“Sounds like grunting.” Reed cocked one ear in the breeze. “It’s coming from behind the building. Wait a second.” The grunts grew louder. “And above us too. I’ve never—”
Lightning cracked the sky. Reed’s chest froze. Then he looked up.
Chapter 25
Soter Research Facility
Northwestern Tanzania
Reed Kimble had traveled the globe hunting animals both exotic and dangerous. None of it had prepared him for this. Fear chilled his entire body, holding him in place, because the biggest gorilla he’d ever seen in his life stood atop Soter’s building, staring down at him.
Sarah followed his glance and clamped her hands over her mouth, stifling a scream. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “So the data wasn’t fake,” She grabbed his arm. “Soter altered gorillas too. Not just wolves.”
There was a roar from above them as a second gorilla appeared on the roof beside it. Screams sounded behind him, and Reed whirled to find three more on the ground, heading for the group of scientists, who stood riveted to the spot, their eyes wide.
“Those scientists are trapped,” Reed said, pointing to the vehicles.” Doors opened on one car and a pair of scientists stepped out, shouting and pointing at the massive apes. “We have to help them.”
“They are done, boss.” Paul pointed around back toward the bay garage door. “We must run.”
Reed wanted to argue, but the gorillas began to move in unison toward the parked cars. Paul was right – those scientists had no chance.
“Lead the way,” Reed said, giving a last glance behind him as the two gorillas on the roof lost interest in Reed and company, thudding down and lumbering toward their victims. The scientists were all outside the vehicles now, some running, some standing frozen, watching as the gorillas approached. There was nobody left on the entrance steps; Deka’s crew and Ray Dorcy had disappeared in the confusion.
Paul led the way with Reed and Sarah on his tail. The sounds of screams and tearing flesh faded behind them as they ran. When they were safely around the corner of the building, Reed stopped to catch his breath.
“Soter must have been keeping those things here,” Reed panted. How hard would it have been? He’d barely seen half of the facility. “But how did they get out?” Reed slowed a step, falling even with Sarah. “Everyone except Dorcy, Deka and her crew is trapped by the cars. They all work for Soter.”
“Do you think Dorcy is above setting those monsters on his own people, Reed? They’re deliberately releasing the gorillas!” She was fighting to keep the panic out of her voice. “Which makes me think he must have set the wolves free too.”
The first fat drops of rain landed as Paul reached the small door by the garage bay. They saw him haul the door up and dash in – and almost immediately dash back out, almost falling over his own feet in terror.
“The hybrids are out of their cages,” he shouted, then turned and grabbed the bottom of the roller door to haul it shut again. Sarah and Reed watched in horror as one of the wolves came charging toward them, nails clicking on concrete. It tensed its massive body to spring just as Paul slammed the door into place. It crumpled outward, parallel claw marks nearly gouging through the steel with a horrific shriek.
“What do we do?” Sarah stood rooted to the ground. Wet hair stuck to her face as the rain intensified. “If the wolves are in there, and the gorillas are out front, we’re trapped.”
“Not so fast.” Reed risked a glance through the reinforced mesh window in the mangled door. “The wolf went out the suite door. It’s headed toward the main entrance.”
Paul crouched by the door and grasped the bottom ledge. “I will go first.” Wincing at the pain in his injured arm, he hauled the door upward once more. A hair-raising screech filled the air, and Paul dropped to a knee at the opening, his pistol at the ready.
Nothing came out.
“Looks like nobody stayed behind to eat us,” Reed said. The sky lit up and there was another terrific crash of thunder. I’ll take my chances inside. He and Paul sprinted toward their weapons in the gun safe, keeping an eye out for the wolves. Paul armed himself with a rifle and kept watch, while Reed strapped a pistol around his waist, slid his hunting knife into a sheath on his hip, and finally reached for a rifle. Not just any rifle, but the bolt-action .270 Browning he’d used for years, worn and weathered and accurate as hell. “Get extra ammunition,” Reed said to Paul as he slid spare magazines into a pocket.
