Savage (Jack Sigler / Chess Team)

by Jeremy Robinson

  It was nearly dawn before the Shanghai pulled away from the dock in Kinshasa and started upriver. A low white fog covered the water, giving the appearance that the gunboat was motoring through the clouds. King watched their progress for a while, then found an unclaimed section of deck near the bow, draped a thin mosquito net over the rail and down to the deck, careful not to leave any opening, and as the sun rose over the emerald expanse of the rain forest, he drifted off to sleep.

  At about the same time that King embarked on his journey to Kisangani, the Red Queen completed hers. The helicopter, which had less than a day earlier carried her from General Velle’s headquarters to the capital city, had brought her full circle. Her intended mission, to negotiate an end to the revolution—an end which would have installed General Velle as the military dictator of the country and pave the way for an exclusive resource partnership with Consolidated Energy—had been thwarted by the news of Joseph Mulamba’s escape. Her subsequent gambit to seize control of the country had ended disastrously. Yet she did not feel, what a famous sportscaster had once called ‘the agony of defeat.’

  In fact, she felt energized.

  During the long helicopter ride, she had analyzed her situation like the pieces on a chessboard. Although there seemed to be only a few moves left to her—defend, retreat, surrender—she knew that now was the time for a bold, dynamic strategy. The question that had occupied her thoughts for most of the trip was not actually what she would do, but why she would do it.

  Her satellite phone had rung just once during the night, a single call from ESI headquarters. She had not answered, nor had she listened to the voice mail message that had been left. She knew that she had been disavowed, cut loose to face the consequences of failure on her own. Consolidated Energy would deny any involvement, and would bide their time for a while, before making another play for the riches hidden beneath the Congo at the bottom of Lake Kivu. The fact that the phone had been silent thereafter was proof enough that she was on her own. She could still win this game, though. She fully intended to, but what would she do with the spoils of her victory?

  As she contemplated that question, the answer came to her like an epiphany.

  What are you willing to sacrifice to win? Everything.

  General Velle was waiting for her when the Mi-8 touched down at the army base. “This is a disaster,” he said by way of a greeting. “You have ruined everything.”

  He was trembling with rage, and she knew that the only thing that kept him from lashing out her with anything other than words was his certain knowledge that her death would result in the detonation of the backpack nuke.

  “It is a setback,” she countered, coolly. “Nothing more.”

  “A setback? My loyal forces in Kinshasa have been defeated. We cannot take the capital without them.”

  “Kinshasa is irrelevant.” She turned to the flight crew. “Do not disembark. We will be leaving again as soon as we have refueled.”

  “Leaving?” Velle asked, still storming. “And where do you intend to go?”

  She returned her gaze to him. “General, you should study your history. You do not rule Africa by capturing cities. You rule by possessing that which everybody else wants. I am going to Lake Kivu, and if you wish to win, then I suggest you begin moving your forces there.”

  “Kivu? What is at Kivu?”

  The Red Queen allowed herself a wry smile. “Everything.”

  37

  Near Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  One of the raptors darted its head forward and snapped the chemlight up in its jaws. The thin plastic tube burst apart in a spray of glowing phosphorescence that splashed the creature’s plumage. The dispersed liquid gave little illumination, returning the cave to near total darkness but the splash revealed the raptor’s location. And its movements. The greenish glob began bobbing up and down as it shot through the inky blackness, straight toward the human intruders.

  Bishop hesitated for a moment. The existence of these dinosaurs, while theorized by fringe science for years, was something of a miracle. Killing them would be a shame. But they were also predators, and given the path of the glowing specimen, hungry predators.

  Seeing no alternative, Bishop swept his M240 in an arc, spraying lead in the path of the charging raptor. In the muzzle flash, he saw that it wasn’t alone. The glow-stained raptor went down in a flurry of scrabbling limbs and flying bits of lichen, but the rest continued, swarming. Bishop held the trigger down. The creatures moved faster than he could target, and for every one that went down, three more slipped under his barrage. Knight opened fire beside him, but with even less effectiveness. The heavy caliber rounds from his Intervention sniper rifle gouged up chunks of the lichen covered cave floor, but the rate of fire was so slow that he couldn’t track targets with his muzzle flashes. Worse still, the raptors seemed to have no sense of the relationship between the guns’ thunderous reports and the deadly consequences that might follow. If anything, the noise seemed to drive them into a killing frenzy.

  We can’t stop them, Bishop thought. With a sweep of his arm, he thrust Felice and Knight behind him, and started swinging the hot barrel of his machine gun like a scythe.

  There was a satisfying crunch as his impromptu club swatted one of the raptors out of the darkness. He felt and heard another impact on the backswing, but then something struck his legs and burning claws raked his chest.

  He let go of the M240 and swiped his bare hands at the unseen attackers. His fingers closed on coarse plumage and he flung one of the beasts away, even as its sharp talons slashed at his skin. Another one rushed in to take its place.

