“How did you know?” was all he asked.
“Your treasonous game is up, Alexander. At least one intelligence service knows all about your plan to find the bomb and use it to stage a coup in Quebec.”
Alexander suddenly stood and shouted at the three Spetsnaz, “Shoot them all now!”
“You know me, Punchy, I’ll never give you the codes—so stop this from happening,” Jack hissed as he struggled to stand.
“Goddamn you, Jack!”
“No! Goddamn you, you son of a bitch! You won’t get a damn thing from me if one more of my people die!” The last words were the first Alexander had ever heard Collins scream out loud.
A hundred feet away, the three Spetsnaz took aim.
“Stop!” Alexander shouted through the storm just as lightning and its accompanying thunder came from overhead.
Jack flinched, thinking his friends were behind him lying in the mud, shot to death by a man he once claimed as a pal.
Sagli and Deonovich were stunned. Still, Sagli reached out and pushed down on the barrel of the weapon of the first man in line. The other two saw this and lowered their own AK-47s. Deonovich looked up and was furious that the American had said something to their new partner and changed his mind all in a few seconds. He turned and stormed away, his heavy boots splashing water and mud as he went.
Mendenhall felt weak in his knees, but remained upright, not giving the mercenaries in front of him the pleasure of seeing him afraid. He just thanked God that the heavy rain camouflaged the tear that rolled down his face.
“It seems I will owe your colonel after this,” Farbeaux said in relief.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, Farbeaux. Jack just may have bought us time by trading you for us,” Everett joked, as he himself still had his heart in his throat.
“In any case, it was worth it to see the expression on that bastard’s face when he was foiled from shooting us.”
“It was worth me almost crapping my pants for at that,” Everett quipped.
Alexander lifted Jack up and shook him.
“Listen to me!” he shouted into the face of Collins. “I have spent over twenty-five years in shit holes around the world; I have planned this for half as many of those years. I will not allow to you to fuck it up for me, Jack! If you don’t do as I ask and enter those codes on that weapon, I will not kill your friends, I will skin them alive right in front of you. Then you will watch Lynn as she’s taken by every mercenary in this camp, and then you will watch as she’s cut to pieces! Am I clear, Jack?”
“Clear, Punchy.” The voice was cool and the words said as if he had just been given an order by the president. “One question?”
Alexander had turned away, but stopped. He refused to face Jack again.
“What?” he shouted over the rain.
“Do you think the United States, or Canada will allow this to happen?”
This time Alexander decided to deliver the news himself; it was his turn to shock Collins with knowledge.
“Yes, I do expect them to allow the separation of Quebec from Ottawa, Jack,” he said as he slowly turned. Collins could see the insanity coursing through his features, “Because the first weapons derived from this one warhead will be delivered to Toronto, New York, Washington, London, and Paris. Yes, they will welcome a new Quebec, and its new head of state, maybe not with open arms, but they will welcome it, if only publicly. Stranger alliances have happened in history, Jack, you should know that.”
Collins saw Punchy turn and walk away. Then he stopped as a sudden shout and angry voices sounded from the camp. Jack turned and saw fifteen of the commandos running for the back of camp, toward the line of tents, in particular, Lynn’s tent. His eyes widened when he saw the tent flap open and then his eyes flicked to the line of trees just as Lynn disappeared into the forest.
“Stop, let her go,” Punchy shouted. The looked at Sagli and Deonovich, who were standing dumbfounded at opposite ends of the camp. “Gather up your prisoners, get the men to their weapons and the techs out of their tents; we move in tonight. This ends here, now!”
Alexander walked over to the larger Deonovich and grabbed him by the jacket he was wearing and as Sagli watched in shock, the big man actually cowered away from the smaller Canadian.
“You take what you have on you and get the woman back—now!”
Deonovich was released and he cowered even farther away from the insanely bright eyes of Alexander. Then he turned on his heels and ran in the same direction as Lynn.
