by David Archer
TWENTY-TWO
Marco, still in his isolation booth, couldn’t hear anything on his own, but the sounds of gunfire were coming through Noah’s and Jenny’s subcoms. McRae had disappeared back into the bowels of the base, following Marco’s suggestion that he keep his cover intact if he could, at least until help arrived. He had muttered something about having to go back to Janet before she woke, then slipped out the door and was gone.
Suddenly, a group of men came pouring into the control center. Some of them sat down at computers and fired them up, but others were grabbing weapons out of cabinets. It occurred to Marco that, had McRae known the weapons were there, they might have found a way to get him out of this stupid little room.
The door behind him opened, and he spun to see what was happening. Three guards were standing there with weapons pointed at him, and they motioned for him to come outside. He raised his hands to show that he wasn’t going to resist, then stepped out of the room. One of the guards yanked his hands behind his back and used handcuffs to secure them, and then they dragged him off down the hall.
They stopped a moment later, right in front of a door that was closed. One of the guards opened it quickly, and then Marco was pushed through. He staggered for a second and then caught his balance, looking around to see what new situation he had found himself in. The guards were still holding onto him, but they had come to a sudden halt of their own.
And that’s when he saw the hybrid, at the other end of the room. It had some kind of leash connected to it, and it was straining toward him.
And then the leash snapped.
Marco barely had time to realize the thing was free before it was coming at him.
He swore under his breath and tried to make a run for it, but his guards were in the way, blocking the only possible escape, back to the doorway, as they took it themselves and slammed it behind them. They were gone, leaving him with his hands secured behind his back, to deal with the monster that was stomping toward him.
The thing leapt and struck him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him as he went flying back into the wall with enough force that he felt his ribs cracking. He dropped to the floor and cried out in pain as his shoulder dislocated.
Gritting his teeth to help him deal with the agony, he rolled over, letting out a groan as he moved his dislocated shoulder, and realized that the hybrid was standing directly over him. It was snarling and raising its arms, ready to strike, and Marco closed his eyes as he waited for the killing blow.
The sound of gunfire erupted, small arms fire as the guards who had been escorting Marco aimed their weapons at the thing and fired. Marco curled up on the floor and made his body as small as possible as bullets made a horizontal rain in the hallway. The hybrid jerked as they struck it, but it stayed on its feet, right where it was. It let out another horrible scream as the guards realized their bullets weren't doing anything, and then they were behind the closed door and running away.
The creature stared at the doorway for a moment, then turned to look down at Marco once again. It flexed its fingers and those claws began extending toward him, and Marco closed his eyes once more. The deathblow would come now, he knew, and he whispered a silent goodbye to Renée.
It didn’t come, but the creature let out another scream as something slammed into it and dragged it away from him. Marco forced his eyes open, trying to see what had brought on what he could only consider a brief reprieve, and then he saw Jack Swaggart and the hybrid locked in physical combat. They were swinging at each other ferociously, unmercifully, but it was the hybrid that was getting the worst of it. With every blow Swaggart delivered, the thing was driven back until finally it was against the wall, and Swaggart reared back with a roundhouse kick that caved in the side of the creature’s head.
Marco managed to sit up and stared at the creature laying there, blood trickling from its—well, where its ears it should have been. Swaggart looked down at it for a moment, then turned to Marco and extended a hand to help him to his feet.
“Okay,” Marco said. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, I want to get that impression, but do you mind telling me how the hell you just kicked that thing’s ass?”
“Haven’t you heard about the training they give us in martial arts, at Military Intelligence?” Swaggart asked, grinning.
Marco stared at him, his eyes wide. “Yeah,” he said, “right. Some kind of super kung fu, right? See, I heard a little while ago that you had been one of Doctor Branigan’s new experimental subjects. Mind explaining the discrepancy?”
