The Flock

by James Robert Smith

  As a unit, the doors of the van opened wide and all five men poured out. The big glass doors of the compound were unlocked, as had been promised, and they merely trotted inside. Firearms had sprouted almost magically from the duffel bags that had lain at their feet as they’d driven in. Quickly, they fanned out, Waters heading down the main hallway with Whitcomb, while Rhodes, Graves, and Hinton faded left. So far, no one had come running to investigate the destruction, but he knew that there would be targets soon. They knew to whom they owed their easy entrance, and anything else that moved was toast. That was all there was to this simple plan.

  Wordlessly, each team headed down the hallways. They moved quickly, stopping at each doorway they came to, checking for movement. No target presented itself. Waters was poised to use the radio buttoned to his shoulder to contact Rhodes, but he hesitated, not wishing to break the vocal silence. At that moment he came out into a large room, just as he had figured, and saw one of the men he was expecting. According to his briefing, this one was named Kinji Kamaguchi, a Japanese national working as a zoologist for Holcomb. Intelligence had stated that the man knew how to use a gun if the situation arose, and as the two faced one another across the wide space of the room, Waters immediately noted the rifle that Kamaguchi was carrying. Someone had warned them that they were coming; that was the only explanation.

  “What,” Kamaguchi shouted as Waters and Whitcomb appeared from the main hallway. “Who the hell are you?” he was asking as he began to bring the barrel of his weapon to train on Waters.

  Well, perhaps they hadn’t been warned precisely what to expect. In the instant before he brought his Browning to his shoulder and fired, Waters thought that it could be something else entirely that had alarmed the inhabitants of Holcomb’s compound. As Kamaguchi’s head exploded in a quick burst of red, Waters pointed toward the open doorway that the Oriental had been sitting in front of before they’d arrived. It almost looked as if the man had been guarding the door for some reason. They would check it out as soon as they swept the rest of the building. There were at least four others in there, and that meant that they had at least three more people to kill.

  Adam Levin had been in one of labs near the back of the main building when he heard the crash of something smashing through the gate. “Damn,” he had cursed himself for being lax. His first thought was that Riggs had somehow alerted the police, telling them that he had been kidnapped. It would be just like those government types to overreact and come in with guns blazing. Holstering the .357 he had been saddled with since deciding to hold Riggs and the others, Levin had started toward the source of the commotion.

  He was out of the lab, where he had been sitting nervously for some minutes, wanting only to be somewhere he could think clearly and relax. His first thought was to go straight for the source of the noise, but he passed one of Holcomb’s locked security rooms and instead stopped there and unlocked it. There was a video monitoring system inside, and he would be able to access most of the compound from there with a flip of a switch or two. He knew how to use it quickly and effectively. In fact, he could even look in on Riggs and Kwitney if he so wished.

  Closing the door behind him, he sat down in front of a big video monitor. The system, at least in this part of the building, used a single screen that could be split into four sections or used to singly watch the reception of any of the cameras placed throughout the compound. You could even see outside, and Holcomb had once shown him the view from one of the savannas where he had hidden a camera before the terror birds had found and disabled it. Shoving all such thoughts from his mind, he activated the screen and began to look.

  First, he got a view of the main gate. It had been broken completely in, half of the chain link section lying in the sand. He switched to the principal foyer and could see a damaged Astro van parked just outside the door, but could see no one there. Where was Billy? He had left Billy to see to the garage when he had gone off to sit and think, to be alone. Billy should have been the one closest to the invaders and should have already confronted them. But he couldn’t see his Seminole friend anywhere.

  Levin knew precisely where Kamaguchi was, though. He had told Kinji to sit and watch the hallway and make sure that Mary Niccols did not escape somehow. That friend of Riggs’ was no weakling, and it wasn’t out of the question that she could work her way free of the ropes. They’d tied her pretty well, but it was best to be safe rather than sorry. Adam tried to remember which camera number was assigned to the room where he’d left Kamaguchi. It was the west wing, and those camera numbers were all prefixed with a W. He jotted one, saw an empty lab. “W-8,” he muttered to himself. And was rewarded with a soundless vision of Kamaguchi standing to face two men who had, at that instant, burst into the room.

