Shadow Dragon

by Horton, Lance

  In the backseat, Lewis coughed weakly.

  Kyle glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Specks of blood dotted his lips and colored the corners of his mouth. His eyes, half-closed, met Kyle’s in the rearview mirror.

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” he wheezed. “It won’t do us any good if you kill us before we get there.” He coughed again, a wet, rattling one that sent fresh blood dribbling from his mouth.

  “Hang on. We’re almost there,” Kyle said, “Just three more blocks.”

  He looked back through the bullet-riddled windshield. They were coming to the intersection with Main Street. Tires squealed as they slid through the turn. A hubcap flew off and shot across the median to the far curb.

  They were heading north now.

  Two more blocks. Just two more blocks.

  The car bounced through the last intersection. Ahead, the sign for the emergency entrance came into view. Tires shrieking, he pulled beneath the porte cochere and slammed on the brakes, stopping just outside the entrance.

  “We’re here,” he said, throwing the car into park. He leapt out and yelled for help as he ran around the car.

  There was no one outside. The automatic glass doors swung open in front of him, and he raced inside. The reception desk was to the right. A lady holding a small child wrapped in a pink blanket stood there talking to the receptionist.

  “I need help,” Kyle interrupted. “I’ve got a gunshot victim in the back of that car.”

  The nurse looked up from the computer monitor. “Is it serious?” she asked.

  “Yes, it’s serious,” Kyle shouted, holding up his bloody hands as proof. “There’s a federal agent in that car with a bullet in his gut.”

  The receptionist’s eyes grew wide. She jumped up and hurried through the door behind her, calling out to someone as she went.

  Two emergency-room technicians came rushing out with a gurney and raced to the car. Kyle watched helplessly as one of the men leaned inside the backseat. The tech began giving rapid instructions to the other, but Kyle was unable to make out any of it. The other tech squeezed in beside the first, and together, they lifted Lewis from the car. Once on the stretcher, one of the men cut Lewis’s sleeve and began working to get an IV into his arm while the other pushed the gurney, shouting out orders to the staff as he went.

  Kyle watched as they rolled through the vestibule, sharp voices and clattering wheels echoing off the tile surfaces. Past the reception desk, a set of doors leading into the trauma area swung open. A nurse and a young man in blue scrubs rushed out to meet them. As one, the swarm disappeared through the doors, which whisked shut, swallowing them like a Venus flytrap.

  Kyle was left standing alone in the driveway.

  He heard something behind him. When he turned around, he found Carrie tottering beside the car. Her face was streaked with mascara, her sweater and jeans covered with blood. She held out one of the bloody towels as if unsure what to do with it. A bright red drop dangled perilously from one of the folds. It trembled in the blustery wind for a moment before it was blown loose. It fell and spattered the pavement.

  As Kyle reached for her, Carrie collapsed into his arms.

  CHAPTER 71

  Javier Ramirez whispered a quick Hail Mary and crossed himself as he and Busey made their way out of the clearing. He always asked for the protection from the Blessed Virgin before he went on any mission, but this one in particular concerned him more than any he had been on before. There was something about the creature they were tracking that seemed unnatural, perhaps even demonic, and it was that element of the supernatural that spooked him more than any bomb-toting terrorist ever had.

  “Man, I could sure use a piss right now,” came Busey’s voice over the radio. “I bet it’d freeze before it hit the ground.”

  Ramirez didn’t bother to offer a response. That was just Busey being Busey. He was a good team member who could be counted on in a tight situation, but at times like this, his incessant babbling tended to get on Javier’s nerves.

  His display suddenly lit up in alarm. Javier dropped to his knees, the tranq gun at the ready. The visors weren’t large enough to allow a digital map to be displayed. The only indicators they received were direction and distance. The signal had emanated 4,213 yards to the southwest from their current location and was moving away from them. He watched the numbers scroll upward until it passed out of range again. They waited for several more moments, but when the alarm remained clear, he gave the signal to begin moving forward once again. This time, Busey remained silent.

