"Yep."
Chris sighed, "Do any of you people even know someone besides me who is under six feet tall?"
Lei frowned, "What?"
"I mean, seriously! When this whole little adventure started between me and Steve, the first thing that happened was I ran into Alpha, who happens to be a damn giant in his own right. Now here I am, face to face with the missing link and, from what I can tell, I ain't never going to look him eye to eye."
Zach turned his head to concentrate on Chris who was becoming more and more animated as he spoke.
Lei was gesturing with her hands for Chris to tone it down, but he either didn't notice or he ignored her outright.
"Best I can hope to do with this guy is stare eye to tits with him. I mean, how is anyone going to take me seriously as a bad ass if I'm staring at them eye-to-tits?"
"Chris."
Chris turned casually to Lei as he continued, "Oh sure, I know that works for you..."
"Chris!"
"...two of your biggest assets..."
"Chris!"
Chris stopped talking and looked up from Lei's chest to her face, "...What?"
Lei frowned, "That whole little tirade was just so you could gawk at my boobs, wasn't it?"
Chris' face instantly look indignant and he seemed as though he was going to protest, but then he pressed his lips together, "...Um, well...I mean...maybe."
Lei shook her head, "Chris, if we get through this alive I'll give you a damn lap dance if you'll just shut the hell up right now."
Chris' eyes went wide and he made a gesture of locking his lips closed with an imaginary key and then tossing it away.
Lei stepped forward toward Zach, "Do you remember me?"
Zach didn’t say anything, but he did nod his head.
"Then you know we're not the enemy here, right?"
One of the villagers said something that sounded urgent in whatever Thai dialect they spoke. Lei practically jumped out of her skin when Zach responded fluently in return.
The villager looked from Zach to Lei, his face softening and then he looked at Chris and frowned before spitting on the ground.
"Hey! I get that!" Chris pointed his finger at the man, "that means the same thing in every language!"
"He can speak now?!" Lei said out loud to no one in particular, then she looked at Zach, "You can speak now?!"
Zach removed the sunglasses from his face and his eyes had lost the majority of their red coloration leaving only a slight pink tinged coloration that appeared very similar to someone who had been swimming in a chlorinated pool for too long.
"San!" Zach called out, and a small boy, maybe eleven years old, walked around the adults and hid behind one of Zach's legs. Zach said some words in a very calm tone and the boy appeared to relax, then Zach flicked his head at Lei and the boy stepped forward.
The boy's voice was high, evidence of him not yet having gone through puberty, but he carried himself as well as any professional translator when he said, "Pha's father would like to know if you saw what happened at the village."
"Uh oh," Chris mumbled under his breath, but Zach heard him and swiveled his head in Chris' direction. He studied Chris a moment and then his shoulders dropped as he let out a sigh and turned back to Lei.
Lei nodded, "Yes, it's as bad as you think. I don't believe anyone can return to that village for now, maybe ever."
The boy started to tremble as Lei spoke and when he translated the words his voice broke and tears began to fall from his eyes. He was tough and didn't break down and cry outright, but the profound effect that the loss of his home had on him was evident. Some of the other men with rifles wiped at their eyes, but otherwise maintained their composure, as Zach softly laid a large hand on the boy's shoulder before asking something else.
The boy nodded and wiped the tears from his face before asking, "Pha's father asks if grandmother escaped?"
Lei bowed her head and then shook it slowly from side to side. Now the boy did start crying and Zach knelt and quickly pulled him to his chest. The boy ignored the mud that had caked on Zach's skin and bawled. Zach held him with arms that nearly encompassed the entirety of the boy's body until one of the adults tapped the big man on his shoulder. Zach looked up and nodded then gently pulled the boy off of him and led him into the arms of another man who quickly picked him up and carried the boy back into the jungle.
Zach stood and watched them go as they disappeared into the jungle, then he turned to Lei and held out his hands and shrugged his shoulders.
"What?" Lei asked, "I don't understand."
Zach repeated the gesture and then pointed to the rifle Lei carried.
"Oh, you're asking what are we going to do now?"
Chris chimed in, "That's the sixty-four dollar question isn't it?"
Lei asked, "Can you lead us back to the camp where they held you?"
Zach clearly didn't understand her words and only frowned in confusion as she spoke. Lei kicked herself for letting them take the child away before she could get all the information she needed.
"Oh this is just perfect!" Chris was stomping around clearly frustrated.
"Chris!" Lei scolded and would have said more but Chris interrupted her.
"No! I have had about enough of this confusion crap! He understands English, he's just psychologically scarred and can't make his mind work properly as a result." Chris moved toward Zach despite several of the villagers raising their rifles and pointing them in his direction. Chris ignored the rifles completely and stomped right up to Zach and stared straight into his chest while pointing an index finger at the giant as he spoke.
"Listen up Sasquatch, I don't like the jungle. I don't like bugs, or the wetness, or the humidity, or the dark, or the smell of anything else that is jungle. But here I am, walking around with an uncomfortable chaffing developing in my crotch and ready to possibly get killed by a bunch of hired guns bent of ruining the world in the name of money. What's more, there's this insane scientist who likes to tinker around with people's brains before he melts them into goo from his own recipe for biological terror."
