The video ended and Overton blew out a deep breath. “We have to move,” he said. “No doubt the people in Washington have contacted the local office. They’re not dumb. They know something’s wrong. They’ll be here soon.”
“How do you know?” Anastasia asked.
“They sent the video,” he replied. “I wouldn’t have. There was no reason to, so that means someone will be coming. Get to the car. I have one more thing to ask them.”
He started to leave, and turned back to the nurse. “If you’re thinking about calling in, then don’t.”
“No phone,” she said with a ghost of a smile.
Harry and company went out the door and quickstepped it over to the car. Overton paused to rip the cellphones he’d confiscated in two. The baby was still asleep, and Anastasia kept her firmly in her grasp, sliding into the back seat. Pavel took the front seat, and Harry got in beside his wife.
“Time to move,” Overton said as he returned and got into the driver’s seat. Starting the engine, he laid out the basics. “It’s just you and Pavel this time, not you, Anastasia.”
Driving off in a whirl of dust, he quickly explained the details. Go to the airport. A flight would be waiting. “They get us flight?” Pavel asked.
“They have a plane waiting. It’s supposed to go to Moscow on another case.”
Oh... this was something... big. “You mean,” Harry said, getting the drift, “we’re going to hijack the plane?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“I wonder how many years I’ll get in prison for that.”
Pavel broke in with a wheezy laugh. “In old days, Russians want to come to America. Now is other way around.”
This was so not needed. Rubbing his hand across his brow, Harry went through all the possibilities and came up with nothing. “Okay, since we have nothing else...”
He turned to Anastasia. “I’ll come back.”
She leaned over and kissed him hard. “You’d better.”
Overton drove with a singular purpose, his eyes fixed on the road, and once they got within two miles of the airport, he told everyone to get down. “They probably have extra security here,” he said. “They may not, but all I need is to get you to the private hangar. After that, you’re on your own.”
“Piece of cake,” Pavel said, grunting as he tried to squeeze himself into the approximation of a ball.
Overton threw his jacket over top of him. In the back, Harry crouched down on the floor with his wife. Sara Emily was still asleep. He tried to doze off, but adrenaline kept coursing through his system, making him jumpy and nervous. Glancing out the window, he saw two other cars—old, nondescript, and black—keeping pace with them. They’d been alongside them for the last twenty minutes.
“We’re being followed,” Harry said.
Overton stole a quick look to his left, cursed, and cut into the next lane. Honks from the other drivers and their screams of outrage accompanied the move. “What are you doing?” Anastasia wanted to know.
“Trying to shake them,” he answered. “This is not going to be easy.”
What Harry wouldn’t have given right then for an appearance by Linda and her winged gang, but luck wasn’t on their side. They’d just entered the confines of the airport, and the cars in front of them were rapidly moving off left and right. Harry figured they were probably searching for parking spots.
He figured wrong, and when he looked up, he saw a roadblock dead ahead. No less than twenty armed agents stood behind their cars, accompanied by over fifteen police officers. Their vehicles had been strategically positioned to cut off any traffic. In addition, they had their weapons in firing position. Overton hurriedly applied the brakes and his car skidded to a stop.
“I guess we no make our flight,” Pavel said.
Chapter Ten: Third Wave
Things hadn’t been going very well up until their capture. As Harry sat in the FBI director’s office along with his wife and the other escapees, it didn’t look as if things could get any worse.
A second later, he sequestered that thought in the back of his mind. From experience, he knew things could always get worse. They often had. When they did, a person usually had two options—step up or step out. In his case, he chose the former, mainly because of the two people in the room who meant the most to him, his wife, who sat rigidly in her chair, and Sara Emily, who lay sleeping in her mother’s arms.
As he gazed at his daughter’s innocent face, he mused that sleep was the one thing babies did best. Their early months consisted of eating, pooping, crying and sleeping, and all they needed was proper care and love. Anastasia had given all that and more, and he couldn’t ask anything else of her.