  A few hundred yards farther up, they came to a steep drop off of about ten to twelve feet. During the summer months, when the river was at its peak, this would have been the bank of Beaver Creek, but at this time of year, it was hardly more than a small stream just beginning to emerge from the winter freeze. Each of them took turns making their way down the incline while the other one stood watch.

  After they forded the creek, Ramirez checked their coordinates on the visor. They continued upstream for another half mile before they reached the junction with Wall Creek Trail. Here, they left the river’s edge, turned right, and took the trail upstream along the ridgeline of Bungalow Mountain. They would deploy the transponders at various intervals along the climb.

  Even with night-vision capabilities, the thick growth of spruce and fir reduced their visibility significantly. The bright green images devolved into dimly glowing shapes that shifted and faded like ghostly apparitions dancing amid the shadows.

  Two hundred yards into the ascent, Busey called for a halt. “Fuck this,” he said, reaching behind him to pull the snowshoes from his pack.

  Ramirez stood watch while Busey struggled with the shoes. Under the current conditions, they proved to be considerably more difficult to put on than they had been during the training exercise.

  A shrill buzzing went off inside the helmet as one of the transponders detected the creature.

  Ramirez looked to the sky. Busey dropped and rolled onto his back, tranq gun in hand. Again, the display indicated that the creature was still several miles away. Ramirez watched the readout, but this time, instead of continuing until it was out of range, it simply stopped. It must have landed in a tree or on some rocky perch.

  After several moments, Busey rolled back over and finished putting on the snowshoes. He stood up and stomped around a little to test them out.

  “Hey, this is actually—” The alarm sounded again.

  The display showed the same distance and direction as before, but then it suddenly jumped from several miles to several hundred yards and back again almost instantaneously. At first, Javier thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but then it happened again, flickering between several miles and several hundred yards before stopping at 3,760 yards to the west.

  “Did you see that?” Ramirez asked.

  “See what?” Busey asked, still stomping around in his snowshoes.

  “The display jumping back and forth.”

  “I didn’t notice nothing wrong with mine.”

  Ramirez just shook his head. He looked up at Ainsworth on his visor and radioed back to camp. “Team One to base.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Hey, chief, you notice anything strange about that last reading?”

  “Yeah,” Ainsworth replied. “We’re trying to figure it out now. We picked up two signals, but the one that came in near your position was very weak. Team Two didn’t pick it up at all. The doc here thinks we must be picking up an echo from the mountains. He’s working on it now, trying to isolate the primary signal and filter out the rest so that shouldn’t happen again. We’ll let you know when we’ve got it fixed.”

  “And in the meantime?” Ramirez asked.

  “Proceed as planned.”

  “Roger,” Ramirez replied. He switched his com channel back to Busey. “Keep watch while I put on my shoes.”

  “Got it,” said Busey.

  Ramirez pulled the snowshoes from his pac
k and dropped them in the snow in front of him. He slipped the tranq gun over his back to keep it out of his way and then knelt down to snap on the shoes.

  The alarm went off again.

  “What the fuck?” Busey muttered, slapping the side of his helmet with the palm of his hand.

  Ramirez stood up. “What?” One foot broke through the crust and sank into the snow, throwing him off balance. Before he could right himself, something slammed into him from behind and sent him flying.

  He clipped a tree. Sharp pain shot through his leg as he went tumbling through the brush and into the snow. His display blacked out except for the personal icons, which lit up like a Christmas tree. An intense ringing filled his ears. He gasped for air, the ragged, wheezing sounds reverberating within his helmet as the buzzing alarm blared. It was like he had stuck his head in a beehive. He thought he heard the sound of tiny voices yelling at him from far away, but they were impossible to make out amid the chaos.

  He tried to move, but something was wrong. It was as if his arms were being held down by someone. Everything seemed incredibly heavy.

