Jack was now only five feet away. He steadied his Beretta in both hands and squeezed off a round. The weapon roared. The chimera was hit in the chest and blown backwards as Jack's Beretta tore a deadly hole in the animal; but despite the mortal wound the chimera wasn't finished. It regained its footing then launched itself again at Digby, grabbing the big man's head in both of its human-like hands. Digby had no strength to resist. His useless left arm hung limply at his side. Jack pulled the trigger again, but this time the Beretta jammed, so he yanked his hunting knife out and charged at the chimera in a desperate attempt to save Digby from a horrible beheading. He dove at the two of them, sinking the knife into the chimera's back. It let out a tortured yell sounding more animal than human. Then it turned in his grasp and Jack found himself staring into its human face and pain-filled eyes. While Susan watched helplessly, Jack and the beast rolled in the sand. The animal was quickly losing strength, whimpering. It let go of Jack and flopped onto its back. Jack struggled to his feet and looked down. There was agony and intelligence in its face as it stared back at him. Then the chimera cocked its head, whined once, closed its gray eyes, and died.
As Jack staggered backward the animal exploded with such a violent force that it almost blew his head off.
It had never really occurred to Captain Silver that any of his chimeras would die in battle. He had loved them and fed them, cared for them, and fought for their well-being. Now as he watched two of them first get hit and then explode, he realized that Valdez was destroying them from the command room. He was suddenly struck by parental rage.
"No!" he shouted impotently. It was so different during war games when they had occasionally been hit by the rubber bullets fired by DARPA commandos. They had squealed in pain but none had died. Somehow Dave Silver had come to believe in their invincibility. Now two more were gone, and without any thought he gave the order to return.
The three remaining chimeras fell back and he opened the barn door for them. They raced across the sandy terrain on all fours, not in retreat, but in response to his command. Silver knew they would fight to the last animal if ordered, but he was not prepared to lose anymore. He had made a human mistake . . . Silver had begun to value them as individuals instead of military assets.
When the survivors were all inside the stables he saw that Gree, the lead chimera, was still alive and looking up at him. Dave Silver ordered them to take up positions at the front windows. "Fire at will," he said, and they began unloading the particle-beam weapons at moving shapes out in the desert.
Suddenly the hydraulic hatch opened, rising from the hay-strewn floor of the barn. Vincent Valdez emerged from the stairs and stepped into the darkened stables. "What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded.
"We were losing troops. I gave the order to pull back," Silver said.
"These aren't troops, you asshole. They're things . . . animals!" he raged. "Get them back out there! Destroy those people!"
"No, sir," Captain Silver said. "I can't... I won't."
Valdez's eyes burned with rage. He pointed his revolver at Captain Silver and pulled the hammer back. Dave Silver had seen this look in battle before. It was homicidal rage and he knew he was about to die.
"Gree," Captain Silver commanded. "Attack."
The chimera sprang across the floor just as Valdez fired. The bullet hit Silver in the chest sending him backwards to the ground. A split second later Gree hit Valdez, and in an instant had ripped his arm from his body and thrown it across the room.
Valdez screamed as he stared down at his shoulder and the bloody hole where seconds before his arm had been. Arterial blood spurted out of him as he staggered across the stables lit from below by the harsh light shining from the hydraulic staircase. Then he fell backwards and tumbled down the stairs into the command center.
"Gree. No more," Captain Silver said, his hand over the bullet wound in his chest. He could feel his heart still beating, but he could also feel blood leaking inside him. His lungs were filling and he started to cough. Foamy red saliva came out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin.
The three chimeras stood watching him with blank expressions, waiting patiently for their next command.
"Go. Hide inside the lab," Captain Silver finally managed to whisper. They quickly turned and ran below without ever bothering to look back at him.
Dave Silver crawled to the Navaho blanket hanging on the wall and pulled himself onto his knees. He was dizzy and could barely see. He knew his life was pumping out with each heartbeat. He was drowning from the inside, drowning in his own blood. He could feel his breath become shorter as his lungs filled. He reached out and managed to push the button. As he fell forward the last sound he heard was the hydraulic door in the floor humming closed.
Chapter Fifty.
Jack Wirta was running as fast as he could, his
tortured back sending shots of electric pain up his spinal column and down his leg. He still had the smell of Robert Horsekiller's burning flesh in his nose.
They were all following Izzy, who was running across the desert in a wide right turn. Carlos had dropped the 30.06 somewhere and Digby was galloping in the rear, favoring his strong leg and grimacing as his dislocated arm flapped uselessly at his side.
Jack didn't know if Izzy had any specific destination or was just running in a huge semicircle, but followed him anyway. After all, he used to sneak off the res to get laid, so he had to know where he was going, didn't he?
He didn't.
They stopped in front of the old Airstream trailer that had belonged to the late Robert Horsekiller. Izzy had his hands on his knees and was sucking in great gasps of air as Jack and Susan pulled up.
"What's here?" Jack managed between gulps of air.
"Nothing," Izzy wheezed back.
"Then why did you lead us here?" Jack asked.
"Dunno," Izzy said.
"You're relieved. Some fucking chief."
