“Yes, Doctor.”
Adler was leaning over the screen beside Tolvanos. “Switch to wide-screen observation,” Tolvanos muttered. “I want to see the entire cavern. Both the creature and the tank. And turn on the cavern’s auditory system. I want to hear this.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Instantly the monitor encompassed the entire containment cavern. The image was clear and horrific: At the far end of the cavern stood Leviathan, erect on hind legs. Its long, powerful forelegs were bent, clawed appendages held in front of its chest as if it were clutching prey for the venomous jaws. Then the cavern’s double-wide bay doors opened and the remote-controlled Abrams Ml-Al tank, over sixty tons of steel led by a devastating 105-millimeter cannon, entered the cave.
Jaws separating, Leviathan whirled to face it.
A god-roar, a shrill reptilian scream of unearthly rage and unearthly strength shook the entire cavern, dark and nightmarish. It was a wild, prehistoric howl that reached an unbearably high pitch before it descended into a threatening growl.
“Behold ...” Tolvanos whispered, staring. “Behold Leviathan! And remember the words of God himself: On earth, it has no equal.”
***
Frank entered the War Room in a sweat. He didn’t know what had happened but he knew that Chesterton was in charge again. Then he saw Connor and hesitated.
“Connor knows everything,” Chesterton growled, slamming a 50-round clip into an M-16. “He figured it out for himself and it’s a good thing because we might need him. Let’s go! We’ve got to stop this test!”
Together they moved down the hallway toward the Observation Room, and almost immediately they encountered a checkpoint guard of three nervous Rangers.
“Lock and load and shut down this corridor!” Chesterton shouted, terrifying in the full fury of his rank. “And I mean shut it down! Nobody goes anywhere! Nobody! Arrest Adler and that ghost-eyed Russian on sight! We’re going to the Observation Room.”
Connor followed Chesterton past the checkpoint and heard three rifles chambering, a startling series of practiced clicks, deadly serious. “What if they’ve already woke it up?” Chesterton called out to Frank. “What can we do to contain it?”
Frank didn’t answer and Chesterton half-turned as he ran. “I asked you a question, Frank! What do we do if they’ve started the tests?”
“I don’t know, Chesterton! I don’t think your people can stop it!”
“Well you better think of something, Doctor! Because we’re going to be at that Observation Room in less than three minutes, and we’re not going to have any time to mess around! When we go through that door, I’m taking charge over everybody and you’d better have a plan or we’re all gonna die!”
Connor jumped into the debate. “Why don’t we evacuate the entire cavern and shut the vault door at the entrance, Chesterton? That door is seven feet of solid steel and it’s got to slow this thing down a little! Then we’ll dynamite the elevator shaft and bury it alive!”
“Connor,” Chesterton shouted, “that’s the best idea I’ve heard yet!”
Thunderous, the tank advanced.
Leviathan stood, glaring, growling.
With a volcanic roar the beast lowered its dragon-head, and fire exploded from the fanged mouth in a blast that trembled the steel-plated Observation Room. Instantly the mushrooming flame impacted the tank’s reactive armor like cosmic lava, igniting the plates until the exterior exploded in ravaging shards that lanced the cavern with burning steel splinters and still Leviathan continued the flaming torrent.
A devastating internal detonation shredded the rear of the Abrams as the engine erupted. Fire spiraled out to claim three hundred feet of cavern, and for a moment there was only consuming flame, incandescent conflict, with Leviathan hovering on the edge of the white holocaust, screaming in rage, rising high on hind feet with clawed forelegs extended wide toward its foe, attacking with gaping fangs and claws.
Tolvanos shouted above the conflict raging over the speaker. “Is the tank’s cannon still locked on the creature?”
“Yes!” the controller responded. “The interior temperature of the tank is 250 degrees but the cannon is still locked on—”
“FIRE!”
The controller hit the command, and the tank’s 105-millimeter cannon discharged—a blinding white blast that encompassed Leviathan, bathing it, enveloping it at point-blank range—and the creature vanished in the inferno, lost in the smoke and fire and rage.