  Bishop matched their primal fury with his own, clawing and biting at anything that came within reach. There was a sound, like cracking ice, inside his mind. He could smell more vividly. He felt faster, or the world was slower. Pain faded, and he became destruction. A life-taking force. When the attacks ceased, he groped blindly for any raptors that might have gone for Felice and Knight. It was only when he heard their voices—not crying in pain or alarm, but urging him to stop—that the animal instinct driving him began to relent.

  As the cloud of rage dissipated, he realized that he could see them. Knight had thrown out half-a-dozen glowsticks, surrounding them in a ring of faint illumination. Several raptors lay scattered beyond the circle, broken and torn, some still twitching, but the attack was over. Knight and Felice were unscathed.

  Bishop turned slowly until he found their guide, huddled against the wall with his arms covering his head. Bishop’s bloodied fingers curled into claws, as he started toward the old man.

  Suddenly Felice was standing in his way, hands outstretched, palms facing Bishop. “Stop.”

  “Move.” Bishop’s voice was the low growl of a stalking lion.

  “No. Leave him alone.”

  He continued forward until her hands were pressing against his chest. He could feel her touch against his bare skin, where his shirt had been torn away by raptor claws. Her skin felt cool on his, and to his complete surprise, he found his rage cooling as well.

  “That son of a bitch set us up,” Knight said. His fever made his outrage seem even more intense than Bishop’s. “He knew those things would be here. This was a trap.”

  Felice refused to yield. “Why would he do that? He could have just left us back in the woods, but he didn’t.”

  “No. He ran us through the jungle until we were exhausted, then brought us here to feed his pets.”

  “Ask him,” she persisted. Then, without breaking contact with Bishop, she turned her head to the old man and rattled off a question in French.

  It was only then that the old man seemed to grasp that he was the focus of attention. He answered in a deluge of words, strung together in short little outbursts that came out too fast for Felice to translate. When he finally took a breath, he slowed, and she began to explain.

  “Yes, he knew about the beasts, but he didn’t bring us here to be killed. They don’t attack un
less they are threatened. He thought we would be safe here. If we had stayed silent and not shown a light, we would have been fine.”

  “How does he know that?”

  She asked him, then interpreted his answer. “He found this cave when he was just a boy. He says his name is David, and he’s been coming here for many years. He says he knows how to move among them without being attacked.” She swung her gaze to Bishop. “What are those things, anyway?”

  “Velociraptors.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “Dinosaurs?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s impossible, you know. They didn’t look like raptors.”

  “You’ve seen other raptors?”

  “I’ve seen Jurassic Park,” she said, her face revealing that she knew how foolish the answer sounded.

  “Jurassic Park got it all wrong. Velociraptors were small, not much bigger than turkeys. Actually, most dinosaurs were more closely related to birds than to reptiles.”

  “Uh, huh. Wouldn’t have guessed you were a dino nut.” When he didn’t respond, she went on. “I’m no expert on dinosaurs, but I do know a thing or two about evolution. Dinosaurs have been extinct for sixty-five million years.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. I guess we were both wrong.”

  Felice let it drop. “Whatever they were, they did a number on you.” She gently parted the tattered remnants of his shirt. “Are you hurt?”

  “What? No. Just a few scratches.”

  “You don’t have to impress me. I already know how tough you are.”

  “I’m fine.” And indeed, he seemed to be. Although his clothing was in tatters, the only sign of injury was a crust of drying blood that she brushed away. There were long red stripes on his swarthy skin, which looked no worse than scratches from a frisky house cat. He’d been lucky.

  “What I’d really like,” Bishop said, trying to redirect her attention, “is some answers from our friend here. Maybe start with how he found this place.”

  David nodded at the translated request and sank down on his haunches. He told them the story of how he, as a young and naïve child soldier fighting with the Simba rebels, had fled into the jungle and discovered the cave behind the waterfall. Though his companions had been killed by the creatures inside, David had never forgotten the amazing discovery, and had eventually returned to explore the cave.

  Knight, who had been huddled on the floor in silence, looked up. “And he never thought to tell anyone that he’d found living dinosaurs?”

  David returned a blank look, even when Felice had translated the question. “Maybe he doesn’t know the word dinosaure.” She tried again, but this time used the word monstre—monster—but again, the question seemed to perplex the old man.

  “I do not understand,” he finally admitted to her. “Why are you asking me about these creatures? Do you not already know of them?”

  “We call them dinosaurs,” she explained in French. “But they have been extinct—completely gone—for many thousands of years.” If he didn’t know dinosaurs, he might have trouble grasping the idea of millions.

  David shook his head. “No. They are not dead. They have always been here, though few ever see them. They only leave the cave at night, and never come near to the village.”

  “It sounds like something from a movie,” Bishop said. “A lost world. It’s incredible.”

  “Impossible is more like it. Genetically speaking, it’s just not feasible. Even if some dinosaurs survived the extinction event, they would have undergone evolutionary changes over the course of time.”

