No, after this, Einstein can get in line to high five me.
A sudden chill ran up Kruger’s spine that sucked all the joy out of the moment.
“Well?” Osborne sounded more impatient than normal.
“The procedure was a success. No complications. Subject has positive vital signs and will be awake in a few hours.”
“Good, then we can bring it with us.”
Kruger stammered, trying to find a way to disagree without inviting Osborne’s anger. “The subject really needs to rest, sir. It experienced a lot of trauma today.”
Osborne’s eyes narrowed to knifepoints. “They want to see results, not hear about them.”
The lump in Kruger’s throat threatened to suffocate him. He swallowed hard, barely making enough room to speak. “Moving the subject now could result in irreversible structural damage. Better to tell them about the positive results than show them how we ruined the one chance we had to make this project viable. No?”
The knives in Osborne’s eyes stabbed Kruger repeatedly in the neck. But Kruger didn’t bleed to death. He stood tall, finding a hidden cache of resilience somewhere deep in his gut.
“Fine,” Osborne growled. “But if you make me sit through one of your Power Point presentations, I’m going to kill you.” He marched out of the lab, his anger trailing behind him like a comet’s tail.
A proud smile distorted the features of Kruger’s face in an unrecognizable way. He lifted his hand like he was waiting for a high five. With no one around or willing to oblige, he gave himself one. He observed Rex on the operating table. He thought again about Einstein, his personal hero and perhaps the most gifted scientific mind the planet had ever known. And he thought of others like him. Nobel. Tesla. Visionaries who’d wanted to use science to make the world a better place. And they’d left the world with dynamite, the electric chair, and the atom bomb.
Kruger had successfully resurrected an extinct species. His work could be used to bring back countless other species, too. He could reverse ecological travesties. But instead, like those other great visionaries, his work was being used to make weapons. He’d created something that would be used to destroy.
The irony gave him indigestion. He muttered to himself as he walked out of his lab to find an antacid.
A few minutes later, the lab door creaked open and a pair of combat boots stepped in. Brock waited until the shift change to sneak into the compound. He didn’t want Osborne breathing down his neck or Kruger up his butt. He wanted to look at Rex without any interference.
Rex was sprawled out on the operating table. The bandage on his neck had bled through. Brock knew what this creature was. The king of the dinosaurs. Genetically modified to be even more vicious than it was born to be. But, lying there, it just looked like a helpless animal. He reached an unsteady hand toward the creature. It moved a little when he touched it. It pressed into Brock’s hand and let out a low whimpering sound.
“Rex,” Brock whispered.
The plans for Rex were plastered all over the walls. Sketches and blueprints of all the weapons Osborne and Kruger had dreamed up to outfit him with. Claws, guns, missiles. Rex and all the others like him yet to come would tear through anyone and anything Osborne’s handlers deemed a threat without regard for the civilians and other innocents who might get in the way. The thought of the bloody mess that would follow made Brock sick to his stomach.
He was proud to be a soldier, but he wasn’t proud of everything he had done, of every order he’d had to follow. But he’d chosen to be a soldier. Rex and the others wouldn’t have that choice. They’d be bred to follow the orders of one man. Brock imagined Osborne being that man. He didn’t want to live in that kind of world.
***** ***** *****
Sam scrubbed the last bit of ketchup off the floor. Nothing she could do about the gouges though. She wasn’t a miracle worker. She wished she could do more. She wished she could fix everything.
TJ still hadn’t come back. Ellen hadn’t gotten off the couch. It had been hours, but it felt like days. It felt like the planet had started spinning in the opposite direction and now everything was wrong.
She was doing chores at someone else’s house. All was definitely not right in the world.
The kettle screamed in the kitchen. Sam steeped a bag of peppermint tea. Her mother liked a cup of peppermint tea when she got stressed. Hopefully, Ellen would too. Sam didn’t know what else she could do. She tried to erase the evidence showing that everything was falling apart, but that didn’t help put anything back together.
