by Terry James
“Incompetents. I’m surrounded with inept fools,” Jenkins complained in a seething whisper to himself, while he stepped up the pace once again.
Momentarily, the three men passed through an opening that would be, when finished, a three-foot thick, hatch-type blast door of carbon steel and titanium. They hurried through the towering skeletal framework of the structure that would serve as headquarters for the new, more secure North American Defense Command. They came finally to a doorway, through which they stepped into another small tunnel. They entered a door to the left and walked through several large rooms.
Lights behind opaque paneled ceiling sections flickered on automatically when they entered the office of Jenkins’ choice.
“The subject is one of the hybrids,” Jenkins growled, searching through the center drawer of the desk. “Number 61,” he said, looking at the piece of paper he had retrieved from the drawer.
He looked at the men with a perplexed expression. He tried to speak but couldn’t.
They watched while their superior struggled, as if choking. His face reddened, and his eyes bulged, the large blue veins of his neck and forehead seeming to try to burst through the skin. Jenkins’ pupils dilated black, while his face contorted with rage.
He stood behind the desk, gripping the head rest of the high-back desk chair. He seemed to calm, his complexion becoming a bit less hypertensive in appearance, the shaking transforming into calm, deliberate purpose of movement.
“Go and do as I have bid you.”
The words rumbled from the throat in deep, ominous resonance, the face taking on a shadowy pallor that chilled his associates.
The men had seen him this way before. They said nothing, but glanced apprehensively at each other, nodded in his direction, then left the room as quickly as possible.
Jenkins sat in the chair, his back straight, his arms rigid upon the desk, glaring toward the door the men had moments before exited. The fluorescent lights dimmed on their own, a dark, boiling mass materializing between Jenkins and the door. It transformed into a human shape that towered almost to the room’s ceiling.
The door opened again, and a tall, feminine form, dressed in a white jumpsuit, walked into the semi darkness. April Warmath’s eyes, like those of George Jenkins, glistened, their black, inhuman appearance dominating the lovely oval, ivory-hued face.
The hulking cloud-like being stepped toward the woman and in the next instant was sucked into her body, as if a smoke-vapor vacuumed from the room.
“The man, Clark Lansing, is secured,” the woman said in a quiet, emotionless tone.
“We shall not underestimate his cleverness,” Jenkins said from behind the desk. “He believes that he is to report on human rights violations by the government?”
“Yes, and that he will be given proof of the creatures, and their part in the technology,” the woman said.
“We must step up the timeline for the ignorant human political agents. We must keep them forging ahead with the teletransportation imperative. They must be kept busy so that they have no time to consider that there are other imperatives.”
“They have accepted, without question, that they are the beneficiaries of reverse engineering,” the voice emanating from April’s mouth said. “There is no one among them capable of making the connection to either creation of nephals, or the taking away.”
“It is a brief human time span before the merging begins. Will the female be within the compound soon?”
“Soon,” the woman said, a momentary smile of ominous intent crossing April Warmath’s pretty face.
LaGuardia, New York City
Morgan smiled when she saw Blake Robbins step from the limousine.
“There he is, Peenie,” she whispered with anticipation.
The rottweiler’s ears perked, his brow wrinkling, while he tried to know his mistress’ meaning. When she sounded like this, there was always fun to follow for him. He sat up from his former Sphinx-like lying position beside her while she stroked between his ears with her right hand.
She watched while two men in business suits stepped from another car and walked the several yards to where Robbins stood speaking with a man who had ridden with him to the airport.
Her nerves were on edge, and her heart palpitated uncomfortably within her chest. But, it was the good kind of nervousness, not of dread. Like the times she traveled with her father on trips around the country as a reward for getting top grades in junior high and high school over the years.
“You comfortable, Miss Lansing?”
The co-pilot of the Gulfstream 5 asked the question from several feet away, smiling, but with his eyes on the rottweiler, who eyed him back.
“Yes. Just fine,” she said.
“Great. We should be taking off in about 20 minutes,” the man said while turning and heading towards the cockpit.
The sky was overcast, the September wind unusually brisk. It could start raining any moment, Morgan thought, seeing Blake and the men walking the aircraft parking ramp from the cars’ temporary parking area.
He was indeed a good-looking guy. He stood a half a head above the other men and moved with athletic grace. She wondered if his tripping in Central Park could have been other than it appeared. Could such a graceful body have tripped over its own feet? Of course, the first sight of Peanut had made more than a few people commit foolish-looking actions.
She reached to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “You are a fearsome beast,” she said, causing the canine to look at her and shift on his sitting haunches. “Aren’t you, Peenie?” she concluded, laughing and hugging him.
She watched the men until they stopped just before reaching the folding ramp that led into the G-5’s fuselage. The conversation appeared somber. They were discussing matters of top-secret importance, no doubt, she surmised. What in the world was she doing in the middle of such company?
Morgan watched Blake move up the steps and through the airplane hatch opening. He paused to speak to the co-pilot, then looked in her direction, waving before turning back to the shorter man to speak.