  Adam Levin stared in frozen horror as the strange man who had first stepped into the room brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired a single shot into Kinji’s brain. Kamaguchi fell lifelessly to the floor in stark blacks and grays, and Levin’s eyes were locked on the dead man’s form. The killers didn’t even pause to check on the man they had shot. They were sure that they’d killed him. As Levin looked on, the one who had fired the shot gestured toward the hallway Kinji had been guarding and then they both passed through the room and into the main hallway. Sitting and staring for a few seconds, Levin slowly realized that they were headed directly toward him and that they would be outside the room in which he would be effectively trapped in about fifteen seconds.

  He shut down the security monitors and got up.

  “That was a gunshot,” Ron said.

  “I’m not deaf,” Kate told him.

  “What’s going on? You don’t think Levin and Kamaguchi shot Mary, do you?”

  Kate had stood, as Ron had done, and after some groping about, both had found their way to the door where each had pressed an ear to it, trying to hear more. “No. I don’t think they’d shoot Mary. I told you I don’t think they want to shoot any of us. Right now, I’m more worried about Levin and the others. He thinks Mankind is going to destroy this planet, and I can see him getting itchy in this situation.” She sighed. “But, that wasn’t Adam.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  “First of all, Adam’s not a gun man. He hates the things. Yeah, he knows how to put the bullets in, and has fired them, I know; but he hates them. Also, that was a rifle shot. Adam had a pistol. A .357. Kinji has the rifle.”

  “Or he did when they both left here. Levin could have it now, for all we know.”

  “He could. And there’s Billy. He was armed, too. But I just can’t see Billy shooting anyone. Especially not Mary.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s a Seminole, just like Mary is. And I think he likes and respects her, anyway. Billy used to make his living trapping gators when he was a kid. He and his dad, he told me. Shooting Mary would be too much like shooting someone he knows. He wouldn’t do it. Hell, he probably knows her.”

  “But Billy did have a firearm.”

  “He has access to a number of guns here. He’s handy with a shotgun, as I recall. But I told you. Billy wouldn’t shoot her. But Billy and Mary…they could maybe shoot at us.”

  Ron exploded. He couldn’t see Kate, but he could feel her body heat. “How do you know that? Huh? You don’t know what these dumbasses are capable of. Hell, they kicked your ass in here with me and leveled a gun at you. You don’t know what they might or might not do.”

  He could hear her breathing, her low, even breathing, and once again Ron found that he could not read Kate Kwitney’s emotions. Perhaps she had spent so many years hiding her feelings that she had become uncannily adept at masking them. It was something he had found intriguing before, but now he saw it as truly creepy. “I know, just believe me. If we’re in danger, then it won’t be from Adam or Kinji.”

  “I hope you’re right about them, because I know Mary isn’t capable of what you’re accusing her of,” Ron told her, an edge in his voice that he could not
cover. “So, all around, that would mean we’ll get out of this alive.” Once again, in the darkness, he and Kate were facing one another, unseeing. Some of the things she had mentioned concerning Mary seemed too logical to dispute. But as Kate had outlined her case against Mary, Ron had felt the old feelings for her coming to the surface. He felt like defending her and he couldn’t help himself. He did, he realized, still have strong feelings for her.

  They were standing, facing one another in opposition when a key was jammed suddenly into the door’s lock and it flew open, flooding the room with soft but blinding light. Ron’s pupils quickly contracted to pinpoints and the pain caused him to flinch back. He caught just the glimpse of a human figure, arm extended, gun in hand. It was, he saw as he recovered, Levin. The .357 was aimed right at him.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Levin said.

  Ron stepped toward the doorway, right behind Kate whose long legged strides had already taken her out of the room. The three of them stood in the hallway. Levin’s face was ashen, and he kept glancing up and down the hall, as if expecting Satan himself to come flying down it on gigantic leather wings.

