The three of us see it at the same time. Aileen screams. Dirk’s radio goes to his face and he yells, “Behind you, Lester,”
There’s a flash of dirty white and Lester disappears under seven hundred pounds of Bengal tiger. “Oh, God,” Aileen says. Otherwise the room is dead silent. And then, as though Lester is no more than a big rag doll, the Bengal carries him off into her jungle. The only other movement we see on the screen is the forklift driver jumping off his machine and running toward the exit and out of camera view.
Dirk sits back down in his chair. “Jesus!” he says to the radio resting in his lap. “What the hell is going on around here?”
Chapter 20
Ulla is in the boardroom offering to make everyone sandwiches. There are no takers. In addition to Aileen and me, there are Henri, Zitnik, Merwin, and Dirk, the security officer. Henri walks back from the bar with something for him and Zitnik. Aileen, Merwin and I have coffee and Dirk is sipping on a bottle of water.
“Do you have a beer?” Dirk says.
Ulla goes to the bar and returns with a dark bottle of something.
“Thanks,” he twists the top off. “I probably shouldn’t, but shit anyway.” He takes a swig and then makes a face and looks at the bottle. “Hefeweizen! This ain’t even American.” He takes another swig.
“I’m going to make sandwiches anyway.” Ulla goes into the kitchen.
The dark bottle looks good. I go over to the bar and find one of my own. I like German beers. I twist the cap off just as the phone rings. Henri snaps it up.
“This is Henri.” He listens for a second. “Yeah. We’ve got another problem. Another attack. Lester is dead.”
I take a couple gulps of the beer.
“No, not Duchess. They were taking her out as you ordered when Pasha attacked. They’ve become unpredictable. Pasha and Ivana abandoned a fresh pig kill to stalk him. Lester managed to put Ivana down before being surprised by Pasha.”
I stare out at the still melting landscape. It’s not so pretty anymore. Brown and muddy. When I finish the beer, Henri finishes his call.
“They’ll be back in two days,” he says to the room.
“Is Wolf coming back?” Aileen asks.
“He didn’t say. He did say to lock them down. No one goes in, not even to feed them, until they return.”
“That shouldn’t be any problem,” says Aileen. “We just finished feeding them today. Four pigs and a cow.”
“And Lester.” Dirk starts his second beer. The rest of us consider his comment
Aileen stands. “I’m going home. I can’t sit here and be morose with all of you. I can do that by myself in my apartment.” She gives me a look which says, I’ll be by tonight. Keep the bed warm, and then is gone.
I turn back to the window and the muddy world.
“Not bad beer for being foreign,” Dirk says. “Kina grows on you.” He empties the bottle and leaves it on the table next to the first. “Think I ought to go down and see how Bruce is doing.”
Zitnik empties his glass and leaves on Dirk’s heel. Henri follows the same way about two minutes later. All that’s left are Merwin and me, and Ulla in the kitchen spreading mustard on bread. The silence hangs on for some time and then Merwin says, “Let’s get out’a this room and go for a walk.”
My senses say he means go for a talk. We go. I wonder if Ulla knows everybody is gone yet. We take the stairs down to the main floor and then go out into the vestibule. Merwin opens the door to the outside. I stop. “We’ll get locked out.”
“I have the code to get back in,” he says.
“It’s cold out there and I don’t have a coat.”
“It’s in the fifties. You don’t need a coat.”
He lets the door close behind him. I hesitate another moment and then join him.
It’s warmer than I thought it would be. We’re facing south and the sun is glaring down onto the entrance area. The sidewalk is clear down to the small parking lot. I poke my hands into my pockets and enjoy the sun. “There’s no chance the cats can get in here, is there?”
“No. Not over these fences.”
“Why did they do it this way? The only way in and out is by air.”
Merwin shrugs. “Company secrets. They can’t get to it if they can’t get in.”