  After a brief moment of near panic, he realized he was upside down in a snow well beneath the tree. He kicked and flailed, struggling to right himself, but it was virtually impossible. The snow kept shifting around him, and the heavy pack weighed him down.

  His display was partially covered with snow, and the rest of it was fogged up from his heavy breathing, making it difficult to see the icons and apparently impossible for the sensors to pick up his eye movement. No matter how much he tried to radio Busey, he got no response.

  The buzzing alarm finally stopped. “Damn it. Someone answer me!” Ainsworth’s voice crackled over the radio. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Ramirez continued to struggle. It was getting more difficult to breathe by the moment. Had it not been for his helmet, he would have probably already passed out.

  “What the fuck? Someone answer me!” Ainsworth continued to scream.

  Ramirez finally managed to contort his body enough to shrug out of his pack. No longer restrained, he reached inside his visor to clear the snow. Once he could see the icons he radioed Ainsworth. “Chief, I’m here,” he wheezed.

  “Ramirez, what the fuck is going on?”

  “I don’t … know,” Ramirez said. “I got … knocked off the trail. I’m … buried … in snow,” he grunted as he continued to struggle.

  After several more long moments, he managed to dig and claw his way out of the hole. Standing up, he opened his visor and began sucking in deep breaths of the cold air.

  Around him, the forest seemed unnaturally still and quiet. It was pitch-black, the moon and stars obscured behind the thick veil of clouds that had rolled in.

  With his glove, he wiped off the inside of his visor and flipped it back down. The forest sprang to life in a sea of green, but there was no sign of Busey. He tried to radio him but got no response.

  “Ramirez, you there?” came Ainsworth’s disembodied voice.

  “Yeah, chief.”

  “Busey’s locator shows him to be twenty yards northwest of your position. I’m not picking up any vital signs.”

  Ramirez grabbed his pack and scrambled back down the trail, scanning the area for Busey.

  “Stop,” came Ainsworth’s voice. “You’re right on top of him.”

  Ramirez looked around, but there was no sign of Busey. He began searching off the trail in the brush and under the larger trees in case Busey had been knocked into a hole like himself. Then he spotted something beneath a nearby huckleberry bush. He slogged through the deep snow, sinking to his knees with each step until he was able to reach it. As soon as he felt the hard, smooth surface, he knew it was Busey’s helmet. He picked it up, terrified of what he might find. He whispered a quick prayer to the Virgin Mother before he looked inside.

  It was empty. He sighed with relief, but at the same time, his fear of the mission had suddenly risen to new heights. He turned in a slow circle, watching the forest around him as if it were alive, a dark and malevolent spirit waiting to snatch him up without notice.

  Ainsworth’s disembodied voice came to him out of the darkness. “Did you find him?”

  “Just his helmet, sir.”

  “Come again?”

  “He’s gone, sir,” Ramirez replied. “He’s just … gone.”

  CHAPTER 72

  Kyle lifted Carrie in his arms and carried her into the emergency room. She seemed so light, almost frail.

  As soon as the nurse at the reception desk saw him, she called for help. The two technicians who had just wheeled Lewis in came rushing back out with a second gurney.

  “Was she shot too?” one of the techs asked.

  “I … I don’t think so,” Kyle said, but he wasn’t sure. There was so much blood it was impossible to tell. It had all happened so fast that he hadn’t even thought about that. Before he could look, the techs were over her, checking her vitals and rolling her off through the automatic doors.

  Numb, Kyle stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do.

  He reached for his cell phone but stopped. His hands and clothing were covered with blood.

  “There’s a restroom over there,” the receptionist offered. “When you’re done, I’ll need to get some information from you.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Kyle said and nodded.

  The restroom was unisex, with enough room for a person in a wheelchair to maneuver within. Kyle engaged the lock on the door. Leaning over the sink, he looked in the mirror. He was shocked by his own reflection. He had a two-day beard growth, and his eyes appeared sunken, with dark circles beneath them.

