Madman's Monster

  Unable to control his patience any longer, Whelan walked to the phone in the lab and pressed a button that should link him directly to Timberland's tent. When Timberland didn't answer, Whelan threw the phone against the concrete floor, smashing it to pieces. He stormed out of the lab and walked through the corridors until he found and ascended the stairs, reaching the boiler room, which had to be shut down for the time being, and then made his way outside the building. The night was cloyingly humid, and Whelan felt perspiration condensing on his brow the instant he left the refrigerated air of the lab. He walked toward the huge tent that Timberland's mercenaries shared.

  There was no way for Timberland to have known that Whelan was headed his way, but just before the doctor, arrived Timberland stepped from the door of the tent to face him. Whelan had stopped short at the sight of the man who stood wearing only the bandages covering a minimum of his physical body. Timberland's hair was matted with what was probably perspiration and his skin was filthy, giving his body look of dark and light patches on what Whelan knew to be his otherwise totally pale skin. He stood hunched over slightly, but whether that was due to injury or some current battle induced ferocity infecting the man's state of mind, couldn't be ascertained.

  "You shouldn't be here right now," Timberland was growling more than talking and began shifting restlessly as he peered into Whelan’s face.

  "You were supposed to check in with me as soon as you returned," Whelan put as much authority into his voice as he could, which normally wasn't an issue for him, but for the first time since signing on with Timberland he felt perhaps, now wasn't the time to push the issue.

  "We weren't able to retrieve your pet."

  "I assumed as much as you're back and the holding chamber is empty," Whelan conceded, "But what happened out there? Did you at least manage to find him?"

  Another low growl rumbled inside Timberland's throat, "We did."

  Something moved in the shadows behind the door to the tent. It appeared to be one of Timberland's crew, whose skin reflected momentarily in the moonlight as he, or she, passed through the minimal illumination let in by the open door.

  Timberland noticed as Whelan looked inside, and wordlessly growled into the open door. Whelan thought that whatever the man had uttered, sounded very much like the deep basso bark of a big dog.

  A growl came out of the tent and Timberland's eyes went up in surprise and anger. He immediately turned his back on Whelan and faced the open doorway, apparently daring anyone inside to step forward. Whelan resisted the urge to run because every instinct his mind and body had told him that he did not want to see what would happen if Timberland had to clash with whoever was lurking just out of sight.

  The low growling sound from inside the tent began to decrease in volume, as whoever was making it seemed to move away from the door and back into the interior of the tent.

  "What are you people doing in there?" Whelan heard himself say although he really hadn't intended to say it out loud.

  Timberland slowly turned back to Whelan keeping his eyes on the door until the last possible moment.

  "Call it...family squabbling." Timberland said cryptically.

  Whelan looked from Timberland to the tent and back. Was it possible that all of the people in Timberland's crew were related to him? Whelan shook that thought away. It really didn't matter. What mattered was whatever information he could get out of Timberland, while he had his attention.

  "So, what did you learn?" Whelan asked again, this time in a quieter voice.

  "Your little pet project had the support of the village and some unknown outside reinforcements as well. Three of my people are dead as a result."

  Whelan scratched his head, "What outside reinforcement?"

  "Can't say, but at least one of them was a professional, probably military or ex-military."

  Whelan shook his head as the words registered, "I thought those Khmer Rouge thugs, whose bodies you retrieved earlier, took care of the new CIA Spook."

  "They did, but that doesn't mean he didn't have back up."

  "Would that be normal for a spy?" Whelan asked.

  Timberland shook his head, "Not normal, but given what happened to their last operative, they might have been issued partners, or a team of emergency personnel just in case of another loss of communication."

  "Do you think that's what happened?"

  Timberland was pacing again and was clearly getting more and more agitated the longer he stayed outside the tent, "No. I think these were the people who were with the spook when the Rouge hit the house, but I don't think they were at the house in any official capacity."

  "Why?"

  "The way they killed that one Rouge. It was primal, angry and not professional. I fought one of them as we retreated, and he wasn't military."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No."

  Whelan shook his head in amazement, "And how is that possible? You and your team were supposed to be the best."

  Timberland didn't seem as though he wanted to answer, or maybe it was more that he didn't want the rest of his crew to hear what he was about to say, because he moved closer to Whelan and whispered, "Something...was different about the man."

  Whelan frowned, "How so?"

  Timberland shook his head, "He was strong...way too strong for his size."

  "Like you and your...team?" Whelan volunteered.

  "No, it was...it was more than that. He had training. Extensive training from the skills I saw. But they weren't military, or like any martial art I've ever seen."

  Whelan was growing impatient. He wanted to know about his subject and not about how this fool let his opponent get the better of him.

  "Ever seen anything like it before?"

  Timberland had been staring at the ground and his head propped up at the question, "Yes, in fact I have. Your experimental freak fought in a very similar manner."

  Whelan watched Timberland's face as he spoke, and a chill of apprehension found its way into the hair on the back of his neck.

  Timberland either didn't notice or didn't care and he continued, "Your monster was bigger and stronger, of course, but there's no question that they fought in a very similar fashion. That mean anything to you?"

