Silence.
“Thor took its heart,” Connor said, bitter. “He took the best of it with him.”
“Yes,” the scientist added after a moment. “But if my guess is right, I’d say that Leviathan has enough enzymes left for one good, hard fight. It can continue for maybe a few hours. And then ...”
Connor waited. “And then?”
“It’s impossible to say, Connor. If Leviathan can’t get through the power plant to reach the lake, it might curl up and go into hibernation. To try and pull nutrients from the air and ground. Or it might just die. I don’t know.”
“But it won’t go into hibernation if it’s close to blood,” Connor said, frowning. “It likes the taste too much.”
Silence, and Frank answered. “No. if Leviathan is close to a kill, it will probably go for broke.” He waited a moment. “But don’t forget this, Connor. Even if Leviathan is close to death, it’s going to die hard because it will know instinctively that everything depends on victory.”
Smiling bitterly, Connor nodded, turned away.
“How are you gonna kill it?” the scientist asked.
Connor hesitated. “Thor is the one who killed it, Doctor. All we have to do is finish it.”
“And how are you gonna do that?”
“I’m going to fry it.”
“You’ve already tried that.”
“I made mistakes.”
“What kind of mistakes?”
“I hit it from the ground up, or from the head,” Connor replied. “Or I used too much power.”
“How could you ever use too much power? That thing’s got the resistance of a mountain.”
Connor released a hard breath. “I hit it with 100,000 volts, and that was too much because it blasted it clear across the cavern. I hurt it, but I don’t want to hurt it. I want to put it down for good.”
“So you’re going to hit it with less power?”
“No,” Connor shook his head. “I’m going to hit with as much or more. But I’m going to try and hold it and hit it. I’m going to put it in a place where it can’t escape the current. And if I can hit it with 100,000 volts or better for at least a minute, I think I can make that superheated blood fry its brain. I’ve got to either do that, or I’ve got to throw a current as big as a lightning bolt through its chest and blow out its heart.”
“Blow out its heart?” Frank’s face was suddenly rigid. “How are you going to blow out its heart?”
Connor gazed at the two severed sections of the Norwegian power line, positioned just inside the doorway. “I’m not sure, yet. But I’ve got some ideas.”
“Hey, Connor.”
Connor looked down, silent.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about Thor.”
“I appreciate that.”
“He was a good man.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “He was a hero, Frank. He was a hero in an age that doesn’t believe in heroes. Nowadays people prefer to believe in whatever gets them by or saves them money. Everything else can be sacrificed. Usually is. I know, because I’ve been there my whole life. But Thor believed in God and Satan and good and evil and the whole nine yards. He believed that you stand with one or the other. And I think the man was right. I never knew a better man and never will because he was the real thing. He was someone who stood on what he believed and wouldn’t get off it. The rest of us are just sauce.”
Silent, Frank nodded.
Beth stood, removing the heavy black communications head-set. “I got through, Connor! We’ve got a C-130 coming out of Neskaupstadhur and there’s a North Atlantic Sea Patrol cruiser forty miles southeast running on calm seas. It should be here in less than two hours.” She paused, staring. “Now all we have to do is get out of here.”
“No, Beth,” Connor said. “Now all we have to do is kill that thing.” He turned to Frank. “Do you have control over the fail-safe?”
Frank nodded.
“Will GEO set if off whenever you give it the command?”
Another nod.
Connor lifted his gaze at Beth. When he looked back at Frank his face was almost white with emotion. He spoke loudly so that Beth could give her blessing, her agreement.
“All right, Frank. This is how we’ve got to do it. I’m going to try and put this thing down. To finish it. But if it makes it past me, then it’s coming for this cavern and the lake. And if that happens you’re going to have to ignite the fail-safe.” He searched the scientist. “Can you do that?”
Frank nodded without expression. “Yeah. GEO will set off the fail-safe at my word. Whenever I say.”
“Good. Because we can’t let Leviathan get past us.” Connor pointed grimly at a tunnel on the far side of the power plant. “That’s the tunnel that leads to Crystal Lake. The only tunnel. So Leviathan has got to get past us before it can be free.” He stared at them, grim. “This is where we hold the line, people. Or die trying. Because if Leviathan gets past us, then it gets to the lake. And if it gets into the lake, then it’s loose in the world.”
Silence and stares.
“Do all of you understand what I’m saying?” Connor asked quietly. “If we have to sacrifice ourselves to take this thing out, then we do it. But Leviathan can never escape this cavern. Are we all in agreement?”
Connor looked at Beth, and she didn’t even blink as she nodded, slow and certain. Then he looked across at Barley, and the big man was the epic image of a professional soldier. Bruised and bloody and burned, he stood with the stock of his rifle set on his hip, barrel pointing at the ceiling. He nodded without remorse. Connor returned the gesture.
“All right,” he said slowly. “Then I’m going out.”
Barley called out. “Put it in the dirt, Connor!”
“Yeah, good luck,” Frank repeated.