Thunder, rumbling, echoed over the speaker. Nothing could be seen in the cavern, flames quieting. “Where is the creature?” shouted Adler. “I ... I cannot see it. Is it dead? Has it ... has it been killed?”
Tolvanos stared intently at the screen, peering through the smoke. “We shall see, Mr. Adler. But... no. I do not think that the creature has been killed. Wounded, perhaps. But not killed.”
Slowly, from the other side of the cavern where granite had been crushed by the titanic impact, a dark reptilian shape staggered and rose to its feet, vengeful and wounded.
Enraged, the Dragon turned again to face its foe. With a scream its fangs parted to vomit a blazing plasma arc that poured over the superheated Abrams tank. In a deafening ball of flame, the tank disintegrated in a blinding, roaring white in the war-torn cavern. Shells exploded to scatter debris across the expansive floor and the mushrooming explosion filled the entire cavern, flooding over Leviathan in a molten sea-wave.
Leviathan defied it, shrieking.
Rage to rage, fire answered fire.
The Dragon continued to spew flame, standing, standing...
Then in a surreal white moment, Leviathan halted the plasmic deluge, flames passing over it, beyond it, fangs distending as it paused to inhale a single deep breath. For a split second the armor scales of its battered chest could be glimpsed, clearly dented and torn from the impact of the cannon. And although blood could not be seen against the black-green scales, the creature had obviously been wounded by the direct hit. Yet it was still standing, armor scales healing even as they watched.
“That cannon would have destroyed a bank vault,” Adler whispered. “The beast can survive anything!”
“Yes, Mr. Adler.” Tolvanos smiled, eyes wide as if mesmerized by the black-green Dragon. “Yes, Mr. Adler. Quite probably Leviathan can survive anything at all.” He hesitated a moment, glancing at the panel controller. “All right, I have seen enough. Lock down the video transmission for Stygian Enterprises. Our tests are now complete. And initiate nitrogen pheromones. Put the creature to sleep once more.”
The command was sent, and inside the cavern and within the wall nitrogen pheromones could be heard rushing through the pipes. But at the sound the Dragon turned, focusing fully on the observation camera with an unearthly, malevolent intelligence.
Glaring, blazing eyes vengeful beyond human belief locked on the viewing port to communicate a pure intent utterly blood-dark and hate-filled.
Then Leviathan bent forward ...
Shrieking.
***
Chesterton staggered a step as the walls trembled, and they understood together the source of the Shockwave. The Colonel straightened as if a demon loomed in his path.
“No!” he shouted.
Frank released a wild, remorse-filled protest, as if trying to pull back everything he had ever done in the cavern. Connor instantly picked up his speed, passing the scientist with five hard strides to pull alongside a charging Chesterton.
Chesterton was running full-out with the M-16 in one hand, teeth clenched in rage. Then they were at the Observation Room door to hear the fantastic sounds of conflict raging over the computer monitor.
Three Army Rangers stationed at the black doorway leaped and spun at their frantic approach, expertly leveling M-16s.
“Move aside!” yelled Chesterton. “Stand fast or move aside just get out of
the way!”
Leaping this way and then that to obey the contradictory commands, the soldiers staggered into each other. Chesterton barreled through with Connor at his back and Frank following, all of them almost falling through the door.
Connor went through the open portal to see Chesterton take two staggering steps toward one of Blake’s shocked MPs. Wildly Chesterton’s lean arm lashed out, his fist connecting solidly to knock the MP flat back to the ground. Then Chesterton spun to hit Adler, connecting with a hard blow that put the old man over a computer panel.
Then Blake’s second MP whirled, and Connor was instantly on top of him, his right fist striking the man’s jaw just as he raised his rifle at Chesterton. Connor caught the barrel of the rifle as the MP swung his aim and Connor connected with three hard blows— a hook, a cross and then another hard right that caught the man clean across the neck. The MP dropped to the floor at the blow, his rifle clattering across the tiles.
Livid from the conflict, fists clenched, Connor strode boldly into the Observation Room. He didn’t like violence, had never liked violence. But he’d been forced hard into this one, his love for his wife and son compelling him, and now that he was in the thick of it he was in a quick mood to hurt anybody who got in his way.