The maniacal sound of the Canadian’s voice startled everyone who heard it. It blasted over the thunder and rain, and it seemed to center on each individual. As Collins watched, men made for their tents and packs, weapons and equipment. The Spetsnaz was going to secure the doomsday weapon, and all Jack could do was watch.
The group would follow Lynn into the northern woods of the Stikine, and two different species of man would meet head-on after a million years of living separately.
The outcome might just decide the inheritors of the new world.
PART THREE
THE FOREST PRIMEVAL
12
Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III was hearing droning once more from deep in his mind. He tried to focus on the dream but it kept fluttering tantalizing close and then vanishing; it was constantly in and out of hearing range. The song was the same one he was singing before he had passed out: “Crystal Blue Persuasion” was being hummed with a deepness to it that made it seem it was coming from a deep and darkened well. The humming was not good, but continuous. Finally, the pain in his shoulder brought Charlie to the brink of wakefulness.
The smell of mildew and earth was the first thing to enter his waking mind as his eyes fluttered open. Or did they, he wondered. The blackness told him he was dreaming yet again as he tried to move his head. That was when he realized he was awake and that wherever he was, the sun never reached. Then it hit him like a comet: the cave and that old familiar smell from 1968—he was inside of Lattimer’s cave.
Charlie tried to sit up, but the pain in his shoulder told him that was definitely not a good idea. He lay back down and that was when he realized the humming had stopped. With his shoulder screaming, Charlie moved his right hand to his front pants pocket and removed a small lighter. That was when his memory came back and he knew that the Russians had shot him—for what? Then it struck him: because he tried to be a hero, and he knew then for the first time in his life he had to admit that he just wasn’t the hero type.
“Foolish old man,” he said to himself, not realizing he had spoken out loud. That was when he heard movement to his right. Something large had scurried from where he lay to someplace farther down the cave’s long and dark passage. Charlie swallowed, and still lying on his back, he used the lighter in his hand.
He kept his eyes closed for the longest time, afraid to open them for fear of what his vision would behold. Finally, gathering up his courage, he opened one eye and saw the cave’s ceiling some thirty-five feet above his prone body. The ancient stalactites hung down like teeth in a nightmare mouth. He swallowed and opened his other eye, and then he turned his head. He saw that he was lying on a bed of leaves and moss. The smell of rotting vegetation was atrocious and he crinkled his nose. He smelled urine and feces, but the rotting bed mat was the worst.
As his eyes roamed the cave, he saw cave drawings, not unlike the ones he remembered from his first encounter back in 1968. As he tried to sit up, he was amazed at how deep the colors used on the paintings were. They looked powerful in their renderings of deer, elk, and other forest animals, and unlike the cave paintings of Paleolithic man in European paintings, these were depictions of hunts, or the killing of game; these were like a naturalist’s view of the wild world. Charlie saw whole herds of beasts, running through the woods, grazing, and doing the everyday things that these animals would do.
Charlie managed to push the throbbing pain in his shoulder to the back of his mind, absentmindedly reaching for his left arm.
With the lighter so close to his wound, Charlie was astounded to see that the bullet hole had been packed with what looked to be mud and small shavings of bark and grass. It smelled like someone had placed animal droppings in there for good measure. He shook his head and shied away from looking at the disgusting mess. He concentrated on standing up, one movement at a time, inches at most. Finally he managed to gain his feet, which he noticed were bare. Someone had removed his boots. When he looked around he could see them a few feet away. His eyes widened when he realized they looked as if they had been virtually stripped from his feet like a banana peel—the tongues were completely torn free and the laces were missing.
Ellenshaw shook his head, letting the lighter go out to give his thumb a rest. He stepped forward from the bed of leaves and grass until he felt dirt beneath his feet. Using his good right arm, he felt the coldness of the cave wall. His fingers felt the dampness and he rubbed them together. Overhead through the rock strata of the cave, Charlie heard the soft rumble of thunder and knew that the humidity he was feeling was caused by the deepness of the cave. He was far beneath the earth and that was when he realized that he was far away from the opening he had been in those many years ago. He almost became ill with the thought of being buried so far from the surface of the world.
