Though he didn’t have solid facial images of the others, Grutik believed one of them to be Otto Christian, a former CIA hacker who had been a minor inconvenience to his operations over the years. Grutik’s own CIA man—he called himself Cleghorn—claimed to recognize another of the intruders as a man he’d once worked with, though Grutik put little stock in the man’s observations. Cleghorn was nothing more than a spy who monitored the operation for Grutik’s American donors, some of his wealthiest patrons.
“How is your fortitude, Max?” He watched Ahlgren sprint the length of the bunker. Strong, I think.
If his man couldn’t crack him, Grutik would simply put him to work on the girl as Ahlgren watched. Either way, he would find out who hired Ahlgren. Senator Pierce? Or is he just teamed with the white-trash reporter? It could even be a revenge mission if Christian is along. They must feel like such failures after all these years. He doubted the revenge angle, yet like assumptions and suspicions, doubts could not be dispelled without absolute confirmation.
Of course they would all be exterminated like the pesky rodents they were. Not only for his own ends but as a favor to the Brotherhood and the other factions of the Organization, all of whom considered him a useful pawn—no, more like a knight or bishop—in their own game, which ended far differently than Grutik’s.
Let them think what they wish, so long as they keep underestimating me.
The world had written him off over seventy years ago, a pattern that kept reemerging over his lifetime. Grutik, however, was fine with this. He would live several more lifetimes if that pattern continued.
His life’s work neared completion.
He had come far from that tiny boy who wandered the streets of a city smashed flat as if pummeled by the fist of God. The boy begged, stole, picked through garbage to survive alongside withered, broken men who spoke of the war or the East and muttered curses when the soldiers in the smart green uniforms walked past with pretty girls on their arms. Too young to remember the war or the bombs that had reduced Frankfurt am Main to brick piles and blowing dust, he had no parents and no name. He was simply there and assumed he always had been. Looting and begging just to survive another day took up all of his time, preempting any attempts at drawing other conclusions.
One day, one of the green men from the US Army gave him a whole chocolate bar; then, speaking in decent German, asked him his name, for which he had no answer. “Every boy should have a name,” said the soldier with the silver eagles on his shoulders and collar. “And a home as well.”
Colonel William Wilde adopted the boy and named him Gideon after a character in the Bible, a book that little Gideon would become very familiar with over the next three years. Though a devout Christian who lived by the Bible, Mother Wilde nevertheless turned a blind eye when the colonel hosted his officer friends, who called Gideon’s father Wild Bill as they told bawdy stories and downed glass after glass of American whiskey.
Though his new mother could be a bit strict, she certainly believed in the biblical tenet of not sparing the rod, Gideon appreciated the gift of his new life. He attended a special school for the children of occupying service members, learned to read and speak English in less than a month, and excelled in every facet of academics, particularly mathematics and science. His teachers praised his intelligence and found delight in his precocious nature, even as his fellow students seethed with jealousy and bullied him whenever possible.
When Gideon was roughly eight years old, Colonel Wilde announced that they would be moving back to the United States in a month, their three-year rotation to Germany complete. Gideon, who’d heard so much of America through his father’s stories, couldn’t wait to leave Germany and his horrific memories of privation behind for good.
One hot summer afternoon, just before the move, five of his fellow students—all older, for he had been advanced three grades—surrounded him on the street and shoved him into an alley, where they began beating him savagely in a jealous rage for showing them up in science class. As he lay curled in a defensive ball to absorb their kicks, something snapped inside Gideon Wilde. He reached out, grabbed an ankle and jerked one of them to the ground. He then flew into a rage, hopping to his feet and throwing himself at the boys—kicking, punching, biting. When the dust settled, all five boys lay groaning in the alley from various injuries, including three fingers he’d bitten off.
One pointed to Gideon’s bleeding face and yelled, “Freak!”
Gideon ran home. Fortunately, his parents were out, for he feared their reaction at the news certain to reach them. They’ll leave me behind! Then he got to thinking of how he might spin the incident in his favor. He’d been attacked after all, and the colonel believed that men were duty bound to confront evil wherever they encountered it. He started to relax, began working on his story as he went to the bathroom to bandage his face.
He looked in the mirror and screamed. As he surveyed the gash on his cheek, he understood why the boy had called him a freak. A green, scaly underskin peeked through the thick, oozing blood. Since he started school, he knew he was different, but he never knew he possessed this inner skin. It had held fast, and he felt no pain when he prodded it, only the smooth hardness of the scales.
Carrying a knapsack loaded with a few of his possessions, Gideon fled the house a few minutes later. Not because he feared the wrath of his parents or the law, but because of the skin beneath his skin. He had to know why.
And he would never find out in America.
He hid in alleys and basements as his outer skin healed over, then fled north and eventually landed in Hamburg. By then he’d become artful at manipulating people into taking pity on him and made a habit of living in the homes of benevolent strangers, eating most of their food—he had an insatiable appetite for meat—and robbing them blind, after which he’d disappear and repeat the process someplace else. All the while he attended school to sate his thirst for scientific knowledge, which by then had become an obsession. At age fourteen he graduated gymnasium at the top of his class and earned a scientific scholarship to the University of Heidelberg.