  Without waiting to clean up, he pulled out his phone and called the sheriff’s department. The sheriff said that he would get Clayton and a forensics team over to the motel immediately and that he was on his way to the hospital.

  Kyle called Seattle next. It was after six, but as expected, SAC Geddes was still in the office.

  “Andrews, what are you doing calling me?” she asked. “You guys come up with something?”

  “No, I’m … it’s … Lewis has been shot.”

  “What? Jesus Christ, what the hell happened? Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know. We just got to the hospital,” Kyle said.

  “What the hell happened?” she asked again.

  Kyle began to explain what had happened when he had gone to Carrie’s room.

  “Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “You went to the room alone?”

  “Yes,” Kyle said. “Lewis was in the car. Someone inside was attacking Carrie. He hit me and took off. I tried to warn Lewis, but—”

  “Damn it! I knew it was a bad idea. I should have never let Lewis talk me into it.” It was as if she was talking to herself. She didn’t even seem to care that Kyle was listening—or maybe she wanted him to hear it.

  “All right,” she sighed heavily. “Have the sheriff set up guards inside the ER or outside their rooms if they’re checked into one. They’re not to let anybody in unless it’s a doctor, and then only with an officer present. Got it?”

  “Yeah, got it,” Kyle replied.

  “All right. I’ll get a pair of agents there just as soon as I can, but it probably won’t be before morning.”

  “The sheriff and I can handle it until then,” Kyle assured her.

  “You don’t do anything. You’ve already fucked up enough for one day. Where’s Agent Marasco?”

  Kyle flinched at the comment. “I don’t know,” he said. “He’s been gone all afternoon.”

  “All right. I’ll call him. Don’t do anything until he gets there. And Andrews,” she added, “the boys in Denver found Charlie Wiesman dead on his sofa. Said it was made to look like a heroin overdose, but his computer’s hard drive had been wiped. Someone’s serious about covering this up, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to do so. So stay put and watch your ass. You understand?”

  “Yeah, I got it.” Kyle replied.


  “All right. I’ll get Joan to call Lewis’s wife and let her know—”

  “No,” Kyle interrupted. Joan Thompson was the other victim specialist in Seattle. “I’ll call her.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I should do it.”

  “All right,” she said. “And call me the minute you know anything more about Lewis.”

  “I will,” Kyle said and then hung up. It was obvious that Geddes didn’t think he could handle the situation. He knew that as soon as the other agents arrived, he would be relieved of his duties … and probably his job.

  Kyle sighed. Maybe she was right.

  He washed his hands in the sink. He scrubbed and scrubbed with water so hot it scalded. Even then it wouldn’t all come off.

  When he stepped out of the restroom, an elderly woman from housekeeping was cleaning up the blood on the waiting room floor. The strong smell of ammonia filled the room. Outside, a man was mopping the drive.

  Kyle gave the receptionist the information she needed for Lewis and as much as he could on Carrie. He asked if there was any word on Lewis’s condition.

  “No, sir, not yet. He’s been taken into surgery. It may be a while. There’s a waiting room down the hall to your right that’s a little more comfortable if you’d like to wait there.”

  Kyle nodded. “What about Ms. Daniels?”

  “There didn’t seem to be any serious injuries, but the doctor wants to keep her overnight for observation. I’ll let you know as soon as she’s checked into a room.”

  “She needs to be in a private room,” Kyle said. “Let me know before she’s transferred. We’ll be posting officers outside her room for security.”

  The receptionist’s eyes widened. “Oh. Yes, sir.”

  “Thanks,” Kyle said.

  He went outside. The car was still running, steam billowing from the exhaust before disappearing into the cold night air. He pulled into a spot facing away from the hospital and sat there for a moment, dreading what he had to do next. The wind moaned as it swirled through the hole in the windshield. The snow fell in fat, wet flakes that stuck to the glass, gradually obscuring the view. Blurry, yellow-white halos ringing the parking lot lights slowly disappeared behind the thickening mantle.