The huge aircraft increased power as it slipped out of its planned flight path and climbed with its four engines screaming.
Operation Nerdlinger was nearing the sand and scrub of Nellis Air Force Base.
SPRING VALLEY HOSPITAL,
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Jason Ryan was feeling the course of light-dose morphine as it rushed through his system. He watched as the duty nurse administered the injection through the IV line attached to his right hand. For the first twenty-four hours the doctors had been worried about infection setting in, but since his three bullet wounds had been treated right away by the attending physicians in Laredo, that fear had been laid to rest very quickly. With the drugs running through the naval aviator’s body, he had decided he hadn’t felt this good since his Annapolis days. And the nursing staff was on the receiving end of that feel-good situation.
The young nurse looked down at the dark, short-haired Ryan and shook her head as she finished administering the morphine into the IV tube.
“Look, if you persist, I’ll write your fantasies down on your chart and then you’ll have to deal with the nurse we call Ratchet.”
“That doesn’t sound too good,” Ryan said as the warm feeling started streaming through his head. “Did you know I was shot taking down the largest drug dealer on the American continent?” he said as his hand wandered down to the nurse’s leg and “accidentally” brushed the white nylon stocking.
“You are so humble,” she said as she took a step back.
“Yeah, that’s me, humble and shy.”
She shook her head and wrote down her injection on his chart. “With any luck to the staff, you can leave here in a couple of days.”
“Ah, come on, I don’t want to go back to work. You don’t know my boss like I do.”
“I’m sure he knows you though,” she said as she left the room with a smile. Jason tried to sit up in time to see her hindquarters but was too late. Instead of lying back down he reached over and grabbed the cell phone from his table. He had one of the younger nurses buy it for him in the gift shop and actually talked her into purchasing minutes for him on the promise that they would all be used talking to her. He opened the cover and dialed the security cover number for the Group. As the TV in the corner of the room showed some of the devastation wrought by a massive explosion south of the border in Nuevo Laredo, Jason smiled. His smile faltered somewhat when there was no completion to his call other than a recording administered through the office of the National Archives. The United States government offices you are trying to reach are temporarily experiencing technical problems with their phone lines. Please try your call again at a later time.
“What?” he said as he tried again.
After receiving the same message again, he punched in Will Mendenhall’s cell number he knew by heart. Again there was no answer as his call went straight to voice mail.
“Ah, to hell with it,” he said as he set the phone down and changed the channel on the television. After perusing the channels three times he snapped off the set. He again picked up the cell phone and tried Will and the complex once more. He closed the cover in frustration.
“Damn, this isn’t right,” he mumbled. He again opened the cell phone cover and dialed a number he had only used one time—Jack Collins. “Goddamn it!” he cursed as the colonel’s phone also went straight to voice mail. The hair on the back of the aviator’s neck rose as he dialed one number that was always answered, Charlie Ellenshaw’s. As he listened, the phone rang ten times before he heard Charlie’s voice on the recording. You’ve reached Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw the third. If I’m not answering, that means I either don’t want to talk to you, or my music is so loud I can’t hear the phone. Either way, call back later.
Jason’s face turned whiter than his lack of blood could account for. He swallowed as he realized that something was wrong. He tossed back the blanket and sheet and then sat farther up in bed. He started to place his legs over the side, became lightheaded, and then paused while his equilibrium settled back down into its rightful place. Jason tried to reach over and pull himself to the right with his left hand, but the connected IV pulled his hand back with a slight stab of pain. He cursed and yanked the needle out of his vein, tossing it to the floor. Then he slowly placed his right foot on the cold tile of the floor and hissed. His head felt fuzzy, but he persisted in getting his left leg off the bed. As he braced himself as best he could, he used his ass to push up and off the bed. He felt a sharp stab of pain from the bullet wound closest to his heart. It had passed through cleanly between his heart and lungs, and the doctors said he had been far more than just lucky that there hadn’t been any more significant damage—that it had been a small miracle.