During his freshman year an older, stooped man with graying black hair and a bulbous nose sought him out. The stranger introduced himself as Dr. Lewitzki, and their talk soon changed from academics to Gideon’s background. Lewitzki claimed to have spent many years searching for him, and Gideon sensed that the doctor possessed knowledge about his past.
“I earned my medical degree before the war,” Lewitzki said, looking away with tearful eyes. “When I arrived at Bad Schwarzen concentration camp in 1942, the camp commandant offered to spare my life if I would become an assistant to Dr. Von Schlenker, who conducted medical experiments on women and children. It was my job to assure the patients—specimens, Von Schlenker called them—that nothing untoward would happen to them, even as I prepared them for the most barbaric and ungodly operations.
“You, Herr Wilde, were born at Bad Schwarzen in 1944, Dr. Von Schlenker’s miracle creation—the one and only reptilian ever produced on this planet.”
Instead of being stupefied or angered by the revelation, Gideon asked, “Are there no others of my kind?”
“Not that I am aware of. You are the sole product of Von Schlenker’s work. We went through several rounds of impregnating Jewish women. Reptilian semen yielded no viable fetuses, even after irradiation. In later rounds, he added various DNA to his own semen, including the long extinct Dimetrodon teutonis. Your father.”
“And my mother?”
“Shot the day after you were born. She was no longer needed.” He leaned in closer. “Von Schlenker bestowed upon you a horrible name. I shall utter it if you wish, though I would rather not.”
“Say it, please!”
“Grutik, he called you.”
I am truly alone in this world. Lewitzki’s tearful confession confirmed he told the truth. Rather than dismay, Gideon felt relief. He’d
discovered the secret of his mysterious origin and knew his purpose: to breed the inferior human race off this Earth.
And he finally knew his true name bestowed at birth. Gideon Wilde would remain his name to the world, but he was Grutik from that day forward.
The next day, Grutik read of Dr. Lewitzki’s suicide in the newspaper. He’d jumped from a bridge into the Rhine River with a cinderblock tied around his neck.
I am superior in every way, he told himself as he attended classes and haughtily strode the campus. They are the freaks, not me. I will create others—my own kind—to rid this world of them.
Before graduation the university seized and destroyed all of Grutik’s research notes, four years in the making. But he remembered everything. Nothing would stop his quest to engineer his master race.
Even as his fellow geneticists scoffed at his work, powerful men began to take notice and support his efforts. First he made the mistake of crawling into bed with the Soviet Union but fled at the earliest opportunity when he realized that failure—inevitable during such a daunting, complex undertaking—would earn him a quick death.
The West desired his knowledge as well, and certain outrageously wealthy individuals habitually funded his work even as their governments went through the motions of stopping him. Some wanted cures for disease; others the secrets of longevity. He told them what they wanted to hear, keeping his unearthly roots a secret as he worked toward his own ends.
Others were not fooled so easily. These men wanted him to create super soldiers, unquestionably loyal and impervious to suffering. Not only for defense but to mete out revenge upon enemies. That quest continued to this day. The French, still seething from their embarrassment in World War II, were his latest patrons. The French government had generously provided the island for Grutik to build the super soldiers that they would eventually unleash on Germany, fearful of a new and growing nationalist movement.
Even with French support, funds remained tight. Grutik worked tirelessly to build and maintain relations with the most powerful men in the world, the group commonly referred to as the Illuminati. He suspected they held Dr. Von Schlenker’s original research notes, stolen by the Allies at the end of the war. Their funding was key to his operation, and he’d found a way to ensure their lasting patronage: the hunt.
Sure, his theropod clones proved too unpredictable to provide good sport, usually fleeing in terror when shots were fired, though some of the larger genera—sparingly created—were completely unafraid of humans and sought them out as prey. One of the more aggressive lizards devoured a British peer from the House of Lords, forcing Grutik to cancel further dinosaur hunts. His finances suffered as a result; he had charged one million dollars per man for every day of hunting.
Overcoming primitive reptilian intelligence had always been the most challenging aspect of his work. He’d made great strides over the years, however, having recently created the first reptilian/human crossbreeds nearly on par with himself—not quite super soldiers per se, but a solid prototype to be improved upon. But these were more than a match for any hunter and not to be wasted on such folly.
Even a man of Grutik’s intelligence could sometimes overlook the answer sitting right beneath his nose. After enduring two weeks without hunting revenue, the idea of hunting humans came to him. Though physically inferior to dinosaurs, even the most obtuse humans possessed many times the brain power. He presented the idea to some of his former dino hunters and received enthusiastic responses.
Human hunting became a smashing success. The powerful went home satisfied and told all of their powerful friends. Grutik now charged two million a day to hunt “The Most Dangerous Game” and sometimes even found himself impressed by the pluck and artfulness of the human animals as they ran for their lives. One particularly resourceful animal had critically injured a hunter by rolling a log downhill and crushing him. Most were not so crafty, but the hunters didn’t seem to care, generally as happy shooting a local housewife as they were bagging an elite trophy like the Runner.