Digby finally arrived at the trailer groaning and holding his limp arm, looking like a coronary case. Three-hundred-fifty-pound guys weren't designed to run in the sand.
"I don't see any more of them," Susan said.
Jack didn't either. "I counted five. We got two. That means the first squad is down to three. We're down to four, if you're still with us, Digby."
"I'll try," the big Indian groaned.
Jack paused. "I'm really sorry about Horsekiller. That wasn't supposed to happen." They all nodded and Izzy crossed himself.
"So let's go get some payback," Jack said. "Let's try to take the stables. Keep your weapons cocked and try not to shoot the guy out front. . . who's gonna be me." Jack crept around the Airstream in the general direction of the barn, then took off running, staying low, hugging the terrain.
As they approached the stables he dropped on his stomach, and led the others toward the structure executing the painful Academy elbow crawl. In the moonlight he felt open and exposed. Slowly, they all worked their way up next to the structure. Miraculously, nobody fired a ray-gun at them.
They stood and flattened out against the wood walls of the weathered stable. Jack reached around and tried the door. Unlocked. He pushed it open a crack, took a deep breath, and ducked quickly inside.
At first the barn appeared empty. They quickly fanned out inside checking for Chimeras or DARPA commandos. Then Susan tripped over something, looked down and shrieked. uOh my God!"
At her feet was a human arm ripped from its socket and still encased in a black suit sleeve. The hay near where it lay was sticky with blood.
"Son of a bitch," Izzy said softly.
"Look for the body," Jack instructed.
They found the corpse of Dave Silver in one of the stalls. He had bled to death but still had both his arms.
"Nobody else," Izzy said, looking around. "Except for the arm and this one dead guy, it's empty."
"Can't be empty," Susan countered.
"But it is," Izzy argued, sounding like he wanted to get back to Bel Air.
Susan persisted. "We saw them all come out of here. There's gotta be a way down to the lab from inside this barn."
"She's right," Jack agreed. He looked at the front windows facing west. "Digby, can you keep a lookout? Cover us?
"Left-handed . . . can't shoot," the huge man said.
"You could prop your pistol on that windowsill, and if any of those furry bastards come back this way light 'em up," Jack suggested.
"I'll try," Digby said, but he didn't look too sure of himself.
Susan was prowling around the stable checking the floor and the walls, but she couldn't find a hidden opening.
"What's that doing here?" Izzy asked, pointing at an Indian blanket hanging on the stable wall.
"It's a horse blanket, you moron," his cousin Carlos sneered.
"It's a Navaho blanket. We're Ten-Eyck," Izzy said, moving closer.
"It is?" Jack said. "How can you tell?" They all stood looking at the blanket until Susan finally took the initiative and removed it from the wall. Underneath was a large electrical box and a big, red button.
"Don't touch it," Jack said quickly. "What if it's an alarm or an entrance bell?"
"It's not an alarm or a bell," Susan said and pushed it.
Immediately they heard solenoids clicking, then a hydraulic engine whirred and the floor they were standing on started to rise. They yelped and jumped aside as five square feet of floorboards, hay, and horseshit rose up revealing a lighted staircase and a ten-foot-wide conveyor belt. They were looking down into harsh xenon lights.
"I think I saw this movie," Izzy said.
"Let's go down," Susan ordered, proving, Jack thought, that she had the most guts.
They followed a blood trail down the staircase until they reached the bottom of the first flight where a door stood slightly ajar. Jack decided that as a certified alpha-male and former Playboy Club member he should probably suck it up and go in first. Reluctantly, he stepped around Susan and pushed the door open.
They entered a large room dominated by ten television monitors, a sophisticated audio mixing panel, and the dead, bloodless, one-armed body of Vincent Valdez.
"Vinnie. You came apart on me," Jack said softly.
The monitor screens showed surveillance views of the reservation barely visible in the moonlight. They could also see the drainage pipe and two intense orange dots. None of them understood that the larger glowing dot was the heat-resonance image of the burning pile of ashes that had once been Robert Horsekiller.
Susan pulled a small digital camera out of her bag and photographed the room along with Vincent Valdez's corpse before they moved on.
The top floor was labeled B-i and contained the command center and a garage with three vehicles two Jeeps and a small truck that apparently could be driven onto the conveyor belt and up into the barn. Jack located the elevator and brought it up.
"Carlos, stay here. Cover this exit," Jack said.
"Good deal," Carlos said, glad to stay behind.
They found the sleeping quarters on B-2. The bedding on the cots was dime-tight. Personal equipment was packed in spotless foot lockers but no soldiers and no chimeras. The floor was deserted.
B-3 was also empty and housed some storage rooms and the mess hall.
They found the empty chimera nests on B-4. It was a little less pristine down here. Jack saw some animal dung on the floor.
Since B-4 was also empty, they got back on the elevator and continued down.
All hell broke loose on B-5.
Chapter Fifty-One.
General Buzz Turpin was watching them on the
monitor at DARPA headquarters in Virginia. The security cameras on each floor of the Ten-Eyck lab were fed to Arlington via a phone hookup that displayed the video lead in his command center. Now that the Ten-Eyck facility had been breached it had to be destroyed. He watched as three men and a woman moved down the stairs from the barn into the lab.