He shook his head when he discovered that he was acting like a schoolgirl. He had a chance here to possibly see something that no man in history had ever been witness to: an actual living entity that hadn’t changed in millions of years. With that thought Charlie struck the lighter once more. The flame illuminated the cave wall and Ellenshaw saw a large painting of what looked to be a bird—it almost resembled the phoenix of southern Maya and Inca origins. It looked like it was rising in flames from the earth, but no, Charlie thought to himself, it wasn’t rising at all—it was falling. And never once had he seen any historical depiction of the phoenix with a man riding on the back of the giant bird.
“Amazing detail for a prehistoric rendering, I must say,” Charlie said to himself.
Ellenshaw shook his head and stepped to his right. There were more depictions of animals and of the surrounding woods. He turned and looked behind him at the rear wall of the giant cave—there were more paintings there. As he stepped up, his eyes widened. There were straight horizontal lines drawn over a wavy surface, almost looking like a zigzag pattern against the stone wall. On these horizontal lines were what Charlie realized immediately were representations of men. They were stick men, but he could see that these men were on what had to be boats, the straight lines riding over a rippling surface. The Stikine River! he thought to himself.
Ellenshaw, placing the lighter as close to the painting as he could, reached out and with his finger touched the red (blood, he was thinking) and green pigment, then he brought the finger away and moaned deep in his chest. The water-based colors were still wet. Charlie’s eyes widened as a sudden gust of breeze blew the lighter out. He cursed and struck the small wheel again, flicking the lighter and trying to get it to catch. Every time the flint was struck, the wall and interior of the cave illuminated around him, and that was when he failed to realize in those momentary flashes of light, that he wasn’t alone.
He cursed one more time and struck the flint wheel of the lighter; this time the flame came up and stayed lit and as he turned, still in shock that the painting he had just touched was still wet to the touch, he came face to face with the artist.
Ellenshaw’s mouth fell open as the vision of a million years penetrated his soul. Standing five feet over Charlie’s head was Giganticus Pythicus, an ape that was supposedly extinct for the past ten thousand years. The eyes were that of no ape, and the face was not covered in fur or hair. The skin was clean and the lines of age were clearly seen. The nose was actually very similar to a man’s, not flat like a modern ape, not large like a humans, either—it was somewhere in between. The mouth was large and as it opened its maw, Ellenshaw could see that the teeth were still that of an animal that could use its canines for very adequate defense.
Charlie’s hand holding the lighter remained steady as he realized his life’s dream was standing before him. An amazing discovery in the human experience was staring at him right in the face, justifying everything he had ever believed about the world. The animal’s brown eyes bore into Ellenshaw’s and he could see the brows rise up in a curious maneuver of facial muscles. The great beast tilted its head as it looked Charlie over in the flickering flame of the small lighter.
“He . . . hello,” Ellenshaw mumbled.
The giant ape—Sasquatch, Bigfoot, a legend and myth of the new world—looked at Charlie with its expressive eyes, and then slowly leaned over the small man and gently blew out the lighter.
“Oh, crap.”
Lynn crashed through the undergrowth as if the devil himself were chasing her. She knew that if she could take the threat of her own imminent death out of the equation, Jack just may have a fighting chance at thwarting whatever it was Punchy had in mind for him.
The lightning was striking the ground up and down the Stikine in a display of power Lynn had never seen south of the Canadian border. She knew that this had to be one of the largest electrical storms she had ever been witness to. The rain was so thick and the raindrops so large that she felt she was in danger of drowning as she tried for her escape.