Right now Ryan wasn’t so sure about the lucky part as he realized he had never felt this horrible in his life, even after ejecting from an F-14 Tomcat over the Pacific Ocean five years before at over a thousand miles per hour.
After holding on to the bedrail for as long as it took for his head to clear, he realized that his ass was hanging out of the back of his hospital gown. As he half turned he saw his reflection in the mirror attached to the bathroom door. He saw the white of his butt and tilted his head. “Not bad,” he mumbled as he attempted his first step. He actually felt that things were going well as he raised his right leg and stepped. The one thing he didn’t realize until too late was the fact that he raised the right leg just a little too high and brought it down where he thought the white tile was located. He was wrong—about a foot off as a matter of fact. If he hadn’t been able to grab the rail in time he would have flipped completely over.
“Okay, let’s try that again,” he muttered.
Still holding the bedrail, Jason cautiously tried again. This time his right foot came down where the estimation of distance and space had been calculated. Then as he removed his hand from the bed he tried it again, this time with the left foot. Success. Moving at a snail’s pace he reached out and again calculated correctly as he grasped the doorknob to the closet. He took a deep breath and waited for his heart rate to slow and his mind to scan his wounds for any leaking that may have happened. There was none.
“Okay, step one complete.” Jason twisted the knob and pulled the door open, once threatening to continue on with the momentum of the heavy closet door but stopping and arresting his movement with a fancy balancing act. Once straight again he looked into the closet. He immediately realized he was in trouble as he didn’t know how to cover his body with the ten wire hangers that hung there. “Houston, we have a problem.” Jason remembered that his clothes were probably somewhere in Laredo, Texas. He closed his eyes to think, even though he knew for a naval aviator that usually meant trouble. So before he could do some damage to his brain he slowly walked to the door and opened it a crack.
As he scanned the darkened and half-lit hallway he spied the nurses’ station where he saw the tops of two heads as they sat working on the reports. A candy striper came around the corner and spoke to the nurses there for a moment and then turned away and continued her rounds. Jason managed to take a step out of the room and into the hallway. His eyes widened when he saw a rack of clothes still in their plastic wrap from the dry cleaners. With his feet freezing and his coordination returning, he made it to the rack and quietly started going through the hanging clothes, hoping beyond hope for a doctor’s smock, surgical clothing, or anything he could find to cover his nakedness. He cursed when he realized as he moved the plastic-covered garments aside that he was looking at nothing but nurse’s uniforms and candy striper’s dresses. He rolled his eyes and wanted to scream in frustration, that is, until he felt the cold draft rushing up his spine from his open hospital gown. Shaking his head, he removed the white nurse’s uniform from the rack. He realized that this must be the only hospital in the country that made nurses wear skirts instead of pants or surgical greens.
“Las Vegas,” he said under his breath as he moved back into his room to change and grab his wallet.
* * *
It took U.S. Navy Lieutenant J.G. (Junior Grade) Jason Ryan nearly an hour to wind his way past the nurses and another forty minutes to travel the stairs from the third floor to the first. The trip hadn’t been all that unlucky as he did manage to at least snag some paper shoe covers. Now he had his feet somewhat covered and the color did match the white of his skirt and the blouse with the small red cross on the breast. He also had a surgical cap on his head and knew he must look the sight as he stepped from the shadows of the hospital emergency room.
Another fifteen minutes passed as he waited for his cab to take him to the Gold City Pawn Shop where he would undoubtedly find the Security Department running some kind of a drill that Colonel Collins was fond of designing. As he gave the cab driver the address he saw the man looking into his rearview mirror every five minutes. His eyes roamed over the nurse’s face. Ryan realized that although he thought he was a passable nurse, he forgot that he hadn’t shaved in three days.
“These long shifts are killing me,” Ryan quipped and continued to stare at the cabbie’s eyes until he looked away.