However, right now the situation, while dire before, had suddenly worsened. Having no options, he had to hope the FBI would let him go and do what needed to be done. Doubtful, but that was where it stood.
As he sat and mentally calculated how much time was left, Holliman was poking through his reports one by one and pursing his lips. A number of “Mm-hmmms” and “Uh-huhs” came from his mouth, but no actual words.
After about five minutes of mumbling, he put the papers down and gazed at Harry through startlingly cold gray eyes. He then switched his gaze to Anastasia with the same cold look. However, when he saw the baby, his face, ordinarily stone-like, softened. “My-my, she is a pretty little girl, isn’t she?”
“Thank you,” Anastasia answered. “But we’re not here so you can admire my baby.”
A thin smile formed on his lips. “No, we’re not. Agent Overton has made me aware of the problems you’re facing. He has pushed to be included in this mission, but as of now he is...” he hesitated, “almost under suspension.”
A grimace formed on Overton’s face, but he said nothing, simply remaining ramrod stiff in his chair.
“So,” Holliman continued, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands in his lap, “what are we to do?”
“Sir,” Harry said after taking a look at his wife and Pavel, “we need a plane, and we have to go to Russia. It’s to—”
“Rescue Istvan,” Holliman interrupted. “Yes, my predecessor as well as the late Agent Farrell and Agent Overton have mentioned this to me. If he is in Russia, then we have no power to extradite him. Even if he wants to return to this country, we don’t have the pull within Russia to let him out. They’ll want him as badly as we do.”
“They already know,” Pavel added. “They do nothing. They wait. Like all politicians, they wait.”
The director received this bit of information without moving one muscle in his face. “Be that as it may, I repeat, we do not have jurisdiction. I have been on the line with the State Department in Washington all morning. The Russians are being... recalcitrant. We have to give them something.”
“What they want?” Pavel asked, leaning forward in his chair. “What they want?”
“Knowledge—they want that.”
Thinking of something, Harry reached over and grabbed a pencil from Holliman’s desk along with a memo pad. Hastily scribbling something down, he handed it over. “What’s this?” Holliman asked.
“It’s a formula for improving cancer care,” Harry said. “They can use it. But I need Istvan’s blood in order to make it work.”
The formula was something he’d done in his spare time before getting married. The equations checked out on the computer, but it all hinged on Istvan’s blood. Without it, the formula was a stopgap at best. With it, however, it turned into a viable cure.
Holliman looked at the paper for a long time, murmuring something incomprehensible. Finally, he pressed the intercom on his desk and a young man entered. “Yes sir?”
Handing the paper over, Holliman ordered him to have it sent to the Russian contact immediately. The man nodded and left. Once the door closed, Holliman turned back. “If this checks out, then the Russians may be more cooperative.”
“What about us?” Anastasia wanted to know. “What about our lives, o
ur rights? So far you’ve done nothing to help us, only called us criminals.”
Another thin-lipped smile formed on Holliman’s face. This one, however, contained no humor whatsoever. “I was not the one who called you that. For the record, I have been on your side all this time. That is why Agent Overton has not been dismissed or suspended, not yet, at any rate.”
“I’m not?” Overton sounded surprised.
Holliman regarded him with a careful and somewhat cold, calculating stare. “No, you’re not,” he said, “although I think you’ve exercised poor judgment in some instances.”
“Such as...”
The question didn’t need to be asked and a muscle twitched at the side of Holliman’s mouth. “Kidnapping the Chief of Police counts as one strike against you, I should think. Yes, he called here not long ago. It’s a breach in departmental protocol.
“There is also the matter of you breaking Mrs. Goldman out from a safe house along with some other unaccounted-for transgenics, the assault of three other agents, and the general disregard for how things are run here.”
“You told him?” Harry asked, turning to Overton.