“I have the keys,” Paul said. “We must go now. The wolves and gorillas are distracted.”
“Sarah, grab your computer and the research from Zurich.” No telling if anything would be left when they came back after the dust settled. If they came back, that is.
“I have it.” She had a bag over one shoulder.
“Now take this.” Reed put a pistol in her hand, which remained steady. “Put the holster on your waist, and keep this magazine in a pocket. Remember how to use it?”
She nodded. “I hope I don’t have to.”
“Same here,” Reed said. “Don’t worry. We can get to my car and out of here. I’ll run over anything in our way.”
When he turned to leave, she didn’t follow. Reed sensed the hesitation, saw it on her face. She still hadn’t moved when he stopped halfway to the door and turned around. “Time to go.”
Still she didn’t respond. Sarah stared at the ground, then at the walls, toward the off-limits area where the gorillas must have been kept. Only after he began walking toward her did she look at him.
“If we leave, nothing changes,” she said.
Gunshots boomed outside. “Sarah, we can talk about this later.” Gunshots? None of the scientists had weapons.
“No.” The force in her words turned his head around. “We came all this way to stop Soter. What they’re doing is horrific. It’s dangerous, and it can destroy everything.”
“You can do more research once we’re out of here,” Reed said. “Nobody will stop you.”
“I don’t mean my genome-editing project.” She set her shoulder bag on the floor. “I’m talking about this place. Tanzania. The savanna. The Maasai. Those creatures could ruin it all.”
She was right. The wolves and gorillas could decimate the native species, human or animal, and move on. There was no telling where it would stop.
“We can come back once we have reinforcements.” He reached for her arm. “I’ll get Chief Ereng and the anti-poaching team out here to catch these animals.”
“The government-funded team,” Sarah scoffed, shrugging him off. “The woman who runs it is here. Don’t you see? She’s in on it. You can’t count on them or any other authorities. We have no idea who else is behind this. It could be anyone in power, and you’ll never know until it’s too late. They’ll delay, sabotage your efforts, or maybe they’ll kill you if you cause enough trouble.” Sarah reached for an ammunition bag and grabbed two more magazines. “We have to stop this now. If you won’t do it, I will.”
Another gunshot sounded outside, but he barely heard it. “I thought you wanted to save them?”
Paul’s voice cut in. “We must go before the animals come here.” He leaned out of the damaged door, scanning in all directions. “Time is running out.”
Reed ignored him. “We can’t catch them all, not now. There are too many.”
“I know.” Her lips pursed. “We can’t save them now.” She swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks, then shook her head violently. “It’s too late. They’re all loose, so we need to triage the situation. Killing those animals will save others. Many others.”
Sarah’s pain at the decision tore at him in a way he didn’t think possible. He started to say he understood, then said nothing. A new sensation rose in his gut, the tingling he knew so well. And for the first time, he was ashamed. You left that behind. Except now he couldn’t, not if he wanted to do the right thing.
“We need to hunt them down,” Reed said. The words sent a terrible, wonderful electricity through his body. “To save
the other wildlife.”
When Sarah agreed, he went over to Paul, who had been watching them uneasily. “It’s time.”
“What are you talking about?” Paul’s eyes widened. “We must go. Now.”
“Time to hunt.” Paul did a double-take. “You heard me,” Reed said. “We’re going hunting. One last time.”
“You are certain?” Reed said he was. “Then I will shoot them if you are in danger.”
As if in answer, a fusillade of gunshots rang out, punctuated by human screams.
“The car is right here,” Paul said. “We should get in, meet the rest of our team, and then come back. We can hunt then. Now we are outnumbered.”
“That’s too late. We have to do it now, before they kill all the wildlife.” The Soter team he didn’t feel so strongly about.
“You are crazy,” Paul said. “They will kill us.”
“You and me?” He smiled with a confidence that shouldn’t exist. “Not a chance. Are you with me?”
Paul sighed. “I am with you. That is what I do.”
Reed put his hand out, and Paul clasped it. “You sure?”