Then a monitor loomed in front of him and Connor saw it: a terrifying, demonic Dragon of titanic size that whipped around in a rage, striking the demolished turret of a tank with a long, muscular tail that ended in a wicked, bone-bladed wedge as wide as a horse’s head.
The diamond-hard wedge bit deep into a destroyed tank cannon and Leviathan screamed again through gaping fangs, spinning once more to drag the torrent thirty feet before the tail-wedge tore loose from the steel. Roaring, the Dragon shook, trembling in rage. And glaring through glowing green eyes, it stood atop white fire, shattered steel. But the flames were vanishing. It had won the battle.
Frank was instantly at the control panel, snatching his headset from Tolvanos waist. The scientist shouted, “They’ve turned on the nitrogen pheromones! That was stupid! It learns! It’s not going to let itself be put to sleep again!” He began hitting computer controls, hands flying over the blinking orange lights, commanding, commanding ...
“Do something!” Chesterton shouted, running up. He pointed toward the fire wall, raising his voice over Leviathan’s shriek. “Do something before it rips that fire wall off its hinges!”
“Look out!” Connor yelled, leaping to the control panel. “It’s going to attack!”
Bellowing, Leviathan spun and glared insanely at the cavern’s observation camera. Then it launched an attack that hit the monitoring screen almost as it began, a blinding-fast eruption of speed that covered more than a hundred yards in the blink of an eye.
A distant earthquake like a cannon blast shook the cavern wall west of the Observation Room. The cell’s remote viewing camera suddenly went blank, the image of a charging Leviathan instantly replaced with a waving orange haze passing up and off the top of the monitoring screen.
Electronic hissing.
Drenched in cold sweat, Connor stared at the fire wall in front of them, breathless, trying to listen over his own pounding blood to hear ...
Silence ...
No …
Not silence …
Faintly, Connor thought he could hear ...
Scratching.
A distinctive, sinister scratching on the titanium before them.
Sweat dropped from Chesterton’s face as he backed away from the fire wall, raising the barrel of the M-16.
“Oh, no,” he whispered.
Chapter 13
“Everybody get out!” Chesterton yelled, leveling the M-16 at the fire wall. “Get out of here now!”
Staggering in fear, scientific personnel began for the door-way. And suddenly, with a deafening collision, the titanium fire wall was half-shattered, violently displacing the computer panel that was rent inward by a terrific force that struck again and again, pounding. A reptilian roar liquefied the air; guttural, bellowing.
Chaos and screams.
Connor heard continuous rifle fire and turned to see Chesterton firing, firing, kneeling low on the ground to continue firing at a black-green nightmare shape that tore fiendishly at the titanium with black claws as long as butcher knives.
“Get out of here!” Chesterton bellowed.
Submerged in the shrilling scream of the beast, Connor staggered to the wall and saw Frank rolling on the floor, dazed. Chesterton’s bullets were ricocheting off the rent titanium, glancing over the top of the plate to strike without effect at a long foreleg that reached, grasping, sweeping through the Observation Room.
Screams, bodies falling panic-stricken or charging over each other to evade the sweeping black claws that sliced the air, searching, tearing.
With a wild shout Connor threw himself back as the claws passed before him. In a daze he saw the bladed foreleg strike a white-coated man in the chest and continue sweeping in a misty-red haze, as if the claws had struck nothing at all. Then with a rending of steel beams, the titanium fire wall was pulled outward, bent at the top as another bat-like foreleg snaked through, a monstrous shoulder jamming in the crevice.
The clawed foreleg pushed through the narrow crevice and there was a bursting eruption of the wall, a violent surrendering of steel tearing beneath an unearthly shrieking. Connor leaped forward, grabbing Frank, lifting the scientist quickly as claws tore at the titanium.
In a flash Connor scrambled back, trying to avoid Chesterton’s fire as the niobium-titanium wall gave another two feet. Then the concrete, steel, wiring, and whatever else remained to hold the wall in place began to give way, crumbling outward, pulled into the Containment Cavern.