Swaggart’s grin faded. “Long, long story, but apparently I’ve been given a modified version of Branigan’s cocktail. They forced him to inject me, but he gave me a special version he said he had just developed. Give me all the enhancements, but left my mind intact.” He turned Marco around and looked at the handcuffs, then grabbed hold and snapped the chain that held them together. When Marco turned back to face him, he shrugged. “Look, I don’t like it either, but I’m going to use every advantage I got to try to get us out of here. We can figure out what to do with me after that.”
Marco stared into his eyes for a few seconds. “You’re serious? You really are still you?”
“I’m still me,” Swaggart said. “Now let’s…”
A rumbling sound behind him made him freeze as Marco looked over his shoulder with his own eyes going wide. The hybrid, the bleeding stopped and its head looking almost normal, was getting back to its feet. Following Marco’s gaze, Swaggart turned slowly and then let out a sigh as the creature aimed its cold, hard, but strangely human eyes at him.
The hybrid rose to its full height, slowly, its eyes never leaving Swaggart. The soldier was fully aware that this wasn’t going to end well, but there was no choice but to take the thing on again. He remembered Branigan telling him that he would heal quickly from any injury; apparently, that was a feature of all versions of the cocktail.
The creature rushed him, then, and lashed out suddenly with its claws. Swaggart ducked out of the way and the hybrid, still remembering some of the training it had had as a soldier, curled his fingers and swung its fist into Swaggart's jaw. Swaggart tried to dodge, but the blow caught him on the point of his chin, knocking his teeth together and throwing him a few feet down the hallway, where he landed hard on his back.
He caught his breath, and the hybrid was suddenly upon him, and Swaggart began swinging his fists as hard and fast as he could. One after another, they connected with the creature’s face, but it was almost like it didn’t care anymore. The rage in its face, showing through those not quite human eyes, made it clear that the thing had one purpose: his utter destruction.
He bucked and flipped himself onto his feet, swinging another roundhouse kick that sounded like thunder as it hit the thing in the head once more. The hybrid was thrown backward, and Swaggart followed, going right after it. The hybrid caught itself and turned to come at him once more, swinging its claws wildly as it tried to rake them across his face.
Swaggart managed to block the claws, but then the thing hopped back and stood on one leg, using the other like a battering ram that slammed into his chest. Swaggart went flying down the hallway and landed on his back once again as the thing made a massive leap and launched itself into the air at him.
All he could do was watch it as the creature came at him. The hybrid was ready and determined to kill him, to bring him to an end, but Swaggart wasn’t ready to give up on life just yet. He brought up his feet and caught the thing in its midsection as it tried to land on him, then used its own momentum against it as he threw it over his head. It crashed through a wall and Swaggart rolled quickly and got back up, ready to continue the fight.
The thing was still screaming as it fought its way back upright, looking back through the hole in the wall at the object of its hate. Marco was standing by watching, wishing there was something he could do to help his friend but knowing that, without the enhancements Swaggart had been given, he wouldn’t last five seconds
against that thing.
“Marco, this is Noah,” he heard through the subcom. “Are you there?”
“Noah!” Marco shouted, forgetting to keep his voice down. “Swaggart and I are here, we are fighting with one of the hybrids. We need help, man.”
“We’ve made it into the lower levels,” Noah said. “I can hear a shrieking sound, and a lot of crashing.”
“Yeah, well, just follow that sound and you will find us,” Marco yelled. “And don’t take your time about it, this thing is about to kill Swaggart, and then I’m next.”
The hybrid came through the gap in the wall and threw its arms around Swaggart. He cried out as the creature’s claws tore through the toughened skin along his lower back, creating deep gashes that bled profusely. He slammed his hands onto the creature’s ear holes as he fought to ignore the pain and sudden warmth spreading down his back and side, and then did it again. The thing fell back, and Swaggart began pummeling it once more. Blow after blow he landed, and slowly the creature was beaten back until it fell through the hole in the wall again.