Without words Connor nodded and lifted the M-79, walking out. He approached the wide, darkened exit of the power plant, moving toward the ultimate shadows and fear. But at the door he paused, turning almost against his will to gaze back.
He saw that Jordan had risen to stand lonely and alone on the walkway. The boy had shed his blanket and fearfully held both hands tightly in front of his chest, staring.
A low moan escaped Connor. He didn’t know what to do or say. Then Jordan raised his small hand in the air, holding it high with fingers spread strong.
I’ll always be with you …
Connor’s teeth came together, tears in his eyes.
He raised his hand to the air.
Chapter 38
Merciless and warlike, Connor crouched in the center of the long black walkway that led to the power plant. His face was a mask of coldhearted will.
His eyes glinted, red.
An M-79, the grenade launcher, was slung across his back. And he had other grenades in a small bag on his waist. A semiautomatic Beretta pistol was shoved in his belt, and he held another pistol in his hand. Four extra clips were in his back pocket.
Frowning in pain, Connor shifted, tried to ignore it. He had taken three more painkillers but they only took the faintest edge off his uncountable torn muscles, cuts, and bruises.
His legs were aching, threatening to collapse whenever he moved and his shoulders and chest were raw and bleeding from wound after wound that he couldn’t even remember receiving. His upper arm, where he had taken the steel spike, was completely numb and swollen, and he had been forced to remove Frank’s bandage to allow more blood flow.
Connor was thankful Barley had given him the last of the high-strength codeine capsules. Now, he knew, he could push his body far past the point of normal endurance. He could push himself past injury, past everything. He could sustain a life-threatening wound and still keep fighting until blood loss or shock took him to the ground.
And this would be the worst, he knew. A battle to the finish between man and
beast. No pity, no mercy and absolutely to the death.
In the breathless anxiety of the moment Connor felt himself moving into something vividly pure, everything within him fading, fading until he was completely one with what he was doing. Even his fear faded, faded until everything within, his son and wife and his own life became one with his stand. It was all in him, with him.
There was no fear here.
Only purpose.
Connor concentrated, focusing whatever strength was left inside him for the imminent conflict. He knew that he had chosen his location well. He had positioned himself a full mile from the power plant with four traps to his back, each trap set to take the beast apart the same way it had taken them apart.
Piece by piece.
And Connor knew he would do it. He would take it apart piece by piece until there was nothing left of it.
“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s just you and me now ... Show me what it really takes to break you.”
Silence for a moment, and Connor spoke quietly into the headset, grateful that Frank had taken a moment to put his voice identity on-line with GEO. Now Connor, too, could talk to the computer through the headset.
“GEO, identify my voice.”
“Voice identified as Jackson Connor,” whispered the speaker mounted beside him on the wall.
“What is the status of Leviathan?”
“Leviathan has achieved full revival of life-support systems.”
“What is Leviathan’s location?”
“Leviathan is two miles away from the power plant and is moving in an eastern direction.”
Connor nodded slowly, reaching back. He pulled the M-79 around, breaking open the breech to confirm that a grenade was locked in the pipe. Then he snapped it shut, staring down the corridor to see the half-dozen long wires dangling from the ceiling, each end stripped of insulation to leave the shiny copper exposed.
If the beast touched any of the wires it would be blasted flat down against the steel walkway, which was also wired. And Connor was confident that, even if Leviathan was certain of the trap, it wouldn’t be able to thread a path between both the electrified platform and the descending wires.
It would be a good start.
“Leviathan is moving more quickly toward the power plant,” the computer whispered eerily. “Leviathan is in a Hunter-killer Mode.”
Connor frowned.
“So am I.”
***
To the end, Connor played it out in his head.
He worked his mind through the traps, one by one. And then he remembered the thick black Norwegian power cable that he had pulled from the wall of the power plant, exposing both ends of the line. He hung the severed endings well inside the entrance, leaving a gap of twenty feet between the exposed copper.
Grimacing, Connor knew that he would need a miracle to bring that lightning bolt of electrical power across from one coil to connect to the other, just as Leviathan moved between them. But Connor knew that, if it came to it, he had to make it happen.
It would be their last chance.
But the distance was extreme, he knew, and he really had no idea how he would manage it. He had wanted to move the endings closer but had decided he couldn’t risk the beast sensing the trap.
It learns, Frank had said over and over.
It learns.
It won’t fall for the same trick twice.
Connor released a tight breath, blowing sweat from his lips. He had also remembered the warning as he set his other traps, knowing that each one had to be different. And he had almost exhausted his cunning, using electrical power in ways that even he had never imagined. But the Norwegian power line was both the best and the worst because it held by far the greatest measure of power. And yet it would be the most difficult trap to close.
A sense of doom overcame him, and Connor bowed his head.
Yeah, he’d need a miracle to make it work. “I need a miracle, buddy,” he whispered, shaking his head, his mind reaching out to Thor’s gigantic, comforting presence. “And you were the one who believed in miracles ...”
Alone in the gloom, Connor pondered how often Thor had spoken of good and evil and fate and life and how every man’s destiny held the Dragon, an evil that he would meet in the field with only his courage and faith and the fire of his heart to ...