Footsteps echoed through the quiet house. Did Ellen finally get off the couch? Maybe the planet had started to spin the right way again. Sam carried the cup of peppermint tea into the living room and nearly dropped it on the freshly cleaned floor.
Colonel Herpes Doctor was standing in the doorway. “I know you don’t want to see me right now.”
“So leave,” Sam snapped.
He tried to plead his case. “You were keeping a dinosaur in the suburbs. How long did you think you’d be able to keep that up?”
Scalding tea sloshed over the edge of the cup as Sam’s hands shook with anger. She set it down on the coffee table before she needed skin grafts. “We had a plan. We were moving him. But it doesn’t matter. Unless you’re giving Rex back to TJ, you should fly your stupid helicopter up your own butt.”
Brock smirked at Sam. “You’re a good friend.”
Sam smirked back. “Yes, I am.”
His smirk slipped off his face. “Is TJ here?”
“Is he in trouble?” Ellen had risen from the couch.
“No. I just want to explain.”
“What makes you think he cares about your explanation?” Sam dug her fists into her hips to keep herself from digging them into Brock’s face.
“He probably doesn’t. But I’d like to try.”
Ellen studied Brock’s face. She had no reason to believe him. He’d lied about everything so far. But there was still a spark of honesty in his eyes. Not that it mattered. “I don’t know where TJ is. He ran off after you took Rex.”
Pain shot from Sam’s hips down her legs. “Who are you really?”
Brock kicked his feet together and stood tall with his arms straight down at his sides. “Colonel Brock Horne, United States Army.”
Sam paced in front of him like she was his commanding officer, never lowering her eyes. It took only a moment for her to see that same spark. “I know where TJ is.”
***** ***** *****
It was too humid to breathe. TJ’s lungs were clogged with swamp air. He threw a rock as hard as he could at the murky water, breaking the surface of it, hoping the rock would smash through the swamp floor and drain the whole thing into the center of the Earth.
He was so sick of the swamp.
“Bad day?” The voice came from behind him, someone walking up the trail.
He didn’t need to look to know who it was. “The worst.”
The person was just behind TJ now. “We were never properly introduced. I’m Colonel Horne.”
“You here to take me to Guantanamo or just shoot alligators?”
“Neither.” Horne stepped into TJ’s field of vision. “I came to ask a favor.”
TJ threw another rock in the swamp. It took all his willpower not to throw it at Horne’s face. “No offense, Colonel, but I hope you sit on a hornet’s nest, naked.”
Horne couldn’t help but smile. “Guess I deserve that.”
TJ turned on him, so much anger boiling inside him that he didn’t know what to do with it all. It condensed on the backs of his eyelids and dripped out his eyes. He wanted to explain to Horne that he wasn’t crying, that it was just liquefied anger, but he just yelled instead. “You took Rex!”
Guilt seized Horne’s chest and squeezed his heart. “Yes, I did.”
“He was my friend and you took him away. So whatever favor you want, you can take it and shove it up your—”
“I want your help getting
Rex back.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The look of disdain was plastered on Sam’s face. She leaned against the wall of the downstairs hallway of the Beaumont house, watching Colonel Horne and Ellen talk in the living room. “Think we can trust this guy?”
TJ zipped up his bag. “We don’t have a choice. This is the only way to get Rex back.”
She hadn’t taken her eyes off Horne. “I don’t like it. How do we know this isn’t some trick? He could be luring us away so he can snatch us up and ship us off to a secret prison in Siberia.”
“If he wanted to do that he could, you know, just pick us up. He’s kinda huge, and we’re just kids.” TJ slung his bag over his shoulders. “Besides, my mom trusts him. And she doesn’t trust many people.”
***** ***** *****
Ellen dug her fists into her hips as she stared Horne up and down. “I don’t trust you. Let’s just make that perfectly clear.”
Brock nodded. “Oh, it’s clear, alright. You’ve mentioned it about seven times.”