Three things happened all at once, just then. The creature got back on its feet and turned to glare at him once more, and that was when they heard shouts in the hallway it was standing in. The creature turned its head to its right and Swaggart thought he saw a brief moment of shock, and then it looked back at him again. Its mouth opened for another scream of rage, just as a hail of bullets drove it out of sight.
Swaggart and Marco stared as two long lines of fire seemed to focus on the creature, and then the men holding the miniguns came into view. The guns fell silent, and Swaggart motioned for Marco to follow as he climbed through the hole in the wall.
The creature was down, and it probably wouldn’t be getting up. The 5.56 bullets that had struck it at such velocity had cut it in half, and it was laying silently in a pool of its own blood.
A voice boomed out in the hallway. “You guys all right?”
Marco grinned, and Swaggart heaved a sigh of relief, despite the pain and exhaustion he was feeling. That voice came from none other than Noah Wolf, and both men breathed a sigh of relief.
“Marco? Noah, is he okay?” Jenny’s voice came through the subcoms.
“I’m fine, sis,” Marco said. “Where are you?”
“My squad is rounding up the personnel in this place,” she said. “Noah, we found Danny McRae; he’s safe.”
“Good job,” Noah said. “Graves and Litchfield, report,” he said into the radio.
“Graves here, sir. My squad has lost two men to hybrids, but we put six of them down. There are a couple of dozen of them in one section of the complex, but they are in cages. Some of them are—not what I expected, sir.”
“Put them down, Graves,” Noah said. “Anything the scientists want to learn from them, they can learn by dissection. Those things don’t want to live the way they are.”
“But, sir,” Graves said, her voice hesitant. “I really think you should come down here before we do that.”
Noah chewed the inside of his cheek for a couple of seconds. “All right, as soon as I get a moment.”
“Yes, sir, and thank you,” Graves said.
“Litchfield here, sir. We have about two dozen prisoners, mostly some of the guard types in their black suits. What do you want done with them?”
“Gather them together, and I’ll get with you shortly.”
“Yes, sir,” Whitfield said.
“Very good,” Noah said. “What about Branigan? We haven’t found him yet?”
“It’s not just Branigan,” Swaggart interrupted. “The guy who was running this operation is here, or he was when you guys started coming in. I want his ass, and I want it personally. Branigan—well, Branigan is another whole story, but we need to find him if we can.”
“Agreed,” Noah said. “Everyone keep your eyes open. We’re looking for Branigan and the top man for this operation. I would just about bet we will find them together.”
“Then I’ll be happy to pay off,” Jenny said. “Because I just found them. At least, I got Branigan, and I would bet this fancy suited bastard hiding behind the cabinet with him is the other guy you’re looking for.”
“I see,” Noah said. “Where are you?”
“I’m on level three, looks like a big conference room or something.”
“Good, stay put,” Noah said. “We’ll be right there. Litchfield, bring your prisoners to the same location.”
“Yes, sir,” Litchfield said.
It took about ten minutes for them all to converge in what appeared to be, as Jenny had said, a conference room. There were racks of folding chairs along the walls, but the floor space was empty. By the time all of the captives were brought together, there were sixty-seven people gathered in the room, including Branigan and Danny McRae.
Swaggart went straight to Branigan and pulled him aside. “Doctor Branigan? I just wanted let you know, sir, what you did saved my life and several others.”
The man looked at him and blinked. “What I did? Goodness, what did I do?”
Swaggart narrowed his eyes. “You gave me a different version of the mixture, remember?”
Branigan stared at him for a second, then chuckled and shook his head. “Young man, I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. What kind of mixture was that?”
Noah was standing beside them, and he looked curiously at Swaggart. “Swaggart? Is something wrong?”
Swaggart shook his head and turned to Noah. “I’ll have to tell you later,” he said. “But trust me on something. You’re looking at one of the greatest heroes America has ever known.”
Noah glanced at Branigan, who only smiled as if he was slightly confused.