“What’s to keep anyone from taking anything out?” I say. “That’s how most industrial secrets get compromised. Someone on the inside gets an offer from a competitor that’s hard to refuse, or they want to branch away and start their own operation.”
“You haven’t tried leaving yet. Because everybody has to go by helicopter there is ample opportunity to inspect their person and luggage. They control who comes in and what goes out.”
“People can still take out knowledge.”
“True. But it’s hard to recreate what we have done just off the top of our heads.”
“There are other ways of getting information out,” I say.
“Our computers are on the network servers. You haven’t met our network administrator yet. He’s been in Chicago since just before you arrived. He’s a bear. He tracks everyplace we go on the Internet, who we send e-mail to and every keystroke we make. There is no sending information out. Victor Vandermill has tight control, and for good reason I must say.”
I choose not to mention my phone connection to the outside world which bypasses the network server.
“I really don’t think the compromising of our secrets is a pending problem. We’re all loyal in that regard. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I don’t like all this death, Zach.”
“What’s to like?”
“Something is going wrong, or someone is going wrong.”
“I can see how someone could have killed Doctor McCully,” I say. “You’ve convinced me of that, but I saw with my own eyes that there was no human involved in the other two. It’s all coincidental. No relation to each other.”
“You’re a reporter. Why aren’t you digging for the truth?”
“What truth? There’s only Victor’s artificial sabre-tooth jaw. Your explanation sounded good at the time, but right now, it seems rather contrived.” Contrived, hell! I thoroughly believe that Victor will want to see me as dead as Doctor McCully as soon as he becomes aware of how close Aileen and I have become. There’s some other issue that Merwin is driving at and I hope to force him to come out with it. My hunch is that it has something to do with human cloning or vital organ cloning or whatever the hell it is that is going on. I believe that is the real mission of Sans Sanssabre, and the sabre-toothed cat is a cover. A damn good cover I have to admit.
“Contrived! Are you blind, man? I think even the obvious animal attacks were set up. I have no idea how, but I’m sure they were.”
“Why? Show me the motive.”
“I don’t know,” he says and turns to face the sun.
“Actually you do know, Merwin. Or you at least have a good suspicion. There’s more to this company than sabre-toothed cats, isn’t there?”
No denial.
“Whatever it is, it has to do with the deaths. You want me to find it and expose it. You want me to do what you don’t have the balls to do. Here is a reporter; let’s throw him out there and see what he digs up before he gets his head bitten off, literally.”
Still no denial.
And then something else occurs to me. “Wait a minute! There’s a contradiction here. I was thinking that the recovery of the sabre-tooth from extinction was a cover for something else, yet when the sheriff was here for Thomas’ death Lance told him that Sans Sanssabre was researching the cloning of vital organs for transplants. They covered up the sabre-tooth thing. What is the true mission, Merwin? What’s covering what?”
He stares out at the trees, his hands behind his back.
“Thanks to Zitnik I know that there’s a subbasement, where the vault is that holds the original sabre-toothed cat in the obsidian. I noticed that the elevator that goes down there actually opens in two directi
ons. One way goes into the vault. The other goes under the remainder of the building. Another cipher lock code is required to gain entrance. What is in that part of the subbasement?”
Merwin still says nothing which is starting to piss me off.
“Do you know that there are more than microphones in our apartments, Merwin? There are two cameras in mine. One is in my bedroom. Are there cameras in yours?”
He looks at me. “Are you sure?”
“I have a source who confirms it. I’ve also been in the room where the monitors for the cameras are. I spotted a couple apartments that look nothing like what we live in. Dirk was quick to shut those monitors off when I entered the space, so I didn’t see much more. What else do they monitor? What or who is down there?”
He still says nothing.
“What didn’t security want me to see? Who has access to that area?”
He takes a deep breath and lets out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Zitnik does. Victor of course, Lance, some of the security people. I don’t know who else.”
“Ms. Bravelli?” I ask.
“I don’t know. There are other people who come and go. They fly in, visit and then fly out.”