The man with the dark hair and arrogant aviator’s walk, who guessed he looked at least decent in his nurse’s outfit, was in for a shock when he pulled up to a closed and locked pawn shop.
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX,
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
As Dr. Denise Gilliam waited in front of the elevator to take them to level thirty-four, she felt the Frenchman’s eyes on her. She looked from the elevator to the airman who watched Henri and finally at Farbeaux.
“What?” she said louder than she intended.
“Hear that?” Farbeaux asked.
“I don’t hear anything. The gunfire has stopped.”
“That’s not the only thing that has stopped dear doctor.”
Denise looked around as the overhead fluorescent lighting flickered. Then she realized what the Frenchman was referring to.
“What’s he talking about?” the airman asked.
“The bioalarms have stopped,” Gilliam said as she looked up and down the small clinic, not liking the empty feeling of it for the first time since she joined the Group.
“Not only that,” Henri said as he too glanced around, jingling his cuffed hands as he did, “that sexy computer you people rely on so much seems to be on her lunch break.”
“Jesus, that isn’t right,” the airman said as he moved to the phone at the small nurse’s station to try to reach someone again. As he clicked the disconnect button several times, he knew they were in trouble. No radio, no phones, and worst of all, no Europa to tell them what to do.
“Where’s that damn elevator?” Denise said as she placed her hand on the scanning screen to see if Europa would react.
That was when the lights went out.
“I hope this is budget cuts,” Farbeaux said as his senses started their small dance inside of his body.
“Shit,” Denise said as she wheeled the bed Henri was restrained to back around and away from the elevator. At that moment the dead circuit tripped the battery-operated lighting in the distant corners of the clinic. “This isn’t right. The clinic and other facilities are on an emergency line. We have a separate backup generator. Why isn’t it kicking on?”
“Because Europa isn’t there to tell it to,” the airman said as she returned.
“Uh, may I suggest the stairs?” Henri said as he once more jingled the cuffs on both hands.
The pounding made all three go rigid. The noise came from several directions at once, the closed elevator doors, the doorway leading to the stairwell, and even more strange, from the walls itself.
Farbeaux watched the doors to the elevator. In the semidark of the clinic his hackles rose to an all-time high on his danger meter. He again jangled the handcuffs.
“Airman, I would feel much better if I was able to move about. Release me from this bed—it may be a bit too heavy to run with it on my back.”
“Colonel, you know I can’t. Captain Everett was specific in his orders about you.”
“I think the colonel’s right. I’ll take responsibility,” Denise said as her eyes turned from the elevator doors to the far wall where the stairwell was located. “I’m officially saying that his circulation is being cut off and am ordering the cuffs removed.”
The sergeant looked hesitant but then pulled his sidearm and tossed the key to the doctor.
“A wise decision Airman,” Henri said as he watched Denise undo his restraints.
“Colonel, make no mistake; I will shoot you if you try anything.”
As the cuffs were removed Henri flexed his wrists and sat up enough to place his bare feet on the floor.
“I’m afraid by the sound of that racket in the walls and elevator shaft, you may have to shoot something.”
All eyes were on the elevator doors as the pounding got louder and louder. The tension was building as whatever was making the horrible sound was growing closer. Suddenly the door to the stairwell burst open. The sergeant turned with his nine millimeter poised to blast their visitor. It was Henri who reached out and forced the gun barrel down just as Virginia Pollock, Sarah, Gloria Bannister, and Will Mendenhall came through the door. They watched as Will closed the door and then slowly started backing away from it as if he expected something to burst through it at anytime.
“God,” the airman said, grateful that the Frenchman forced his aim off as he had come close to killing Dr. Pollock. “Doctor, Lieutenant McIntire, I almost shot you!”
Farbeaux watched as Sarah caught her breath. His eyes told him that she had received far more damage to her head and face. Still breathing hard, Sarah saw Henri and their eyes locked. She immediately went to the side of the bed where the Frenchman was trying to get to his feet. She took his hand but said nothing. As for Farbeaux, he just felt the warmth of her touch but made no move to comfort her.
