The niche containing the bones of Polyphemus stood on the lower part of a vast series of small caverns and hollows containing bones. The stone box containing the last of the lotus stood where he had left it, lid closed. He went in, took out the few lotus pieces left, and put them in his pockets. Gideon turned and scanned the opposite wall, selecting a niche high up and slightly to one side. He climbed up, trying not to leave marks of his passage, and crawled into it, pushing aside the bones and dried, mummified remains of a Cyclops. Behind him, the niche narrowed into a tunnel that sloped steeply downward; there would be no ambush from that direction. Lying down, he sighted through his scope, using a broken hip bone as a brace, hoping that wouldn’t be necessary—he would fire only to save his own life. He carefully moved the mummified remains in front of him to create a kind of screen.
The Cyclops had been wounded, he was sure of that. Gideon felt certain that the wounded creature would eventually take refuge in this necropolis—bringing Amiko with him.
He settled in, waiting. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be long.
“Son of a bitch,” whispered Delgado, staring at the pink tongue, which had finally ceased twitching. He looked into the faces of the two soldiers. They were shocked and frightened—but still in possession of their faculties.
“Okay,” said Delgado quietly. “This wasn’t a good idea. We’re out of here—straight back to camp, weapons free, burst setting, go.” He stabbed his finger in the direction of camp.
Neither man needed persuading. They set off at a jog, pushing through ferns, jumping mossy fallen trunks, tearing aside vines, weapons lowered and ready to fire. Delgado had never seen an attack as swift and violent as that one—from man or animal. He now knew this was a terrible mistake.
Another burst of foul-smelling wind; a sudden eruption of vegetation; and the soldier to his right went down with a massive meat-tearing sound, his weapon firing in a crazy burst that raked the canopy above before falling silent. Delgado and the other soldier halted and crouched, instinctively turning back-to-back, scanning the forest as leaf tatters fluttered down like rain all around them, but the creature had vanished. Blood and matter from the soldier dripped steadily from the leaves, making a pattering sound.
Delgado, his back pressed to the remaining soldier, could see no sign of the monster. Yet it had been there, leaving the body of a soldier on the ground like some dreadful calling card, the torso almost completely separated from the hips. It had all happened so quickly the man was dead before he could even cry out.
More absolute silence. And then, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, he heard a long, deep-throated wail, climbing in pitch to a scream and then dropping down the scale to a shuddering, moist rumble—a sound simultaneously animal and human. It was the most terrifying thing Delgado had ever heard.
“Clear three sixty full auto,” he whispered urgently to the soldier, “then move!”
They both leapt up, firing on full automatic mode, raking the jungle in a complete circle around them, sending up a storm of leaves, twigs, and splinters—and then they ran, firing ahead and behind. His magazine empty, Delgado ejected it, slammed in another on the run, resumed firing. It was as if they were moving through a storm of shattered vegetation. Nothing could approach without getting riddled.
He ejected another empty magazine and slammed in yet another. He had two more; they’d better last. He flicked the lever on the M4 to burst mode in order to save ammo. Running like mad, his face and body torn by sharp vegetation, he continued firing around him in three-round bursts.
The creature suddenly popped up in front of them—like some hideous jack-in-the-box rising straight out of the ground. He swung and fired but it was already moving at lightning speed. A hairy, ropy arm flashed around like a bullwhip and took the last soldier’s head off, as easily as a knife but not nearly so cleanly, blinding Delgado with the spray of blood. Delgado fired anyway, shouting incoherently, shaking the stuff out of his eyes even as he smelled the stench of the beast.
Through the red fog he could now barely see. The monster was standing right before him, towering, chest swelling with his poisonous roar, and suddenly Delgado felt a physical jerk so violent it was as if he’d literally been turned inside out. He looked down and saw that he had.