  Dr. Whelan's eyes darted back and forth across the ground as he played possible scenarios out in his head.

  "Did you see anyone else who wasn't part of the village? Anyone who may have looked very out of place?"

  "Sure."

  "Was he also a tall man? White hair, white skin, maybe dressed all in black?"

  "No, he looked like a regular grunt, although probably special forces if I had to guess."

  Whelan let out a breath he had been holding, "Any others?"

  Timberland thought back to the village, "Maybe. After that freak of yours tossed one of my people to the ground, a woman jumped her."

  Whelan froze, "A woman?"

  "Initially, I had thought she was one of the villagers, because she had Asian features, but after realizing what she was wearing, along with the positive way she jumped into the fight, I'm pretty sure she was part of the group that hit us."

  A mental image of the makeshift operating theater back in Los Angeles, and the naked body of a woman who had been tied to the gurney began to play through Whelan's mind. He remembered using his scalpel to slice into the woman's abdomen as she lay beneath him. Remembered how she didn't even flinch as he cut her and, later, how he had watched in a rear view mirror as she had killed the man who was his head of security, by ripping his throat out with her teeth.

  Timberland frowned, "I see you do know her?"

  All the blood had drained out of Whelan's face, "We've run out of time. We need to get the subject back now!" Whelan started to walk backward toward the lab, "Forget the village! Get back to town and check the hotels, the tourist shops, whatever. Do whatever it takes to find out where they are and get my subject back!"

  Timberland frowned, "What are you expecting?"

  "Not what," t
he doctor turned to run, "Who!"

  Chapter 39

  Alpha didn't go to the restaurant with me after our lengthy discussion. He said he needed some time to be alone, I wasn't sure why, but I suspected that it might have something to do with the way he reacted when I had told him about Zach. I couldn't take the time to figure out what Alpha was thinking because the threat to our people by Dr. Whelan, who was still out there, was of major importance. If the man had any kind of self-preservation or even common sense, then he was certainly beefing up the security around him, along with preparing whatever he was concocting in that lab of his to use against us.

  As I walked the street back to the restaurant I resisted the temptation to call Dimitri in search of answers. The man may have been our employer, but I certainly didn't trust the sadistic SOB. I needed to get a straight story about what was going on and what his real interest in Zach was all about? Why was he so important to whatever Dimitri had planned? As far as I knew, or had ever heard, Dimitri Lagos and his followers basically liked to be the "things that went bump in the night." I suppose that someone like Zach would add to the fear factor in whatever arena that he might be plotting in, but what it was I had no idea.

  I tried to piece other parts of the puzzle together from what I already knew. Whelan was here in Thailand and working on some kind of project that Dimitri had perhaps been a part of, but Whelan betrayed him, and now both men wanted Zach because…what? How was Zack a key part to their plans.

  My head started to ache, and as I rubbed my eyes, a thought occurred to me. Larson's friend Rogers had said, before the gunfight, that the CIA had placed him in Thailand because of information they had received about a terrorist group that had secured a cache of bacteriological and virulogical agents with the intention of creating dirty bombs. Would it be a coincidence that Whelan was in the same area? Not a chance, but how did Dimitri and his plans fit into that? Biologically dirty bombs, due to our body’s inherent immunity to all things bacterial or viral, would have no effect on Dimitri and his followers, so it posed no threat. Could Whelan be trying to reproduce that effect in normal human beings? Is that why he had done all those things to Zach? Is that why he had gone way beyond the simple act of torturing the poor guy and instead drove him to the point of madness?

  I just didn't know and it was more than a bit embarrassing. Some great detective I was proving to be.

  I walked up to the restaurant and pushed past the hostess who wai’d me graciously, but as she recognized where I was headed, she made every effort to pretend she had never seen me.

  I passed through the dining area and into the kitchen where a collection of young chefs were prepping the evening’s ingredients. None of the chefs looked up from their large Chinese style cleavers, probably more as a result of the rapid and precise chops and slices they were executing on a variety of cutting boards, as opposed to being concerned about my privacy. I have to admit the smells coming from the kitchen were wonderful and fragrant with the cilantro, lime and garlic overwhelming anything else trying to share the air.

  It really was a perfect cover for the makeshift hospital that had been converted from a massive walk in refrigerator in the far corner of the room. I had asked how the restaurant could afford to lose such a giant appliance and was told that, due to the frequency of power outages in the city the refrigerator became unreliable. Most of the restaurant ran on propane including the lights, which were hooked up to a propane fueled generator. In the end, the removal of the walk in was too costly to be worth doing, and when the owners were approached by some crazy Farang who wanted the space inside the box, they jumped at the outrageous rent he was offering.

  Larson had filled in the rest of the details about the Farang, who was a CIA field agent, looking to set up a place where his operatives could get some emergency care, as well as take an occasional ‘interested’ party to a quiet place for...questioning.

  I saw Larson first. The man was all smiles as he was asking a shirtless Rogers questions, while Chris made like a doctor, re-inspecting the work that had been done on Rogers.