“Had to,” he tossed off. “Part of my job—”
“Then there is the board of inquiry which will decide your punishment,” Holliman interrupted in a let-me-finish tone. “I will, as well. However, that is another matter and we’ll deal with that later on.”
Turning his gaze back to Harry, he sat up straight, and an aura of authority leaped from him. “Now in your case, Mr. Goldman, this is a police matter. It is also a federal matter, now that Senator Ulbricht has called for your arrest.”
Ulbricht! Harry knew that slimebag had pulled the necessary strings. “Are you going to let him?”
Holliman leaned back. “I don’t know if I have any choice in the matter. If I do, then...”
The telephone rang, interrupting him. Excusing himself to take the call, he swiveled around to face the window, saying “Yes” and “I understand” a number of times before swiveling back and hanging up.
“That was my Russian counterpart. He said he’s already spoken with the State Department. They cleared things, so he’s doing me this courtesy. The Russian doctors are very interested in your formula. My contact says you are cleared to land in their country, but there’s a snag.”
“And that is?”
“You can’t land in Moscow. There’ve been security problems there. It has nothing to do with the transgenics. They have other, er, problems they have to attend to, mainly dissidents, or so they say. As well you know,” he briefly glanced at Pavel, “the Russians haven’t been overly accepting of foreigners.”
The statement made Pavel’s eyes narrow, perhaps with anger or disbelief, but he finally offered a shrug, as if to say when you’re right, you’re right. “Is no problem,” he said. “I know way to go. You leave to me.”
His answer got a nod from Holliman. “All right, if you have connections, use them. On our end, here’s how it will go down. You and your Russian buddy are allowed to go. That’s it, and no one else.
“The second thing is you’ll eventually link up with a General Sharpova. He knows the area where you have to go. The only thing is he wants samples of Istvan’s blood.”
Harry was about to say the blood wouldn’t work beyond a three-day period, but a sharp kick to his ankle from Anastasia dissuaded him. Instead, he merely asked, “We can go?”
“You can. I’m going to sanction this trip to Russia first before I do anything else. The State Department has, as well. Ulbricht—I’m well aware of his agenda—hasn’t blocked that, not yet.
“I’ll also inform you this is not a black ops procedure. This is on the books. If anything happens, it will come back to us and maybe on you as well, so be prepared.”
Picking up the phone, he made the call while Harry went to the window and stared at the crowd below. The people down there really did look like ants, and they were moving around in a mad pattern of...
“We’re done,” Holliman’s voice interrupted. “Just get to the airport, hangar fourteen. A private plane will be waiting.”
Turning around, Harry nodded his thanks. “Sir, I’ll do whatever it takes, to...”
A smell suddenly wafted into his nostrils. Thick, heavy and gamy, he knew it was only one thing. Apparently, Pavel also smelled it as he tilted his head up to sniff the air. The baby woke up and began to wail. Anastasia tried to comfort her.
“What is it?” Holliman asked.
Anastasia tasted the air as well and she bared her teeth in a snarl. “We’ve got company. I’ll give you three guesses as to who it is and the first two don’t count.”
A look of alarm flashed across Holliman’s face, but he quickly recovered and reached into his desk. Taking out a revolver, he stood up, checked the load, and thrust it into his holster. “Mrs. Goldman, you’d better stay here for the safety of you and your baby. At least the room will give you some protection.”
“I stay here, too,” Pavel declared and got up to stand at the door. “They no get inside.”
“Go,” Anastasia urged Harry. “I’ll be fine.”
Immediately, Harry tore outside with Overton and Holliman close behind him. “How do we kill these things?” Holliman puffed as they ran toward the stairs.
“Shooting them usually works,” Overton said.
Running down the emergency steps, they reached the lobby and found the remains of six agents, torn apart, and three crossbreeds feeding on them. Allenby had apparently bred these ones to be far more savage. With teeth easily seven inches in length, and heavy round torsos covered in thick brown fur, they also possessed long, floppy ears and powder puff tails. “Great,” Harry muttered. “Killer bunny rabbits, just what I wanted.”