62
GLINN REMAINED IN his tent, surrounded by communications equipment, his aide at one side. Over the open radio channel, he had heard everything that happened to the dog team: the conversation, the shooting, the roaring of the beast, the gruesome sounds of dismemberment and death—and then silence. He also heard some of it directly through the jungle: faint, delayed, like an echo.
It was happening all over again. A single unexpected factor, impossible to foresee, had overturned all his carefully calculated models. It was exactly what had occurred five years before, with the meteorite that turned out—against all odds—to be something else. The failure, sudden and complete, was unraveling around him, in real time. Now they had a completely unpredictable hominid, neither animal nor human, filled with a murderous and vengeful rage, to contend with. Unleashed by a person they had failed to fully understand. Glinn knew, with brutal clarity, that his determination to succeed at all costs had affected his judgment and led them into disaster.
Now they were in uncharted territory. He had lost his right-hand man, Garza—a loss he felt keenly. He had not treated Garza properly; he saw that now. It had been a serious mistake to deceive him. His QBA of Garza had always indicated a thorough pragmatist, a careerist, a man who looked after number one. But now Garza had displayed an unexpected, altruistic side.
Glinn shook his head. These were all lessons he would have to carefully ponder at some later date. But not now. Now, the first order of business was the survival of his men and himself against the fury of this extraordinary creature.
He pressed the TRANSMIT button on his comm unit and spoke to the eight men waiting at the ambush salient. “It’s over. Delgado’s team is gone. Assemble the squad in here for a briefing. Now.”
Moments later the eight soldiers entered the tent. They were frightened but still steady. Glinn had chosen them well.
“The Cyclops,” said Glinn, “is coming for us. Here. In camp.”
“What makes you think—?” began the squad commander.
“He’s wounded. We’ve ruined his island. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies. I believe he’s going to take as many of us out as he can before the end.” Glinn noticed, in passing, that he was now referring to the Cyclops as he, not it. That was his mistake from the beginning: thinking of him as an animal.
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the status of the electric fence?”
“With the backup generator running again, it’s up and juiced.”
“He’ll go right through it. Now, listen carefully. He knows. He was here, he watched, he saw who was in charge. He’ll be coming for me first.”
“Yes, sir,” said the commander.
“So I’m the bait you will use. Understand? You set your men up to nail him when he comes for me. It’s got to be subtle. That thing is no animal. He’s nearly human and he can think.”
The squad commander nodded.
“Dismissed.”
They exited the tent, leaving Glinn with his aide.
Glinn turned to him. “Bring me my Glock.”
“Yes, sir.” The aide fetched it, checked the magazine, handed it to him. He took it with his shriveled hand and racked a round into the chamber, setting it down in his lap. The Glock 19 was light enough for him to fire with his crippled hand, and it had good stopping power. But he didn’t fool himself into thinking that, if it came to that, the pistol would do much good.
“Open both flaps. I need to see—and so does he.”
The aide complied.
The men had disappeared. Glinn could see no evidence of where they were hidden, waiting for the creature. Good. Another group of men were putting out the last of the fire, and the backup generator was humm
ing. A stench of diesel and burnt plastic and metal hung over the camp. Two remarkably dismembered bodies still needed to be taken care of. Later. The air conditioner in his tent had finally cooled things off. But Glinn didn’t like the noise; he wanted to hear.
“Shut off the A/C.”
“Very well, sir.”
His aide stood at the opening, M16 in hand, quiet, serious, waiting. A good man. All his men were crack, the squad commander the best there was. They would know what to do, how to set up the ambush. He told himself he didn’t have to worry. The Cyclops was big, it was remarkably powerful, but it could be killed like any other living thing, and it was already wounded. Glinn was sure of that. Perhaps it was even dying.
That was a comforting thought.
He realized he was afraid. Not of his own death—but of the failure that would follow. Glinn calmed himself down, used the techniques he had learned to slow his heart rate and breathing, clear his head. He felt a new sensation, one he wasn’t used to. It was not exactly fear. It was more apprehension: concern that he would not be able to complete his work in the South Atlantic. No one else could do it but him. It would be a great tragedy for the world if he perished now, on this island, before having completed his true mission.