“And you presume to stop me,” Grutik said as he watched Ahlgren dive beneath the closing door and scuttle between two vehicles. “Wishful thinking. I have so much more work to do.”
Tomorrow he would host one of the most important hunters to date, a former US Army general who had served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During their correspondence the general had hinted, at Grutik’s prodding, that he might know of certain highly classified documents seized at the Bad Schwarzen camp during liberation, as well as information regarding an abandoned Nazi military base in Antarctica. Grutik had visited the base back in the 60s, but the US had already looted it.
The general would hunt for free, of course.
“I’ll let him hunt you, Max. You’ll be worth five points. No, make that seven.”
A chime on his control panel sounded.
Grutik pushed a button. “Yes?”
“Permission to enter.”
Ugh, this idiot? “Granted.” Though I’d rather not.
The door slid open to admit Cleghorn, who wore full battle-dress.
“Marching off to war?” Grutik asked with a sneer.
“War marched to us. Ahlgren’s penetrated the bunker. I told you it was him.”
“Of course he has! What do you think I’m watching, Gone with the Wind?”
“One of the woods patrols is missing.”
“My commander has informed me already. Let Ahlgren and his men cull the weak.”
Soon none of them will be necessary. Once he could replicate his soldiers en masse, Grutik would have them kill all the humans on the island, Cleghorn included.
In a few weeks I won’t need the French or the US or anyone else.
Provided the boy makes a breakthrough.
Then I’ll kill him as well.
Josh Pierce scared him more than any human for one simple reason that Grutik hated to admit: He’s the more talented geneticist. But I’ll know all of his secrets before his end. At that very moment, Grutik had Pierce working on mass replication of his mutation, the crucial final step in creating his army.
The boy grows... tired. I shall have to grant him a short rest after I deal with Ahlgren.
He watched Ahlgren sneak past the mechanics and exit the garage.
Cleghorn huffed. “How long are you planning to wait?”
“Let me worry about that. In the meantime, go and do whatever it is you do all day. Fluff the general’s pillows for all I care; he’s due here in a few hours. This doesn’t concern you.”
“General Sloan might think otherwise.”
Grutik rounded on him. “It will be taken care of. Report this infiltration to the general, and you’ll be running with the locals in the next hunt. Is that understood?”
Cleghorn glowered at him.
Try it. I’ll rip out your tongue and stuff it in your fundament. “Well?”
“Understood. But if this starts to get out of hand—”
“Get out. And don’t return unless I summon you.”
Cleghorn departed without a word. He had best not interfere.
Grutik pressed another button on his control panel and contacted his commander, Hellik, a masterpiece of his own creation.
“Yes, Master?” Hellik responded.
“Allow the intruder to reach level three before he is captured. He is not to be killed.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You haven’t let them torture the girl yet, I hope?”
“No, Master.”
“Good. She’s not to be harmed until I command. Carry out your orders.”
“Yes, Master.”
All settled.
Grutik focused once more on the important work still to be completed. On screen Ahlgren grabbed a guard around the neck and slit his throat as he dragged him into an alcove. Grutik turned his back on the m
onitors and departed the observation chamber. He mentally penciled in a meeting with Max, after which he would check on the progress made today by young Mr. Pierce.
18
Does the same architect design all of these places?
Max navigated the shadowy hallways of the subterranean bunker. The labyrinthine layout reminded him of just about every enemy facility he’d infiltrated over the years—security cameras at every corner and intersection, stairwells and elevators that only connected a couple of floors, rarely allowing access to all levels. He’d descended one floor via stairway and hoped to find the elusive elevator that might bring him closer to Heat.
And Wilde for that matter. Is he even here? Or up at the chateau? Probably the latter. He was a man of legendary cowardice. The guy cuts and runs at the first sign of trouble. He might be taking wing in that black chopper even now.
Max heard footsteps approaching from around a corner ahead. He ducked into a doorway alcove, found he barely fit. The door was locked, like most he’d encountered, and featured a lock that could be opened only by code via a numeric touchpad or with a magnetic access card. I need to get one of those. He’d killed three men on the floor above but hadn’t had time to search them.
The footsteps grew louder. Max tensed, waited. The guard, a larger man than most, nearly walked past the alcove without noticing Max filling the space. Taking advantage of the guard’s momentary surprise, Max shot out his left arm, grabbed the man’s head, and jerked him toward the alcove. The guard began to struggle just an instant too late—Max’s Ka-Bar had already slid across his throat. Blood fountained and sprayed into the hallway as Max kept hold of the thrashing man until he bled out.
The alcove wasn’t big enough for the two of them, so Max laid him out on the hall floor, searched him, and found a security access card attached to a retractable lanyard on his duty belt. He shoved the corpse into the alcove and quickly moved on. With no place to hide bodies and no time to clean the scene or cover his tracks, it was all he could do.
Apex Page 19