The villagers all looked confused but Zach stood motionless as Chris continued his rant, "He's responsible for killing my friends," Chris pointed to Lei, "killing her family," then he waved his finger at the men of the village, "killing their family," and then Chris stood on his tip toes and looked up and into Zach's pinkish eyes, "and if I'm not mistaken, your family. So we need some neurons in that gigantic cranium of yours to fire straight and true again so the message gets through to you that it's time for some serious and permanent payback."
Chris lifted his rifle and thrust it sideways into Zach's chest. The big man didn't flinch at all and Chris rocked back slightly as the impact rebounded back up his arm and threw off his balance. Chris shook the rifle and Zach gently cradled it in his hands.
"Okay, right now the guy who is my best friend in the whole world is trying to find that damn camp on his own and I am not going to let him down by not having his back if he needs me. So either get your head in the game Frankenstein," Chris paused and pointed at the rifle and waited. When Zach didn't respond he ripped it back out of Zach's giant hands and cocked the levers readying it to fire, "Or get your useless carcass out of my way."
There was a moment of silence that followed. Lei watched as the men of the village looked at each other as if asking if they could shoot the crazy person amongst them while Chris kept his countenance stern and directed solely at Zach, who's expression was completely unreadable.
Then, ever so slowly, the big man smiled.
Chapter 52
As plans go mine apparently could have been thought through a bit more thoroughly. I remembered the ambush just outside the perimeter of the camp and then getting my ass kicked, but how I had arrived in the room I was now in was a mystery. I suppose I should have simply been grateful that I wasn't dead, but any joy I might have felt along those lines was tempered by the fact that my wrists, ankles, waist and throa
t were all entwined by what felt like rough leather straps. I tried to pull with my arms but even with my way above average strength I couldn't even feel the leather give, much less tear.
I looked around, and found myself in a room lit only by the ambient light coming from a computer screen and a collection of electronic monitoring equipment that appeared to be of medical design. The cold I felt on my body where it touched whatever I was strapped upon told me that it was made of metal. I rolled my eyes, when I realized that how widespread the cold felt, over the entirety of my body, could only mean that I had been stripped of my clothing. Taking away a prisoners clothing was by no means a new tactic. It left the prisoner with a sense of vulnerability and self-consciousness that weakened their will and resistance, but if they thought it was going to have that effect on me they were in for a surprise.
I lay there in the near dark for what seemed like an hour, before I heard an electronic beeping followed by the sound of someone turning the doorknob. The sound of footfalls on a concrete floor were now easy to make out, as what I guessed to be two people entered the room. They stopped by the computer and the monitors studying whatever readouts they were interested in, before turning to me. I couldn't make out their faces but the white lab coat that one person wore was clearly visible while the other was wearing something dark, but not the mercenary jumpsuit that I had been seeing so much of recently. This, I guessed, was more like a business suit.
Then a face appeared above me an instant before a flashlight burned my vision away.
"So what do we have here?" the voice was a deep, full basso tone that might only have been rivaled by the late Barry White. I didn't answer the question because, after all, I wasn't even sure it was directed at me.
The flashlight was moved away and orange moons remained and clouding my ability to see for another few moments as the voice asked again, "I said, what have we here?"
I coughed, cleared my throat and answered hoarsely, "Where am I?"
I heard a sigh and then a click that sounded very similar to a key on a keyboard being pushed. I was immediately followed by a jolt of pain that caused my whole body to arch up as I felt every muscle in my body spasm uncontrollably and it was as though my own strength might actually cause my back to arch beyond it's abilities and potentially snap my spine...and then it stopped. My body flopped back down onto what I could now tell was a kind of hospital gurney as the man in the lab coat manipulated a lever and caused the bed to tilt until I was positioned in a near upright attitude.
"That was to help you focus," the deep voice said, "Open your eyes please."
I hadn't even realized I had shut my eyes until the voice had told me so. I slowly opened them and could see that the light in the room had been turned up. I could see the two men standing in front of me, one was a stern looking man in a business suit so dark that it could have been black, but was probably a charcoal number of some sort. An all-black suit would be way too cliché, although suitable for the CIA agents. I can't explain how I knew that this man was part of the agency, I suppose it just felt right, but I was more interested in the other man, the one in the lab coat. That man was Dr. Phineas Whelan and was the man I had come here to kill.
My eyes went to slits, but my mouth smiled as I hissed, "Hello doctor Whelan."
The doctor's eyes went slightly wider in surprise, "Have we met?"
I nodded, "I know you."
The doctor stared at my face and then began to walk around the gurney, "Strange then, that I do not know you."
"Our paths didn't cross, but I am well aware of you and your 'work'."
"Really?" the doctor moved back to the front of the gurney to face me, "Any particular work that interested you?"
"I know most of it."
The doctor chuckled, "Oh, do you?" he then fished something out of his pocket, "Then you should know that the single CC of liquid in this vial will is enough to kill you should I drop it on the floor."
I just smiled.
The doctor's eyebrows rose in patronizing scrutiny, "You think I exaggerate?"