Any minute now it, or rather he, would be there. And even as Glinn thought this, he heard him, right on schedule: a brutal, maddened roar that seemed to shake the very fabric of the tent.
Then, silence.
Not a shot was fired. That was good. It meant the men were still in possession of themselves. No point in firing stupidly into the wall of jungle, giving away their locations.
Another long, shuddering, wet roar, this time from a different direction. Wet. Was he shot through a lung? It was like the roaring of lions in the African night.
He wondered what Amiko’s role in this was, if she was even alive. Was she…advising him? The thought was inconceivable, and he dismissed it immediately. Amiko was no killer. She had lost control of the creature.
The roars went on for another ten minutes as the brute circled the camp. Glinn had to admire his patience, his use of psychology. It was bloody unsettling, he had to admit. And it occurred to him that the circling might also be a form of reconnaissance, using sight and smell. He wondered just how the commander and his men had set themselves up, if the Cyclops could discern what they were up to.
His aide stood in the opening, his keen blue eyes roving this way and that. Even he, the most taciturn and composed of men, was sweating.
Now the roars ceased. Glinn was surprised to find the sudden silence even more unsettling. His respect for the creature increased.
His thoughts turned to Amiko again, and then to Gideon. He wondered what Gideon was up to, assuming the creature had not killed him already. Gideon was one of the most competent human beings he had ever encountered, but a man who was very unlike him, who operated on almost pure, seat-of-the-pants intuition. Glinn had never been dismissive of intuition—it was a powerful tool, albeit dangerous—but this notion that the Cyclops could be reasoned with, turned, tamed, somehow domesticated, was wrong, and Gideon would not survive any such attempt.
The silence became prolonged. The tension increased.
It started with a rush, an explosion of vegetation at the edge of the jungle, exactly opposite his open tent. The creature burst straight out in a swirl of leaves and bits of branches, hit the fence with a crackle of electricity; the wires sprang apart like broken piano strings, the alarms going off.
Glinn noticed that—horrifyingly—the creature carried a drysack in one hairy paw. Was it Gideon’s? He did not want to speculate how the Cyclops had gotten possession of it.
Even as the torrent of gunfire came pouring out of the tents surrounding him, the creature made a sudden turn, then another, moving extremely fast, the rounds kicking up geysers of mud and dirt all around him, some hitting home, and now he was moving laterally with a hideously rapid lope, faster than any runner, moving randomly while the converging lines of fire followed him.
And then Glinn saw that his movements were, in fact, anything but random. As he raced past the secondary fuel tanks and backup generator, the fire fell off abruptly—but not abruptly enough. Rounds slammed into the metal tanks, spraying fuel everywhere, and—Glinn could hardly believe his eyes—the Cyclops reached into the drysack, held out a lighter, flicked it on…and the entire secondary fuel dump erupted in a wall of flame.
And here came the Cyclops, on fire, heading straight at him now, items tumbling out of the drysack and hitting the dirt behind him, emitting a bellowing roar, his huge gray tongue hanging out, that fearful, bloody, awful eye looking straight at him.
The aide let loose a burst of fire but his reactions weren’t fast enough. The creature slammed into the tent, flame suddenly everywhere. Glinn had his Glock up, and as the Cyclops charged toward him he fired point-blank into the creature’s flesh, the heavy wheelchair absorbing most of the blow of the creature’s massive arm. Just as fast as he was there the thing was gone, no scream this time…and Glinn found himself sprawled on the ground, his wheelchair smashed, blood and smoke and fire everywhere.
63
DEEP IN THE necropolis, Gideon could hear nothing. Slowly, his eyes had adjusted to the dimness. He had chosen a good spot, well hidden, with a clear view of the entrance and the opposite niche holding the bones of Polyphemus—and the last of the lotus. The movement of air came from the opening into the cavern: he was downwind of the entrance. For that reason, he hoped the Cyclops would not be able to smell him.