“Did Doctor McCully have access?”
“I think so. Can’t be sure.”
“How about Ms. Strong?”
“Don’t know.”
“Thomas or Wolf?”
“I don’t think so. They were here strictly to take care of the animals.”
“What do you think is going on down there?”
He changes the subject. “I didn’t know about the cameras in the apartments. I don’t like that.”
I describe to him what to look for and about the towel I hang over the one in the bedroom. I don’t tell him about my late-night visitor who showed me how to do it.
“I don’t think I’m needed here anymore,” he says. “I can’t live like this. It’s time to return to Australia.”
“I can’t disagree,” I say. “You’ve accomplished what you came here for anyway, right?”
“Yep. Don’t know if I’ll ever see any credit for it, though. Don’t even know if I want credit if it connects me to this company.”
“Can you carry the procedure in your head and apply it to the Tasmanian tiger?”
“If there was a specimen like the one we have of the sabre-tooth, I think I could make it happen. We got very lucky with this. May never be able to repeat it though. Zitnik thinks we can do it with anything, even an old dried up Tyrannosaurus rex bone.”
“What would host it?”
“Now that is a good question. We are talking an egg here. A big egg.”
We both laugh.
“It’s impossible though. Zitnik is crazy.”
I’m starting to get chilled. “I need to get back in,” I say, shivering. “It may not be cold to you, but it certainly is to me.” We turn to the door. “Can I have the code?”
“No reason why not. It’s SABRE96.”
We enter and go our own ways.
I spend the remainder of the day keying in my journal, both the uncensored version and the one for the eyes of company officials. I burn the uncensored version to the CD and hide the file deep within Windows. By the time I’m done the sun is gone.
My mind is worn out, and I’m hungry.
I throw together another of my hot dog and macaroni and cheese specials, grab a beer and eat with the lights off, staring into the darkness beyond the picture window. I imagine moving shadows and shapes in the no-man land between the fences. It’s very dark. No stars. No moon. With the setting sun must have come a blanket of clouds.
I think about Tanya and wonder if Rebecca has spotted the icon on her web page yet. Maybe I was jumping the gun putting it there. Maybe I should remove it. It’d do nothing more for Tanya than set off false alarms. I told her not to read the zj.doc file unless something happens to me. Do I really believe she’ll abide by that? If it were reversed I’d be in that file in a flash.
I carry the empty bowl to the sink, get another beer and return to my vigil on the darkness.
I miss Tanya. I miss my girls. I miss the heat of Texas days and warm Texas nights. Will I be able to find another job as a copywriter; as anything? I don’t know much of anything else. Why did I go to Seattle to begin with? What was there that I couldn’t find in Dallas? What kind of crazy thoughts did I have in my head?
The beer feels good. I set the bottle aside, push back in the chair and enjoy the warmth of the alcohol spreading to my extremities. Then there are dark shadows chasing me in the woods which turn into to halls where there are doors, but all the doors have cipher locks and I don’t know the codes to get away from the shadows.
And then there is a long darkness.
I awake to the moon and immediately understand three things. Much time has passed, the cloud cover is gone and . . .
. . . I am not alone.
In the reflection off the dark window I see the door to my apartment closing. I expect to see the reflection of Aileen’s white nightgown; instead I see nothing. She must have been so quick I missed her and she is already into the bedroom. I pull the chair upright and swivel around, ready to follow after her, maybe sneak up behind her. I visualize sliding my hands around her, cupping her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightgown and nibbling on an ear lobe. The thought sends a stab of guilt up my spine and a hot rush through my groin, both of which are instantly stopped by a dark form doing something at my desk.
It’s not Aileen.
I remain frozen.
A small light comes on but I cannot see the face. It’s a man, I’m sure. The light goes off and the figure moves across the room to the kitchen. He doesn’t look my way. Of course he wouldn’t. I’m supposed to be in bed.