There it was. Paul’s famous grin lit up his face. “You know it, boss.”
Sarah screamed behind them. When Reed turned, a wolf hybrid stared at him from across the room with fangs bared. He blinked, and it was already halfway toward Sarah.
Chapter 26
Soter Research Facility
Northwestern Tanzania
A bomb exploded in Reed’s ear.
One second he was taking aim at the wolf going for Sarah, and the next he couldn’t hear anything, as though cotton filled his ears and the world was at arm’s length. He blinked, trying to clear the dots from his vision. When the white spots vanished, a wolf lay dead at Sarah’s feet, and a pistol hovered inches from his head.
“Nice shot.” Reed couldn’t tell if Paul responded, because he still couldn’t really hear. “Next time try not to blow out my eardrum.”
“Sorry, boss.”
Better. “You okay?” he asked Sarah.
She’d never lifted her pistol. “Yes.”
Reed walked over, rubbing the injured ear. “When you see the next one, try this.” He grabbed her hand, lifted it and pointed it at the carcass. “Then you pull the trigger.”
“I will.”
He could scarcely hear her, and it wasn’t because of the gunshot.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Reed wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. Killing shouldn’t be easy.”
“More could come,” Paul said. “We must move. Take the fight to them.”
Exactly what Reed thought. “Stay on the offensive. Stay alert.” Moving toward the door, he motioned for Sarah to get close. “Stay behind me. Paul will watch our—”
A shrill beeping filled the air. Reed searched high and low for targets as the door to their quarters swung open. An empty hallway waited beyond.
“Has it ever done that before?” he asked Sarah.
“Not that I’ve seen. Someone did that remotely.”
The garage door shuddered behind them, rolling up and disappearing into the ceiling. Outside, rain hammered the dry ground, disappearing as fast as it fell.
Now they were open to attack from the front and rear. No way this had happened by chance.
“They have eyes on us,” Reed said. He looked up. Cameras dotted the ceiling above them.
“I will handle it.” Paul leaned back and aimed his shotgun at the closest camera. Before he could fire, there was a scream in the hallway and a Soter security guard burst through the door, facing behind him as he ran and firing blindly over a shoulder until he stumbled headlong into a table and fell, his pistol sliding across the floor.
A wolf hybrid raced through the door behind him, tensed, sprang and went airborne.
Reed drew a bead on the beast and fired. Even when a red hole opened in its chest, the animal didn’t stop. Its razor-sharp claws raked across the fallen guard as he tried to stand and run. He managed one step before the wolf caught up, dropping him to the ground with such force his neck twisted sideways. No chance he survived that crushing blow.
Reed unloaded his gun, dropping the beast, though too late for the guard. With his weapon trained on the wolf, he darted in and kicked it. Stone dead.
He turned to see Paul and Sarah staring wide-eyed at the open door as an inhuman roar filled the air.
Chapter 27
Soter Research Facility
Northwestern Tanzania
Daylight seemed to vanish as a mountain of flesh appeared at the open garage door, towering above them like a giant apparition from hell. The gorilla beat its chest, lumbering sideways behind a cabinet as Paul and Reed both fired, sparks flying off the metal drawers.
“Go left,” Reed told Paul, and as they had so many times before, the two fell into an old familiar rhythm: they separated and methodically began to stalk the gorilla. The beast was out of sight, for now, hidden behind the cabinet. Strange behavior for a gorilla, but Reed didn’t have time to worry about it, because suddenly the storage cabinet exploded towards them as though a bomb had detonated behind it.
Reed dove to one side, the rectangular missile missing him by inches. Ceiling and floor flipped as he rolled, the pistol on his hip like a metal fist punching him over and over. The world stopped turning in time for the gorilla to beat its chest and charge. The damn thing moved fast, too fast for a brute that size. Reed twisted beneath a table, which promptly folded in half under the gorilla’s pounding fists. The broken table flew toward the ceiling, and white teeth filled Reed’s vision. Canines that could shred him in one bite. Two massive fists raised to smash Reed in half.