  “What’s going on, Adam? We heard a shot.”

  “You didn’t shoot Mary, did you?”

  Levin’s pale face turned toward them. “Someone killed Kinji,” he said. “I saw them on the security monitor. They shot him in the head. He’s dead.”

  “Who did that, Adam? Who did you see?” Kate’s hand had reached out to take Levin’s shoulder, to support him. “You see, Ron? What did I tell you?” Her hand squeezed Levin’s shoulder to accent her request. “Now, who did you see?”

  “I don’t know who they are. Two men. With guns. They came into the room where Kinji was and they just shot him. Just like that. They were coming right for me, but I unlocked the freezer in the west lab and came through it to this hallway. I tricked them,” he said, a silly smile on his face. “I tricked them.”

  “Suck it up, Adam. I think you’re in shock. I don’t believe you’re thinking straight.”

  “I saw them, I tell you.” His face was grim and as white as paste.

  Kate reached out and without hesitating, she took the pistol from him. He didn’t resist. “Let me have the gun, Adam. You do as we say and we’ll find out what’s going on.” She, too, looked down the hallway and up it, searching for anyone who might be coming their way. “What did they look like?”

  “Just two men. Nothing special about them. But they didn’t even think about it, shooting Kinji, I mean. The one in front just aimed his rifle and shot him right in the head.”

  She took a second to glare at Ron. “Wonder how they knew we’d all be here? How about it, Ron?”

  Ron ignored the verbal barb and stepped up to put his own hand on Levin’s back, at the base of his neck. The man was shivering, perhaps already suffering from clinical shock. Now Ron knew he needn’t have worried about this pitiful fellow killing anyone. “How were they dressed? Were they cops? Maybe someone called in cops or something. Maybe they thought Kamaguchi was going to shoot at them and they reacted to that.”

  “No,” Levin said. “They aren’t cops. They’re dressed in regular shirts, jeans. Not cops.”

  Ron leaned against the wall, closed his eyes. “It must be the same people who sent those two to my house. It has to be.”

  “What? Finally coming around, Ron?” Kate looked at him suspiciously, but with less of that I-told-you-so anger.

  “Look. If they’re desperate enough to kill Dodd, and if they’re desperate enough to come to my house and try to shake me down, then there’s obviously no doubt that they’ll kill all of us.”

  Levin’s eyes went wide. “We have to get out of here. We have to get out and, and, and we have to warn Vance. God, we can’t leave Vance out there with these people ready to shoot us on sight.

  “Vance doesn’t know,” Adam screeched, grabbing Kate by the shirt and pulling her to him. He was losing the tenuous grip he had on his panic.

  Ron reached over and restrained Levin, making him release his grip on Kate. He shook the biologist and spoke to him. “Look, man. You saw them kill your friend. But what about Mary? What about Billy? Did you see them? And what did you guys do with Mary?”

  “We. We tied Mary up and put her in the room where the mainframe’s going. It’s empty and we thought it would be a good place to put her. She’s way down a corridor where even we hardly ever go, so I don’t think anyone would think to look there.

  “And. And Billy was supposed to be near the garage. Supposed to be watching the gate for Vance. See if Vance was coming back. But I never saw Billy on the monitor. Never saw him at all.”

  Ron looked up at Kate. “How do we get out of here? How do we get out of here without those guys seeing us? Can we go back the way Adam came? Through that freezer, like he said?”

  “No. Not that way,” Levin blurted. “They were coming that way, and they’ll find the freezer. They were right behind me. Not that way. We’d be cornered if we went that way. And they have rifles. All we have is that.” He pointed to the pistol in Kate’s hand.

  “Damn,” Ron muttered. He looked behind him, and noticed the big windows leading outside. “Why not there?” he asked, gesturing toward the glass panes. “We can just go through there.”

  “No. I don’t think so,” Kate said.

  “Why not?” Ron asked.

  “Because of him,” she said.