"Where are our people?" Turpin snarled at Paul Talbot who was seated in the command chair next to him watching the screen.
"I don't know. Down on five, I think, but I can't pick 'em up on the corner cameras."
Turpin had already notified DARPA Control Center to arm the small nuclear devices located under the lab. The arming procedure, with its secure locking codes, took almost five minutes to accomplish. Time ticked by ominously. Turpin watched the intruders as they descended further. Anger flashed inside him. This project had been designed to free American children from the horrors of war. The DARPA chimera program could have guaranteed that not one more American soldier would ever have to die in a ground war. Now it was ruined. He watched as the intruders got into the elevator and took it down to the basement floor, B-5.
He could see that five DARPA commandos, three remaining chimeras, and several frightened genetic scientists had taken up new positions and were now visible on the B-5-level cameras.
Suddenly the elevator door opened. Two men and a woman stepped out into the laboratory.
Two DARPA soldiers opened fire immediately in violation of their orders, using the high-powered particle-beam weapons that had been designed for outdoor use only. In the steel-walled enclosure of the genetics lab, the beams broke up and ricocheted around the room uncontrollably.
"No, you assholes!" Turpin shouted into his communications console.
Streams of particle-beam laser light streaked across the lab like Star Wars special effects, hitting steel walls and lighting up everything they hit with high-energy voltage. After bouncing off metal walls they kept going, arcing back and forth, breaking up into energy particles and flying all around the lab like deadly fireflies.
Jack screamed out in fear and threw himself behind a metal cabinet.
Not exactly ideal alpha-male behavior, but it took him by surprise.
He finally pulled it together and tried without success to return fire, pulling the trigger on his already-jammed Beretta. Jack watched in horror as a second DARPA commando swung his particle-beam weapon toward him.
Izzy came to his rescue, firing twice with his square-barreled Glock 9, hitting both DARPA commandos and blowing them backward.
Izzy bought them ten precious seconds. Jack jumped up and ran on stringy legs across the lab, dove under a table then grabbed up one of the fallen laser weapons.
Payback.
Another commando fired . . . more red death arced around the lab ricocheting and filling the air with deadly particles. Computers exploded behind Jack. The room was filling with smoke and charged air. Everyone's hair was standing up from static electricity.
Jack turned the complicated laser gun over and studied it, then flipped a switch, hoping to turn it on.
He rolled right, put the weapon to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. Nothing.
The chimeras were just standing there watching the fight. One was jumping up and down, but made no move to enter the fray. They had been trained to act only on command, and nobody had given an attack order.
While Jack tried a few more buttons on the laser gun, Izzy and Susan dove for cover behind a metal counter. Izzy was holding his Glock sideways, blasting away like a rock-video gangster. Jack rolled, punched some more buttons and tried the laser gun again. Still nothing. "How d'ya turn this damned thing on?" he shouted. Nobody seemed inclined to help.
The panicked DARPA commandos finally realized their mistake shooting the laser guns in a metal-walled room and pulled out pistols. They were now chopping up the lab with conventional ordnance.
Jack made a run for the cover of a metal counter. Suddenly
he felt searing pain in his shoulder and went down.
Alarms started ringing.
While Jack didn't like the sound of the whooping alarms, on the plus side he, Susan, and Izzy somehow gained the tactically superior position close to the elevators.
"Let's go . . . pull out," Jack shouted, and they all started running like hookers in a vice raid. Jack sprinted to the nearest elevator and pushed Izzy inside. The DARPA comm
andos broke cover and swarmed the room. Susan unexpectedly looped back and was gathering something up off the counter. "Let's go!" Jack screamed while Izzy fired four more shots pinning down the swarming DARPA soldiers.
One of them finally shouted an order: "Gree! Attack!" Instantly, three chimeras leaped toward the elevator exposing themselves to Izzy's fire. Two of them went down. Susan was running toward the elevator carrying half a dozen glass vials in a holder. She slipped inside just before the last chimera reached her. Jack kicked the animal back with a karate move that shot a jolt of pain up his tortured spine to his wounded shoulder. The door closed before the chimera could regain its balance. Seconds later they were humming up amidst a horrible symphony of braying floor alarms.
The door opened on B-i and they ran out of the elevator.
"What's with the siren?" Carlos asked.
"I think this place is about to blow," Jack said as he started flipping more switches on the laser weapon ... a weapon so simple that even a monkey could operate it; but Jack Wirta, academy-trained firearms expert, was totally baffled. In frustration, he banged it against his palm, and must have accidentally hit something, because suddenly it started humming. Jack turned and fired a streak of red-hot particles into the elevator. They arced around like electricity in Frankenstein's lab, then the elevator whined, growled, and went dark. "Finally," he grunted.
The war party ran up the stairs. Jack felt wetness on his back where his blood-wet shirt was sticking to him. He lost his balance and accidentally dropped the laser gun. It rattled back down the stairs. "Shit." Jack started back down for it, but Susan stopped him.
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