“How’s everything? You and Jeddy comfortable?” Robbins’ question, after he walked over to them, was of a greeting sort, but it was somehow genuinely meant to check on her level of comfort, she thought, holding the dog’s collar. Jeddy’s throaty grumbling while Robbins approached caused his mistress to jerk lightly on the collar.
“Shush!” Morgan admonished the rottweiler, looking up at the man she would accompany to Denver.
He moved carefully along the wall of the cave, bent slightly to avoid contacting the roof with his head. Christopher Banyon looked behind him for the Vizsla, but the dog hadn’t followed him into this confining passageway.
“Klaus, come here, boy,” he said softly, snapping his fingers in the direction from which he had come.
The dog must have been afraid of the shadowy corridor leading deeper into the cave, he concluded, bending farther forward as the cave passage got smaller with each foot traversed.
But, it wasn’t dark. Not totally, he considered. Why was there light this far into the cave? And the cave--was it the same… No. Impossible! That cave was half a world away, in the Middle East.
Yet the interior was familiar, very familiar, and now the illumination increased, his surroundings becoming clearly visible. To the right, the deep crevasse. It appeared to be the same he remembered from those decades ago, when he and Susie had entered the cave, had experienced… whatever it was they had experienced…
The tunnel soon shrank in dimension to a crawlspace. Something within drove him forward, although he would soon reach the point that his body could no longer move on hands and knees. Soon he would have to snake his way toward the glow in the distance –mist-shrouded light fluorescing along the narrowing walls far ahead.
A few more yards, however, he slithered through the narrowest point, and the tunnel enlarged to become a passageway through which he could walk without bending.
Now the pathway bec
ame brighter, and the foggy iridescence dissipated the farther along the corridor he moved. Within several more steps he stood inside an enormous chamber with light that forced him to put his hands over his eyes to shield them from the pain-producing radiance.
The scene before him was surreal. The huge cavern gleamed with chrome-like stainless steel, from its oval walls and rounded ceiling to the floor upon which he stood. A futuristic vista of lights emanated from inset positions within the mirrored walls. Many white lab-coated men and women moved about the gigantic room. They paid no attention to him, while he stood dumbfounded just outside the cave tunnel’s mouth from which he had emerged seconds before. The room seemed to flash in flashbulb fashion at various points within the vast chamber. He tried to make sense of the bursts of white lights, but they vanished the moment after exploding, leaving him momentarily blinded before his sight returned to take in his strange surroundings.
He noticed, then, a screen of great expanse upon one wall above the points of colored lights that were the computer controls. The screen was alive with an overhead camera shot of two tables, upon whose surfaces two human forms lay, face up.
People in surgical garb approached and left the human forms atop the operating tables, and either conferred, attached wires to the bodies, or moved quickly out of camera range to perform other duties.
The camera zoomed toward the two bodies that were the subject of attention, their heads partially covered with gleaming metallic devices. Several wires ran from the bodies connecting with each other, and with something near the stainless steel-looking floor in an area hidden from the view of the camera lens.
Closer, ever closer, the lens zoomed in on the two subjects, who lay head to head, the glimmering chrome-like helmets less than 8 inches apart.
Christopher Banyon’s eyes widened with the scene before him –the realization that he was looking at Mark and Lori Lansing’s now-grown children.
Musahad Kahlied sat without so much as a twitch, his dark eyes glaring at the guard who stood at parade rest with the M-16 at the ready. His hate-filled stare gave way to a brow furled look of concern, when the man in the white lab coat held the Afghan’s head steady with his left hand and injected the special chip within the skin beneath his right eyebrow, near the middle of his forehead.
“I’m watching them prepare him now,” George Jenkins said into the phone’s mouthpiece.
Jenkins squinted to better see the up-close view one of the cameras framed within the monitor’s screen.
“They are just about finished. We will ship him within the hour.”
The voice of Wayne Snidely made him grit his teeth with contempt. “The Secretary is wanting to know what…exactly… the procedures are from this point, Jenkins. I mean, how do we know this thing is going to work?”
“I told the Secretary and the others who have knowledge of the operation, that there are no guarantees. We think it will work. We just aren’t sure. The hybrids have been successfully transmuted. But, the humans have worked in very few cases, as the Secretary and the others well know.”
“It’s got to work, Jenkins. The president wants bin Laden’s head on that platter. Or his DNA, or something to verify…”
“You will get something. I’m not promising exactly what,” Jenkins interrupted. “I’m told the DNA will be there, no matter in what condition the package arrives.”
Their conversation ended moments later. Jenkins sat in the semi-darkness, his angry thoughts forming into a verbal outburst when he reached to push a button on the console in front of him.
“Musahad.” The Afghani looked around, then at the direction on the ceiling from which he thought the voice projected.
“Musahad. Remember what’s going to happen if you fail at any point to carry out our instructions. Your entire family…all the males…will be executed and wrapped in those swine skins. Do you understand?”