Lying on the cool stone, he played out various scenarios in his head. It was impossible to predict what would happen when the Cyclops arrived, but arrive he would. The big question was Amiko. He would have to play it by ear.
He waited, listening. At the edge of audibility, he thought he heard something far away—a faint rumble of explosions or gunfire? After a moment it seemed to fade away.
Still he waited. Minutes passed.
And then he heard something else. At first he wasn’t sure what it was, or even if it was. Perhaps it was just in his own mind. But then he heard it again: something low, faint, close. A breath? The soft sound of a footfall in sand?
He had arrived.
The sounds became more distinct as the creature approached, still unseen, in the huge antechamber outside the central necropolis. He could hear the sound of stertorous breathing, wheezing—then, diffusing through the still air, he smelled a vile mixture of diesel fuel, burnt hair, and animal foulness. The creature was wounded, struggling. He heard the sounds of eating, crunching, and then the faint smell of the lotus reached him. And a voice—a soft voice.
Amiko.
She was with him. She was helping him, caring for him. He listened as they rested in the antechamber, Amiko speaking softly.
Gideon made up his mind what to do. “Amiko?” he called out.
A sudden grunt of fury; a cough; then Amiko’s soft voice soothing the beast, talking to him in Greek, calming him down.
“Gideon,” she said in a low, sharp voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to help save the Cyclops. And to find you.”
A silence. Then: “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late. Please talk to him. Glinn knows he screwed up. We can work things out now so the Cyclops can stay on the island.”
“You don’t understand. The Cyclops will kill you. He’s killing everyone. I can’t control him. Get out, now.”
“You have to make him understand. Listen to reason. I want you to help me reach him.”
“It’s too late.”
“I’ve got a weapon. If he comes through that door, he’s dead. Tell him that—”
His talking was interrupted by a roar, a cry so laced with hatred and fury that it turned Gideon’s blood cold.
“Just get out now!”
More angry sounds came from the Cyclops, growls of repressed fury, with Amiko’s urgent voice suddenly raised in warning: “Gide
on! He’s coming for you—!”
A flash in the doorway, and the Cyclops came tearing through. Gideon had aimed at the opening, but despite all of Amiko’s warnings he found himself hesitating to kill. It was only for a split second—but it was enough to miss the opportunity. The creature was moving so fast that by the time Gideon had repositioned the rifle it was already below him, climbing up the stone face with long hairy arms, coming for him with a howl. He fired as the Cyclops vaulted into the niche, slamming violently into him, tumbling him backward into the vertical shaft, and they fell together, in sudden free fall, through a dark void, the Cyclops roaring and clawing at the air.
I’m about to die, Gideon thought with what seemed like remarkable clarity. I’m about to die.
They landed in water, ice-cold, and Gideon thrashed about in pitch black, his head below the surface. He felt himself dragged down by the rifle, a current plucking him along. He managed to free himself of the gun, sending it to the bottom as he clawed his way up, breaking the surface and gasping for air. He could hear a bellowing, choking sound as the Cyclops fought the water.
He can’t swim, Gideon thought.
It seemed they had fallen into some kind of underground river. The water was flowing faster now, and he could hear, growing in volume, another sound: the sound of a waterfall.
Unable to see, Gideon instinctively swam crosscurrent and moments later hit the rough, volcanic wall of the underground stream. It slid past his fingers as the current carried him along with increasing speed. He grabbed at it desperately, caught a ledge, managed to seize a rough projection with his other hand, and pulled himself out of the water onto the rock face. Muscles in spasm with the effort, he managed to find two decent footholds and a handhold in the rough lava, which allowed him to fumble his headlamp from his pocket, turn it on, and pull it over his head.
The Lost Island Page 27
