listening to the vanishing whirring of blades in the invisible night. Angry, Hunter focused fully on Dixon.

  “Well, Dixon,” he said, “I guess this is what they call ‘reality.’”

  Dixon smirked; he had had several minutes to collect himself. In turn, he glanced at Takakura, Brick, Bobbi Jo, and Chaney. When he looked back at Hunter, he revealed a rich amusement.

  “Not much of your crew is left, Hunter.” He almost laughed. “You go in with seven, come back with three and now you are trapped with nowhere to go even if you wanted to escape. My men are not fools, you know. They are waiting for you to attempt escape. And then, quite simply, they will blast you out of the sky.”

  “That’s not your problem, Dixon,” Hunter responded, stone-cold, with a hint of malice. “Right now you need to be thinking about how you’
re gonna get out of this alive.”

  Dixon glared into Hunter’s eyes with scorn.

  “You’re lost, Hunter.” He shook his head. “You’re just out of your league, man. How do you think you can compete with us? We know everything. We’re locked into everything ...”

  “What are you locked into, Dixon?”

  Dixon started to reply; something real. Then he dropped his hands to his sides as if he never could.

  “Just ... everything, Hunter.”

  “So this is what it comes down to, huh?” Hunter shook his head. “Hundreds of people die so a handful of the privileged can live. Doesn’t sound like much of a tradeoff, Dixon. Especially for the people you pushed into traffic.”

  “You and I don’t make those calls, Hunter.”

  “Who does?”

  Dixon stared. His expression was honest. “I have no idea.”

  Having already lowered the serum to his side, Hunter held his Bowie in a loose fist. He would use both when the moment came. And the words of the old Indian returned to him, more meaningful in the last six hours than they had ever been.

  He understood, now, where it was going. And he knew he would have pieced it together a long time ago, if they had only been honest. But he had been forced to discover the truth for himself beneath layer upon layer of lies and deceit and betrayals.

  Somber, he turned to the forest. The far horizon was touched with a steel-gray dawn that matched his mood.

  The beast was wounded, and retreating.

  It knew, now, that it would never obtain the serum; whatever remained of its human mind would convince it of that. But the animal would rule as it always ruled. So it would do what an animal always did when it was wounded. It would retreat to where it could heal. It would go to its lair. And that’s where Hunter would find it.

  Time to finish this ...

  “You’re not listening to me, Hunter,” Dixon implored. “The best thing you can do right now is just hand over the serum. Listen, I know you destroyed the relic. So all we have left is that bag because the ...the elements ...whatever they’re called ...can’t be synthesized. It has to come from the source.”

  “There’s still him,” Hunter said stoically.

  Dixon paused. “Yeah, there’s still that … thing.”

  “And what if I capture him for you?”

  A laugh.

  “I don’t think I can authorize that, Hunter. Things are too out of control.”

  “It was authorized before.”

  “No,” Dixon shook his head, “not really. That was just smoke and mirrors. You were there to make it look official.” He sighed, “We never really wanted you to find it. But we never wanted you to kill it, either. We just wanted it to look like we were doing our best. And it worked.” Impressed with his own genius, Dixon nodded. “Worked pretty well, actually. Answered a ton of questions and everybody thought we were doing the right thing. We’ll never catch any heat. Because we used the best tracker in the world, hired the best hunting team in the world, and you guys did all that anyone could do, so no matter who wants heads roll after this, I’m covered like a blanket.” He smiled. “I’m a pro at this, Hunter.”

  With no hesitation Hunter drew the Bowie and smoothly slashed the serum bag, spilling the precious liquid onto the dirt. As he dropped the bag to the ground, Dr. Hamilton gaped.

  Shocked, Hamilton stood in place, mutely extending arms to where Hunter had trashed his life’s work.

  Dixon, disappointed, shifted slightly in his stance, staring at the ground. It was a moment before he could find the appropriate words, but his tone retained an air of professional calm.

  “You know, I figured you were gonna do something like that,” he commented.

  Hunter controlled the moment, nodded.

  “And then there was one.”

  “Aaahhh...” Hamilton managed, arms extended in mute protest.

  Dixon cast the scientist an annoyed glance before focusing again on Hunter, the team. He looked over all of them for a long moment, shaking his head in amazement. “You’re really planning on taking this crew out one more time?” he asked. “Have you looked at yourself lately, dude? You’re wasted! Your team is wasted! All of you, especially you, look totalled. Yeah, I know you’re a tough guy, survival is an art you cultivate, all that. But you ain’t gonna last three days out there. All of you belong in the hospital, man, not some jungle. And I’ve got more happy news for you.”

  Silence, as Dixon smiled.

  Chancy walked up. “No,” he said. “You can’t be serious.” He searched Dixon’s face as he stopped, standing beside Hunter. “You can’t tell me they’re that crazy.”