Lynn tried in vain to look behind her as she ran, thinking the Russians had to be close behind, but seeing nothing. In that split second of turning her head back, she ran into a brick wall. She rebounded so hard that her breath was knocked from her lungs as she flew backward five feet. When she hit the noise she made as she tried to force air back into her throat sounded like a water pipe with air in its system. As she looked up through the falling rain, her eyes widened when she realized she could see clearly. She saw why almost immediately: She was only thirty feet away from what was left of the giant Sikorsky helicopter as it lay in pieces before her. The flames illuminated the area that, in her haste to escape, she hadn’t even noticed.
When she finally rolled onto her stomach, she managed to draw a breath, still wondering what it was she had ran headlong into. She tried to stand. She went to her knees, knowing that if she didn’t get moving soon she would have the mercenaries catching her and undoubtedly returning her for use against Jack. As she finally gained her feet, she turned toward the still-flaming helicopter. That was when she saw what she had slammed into at a full run. It towered over her small frame. Her eyes traveled upward and locked on the fierce eyes of an animal that could not possibly be standing there.
“What the . . . ?”
Lynn saw the giant apelike creature as it opened its mouth, clearly visible in its outline in front of the fire; the beast let out a grunt and then showed its teeth. In its massive human-looking hands was a club, which seemed to be adorned with marks of some sort that she couldn’t make out. The large weapon looked as if it had been through hell and back again, scared and chipped, as if the animal had forever used it as a tool, a killing weapon. Before she knew it, the giant was gone. It just vanished before her shocked eyes, blending into the trees that surrounded the downed helicopter.
Suddenly she heard the crashing of underbrush coming from behind her, and before she could react after being stunned by the beast she had stumbled into, Lynn saw the angry face of Gregory Deonovich as he ran headlong into the small clearing where she stood. Before she realized what happened, she was grabbed by the large Russian just as Alexander had grabbed him only minutes before. He raised a hand and hit Lynn across the face. Then he repeated the assault, this time from the opposite direction. He threw her down to the wet forest floor and stood over her.
“You have caused me embarrassment for the last time. You will never be found and that will be my excuse for not bringing you back.”
Lynn, dazed from the two successive blows to her face, started to sit up, the rain washing the blood from her features. As she rose, she saw Deonovich reach for the shoulder holster at his chest and remove
the Glock nine-millimeter he carried there. The look on his face was calm and collected. He knew he would face the wrath of the Canadian, but it would be worth it. He figured to shoot the American and then drag her body off and hide it, claiming he could not catch her.
Lynn watched as the gun was aimed at her face. She defiantly looked at the muzzle and then her eyes widened as something behind Deonovich separated itself from the large tree it was hiding against. The animal had blended perfectly with its surroundings. She couldn’t tell where the tree began and the beast ended. Only in the firelight did she see the true nature of the animal as it grabbed Deonovich by the shoulders.
The Russian’s eyes widened as he felt his large frame lifted free of the earth. The pistol swung up and around, and fired two shots, both missing the animal as it raised the man completely over its head. Before Lynn could even flinch or Deonovich could realize he was about to die, the great animal smashed the Russian against the tree, snapping his back and almost bending him in two. The branch Deonovich was pushed into caught him twenty feet off the ground and the large man grunted as the wood penetrated through his chest cavity. The animal roared and watched as Deonovich took his last breath. The beast admired what it had just done, tilting its large head first left, and then right. Then with a satisfied grunt, the beast leaned over and recovered something from the ground, and then turned on Lynn.
“Oh, shit,” she said under her breath.
The giant ape took two long strides and it was suddenly standing over the small woman. It looked her in the eyes, and then it suddenly shook its entire body, releasing a torrent of water. For some reason, Lynn could see the animal far more clearly than she had before. Somehow, the beast had used not only its differing colors and thickness of its hair, but also the rain to hide itself. She was even more amazed to see some of the hair along the left side of its massive head had braids in it. Collected through those braids were what looked like colored stones, and to her amazement there were at least two of the gold American double eagles Sagli had shown her only the day before.
Primeval: An Event Group Thriller Page 38