The prisoner shook his head in the affirmative, then lowered his eyes.
“Good. Siegfried.”
The black-uniformed man in charge of the guards came to attention when Jenkins snapped his name.
“Get our friend on his way to his beloved homeland.”
Chapter 8
The darkness was total, and Christopher Banyon had to make his way back through the cave by feeling along the tunnel wall. The sharp ridges of stones caused pain to his fingers, whose skin felt as if it was being lacerated while the fingers tried to do what his eyes couldn’t. His hand jerked back automatically when it touched something cold and slimy.
He stopped forward movement, then reached to try to determine the disgusting thing he had touched. He sensed, in the next instance, the presence of…what, he couldn’t determine. Something that closed in on him, surrounded him. A large, hateful presence, both behind and in front of him.
He reached to touch the things, but his hand felt nothing. Yet the things bumped him, breathed on him –a fetid smell of the cadaverous sort. Their breath was hot, and the stench seemed to permeate his very soul while he tried to inch forward against the rock wall. He had to get out of this hell-like place of darkness.
Deep-throated growling accompanied the stench of the beings that bedeviled him. He forced his way past the creatures, or through them, and felt their groping, scratching raking at the flesh of his arms, of his face.
He reached again for the rock wall to gain perspective, to assess his place in this black world that now seemed all-encompassing. The wall was no longer there, and he would have to take the chance. He stepped forward into an abyss. His body turned and tumbled while he kicked and screamed, trying to grab something--anything--that would help break his fall to his doom.
Dripping blood-red words flashed before his mind’s eye while he plunged into the blackness. Many frantic voices screamed in cacophonous, echoing shrieks: “The kingdom cometh!”
“Reverend Banyon.”
Light pierced Christopher’s brain, causing pain to reverberate throughout his skull. Had he hit bottom?
“Christopher--Reverend Banyon!”
A strong hand gripped his bicep, lifting him to a sitting position. He felt something warm and wet move across his face. A hard, furry object pressed against his jaw, the tongue again licking him.
“He’s okay, boy,” the deep male voice said while the bright light continued to assault Christopher’s eyes. “He’s okay, boy.”
“You gave us all a bit of a scare there, Reverend,” the deputy said, kneeling beside Banyon, whose head began to clear.
“That’s some pooch you have their, sir. He brought us right to you.”
Christopher looked at his surroundings, illuminated by the big flashlight the officer held. He was sitting in the sand…on the desert floor, he surmised.
“How long have I been here?” His words were forced, as were his movements, while he made a labored attempt to stand.
“You take it easy, sir. Let’s just let you get to feeling a little better before you try to get up,” the deputy said.
The Vizsla would not be held back. Christopher embraced him, finally realizing that his constant companion had indeed proven that a dog was man’s best friend--or, at least, that Klaus was his best friend.
“This area isn’t covered by NORAD security because we are already within the innermost perimeter of the new complex.”
April’s whispered words broke the near silence while they traversed the 150 yards from the rough-hewn cabins toward the sheer rock façade of the mountain.
“We have 20 minutes before the tests begin. That’s plenty of time to get to the chamber.” April reached to take Clark Lansing’s hand. “It gets really dark just ahead. I know the way quite well, so don’t let go of my hand.
Clark had no intention of letting go of the hand. She could lead him anywhere, he thought. This was a fascinating girl, and he found it increasingly difficult to keep his professional thoughts separate from the personal, the longer he knew her.
The area indeed grew darker by the second. He felt
her crowd closer, her hard, yet feminine, form nudging him one way and then the other while they moved with care toward their objective.
April put her arm out to stop him. “This is where it might get tricky,” she whispered. “Hope they haven’t changed the codes.”
Clark could see nothing, but felt her movements, while she obviously manipulated something upon the rocky surface. He heard a mechanized sound, something droning to a stop.
“Come on,” April said, hooking her arm through the crook of his and tugging at him to step forward.
They walked a few feet forward, and she again manipulated the wall in front of them. The wall slid apart and subdued light presented a long hallway that seemed to disappear in perspective.
“There are no cameras or sound or movement sensors in this part of the complex. We should be okay.” She tugged at him, her long legs beginning a quick walk down the hallway.
“What happens if we get caught?” Clark’s question was lighthearted, but he was only half joking.
“Boiled in oil,” she said in a deadpan tone. “If we’re lucky.”
He thought that surely, she was joking. At least he hoped she was joking…
“You’re not afraid, are you?” She glanced into his eyes while they walked, her arm locked within his.
“Yes, I am, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, don’t be. I’m quite a talker, when caught red-handed. Always have been.”
“I’m counting on that,” he said, her wit assuaging his concern to a degree.
Still, questions kept nagging at his thoughts. Why could they get this far into a top-secret complex without encountering even one security guard? And, no cameras, no sensors? Why not? She had said it was the innermost perimeter. Then, why was he, himself, not more carefully scrutinized upon entering the complex? He had not undergone any security clearances that he knew about. He wanted to ask but wouldn’t.