Swaggart turned to the man with the voice. “Now, you,” he said. “Just who the hell are you, anyway?”
The fellow looked at him bitterly. “I’m the man who was supposed to be bringing the world the ultimate soldiers,” he said. “My name is Rutherford. Andrew Rutherford.”
Noah, standing beside Swaggart, nodded his head. “Thank you,” he said. “I hate to kill a man without knowing his name.” He pulled his Glock out of its holster and put it against the man’s head, then pulled the trigger.
Danny McRae swallowed hard as Noah approached him with Swaggart at his side, but then relaxed a bit when Swaggart smiled and held out a hand.
“Specialist McRae,” Noah said. “I’m very glad we found you alive and well. I promised your mother I would bring you home safely.”
Danny smiled and shook hands with Noah, as well. “I’m very grateful, sir,” he said. “I was really afraid I was going to end up dying down here.” He looked over at where some of the guards were standing. “Or worse.”
“I can imagine,” Noah said. “Now, as the only operative to ever manage to infiltrate this operation, what can you tell me about the rest of these people?”A woman standing not far from Danny suddenly looked up. Noah caught the motion and glanced at her, and noticed that she suddenly had a hopeful look in her eyes.
“What you want to know, sir?” Danny asked.
“We know that Doctor Branigan and his daughter were pressured into doing the things they did,” Noah said. “Is there anyone else here of whom that could be true?”
Danny blinked, then turned and looked over the crowd. Janet was looking at him with her eyes bright, a smile on her face, but Danny only glanced at her. When he turned back to Noah, he said, “No, sir. Everyone else here intended to be part of this project.”
“Danny!” Janet cried. “Danny, don’t…”
He turned to look at her. “Janet, it’s nothing personal. I’m army intelligence. I appreciate everything you did to help keep me alive and get me more freedom, but you are still a traitor to our country. Hell, you’re a traitor to the entire world!”
Noah looked at the young man. “McRae,” he said, “if you have any emotional attachment to that woman, speak up now. I’m not here to take prisoners.”
Danny’s
head snapped around and he stared at Noah. “What? You’re going to kill all these people?”
“Those are my orders,” Noah said. “Unless you can tell me that any of these people are here under duress, or have value to our nation, they will be eliminated.”
Danny continued to stare at him for a couple more seconds, then lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry to say, sir, that there is no one here who is not a traitor.”
Noah lifted a hand, giving the signal everyone else had been waiting for, and moments later the room was filled with dead bodies. Danny McRae stood with his eyes closed, and would not even look back at them when it was over.
Noah ordered the soldiers to make a complete sweep of the complex to ensure that no one had been missed, while he went to find Sergeant Graves and the hybrids she had located.
She was on another level, and it took him a few minutes to find her. Swaggart, Litchfield, Jenny and Marco followed him, and all of them stared as they entered the room. There were nearly thirty hybrids in the room, all of them in cages made of shatterproof glass or Carbonite. Noah walked along and looked at them one by one.
Several demonstrated the anger and rage Litchfield had told him about, but there were a number of others that appeared to be perfectly calm. Some of them were the extremely tall creatures that were thought to be aliens in the pictures he had seen originally. There were four of those, and they stood close to the glass and looked at him carefully.
And then one of them spoke. “You are Noah Wolf,” it said.
Noah’s eyebrows shot upward. “You know me?” Noah asked.
“Yes. My name is James Miller,” it said. “I was the liaison officer for E & E in Buenos Aires. The others were mostly soldiers, captured when their patrols got too close.”
“And you can all understand me?”
All four of them nodded. “We can,” another one said. “You have captured this place?”
Noah nodded. “We have,” he said.
“And what will become of us?” Miller asked.
Noah stood there and looked at the creature for a moment. “I’m not sure what to do,” he said. “To be honest, I had intended to simply eliminate all of the hybrids, but I didn’t expect to find any that were intelligent and articulate.”