“What in God’s name is that noise?” Denise asked as Mendenhall joined the group, still looking at the stairwell door.
“Something real bad,” Virginia said as she hurried to the opposite side of the clinic and placed her ears to that door, hoping she wasn’t hearing anything from there like they had heard at the door they just exited.
“Sergeant, we need more weapons. Is that all we have on this level?” Mendenhall asked as his eyes never left the stairwell they had just left.
“Yes, sir, and the radios are out. We’re not picking up anything.”
“Our security teams are scattered all over the damn complex. As long as we are keeping to the stairwells, any signals will have one hell of a hard time getting through all of this steel. The radios are meant for use in the complex, not its inner workings,” Will said as an even louder bang sounded from the elevator shaft. Mendenhall reached out and took Gloria’s hand, pulling the frightened woman close to him when she jumped at the sound.
“What in the hell is in the tubes?” Dr. Gilliam asked as another large bang sounded from either two levels down or maybe even closer.
“The men who attacked the complex, they’ve changed. The formula is reacting just the way it did in Mexico, only this is different; it’s like they have actually grown far more than Guzman and his men. The higher dose of Perdition’s Fire, it was in the clean room like a fog—the exposure was far more than at the hacienda,” Will said as he stood in front of the weakened Sarah and frightened CDC doctor.
“Dr. Pollock, I know this is not your field of specialty, but perhaps you can give us something that could explain the impossible way in which these men have grown. It cannot just be the hallucinatory effects of poppy splicing,” Farbeaux said as he reached out and took a pair of green surgical pants from a rack on the far wall. Trying to keep his balance, he slid his legs into them with much difficulty until Sarah stepped out from behind Mendenhall and held him up. Henri placed his arm around her and squeezed as he finally accomplished the task.
Virginia walked quickly back into the main clinic and to the elevator doors,
sliding her lab coat off as she did. She stopped in front of the doors and then without looking tossed the coat over to Farbeaux.
“Thank you Doctor,” Henri said as he tossed the hospital gown away and slid into the coat.
Virginia listened intently as the grunts and scraping continued beneath them. The sound was getting louder, as if whatever it was was checking each floor for people before it moved on.
“I don’t know, but I do have a guess. That unknown element that the CDC doctors ran across, Europa was close to identifying it before she went down. She tagged the unknown as human tissue, but that was as far as she got. It was too arcane for the CDC’s analyzer to identify,” she said as she started backing away from the elevator doors until she bumped into the now empty bed. “The only thing it can be that explains the unnatural growth of these men has to be an HGH synthesis that Ambrose created during his experiments.”
“HGH? That’s impossible,” Gloria said, finally thankful she had something to think about. “He couldn’t have synthesized anything close to human growth hormones, not at the turn of the century.” Gloria allowed her mind to wander into the realm of impossibility for a moment. Then she vigorously shook her head, frightened at the prospects of the growth hormone in conjunction with the human brain power that had been opened up in the men who had basically overdosed on Perdition’s Fire. “The second unknown?” she said as she went into deep thought.
“What’s that?” Virginia asked seeing the stunned look on the face of the CDC doctor.
“Could it be possible that this man was working on something related to stem cell research? There is no telling what he could have achieved. But that would have been impossible at the time. Ambrose was a barbarian compared to today’s scientists. He didn’t have the equipment necessary for the work.”
“Regardless of the impossibility of it Miss Bannister, we’re facing something that is a direct enemy of the natural laws of nature here. There can be no other explanation. The human body is capable of so much, but add to that the fact that the human brain has only used 10% of its power throughout human history and now it has been expanded to use 100 percent. What you have in the end is what is out there: the brain mixing with a human growth hormone and possible embryo research, fetus material, if you prefer. The consequences are phenomenal,” Virginia said just as the first crash of steel sounded on the other side of the elevator doors, creating the smallest of bulges.
Ripper (Event Group Thrillers) Page 36