She was not amused by his attempt at levity. “First you hunt these kids down because they found your lab dinosaur, and now you want them to help you steal it back from the people you stole it from?”
“Well, technically, I didn’t steal it. Legally, it does belong to them.”
“Yeah, go ahead and tell me how my son is about to help you break the law.”
Brock took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry that your son got dragged into this, but I made a huge mistake returning Rex to Osborne. He’s going to use him to do some awful things and change the world in a very bad way. TJ is the only person Rex will listen to. I need his help.”
Sam coughed very deliberately.
Horne refused to look at her. “I don’t need her help so much, but she refuses to let TJ go alone. I promise you, I will take care of them. The compound is already minimally staffed, and Osborne took off to present his findings. This isn’t some black ops mission.”
A gleeful smile spread across TJ’s face. “Ready for our first black ops mission?”
Sam’s skepticism morphed to mirror his excitement. “Totally.”
They marched into the living room, ready to mount a dinosaur rescue mission.
Ellen seemed less enthusiastic. She bit down on one of her knuckles as she looked at TJ, ready to run off into danger at the drop of a hat, so reckless, so impulsive, so…so like his father. But he was doing it for his friend, not himself. So loyal, so dedicated, he would do anything for the people he loved. So like his mother.
TJ wouldn’t look at her and Ellen just knew that her angry words were still rattling around in the back of his head.
Ellen almost blew the house down with the power of her deep sigh. Then she walked out of the room without a word.
The three adventurers looked at each other with shrugs and raised eyebrows.
“I guess that’s a yes?” Sam said.
Before they could set off, Ellen came back into the room with a large box wrapped in newspaper. She never used giftwrap. She said she thought giftwrap was for suckers. She set the box on the floor and knelt in front of TJ. “I never got a chance to give this to you. And it’s oddly appropriate for the situation. Happy birthday.”
Something welled up in TJ. He tore into the paper before his eyes could spill over. You can’t cry on your first black ops mission. He opened the box and marveled at the sight. A more glorious birthday present there had never been. Now he really did want to cry.
Brock leaned over to peek at it. His jaw dropped with as much awe as TJ’s. “Best present ever. I wish you were my mom.” He immediately winced. “Uh, I didn’t think that through.”
TJ lifted it out of the box with as much care as an archeologist removing King Tut from his tomb. He held it up for all to see. A quad-rotor aerial drone. “This is the coolest thing ever.” He spoke in a reverent whisper.
“Maybe it will come in handy on your secret rescue mission,” Ellen said.
TJ finally looked at her, as surprised as he’d been when he opened the box. “You mean, you’re okay with me going?”
“No, I am definitely not okay with it. But I understand why you need to, and I’m not going to try and stop you.”
TJ charged into her arms and buried his face in her shoulder. She buried hers in the side of his head. Secret agents don’t cry, TJ silently urged himself. But when he came away there was a slight wet spot on his mother’s shirt.
Ellen took him by the shoulders and stared intently into his eyes. “You do absolutely everything that Colonel Horne tells you to do, understand?” Then she looked at Sam. “You too. And if your father calls, I’m going to tell him that you went bungee jumping or something slightly less stupid and dangerous than raiding a government compound to rescue a dinosaur.” She stood toe-to-toe with Brock as Sam and TJ bounded out the door. “If anything happens to either of those children, you’ll wish that dinosaur had eaten you.”
Brock swallowed hard. He’d seen terrible things but couldn’t seem to recall anything that terrified him more than Ellen Beaumont at that moment. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned and marched out the door.
TJ and Sam climbed up on the Humvee and struck their best super spy poses. “Let’s do this,” they said in unison.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The guard at the front gate of the Nike missile compound nodded off a few times before the sound of a Jet Ranger helicopter snapped him to attention. He saw Osborne’s black sleeve hanging out the open door as the craft flew off. He’d be glad when this assignment was over. Very glad. Osborne made his heart feel cold, plus the mosquitoes in this godforsaken swamp were the size of hummingbirds.