  “Aren’t there some animals today that are the same as they were back then? I remember reading somewhere that certain shark species have been around for over a hundred million years.”

  Felice inclined her head, ceding the point. “Some species seem to show less genetic drift than others. But the odds of something like this happening on land—I don’t just mean surviving, but surviving undetected—are really, really…well, impossible.”

  Bishop glanced at Knight, who said, in a weary voice, “We’re kind of used to dealing with the impossible.”

  Felice seemed to weigh that, as if she also had some experience with things that couldn’t be easily explained. “Here’s the problem. For a species to survive, it needs habitat and it needs food, and those things are always in flux. When there’s a lot of food, the population will grow until it starts to put a strain on the resources. When that occurs, the population will either migrate or experience a die off. The point is that populations don’t remain stable. If dinosaurs have been around for sixty-five million years, someone would know about them by now.”

  “If what David just said is true,” Bishop said, “then a lot of people do know about them. Frankly, the Congo seems like the kind of place where a lot of things might go unnoticed for a long time.”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t know if I can reconcile the existence of modern dinosaurs with what I know about evolutionary biology. There’s got to be something we’re missing here.”

  “Hang on a second,” Knight said, abruptly. “If the people here already knew about the raptors, then what exactly was it that brought him back to the cave? What was this big discovery that was so important?”

  Before Felice could translate the question, a shout echoed through the cavern. Bishop swung his gaze around, seeking out the source. There were more voices, issuing from the direction of the cave entrance, and then the sound of gunfire echoed again in the vast chamber.

  The hunters had found them.

  38

  “Follow me,” David urged.

  Felice did not have time to translate, but there was little need for it. Knight gathered up the chemlights and jammed them into a pocket, plunging the group into darkness once more.

  Felice grabbed Bishop’s hand. He seemed to shy away at her touch, but she squeezed harder, insistent that they not be separated. He relented, drawing her along as they followed the old man deeper into the cavern.

  More sporadic shots were fired, though it was impossible to tell whether the rebels were shooting at anything in particular—perhaps fending off another pack of the strange bird-like animals—or simply trying to flush their prey out of hiding. David moved quickly but at a walking pace. In the eternal night, there were greater dangers than being hit by a bullet, especially since they were already so deep into the cavern that they could no longer even see the entrance.

  Walking hand in hand with Bishop was awkward at first. He was clearly unaccustomed to any kind of intimate physical contact, but she refused his subtle efforts to pull away, and soon his reluctance melted away, just as his anger had. She remembered his rage and knew how close he had been to giving in to it completely, murderously, but she had also felt that rage shrink away at her touch.

  “Is there another way out?” Knight whispered after several minutes.

  She passed the question to David, then gave his answer. “He doesn’t know, but there is a place ahead, where we will be safe.”

  “Safely bottled up,” Knight growled.

  Felice felt Bishop tensing up again, and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. A few moments later however, she was forced to release her hold, as David led them into a slot passage too narrow for them to continue to walk side-by-side. As the rock walls brushed against her shoulders, Felice felt the beginnings of a claustrophobia-induced panic, which was only partly alleviated when Bishop laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  Her fear evaporated quickly, however, when she realized that she could see again.

  Though faint at first, she could now make out the passage walls, and when she reached out to touch them, she could see her own fingertips limned in a bluish glow. As the group advanced, the light grew brighter.

  “Do you—?”

  “I do,” Bishop whispered. “Keep going.”

  The passage undulated through the rock in a series of turns. The ambient light grew brighter with each
one they rounded, until the passage opened up again, revealing the light source.

  For a few seconds, Felice wasn’t sure what she was looking at. At first, she saw only a broad expanse of black, dotted with yellow and blue lights, like stars in the night sky. It appeared the passage had led them back outside, and that they were looking at the Milky Way at midnight, but it was daytime outside, and the ‘stars’ were below her.

  “Fires,” Bishop observed.

  Thousands of small fires were spread out on the cave floor in every direction, as far as she could see. As she stared at them, she gradually began to distinguish the landscape’s shape—rocky outcroppings, stalagmites, rising and falling hills—as dark silhouettes against the glow of the flames.

  Some of the silhouettes were moving.

  At first, she thought it might be shadows dancing in the flickering firelight, but the longer she looked, the less likely that explanation seemed.

  And when a low hum filled the air, joined by another and another and another, growing in intensity until it sounded like jet engines, she knew that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

  This place belonged to the dinosaurs.

  39

  Underground

  Queen fumbled in the darkness. Her thoughts were muddled by too many sensory inputs that didn’t seem to connect…

  The last thing she remembered was getting caught in a fast-moving cross-current.

  She jolted, as the physical memory of being tumbled by the subterranean river returned, but then she realized that she was no longer in the water. Instead, she was lying on a hard, flat surface. As the pieces quickly came together, Queen’s heart began racing.