A breath caught in Connor’s chest.
His gaze wandered down, unfocused, remembering ...
Fire?
An idea, hard and sudden, descended over him. And fumbling in frantic uncertainty, Connor quickly broke open the M-79 grenade launcher. He tore out the phosphorous grenade and stared at the projectile a long time, trying to recall the oxidation level of phosphorus, deciding whether the chemical could carry a current. He closed his eyes as he remembered what Barley had said, understanding now why it had struck him so profoundly ... That phosphorous grenade is liquid fire, Connor … Be careful with it ... It is pure, liquid fire ...
Teeth gleaming in a savage smile, Connor glared at the grenade, raising it before his gaze. His fist closed tight and bloodless around the polished gray cylinder. And tighter.
He needed a miracle. And he was given fire.
Pure liquid fire.
Frowning, Connor nodded.
Yeah. That’d do just fine.
***
Connor saw the dark outline of the beast.
It had come.
“It’s about time,” Connor whispered, rising to his feet to stand fully in the middle of the corridor. Defiantly he raised the M-79, resting the stock on his hip to wait in plain sight.
One second later Leviathan was before him, standing boldly at the entrance of the corridor a quarter mile away. It sighted him almost instantly, unhinging its jaws. And even at a distance, Connor could see that the Dragon was not what it had been.
Vaporous clouds of steam floated from sections of its long neck and body where the proud armor scales were ripped and completely torn away from its gigantic body. There were even wide sections of its neck still raw and ravaged, oozing black blood. And there was a wide, unhealed black cleft between its eyes.
Connor smiled.
Yeah, it was clear.
Leviathan wasn’t healing up. At least, not like before. It had recovered enough to launch a last attack. But if it was struck down again it would be down forever. It had never managed to overcome the grievous wounds sustained in the battle with Thor.
They had starved it and wounded it and taken it down over and over and now it was exhausted – starving and dying. And Connor knew he was going to help it along.
He wondered if the Dragon had regenerated its flame-throwing abilities and then it sent a blazing blast of flame down the corridor, igniting all that could be ignited.
In a white holocaust the flames stopped less than a hundred feet away and Connor realized that the maximum range of the blast was about three hundred feet. He would have leaped aside if he had had the chance, but it happened too quickly, so he used the opportunity for scorn. He shouted, hoping it would realize his intent.
“Come on!” Then Connor added, more quietly. “Let’s see how much of you survived Thor.”
With a cautious step the beast advanced, crouching low to clear the top of the tunnel. Connor reflexively glanced at the bare wires hanging from the ceiling, forty feet in front of it. With two gigantic strides Leviathan had reached the junction. Green eyes narrowing, it raised its head, studying the wires. Then it lowered itself even more to clear the copper strands, stepping toward a section of walkway wired with 10,000 volts.
Just enough to make it mad.
Connor eased back, moving for the corner because it was closing on three hundred feet. He knew that he had to exhaust what flame remained before the Dragon reached the power plant.
So he took the Beretta semiautomatic pistol from
the small of his back and raised it with a cold aim toward the beast. At this distance it was a useless weapon, he knew, but Connor wasn’t trying to injure it – just enrage it.
He fired a full clip, aiming high.
Leviathan winced as the bullets struck and Connor fired the full fifteen rounds. But the beast held its ground, unmoving and unprovoked. The Beretta was smoking in Connor’s hand as he lowered it slowly to his side.
Leviathan glared, jaws separating.
Connor stared back, grim.
“One more step,” he whispered. “Come on ... Take it ...”
Leviathan snarled.
It took it.
Chapter 39
Connor dove to the side as the clawed foot struck the walkway and the corridor exploded, shards of steel cascading from the tunnel to tear chunks of calcite from the walls, floor.
Instantly Connor was on his feet, into it now, sweating, something within him fired by the impact. He held the M-79 close as he ducked his head around the corner to see
Roaring fangs ...
With a shout Connor fired point-blank, his finger closing on the trigger without his will and the grenade went into the face of the beast, striking in a concussive blast that rocketed fire from the tunnel like a volcanic eruption. Connor screamed and twisted away to hit the ground hard, and then he was on his feet again, staggering and without thought breaking open the M-79 to tear out the spent grenade canister.
Leviathan shrieked over him and Connor spun to see that it was too close. Shouting, Connor dropped to one knee and saw the beast crawling beneath the upraised vault. It was fully engulfed in white, spiraling phosphorous flames, a cloud of fire.
Then Connor saw the vault cable and knew it was his only chance. Instantly he ripped out the pistol at his back to hold a dead-aim at the steel cord and then he was pulling the trigger as fast as he could move. Howling lead fragments and splintered steel lanced the air and him but Connor barely felt it and suddenly the steel cord snapped.
With a thunderous descent the vault slammed on Leviathan’s chest, crushing it to the ground. Connor heard himself howling, leaping to the side as he wildly ejected the pistol’s clip and slammed in another. With a curse he dropped the pistol in the bag and shoved a grenade into the M-79, snapping it shut instantly.
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