Barreling into the others who flooded the doorway, Connor charged into the corridor, dragging the dazed scientist. He heard Chesterton’s wild rifle fire as the colonel came out behind him, backing; emptying what remained of the M-16’s clip. Scientists fled down the hallway.
“Give me some suppression!” Chesterton screamed to the three Rangers, and instantly they responded, disciplined and effective, as Chesterton slammed in another 30-round clip. Staccato gunfire blazed into the doorway, roaring into the Observation Room, filling the corridor with a deafening white strobe.
Connor unceremoniously slung Frank against the corridor wall and turned, watching the titanium fire wall fall back completely, pulled into the Containment Cavern, torn from its rigging.
Frantically Chesterton shoved a large cylindrical object into the port of a grenade launcher attached to the lower part of his M-16 rifle. He waved his hand wildly. “Back up! Fire in the hole!”
Connor threw himself over Frank as the Rangers dove away, and Chesterton stuck the barrel of the weapon into the doorway, blindly firing the grenade launcher at point-blank range into the black-green nightmare that loomed beyond the ravaged wall.
A deafening concussion like a solid wall hit Connor’s back, debris and thunder roaring, roaring, solid in the air on and on and fire was there but Connor was too stunned to feel it, to sense it.
Somehow staggering, rolling, Connor, half-rose, pulling Frank away from the doorway. Fire was blazing in the Observation Room, and Connor turned to see Chesterton picking himself up, a hand to his head, gasping for breath.
“We gotta get out of here!” Chesterton shouted, falling against the wall. He angrily opened the launcher again and shoved another grenade in the tube, slamming it shut like a shotgun.
“Connor, get that scientist outta here!”
Understanding even though he could barely hear, Connor slung Frank over a shoulder, turning to stagger down the corridor as Barley ran up, panting and glaring. The lieutenant was holding his rifle at port arms, vividly alert, angrily scanning everything. He came through the dust and the smoke and blinking fluorescent lights without the slightest hesitation. His face was hard. His finger wa
s tight on the trigger of the M-16.
Chesterton spun to him. “Barley! Get me some suppression up here! Get it up here now!”
Barley was instantly on his radio, speaking calmly, and Connor noticed that a bestial roaring thundered from the Observation Room. Inspired to stagger down the hallway, Connor made his way through the smoke until he felt Frank stir on his shoulder, half-rising. Immediately Connor set the scientist on his feet, leaning him against a wall. A bright red flow of blood colored Frank’s forehead. His eyes were wide and vacuous.
Connor shook him.
“Frank! Wake up! We’ve got to get out of here!”
Frank shook his head again as gunfire erupted in the doorway of the Observation Room, four men firing at once into the portal. Connor heard Leviathan screaming, saw a portion of the portal torn away by a clawed forepaw that swept through the hail of bullets to vengefully splinter a steel support beam. Shocked, Connor whirled back to Frank.
“Frank! Get it together! It’s loose!”
With a frightful glare, the scientist focused on Connor, a supreme concentration coming to life as much from his powerful intellect as from the fear that galvanized them all. “GEO ...” the scientist whispered. “GEO can slow it down! But I’ve got to switch it back to voice control.”
Connor grabbed his shirt, shoving, half-carrying the scientist down the corridor. “Come on! There’s a terminal down here!”
Shouts echoed in the corridor, four men determined to hold their ground, firing clip after clip, endlessly emptying everything they had into the narrow portal as Connor half-carried the dazed scientist through a doorway almost 200 feet from the conflict. The gunfire was still deafening, and Connor thought he heard more rifles joining in. A lot more.
Frank fell into a chair in front of a terminal, putting on the communication headset that he had grabbed from Tolvanos. Connor ran back to the doorway, glaring down the hall.
He saw an entire platoon firing through the doorway, some kneeling, some standing, each man shooting continuously until the clip was gone and instantly inserting another to continue firing in a full-automatic blast of flame that never ceased and lit the corridor with hellish light. Then Chesterton screamed another command, waving frantically.
Thrilled to Death Page 115