  “Oh, yeah, they’re that crazy,” Dixon confirmed, casually glancing at his watch. “We’ve got ... oh, about twenty-six minutes, I’d say.”

  Hunter laughed brutally; he didn’t have to be told.

  A moment of strange silence reigned.

  Dixon was impassive, and the rest were too emotionally burned out to feel anything at all. Only in their minds did they dispassionately realize that this entire area was going to be vaporized by an air attack, erasing any traces of the research facility, the records, the dead, the creature, the earth itself.

  What would remain here in half an hour would be a blasted piece of planet that would burn for days until only ashes smoldered in the midst of a strangely silent and deserted wilderness. There would be nothing for prosecutors to examine, and nothing hidden. It would be as if it had simply never existed at all. And any investigation, should it happen, would die with nothing but innuendo, suspicions, and questions easily deflected.

  “The lab is two stories belowground,” Chaney said. “How are they gonna blast something that’s forty feet down?”

  “Oh, I ain’t sure,” Dixon responded casually, lighting a cigarette. “I suppose they’ll use a fuel-air bomb. It was the only thing strong enough to destroy underground bunkers in Iraq.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, really. Fuel-air. Sidewinders. Dragons. Whatever. But they’ll do the job right, I guarantee you. So in less than half an hour, gentlemen, and lady, this glade will be a solid sheet of glass. No experiment. No facility. No evidence. No monster. No nothing.”

  The CIA man maintained his casual air. Hunter knew Dixon was certain that he and the others would be airlifted out on the single remaining Blackhawk as quickly as possible. Dixon believed they wouldn’t leave him behind to die.

  Bobbi Jo walked past them. “I’m going to get the professor,” she said to Hunter. “We have to get out of here.”

  Watching her lope with amazing strength—considering her injuries— across the compound, Hunter judged her strong enough for the task. He turned back to Dixon. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You were gonna perfect the serum, trap that thing in the complex, then raze the whole place. Perfect containment. Everyone is dead. You’ve got what you want. And there’s no evidence at all that anything happened.” He shook his head. “Almost the perfect plan, Dixon.”

  “Almost?” The agent smiled. “I’d say it was perfect, Hunter. Except for you.” He cocked his head. “I must admit, I never figured you would muck things up the way you did. My fault; I underestimated you. But, well, that’s what happens when you make last-minute changes to a perfect scenario. Guys like you get involved. And you think you got it all figured, but this guy, whoever, turns out to be some kind of war hero. Just won’t lie down and do as he’s told. And then ...” He motioned around him, “you have gold-plated FUBAR.”

  “I die hard,” Hunter said.

  Dixon acknowledged it with a nod. “Obviously,” he replied, spitting out a piece of tobacco. “Too hard, it seems. But I don’t think you’re gonna survive the firestorm that’s gonna be dropped on this area in about twenty minutes.”

  “You still don’t have the serum, Dixon.”

  At the m
ention of “serum,” Hamilton groaned and closed his eyes. His hands had fallen to his sides and he stood in awful silence, head bowed in misery. Hunter ignored him.

  Dixon was angry. “No, Hunter, we don’t.”

  “Well, then”—Hunter stared at him—”I guess it all comes down to you and me. What are you gonna tell your bosses when they see how you messed this up? Think they’re gonna be happy that, after this ‘perfect scenario’ of yours, they’re out a billion-dollar facility, have to answer a congressional investigation and still don’t get the serum?” He nodded. “I think Siberia is in your future, Dixon.”

  “Well,” the agent answered calmly, “you may be right. I don’t think they’re gonna be too pleased at this end result.”

  “So what about it?”

  “What about what?”

  “What about letting us go after it?”

  Dixon’s eyes narrowed, calculating. “I must say, destroying the serum was a masterstroke, Hunter. But there are other trackers. And I’m sure we can find someone as skillful as you. Perhaps even more skilled.” He spat out another piece of tobacco. “No, you’re not irreplaceable, son. And when things calm down, we’ll locate and capture the thing.” He smiled. “Hope is not lost.”

  “You’re deluding yourself, Dixon, and you know it. There’s only one person in the world who stands a chance of finding it, and that’s me. But I have to move fast.” Hunter used his trump card. “If you cooperate, I’ll have it for you in six hours.”

  Dixon laughed. “You’ve had a week, Hunter! How are you gonna find it in six hours?” He raised an arm to the forest. “Hell, it could be anywhere! Look around you! Look at yourself!”

  Confident and smiling, Hunter stepped closer to the CIA man. “I know where it’s going, Dixon,” he said quietly. “I know exactly where it’s going, so this won’t be a track. You give me six hours, and I’ll have your serum for you. But you have to give me six hours. Then you can go back and tell your boss that everything went according to plan. They’re in the clear. You’re in the clear. They have what they want. The evidence is destroyed. And you get kudos and a pat on the back.”