  Lei was standing on the far side of the box, and brought a finger to her lips telling me to keep quiet.

  "...you really look like shit Pat," Larson sounded like he was playfully chiding Rogers."

  Pat smiled as he lifted his arms for Chris to check the stitches as they wound around his shoulder from the back. Then Chris noticed me, and looked up from what he was doing.

  "Hey," Chris nodded to me and immediately returned to his work.

  "Hey," I said back with equal nonchalance. I knew Chris well enough to know that when he was completely enthralled by his work trying to interrupt was fruitless. It was so surreal to see my friend working, much less walking and talking, as I recognized those little personality traits my friend owned, and that I had been convinced I would never see again.

  Larson turned to me and his smile never left his face as he excused himself and walked over to where I was standing.

  He held out his hand to me and said, "Listen, I never got around to thanking you for helping me find Zach."

  I took his hand and shook it but couldn't keep the inquisitive frown off of my face, "No problem. It's been a crazy few days."

  Larson's smile faded, "Yeah, it has, hasn't it?"

  "How's Rogers doing?"

  Larson turned to where Rogers was sitting up on the makeshift cot, submitting to whatever examination Chris was currently performing.

  "He seems okay. Lost some blood, but in the end just needed to be stitched back together. Nothing broken or otherwise damaged, lucky bastard."

  "How's his head?" I asked in a very serious tone.

  Larson looked at me, "His head? He only had a shoulder wound."

  "Not what I meant," I said cryptically, but Larson read the meaning behind my words.

  "He's not happy on several levels. Being shot is bad enough, but being shot as a result of something that wasn't what you had signed on for in the first place… well, that makes it a bit worse."

  I nodded, "I don't suppose you could convince him that it was more about finding Zach as opposed to helping Lei and myself?"

  Larson smiled, but there was no humor in it, "I tried. Sure, he's happy as hell we found Zach alive, but..."

  "But?"

  Larson let out a deep sigh, "Rogers isn't the same man I served with when we were part of a team all those years ago. He's changed, you know? Grown as a person and as a soldier, and he has moved on with his life and career. I'm the one trying to hold on to what I used to have, as opposed to moving on, because probably there just isn't any moving on for me."

  I shrugged, "I don't know about all that, but I meant that I get the distinct impression that we aren't real popular with him on any level."

  Larson raised his eyebrows, "You think? After what went down first at the house when Lei ripped that Rouge gunman apart and..." Larson was growing angry and he took a second to lower his voice so the others wouldn't be alarmed.

  "And now the whole city is talking about the state they found the Madame and her bodyguard? Yeah, I'd say there was good reason."

  "They've been found already?" I hadn't expected what Lei and I had done at the nightclub to be discovered so quickly.

  "You mean, what's left of them."

  I answered defensively before I could stop myself, "They deserved what they got and more. Is that going to be a big problem for you?"

  Larson grew impatient, but kept his voice at a low volume, "I saw what your girl did at Rogers place. To that Khmer Rouge gunman and as far as I'm concerned, dead is dead. I don't care what it looks like, or how it's done, but what happens afterward is another story. Seems to me there was something far darker at work and that worries me, if in no other way, then on a strictly professional level."

  "So we're off Rogers' Christmas list...what about you?" I asked.

  Larson looked directly at me, "What about me?"

  "Are you still on board? If not, then now's the time to say so."r />
  Larson stepped his feet back as if getting ready for me to attack him, "Is that so?"

  I crossed my arms in front of me, "Yep. This is where we can part as friends, even if we can't work together anymore. But I do need to know that you're all in. One hundred percent in, or nothing."

  Larson eased off on his defensive posture and turned to look at Rogers, who now had a blood pressure cuff cinched around his arm, but for some reason Chris was pressing the receiver of the stethoscope to Rogers' forehead instead of the crook in his elbow beneath the cuff.

  He turned back to me, "Your friend Chris, he does know what he's doing right?"

  I turned and saw the spectacle that Chris was creating and chuckled, "Yeah, he's legit, but he also goes for the cheap laugh whenever he can get it."

  Larson watched as Rogers' eyes and his whole expression turned from wary and confused into almost jovial, as Chris finally managed to coax a smile from his patient.

  "Zach's still out there," Larson volunteered. "That means we're not done here. If Zach wants to finish this, which he apparently does, then I'm with you," giving me a very serious look, "one hundred percent."

  I nodded, "Good."

  I approved of the lengths that Larson was willing to go to in order to protect and defend his friend. That kind of friendship was rare indeed.

  I looked at Chris as he wrote something on a post-it note pad while he told Rogers, "Make sure the doctor reads and follows these instructions." He then peeled the single sheet off of the pad and stuck the adhesive part to Rogers' forehead, before quickly turning and walking away without another word.

  I looked back to see Rogers smiling but looking confused by the paper attached to his head and I had to squint my eyes to read what Chris had written before Rogers could peel it off.

  The note simply said "I love enemas."

  Chris walked up to me, "I'm going to see if this joint actually serves food," then he grumbled under his breath, "although I doubt fajitas are on the menu. Anyway, want to come?"