The form disappears either because it’s darker in there being less accessible to the moonlight, or because the figure has dropped below the counter level. I sense he is getting into the cupboard where I keep my cereal and the secret CD. The package rattles. How does he know? What should I do? Let him have it and pretend as though I don’t know I’ve been violated? Without the password they can’t get to it anyway, but the fact that they know it exists worries me. Will my computer be next? Will I be next?
The paper rattling stops and then the mouse trap, the single one that Ulla left behind, snaps.
“Hot Damn!” a female voice exclaims just loud enough that I could hear it.
Suddenly the figure is on her feet and in a matter of a few seconds is out the door.
I sit for a long time staring at the outline of the door in the dark, calculating how many ways I’ve been made a fool of, how many ways I’ve been used. I don’t leave my chair. Instead I turn back to the moonscape outside my window and allow my anger to morph into depression. Merwin is right. Go back to Australia. Go back to Texas. What am I doing here? I should leave tomorrow, before Lance and Victor return. Tell Spriggs, or whatever pilot is standing by, to take me to the airport. I didn’t sign on to get involved in cloak and dagger, especially when the daggers are Bengal tigers and sabre-toothed cats who like to jump on people’s backs. I don’t like being watched all the time, having to think about my every move and every word.
And now they’re taking my property. But I’ve got it all on the laptop and part of it has been sent to a place they can’t get to. Before tomorrow I need to send it again in case they decide to wipe out my hard drive or confiscate the entire computer. I should send all my writing files and back them up onto CD again.
I look at my watch. It’s 1:59. I’ll wait a couple minutes and then take the laptop over to the boardroom and do it. I’ll even delete the zj.doc file after that so there is nothing for them to find.
At 2:02 I start to get up. The door opens and Aileen’s robed figure slips in. She goes straight into my bedroom. I blink a couple of times and try to understand what is happening.
Of course! She still has to play the game. “Sure! Let’s collaborate,” she’d said. Of course she’d w
ant to collaborate; another way to keep an eye on me and keep track of what I’m writing, what I’m researching. Now she thinks she has my journal as well. To whom did she pass it so it can be analyzed while she occupies me in my bed?
Two can play this game.
I rise from my chair and enter the bedroom behind her. She is standing in the mist of her robe bunched at her feet, looking at my undisturbed bed. I slide my hands around her and cup her breasts through the nightgown. She starts and then relaxes against me.
“Hm!”
I nibble on her earlobe.
“Are you sure?” she says.
“I’m sure,” My tongue probes her ear.
In the game she’s playing I expect she’ll back off now. Her assignment, I’m sure, is not to have sex with me, but to keep me on the edge. After all, if she is in fact Victor’s lover he would not want her to go all the way. Her fragrance is a little stronger and my want for her much more so. I have no desire to control it, actually have the urge to force myself onto her, into her, whether she wants it or not. I run a hand down her belly until I feel the curls of hair through the thin fabric. I press and probe. She grabs my wrists and pushes my arms away.
Moment of truth. She’s realizing this has gone too far.
She steps away and turns around. I pause for the words I expect, preparing to force myself against her and press her onto the bed. I wonder if she has placed the towel over the camera. Since she is working for them, I don’t give a shit. They can watch her get screwed.
Instead of attempting to put me off, she lets the nightgown slip to the floor, steps up to me and begins unbuttoning my shirt. I press my mouth against hers and begin playing tag with her tongue. A voice deep in the back of my mind screams, “NO!”, but it’s as though it is being yelled through a mouthful of cotton. I ignore it. Since she both deserves it and wants it, who am I to deny it of her?
The shirt is off and she’s on to my belt and before long we are horizontal and all over each other. Then I am in her and driving with no control. My anger pushes to a fast release; her fingernails dig into my back. She doesn’t let me stop when I am done, but keeps on rocking her hips, holding on to the peak until she finally goes over the edge. If she could I think she would scream. She spirals down and her body goes limp.
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 17