Fire burst from Reed’s shotgun. The gorilla froze as buckshot ripped its chest. Another shot, and another. Only then did the oversized ape topple, crashing down within a foot of him. A musky scent reminiscent of wet dog nearly overwhelmed him; the ape’s open eyes stared at him so fiercely Reed nearly fired again, a final reminder of how humans had failed the formerly magnificent creature.
Sarah rushed over. “Are you okay?” Reed assured her he was. “Gorillas shouldn’t act that way,” Sarah said. “They aren’t naturally aggressive. Soter must have modified their behavioral traits.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Sure, if you alter the genome, add an element to increase a desired trait. They could blend in practically anything.”
Not good news. Reed turned to Paul. “How many gorillas did you see outside?”
“Five. Two on the roof, three on the ground.”
“That’s what I counted too. Four gorillas left, and three wolves, unless the Soter guards took any out.” As he spoke, gunfire chattered outside over the renewed sound of screams. “Wolves may still be in the building. I’m not sure if they would all run outside at once.”
“That’s where the food is,” Sarah said. “And by food, I mean people. Also, these aren’t normal wolves,” she reminded them. “Two of them stalked our research team in Zurich. That’s far more advanced than normal wolves.”
Reed gave a mirthless bark of laughter. “Great. Now we have genius wolves ready to kill us.”
“It makes this more fun, right, boss?”
Reed offered Paul a wry grin. “One way to look at it.” Not that he’d admit it, but the challenge did amp something inside of him. “Same as before.” He pointed to the interior door. “Sarah, stay behind me. Paul, you have our backs.”
Cool, collected, and filled with a thrill he once promised would never drive him again, Reed led them into the hallway. Shouting and cries from outside echoed off the walls, faint and distant. “The front door must be open,” Reed whispered. “Whoever opened our suite door likely unlocked all the doors.”
“There has to be a central control room,” Sarah replied. “Wherever those cameras feed to. They could be watching us right now.” She pointed to three more cameras on the hall ceiling.
Reed had
pocketed a healthy supply of shotgun shells before they left the suite. “Cover your ears.” The gun swiveled up and he blasted the cameras to pieces. “Good luck watching us now, Dorcy,” he muttered over the ringing, cottony feeling in his ears.
They cautiously advanced to the end of the hallway. An atrium opened ahead, the steel beams soaring to support a towering glass ceiling. A brilliant reddish stain glimmered on the floor in front of him. In the middle, a guard’s body, one unmoving hand clutching a pistol. His chest had been gashed open. Reed blinked in the brightness, and then he saw red paw prints leading away from the body.
He turned to face a mouthful of sharp teeth.
“Watch out,” he cried, diving beneath the wolf as it jumped for his throat. Reed crash-landed, twisting to see the wolf land and turn, its paws slipping in the gore. Reed’s pistol came up and he fired three times, each shot striking home.
Another gunshot cracked. Sarah’s pistol smoked in front of her, held in both hands as she’d been taught. The wolf shuddered and went still.
“Get up, boss.” Paul knelt beside him, scanning the room. “We need cover.” An open second floor ran the length of the atrium.
“Through here, and hurry.” Running through a set of double doors, Reed found they led to an exterior door. As Sarah and Paul followed, he crouched in the frame and blasted every security camera in sight before heading for the exit door. “The animals should be outside,” Reed said. “We’re going out. It can’t be any more dangerous than in here.”
“I doubt Dorcy is still outside in the storm,” Sarah said.
“Do not forget about the military guards,” Paul offered. “And Deka Conteh is dangerous. If I were her, I would wait for us in the room back there.” He nodded toward the atrium. “So I could shoot from above.”
Reed nodded. He leaned against the wall, checking his weapons. “Watch for both people and animals. Dorcy and Deka Conteh are working together. It’s the only reason she’d be here.” The final bullet clicked into a magazine. “I want to know why. What interest does the Tanzanian government have in genetically altered animals?”
The Turn Series Box Set Page 33