  Ron looked to where she was pointing, and turned just in time to see Billy Crane out in the grounds beyond the window. He was standing braced, aiming a shotgun right at them. It roared, and the glass shattered into a fine rain of glittering shards around them. They all brought up their arms to shield their eyes. Ron could hear Levin screaming something about Billy trying to kill them; but his own panic prevented him from understanding all of the words.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Although the receivers were very small and hidden high in the tops of several nearby longleaf pines, as were the transmitters placed at strategic points throughout the Eyesore, Holcomb was able to get a good handle on what was going on back at his compound. He was crouching there in his hideaway, a pair of extremely expensive headphones clamped over his ears. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face as three pairs of small ventilating fans whirred silently above him, taking out the hottest air and keeping the temperature inside at a reasonable eighty-eight degrees. Ingenious baffles and air pockets kept out even the most stubborn of insects, so the room/laboratory was comfortable despite the heat and humidity that surrounded it. From a distance of more than twenty yards, his little lab was invisible. But he knew he couldn’t stay hidden there for long. Someone was going to come for him as soon as they had finished killing the people back at his compound. In fact, it could be that they were already on the way.

  He had flipped through a number of low frequencies as soon as he’d settled into the place. Holcomb had spent a considerable amount of money buying the components, and had dedicated a lot of his valuable time installing the system. Often, he had used it to eavesdrop on the ones he left there while he went out into the forests and savanna to search for the birds. On a number of occasions he had gathered some truly juicy bits of gossip, generally concerning how his employees thought of him. Mainly, they had seemed a loyal and hardworking lot. But not now. He could not get over the feeling that someone had ratted them out, and he could not quite figure out just who was there now, doing the killing.

  Cursing himself, he realized as he had heard the panicked voice of Adam Levin recounting the murder of Kamaguchi that he could do nothing for them from his hiding spot out in the bush. While he could listen in on what was happening there, the equipment he’d stashed was good only for receiving and was practically useless with which to transmit. He had the small radio with him, but that was no good, either. It had a specific range, and he was afraid that if he used it now, then it would most likely be used as a point to locate him. If an armed group was at the compound, there was more th
an likely another one headed his way. It would be a simple matter to triangulate his location if they locked onto his signal for even a minute or so. He stared at his pack, where the little radio was stashed, and shook his head.

  As he’d listened to the remaining members of his crew, he had heard them as they had realized that Billy Crane was outside the window. One of them, he thought that it had been Kate, had yelled something about a gun, and then his hidden microphone had gone full of white noise. It had been a gunshot, of course, and he thought he’d heard the unmistakable racket of shattering glass. After that, the mike had gone to all static, an overload on the sensitive component. He had continued to listen for a minute or so, but had given up, soon trying one listening post after another, but had picked up nothing else. In a while, he had slowly removed the headphones.

  He knew that he must assume the worst. They had probably all been killed. Except, it seemed, for Billy Crane. That was strange, really. Of the ones present at the Eyesore, he wouldn’t have suspected Crane capable of selling them out. When he had taken the Indian on, the man had seemed truly sincere in his desire to do something to save such a wonderful piece of wild Florida. Sincere enough that the team had finally decided to let him in on the discovery of the terror birds. It seemed appropriate to Holcomb, and the rest of them, that Billy be a part of the ongoing research. It had probably been a trite bit of white man’s guilt to do so.

  Holcomb sighed, stood, and stepped over to a foam mattress lying on the flooring. His lab was lined with a very expensive material he had commissioned; a synthesis of Gore-Tex and Kevlar mesh. The stuff breathed well, let out moisture and allowed the free flow of air, but kept out even the most persistent dampness. He lay there, his right arm covering his face. Holcomb was very tired, having hiked double-time across the miles to this place. But he didn’t know how long he would have before he would have to cut and run. Running was a foregone conclusion. They’d find him at his little laboratory. Once that happened, he was as good as dead if he remained there. He’d have to rest for a bit, then leave. Men with guns would soon be after him.