He let his mind wander a moment. He snapped to attention again when the Humvee rolled up to the gate. Colonel Horne. Now that was a man the guard didn’t mind answering to. Unfortunately, Horne wasn’t his boss.
Colonel Horne rolled down his window. The sweet scent of air conditioning hit the guard in the face. That was another thing he couldn’t wait to get away from—humidity. The Colonel leaned his head out and looked the guard up and down. “New orders came in. I’m to clear out my desk immediately.”
The guard’s heart sank. Now there won’t be anyone to keep Osborne in check. That psycho suit will have me napalming this town in no time. Then he remembered what Osborne had told him before he left. “I’ve got orders too, sir,” the guard said. “No one enters until Agent Osborne returns.” The guard’s eyes fell to the ground. He studied the tires of the Humvee intently. They were…black.
Colonel Horne clenched his jaw and stared holes in the young guard. He reminded himself that the kid was just following orders, like he would have done twenty years ago. “You a soldier, son?”
The guard’s shoulders shot back and his chest puffed out. “Roger that, sir.”
“An American soldier?”
His eyes lifted from the tires to meet Colonel Horne’s. “Hell yes, sir!”
“You think Agent Osborne knows anything about being a soldier? You think he really cares about this country? He’s the kind of man that’d stab you in the back in the pitch black.” Horne saw the worry on the guard’s face, torn between duty and loyalty. “Don’t tell him I said as much, of course. The man signs my paychecks.”
The guard chuckled as a wave of relief washed over him.
“I just want to clean out my desk, soldier.”
The guard saluted and opened the gate. “So do I, sir.”
Horne nodded and drove into the compound. He saw the guard in his rearview mirror, shaking his head before leaning against the wall to nod off some more.
Once Horne parked, the walkie-talkie on the passenger seat squawked to life. “Lost Sheep to Shepherd. I repeat, this is Lost Sheep. Took you long enough, Shepherd. What’s the hold up? Copy?”
Horne suppressed a laugh as he pressed the walkie’s transmit button. “You don’t have to say copy.”
TJ’s grizzled soldier voice was unshakeable. “Roger that, She
pherd.”
“Just give me three minutes to take out the guards, and then do everything exactly as we planned. Once you get out of the compound, you’re on your own. Good luck.” Horne waited for a response, but got nothing except static. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Copy?”
“Copy that, Shepherd. Godspeed. Over and out.”
Horne grumbled under his breath. “Rookies.” He shuffled together a pile of random papers he’d found in the back—a couple of his old grocery lists, some of them just blank. He shoved them in some Manila folders and stacked it all up to form one precarious tower of fake files. He stepped out of the Humvee and walked carefully toward the door of the compound where two soldiers were standing guard. When he approached, he saluted and lost control of the pile. Folders burst on the ground like loose leaf grenades.
“Gimme a hand with this, would ya?” The guards scrambled to collect it all as Horne cursed to himself. He walked up behind them as they stooped down. “Sorry fellas,” he said over their shoulders and banged their heads together hard enough to make a sound like a distant thunderclap. They fell to the ground, unconscious.
He dragged them into the compound and laid them on the floor just inside the door. They wouldn’t be out long, and he had a few more guards to take out if he was going to clear a path for the kids. He set off at a dead run toward the lab.
***** ***** *****
The second hand on TJ’s watch was moving slower than a tortoise with arthritis. He hadn’t taken his eyes off it since talking to Colonel Horne. It finally finished its last trip around. “Three minutes!” TJ leaped to his feet.
Sam immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him to the ground. “Quiet, dorkus. We’re trying to be covert here.”
“Right, sorry. I’m a little excited.” They moved slowly and quietly through the dark toward the compound. They stopped when they had gone as far as they could while still maintaining their cover. TJ looked to Sam, excitement and fear and every other emotion he’d ever had, including some he couldn’t name, swirling around inside his chest. “You ready?”
Rex Page 17