He tore into the first one, ripping its throat open with his claws. No holding back, not now. This was all-out war and deserved an all-out response. Holliman’s gun took care of the second one. Overton fired and took the third one down, but then six more poured into the lobby.
Outside, chaos filled the streets as more and more transgenics, mixes of spiders, praying mantises, zebras and bears, horses and warthogs and more, tore into the police officers who’d come as reinforcements.
The sound of gunshots filled the air, and combined with the human cries for help and the inhuman grunts and screams of the scientifically bred, it all appeared as a scene out of a special hell created by a psychotic for the sheer fun of it.
Holliman suddenly fell, attacked by a rat the size of a large pig. Its body was covered in scales and they looked as tough as armor. Needle-sharp teeth completed the picture. It bit into Holliman’s shoulder area. Harry ran over to pull it off. Wrapping his hand around its neck, he yanked its head back and twisted. The resulting torque snapped the monster’s neck. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Blood was spurting from a massive bite in the trapezius area of the director’s shoulder, but he covered it with his hand and gasped, “I’ll make it.”
Another scream sounded from upstairs. That voice... it was Anastasia! “Go,” Overton yelled. “We got this!”
Bounding up the stairs, heedless of the danger, Harry ran up to the director’s office. Shards of glass lay strewn around the floor near the window and the furniture had been upended. Most of it had been torn apart.
In the center of the room, Anastasia was busy slashing away at a winged insectoid type of creature. It used its feelers to stab at her and its attempts had already drawn blood, but Anastasia kept fighting. A second later, one of her swipes connected and she tore the insect’s throat out. It flopped to the floor and shuddered briefly before expiring.
Spent from her exertions, she sagged down on one knee. “Help Pavel,” she urged and wearily pointed the way. “He’s outside in the hallway, to your left.”
When Harry went to look, he found Pavel being thrashed by two horse-roaches. With bodies of horses and cockroach-like heads along with zero humanity, they were kicking at him with oversized hooves.
The Russian managed to grab one of their legs and instantly his body took on their attributes. “Now, fight is fair,” he growled.
Swiftly rising to his feet, he proceeded to dispatch his attacker by pummeling it with chops and strikes to its neck. “You get other one, Goldman,” he called out.
Harry didn’t need any encouragement, and tackled the remaining horse-roach. It didn’t speak, but screeched out a high and horrible whinnying sound when Harry dug his claws into its neck. Blood fountained into the air, and the enemy soon expired.
Panting, Harry swayed on his feet... and then remembered he hadn’t seen the baby. Pavel was in the process of transforming back, so he waved and said, “Go, I catch up to you.”
Tearing into the office, he found Anastasia sitting on the torn-up couch, cleaning her nails. Everything in the room was a write-off and he feared the worst. Yet, his wife calmly went about her task as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Where’s the baby?”
“Don’t worry. Sara Emily will be back soon,” she said and whistled.
A second later, the sound of flapping wings filled the air, and Linda, along with Beth and one more winged deer-person—this one a male—came in through the windows. Linda held the now-sleeping form of Sara Emily in her arms. “She’s cute. Can we keep her?”
Ten minutes later, everyone sat in the director’s office. Holliman had already gone to the hospital. His injuries were fairly severe, but not life threatening. Protesting all the way as the medics came inside to load him onto a gurney, he urged Overton to finish what they’d started. “You’ve... got the go-ahead. I’ll clear the way,” he managed to say before passing out.
After the paramedics had taken him away, the rest of the survivors grouped together for a quick rundown of what had to be done. The male deer-angel along with Beth had already left. “For your information, the guy’s name is Don,” Linda supplied. “One of these days I’ll get around to introducing everyone else.”
“Thanks for coming by,” Harry said.
She favored him with a wry smile. “I keep helping out. I wonder why?”
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