"No," I spoke calmly, "I just don't think you would risk you own life by dropping it."
The doctor nodded quickly, "That's true, and normally you would be absolutely right. But you see, Mr. Pollard and I have been vaccinated against the effects of the virus in this test tube. It's a little cocktail of my own creation that you haven't had the luxury of receiving."
I frowned. The doctor not only didn't know who I am, he also didn't know what I am. That left me wondering who he did think I was.
I decided to do a little fishing, "So what do I have to do to keep you from dropping that vial?"
The doctor's face immediately became cheerful, "Ah, so you are quick to grasp the parameters of your situation. That's good as I don't like wasting time."
The doctor gestured to the man he called "Mr. Pollard" who walked forward and peered down at me.
"Recognize him?" the doctor asked when Pollard had moved in close.
"No."
The one word was all he said, but it spoke volumes as I heard the Russian accent color the word.
The doctor frowned and looked back at me, "Is that possible?"
"I don't know everyone in the CIA, but I am familiar with the agents that are assigned in the field for this part of the world. I do not know who this man is, but I can tell you that he is not one of those agents."
I was hardly listening to the words and was instead concentrating on the accent. It was all going down exactly as we had predicted. The man must be part of the Russian government that Dimitri and his people were planning on going to war against. The doctor had betrayed Dimitri and sold the vaccine to Pollard and was not only going to provide the Russian government with a level playing field against Dimitri, but he was going to sell the biological weapon to them as well.
"So who is he?" the doctor sounded a little freaked out that there were things he didn't have answers for.
"Don't know," Pollard said calmly, "Why don't you ask him?"
The doctor looked surprised and then understood, "Oh right, right." He turned to me, "So, who are you?"
"I suppose you could call me the past that's come back to haunt you."
Yeah, that might have been hokey but I wanted to stall for time...Why? I'm not sure, but what else was I going to do?
"I see," then doctor said calmly and he moved his face very close to mine, "I think you need to focus."
He reached one long spindly arm out and touched a key on the keyboard. There was a static sound and a hum of what sounded like an electric generator before the pain shot through me again. I tried to fight it but I was screaming through clenched teeth mere seconds after the onslaught had begun. When the electricity ceased my body again dropped back to the metal gurney and only supported by the restraints, having been arched again and totally worn out by the full body muscle spasms, and I noticed that there was a slight smell of burned hair in the air as I panted for breath.
"Are you more focused now?" the doctor asked smugly, "I asked who you were."
I was still trying to catch my breath when I garbled my name, "S-Steve Ja..Jacobs."
The doctor smiled, "See how easy that was?" He turned to Pollard, "That name mean anything to you?"
He shook his head "no" but was already typing it in on his smart phone.
The doctor looked down to the small screen and squinted his eyes trying to make out what Pollard was looking up. It appeared as though he wasn't able to see anything because he appeared to give it up and turned back to me.
"So, are you CIA?"
I shook my head "no" as I fought to collect my breath.
"If you're not CIA..." the doctor thought for a moment then an idea struck him, "Did Dimitri Lagos send you?"
Pollard looked up from his Smart phone at the mention of Dimitri's name.
I didn't see any reason to lie and I definitely wanted to extend the time between shock treatments, "He told me where I could find you."
"So
you work for Dimitri."
"No."
"No?"
"I took his money," I turned my head and spat something vile tasting from my mouth, "But I'm not one of his people."
The doctor froze, "What do you mean 'one of his people'?"
I thought a little diversion might be well suited here, "Only that I am not one of his employees. He wanted your research and knew that I have been trying to find you."
"Trying to find me?" the doctor ran his fingers through his hair, "Why have you been trying to find me?"
I smiled, "I don't like you."
The doctor frowned and held up a finger, "Ah, ah, ah. You seem to be losing focus again."
I heard the panic in my voice more than I realized or felt it, "W-WAIT!"
The doctor ignored me and pushed the key on the keyboard. Again the pain shot through me, but this time I didn't have the strength to scream. The muscle spasms did force a strange moan from my throat and I felt a tooth crack as my teeth bit down harder and harder.
When the excruciating electrocution finally subsided the first thing I realized was that I was swallowing my own blood. I guessed that at some point I had bitten my tongue and it was all I could do to open my mouth to let the fluids dribble out."
When my hearing returned I could see that Pollard and the doctor were arguing.
"…Won't find out anything if you kill him."
"Don't tell me how to do..."
I opened my eyes and saw the doctor looking at me, wide eyed with all of the color drained from his face. Pollard obviously noticed the change in his colleague as well because he immediately quieted and glanced from the doctor to me and back to the doctor.
"What is it?" Pollard said with a note of impatience in his voice.
"His blood..."
I cursed myself for being a fool at having not swallowed my blood. The blood of my people is not quite the same shade of red as normal people. Due to our dysfunctional hemoglobin our blood appears more a translucent pinkish color as opposed to crimson or red, almost as if our blood had been over saturated with water. I looked down to the floor where my mouthful of blood had splattered and could clearly see the concrete floor through the transparent pink hue. I looked up to see the doctor staring at me as he started to back away from the gurney and computer bank.
Madman's Monster Page 32