The Dragon Factory jl-2

by Jonathan Maberry

  “I can see why Haeckel and his Nazi buds would want the records,” I said, “but who’s the other team? The guys I tussled with in Deep Iron?”

  “Unknown. Possibly a splinter faction, or freelancers looking to steal the material and sell it on the black market. We don’t know enough yet to make a solid guess.”

  “Was Gunnar a scientist, too?” Grace asked.

  “No,” said Church. “He was muscle.”

  “You thought you killed him,” I said, “but now he’s alive and well in Brazil, where he’s taking Rotary Club lunkheads on safaris for mythological animals.”

  “Yeah,” said Bug, “how’s that stack up to a grave threat to humanity?”

  “The unicorn,” I said, and Hu nodded agreement.

  “Okay, I’m missing something, so spell it out for me.”

  Church said, “Science has come a long way since the Cold War, and genetics is a booming field. However, there are limits to what can be discovered during modern research. International laws and watchdog organizations are moderately effective, and a master race research program would need a huge database, including a massive number of tissue samples and test subjects. That would be virtually impossible nowadays without the cooperation of an entire government.”

  “Right,” Hu said. “The Nazis had the cooperation of an entire government during World War Two, and they had millions of test subjects. Everyone who passed through the camps. Those records you found probably include extensive information on ethnic background, gender, age, and many other variables. The boxes of index cards with brown fingerprints . . . those are blood samples. Thirty years ago DNA mapping wasn’t possible. The first DNA typing was accomplished in 1985 by Sir Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester in England. The Cabal had been torn down by then. What we stopped was a first step in gathering information that could be used when science caught up to the dreams of a master race.”

  “Can we do DNA typing from dried blood?” Grace asked.

  “Sure,” said Hu. “DNA typing has been done from Guthrie cards, which are widely collected at birth for newborn screening for genetic diseases and saved by many states. I read about a case where the paternity of a car accident victim was determined using blood from a seventeen-year-old Band-Aid.”

  “So those cards and the records help them regain their info on bloodlines,” Grace said.

  “Yes. Crafting a race of genetically perfect beings is the core ideal in eugenics,” said Hu, “but it isn’t quick. It’s extreme social Darwinism, which means that it’s a generational process. Quicker than natural evolution, but by no means quick. Unless, of course, you have access to genetic design capabilities that include transgenics. By remodeling DNA they could create more perfect humans in one or two generations.”

  “Unicorns . . . ,” Bug prompted.

  “Captain Ledger already sorted that out,” said Church. “It’s a moneymaking scheme not out of keeping with the Cabal mentality. Charge the superrich millions to hunt a trophy no one else can possibly have. It satisfies certain desires and it provides vast operating capital for a group like the Cabal. But more important, it demonstrates the advanced degree of genetic science they have at their disposal.”

  “The bloodline information, the advanced science, the money,” I said. “It not only looks like the Cabal is back . . . but now they have a real shot at accomplishing what it took a world war and forty years of the Cold War to try and stop.”

  “Yes,” said Hu. “These maniacs may well have the science to accomplish both challenges implicit in the eugenics ideal.”

  “Which are?” Bug asked.

  “Not only do you have to make one race stronger,” Hu said. “You have to make the other races weaker.”

  Grace gave us a bleak stare. “Or you have to remove them entirely.”

  We sat in horrified silence for a long moment before Bug asked, “How do we stop it? We don’t even know who’s involved, or how far along they are, or—”

  Before he could finish, the phone rang. Church answered, and even with his typical lack of emotion I could tell that it wasn’t good news.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Deep Iron Storage Facility

  Sunday, August 29, 5:36 A.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 24 minutes E.S.T.

  Lt. Jerry Spencer, head of the DMS forensic investigation division and former Washington police detective, sat on the edge of a desk in the main office of Deep Iron. He felt old and tired and used up. He held his cell phone in one hand and drummed the fingers of his other hand in slow beats on the plastic shell. His eyes were bloodshot from working the Deep Iron crime scene—which was really a collection of related crime scenes—for a dozen hours, and that had been on the heels of working the ambush scene in Wilmington. There was a call he had to make, but his heart had sunk so low in his chest that he didn’t think he could do it.

  He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and punched in the numbers.

  Mr. Church answered on the third ring.

  Spencer said, “I found Jigsaw Team.”

  He said it in a way that could only mean one thing.

  Church’s voice was soft. “Tell me.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

  Sunday, August 29, 5:37 A.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 23 minutes

  Church set down his phone and placed it neatly on the table. Then he stood up and walked to the far end of the room and stood looking out at the choppy brown water of the harbor. His back was to us, and I could see his broad shoulders slump. We all looked at one another.

  “That was Jerry Spencer,” Church said without turning. “They found Jigsaw.”

  We waited, not asking, not wanting to hurry bad news.

  “Spencer found sets of tire tracks out in the foothills. He figured the Russian team drove to within a mile and walked in, and he followed the tracks back into the hills and found their vehicles. The Russians had come in a couple of vans. But there were two DMS Hummers there, too. Spencer said it looked like both Hummers had been taken out with RPGs. Hack Peterson . . . his whole team. They never had a chance, probably never saw it coming. The vehicles had been sprayed down with fire extinguishers—probably so the smoke wouldn’t attract attention—and then covered with broken tree branches.”

  “Dios mio,” murmured Rudy. Bug looked stricken, and even Dr. Hu had enough humanity to look upset.

  Grace closed her eyes. Her hands lay on the tabletop and slowly constricted into white-knuckled fists. Hack Peterson was the last of the DMS agents who had worked for Church as long as Grace had. They were friends who had shared the line of battle fifty times. Without any bit of exaggeration it was fair to say that together they had saved America—and a big chunk of the world—from some of the most dangerous and vile threats it had ever faced. Hack was a genuine hero, and those were in damned short supply.

  I took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly.

  She raised her head. There were no tears, but her eyes were bright and glassy, her face flushed with all the emotion I knew she would not release. Not here, not on the job. Maybe not at all. Like me, she was a warrior on the battlefield.

  “God,” she murmured, “it’s never going to stop, is it? Are we going to go on and on fighting this sodding war until we kill everyone and everything? We’re a race of madmen!”

  I squeezed her hand.

  Church turned back to face us. His tinted glasses hid his eyes, but his mouth was a tight line and muscles bulged and flexed in the corners of his jaw. Just for a moment, and then his control fell back into place with a steel clang.

  “Spencer said that he also discovered how the other team escaped. He followed the blood trail from the Haeckel unit. He said that there were two sets of spatters, one that fell from at least five feet, which is probably the one you stabbed in the mouth, Captain, and the other showed heavy blood loss that fell with less velocity from a lower point.
Spencer figures it for a leg wound. They took an elevator up to the surface. Spencer figures in Haeckel’s bin you’d have been too far away to hear the hydraulics. Then they climbed up through the air vents to the roof and dropped down the side opposite where Brick was positioned. Spencer was able to follow the blood trail for half a mile to a side road, and from there tire tracks led away. He found two sets of footprints. Size twelve and size fourteen shoes. He’s doing the math on the impressions, but he estimates that the men were well in excess of two hundred pounds . . . probably closer to three.”

  I said, “That’s pretty nimble for big guys, even if they weren’t hurt.”

  Grace nodded. “If they left a blood trail that long, then they must have been bleeding badly . . . so you have heavy men who, even if they are very muscular and fit, had to climb up air shafts, scale walls, and run into the hills while injured. And this after they’d killed a dozen men with their bare hands. I’m finding this all a bit hard to accept.”

  “Maybe not,” said Church. “I’m leaning toward Captain Ledger’s exoskeleton idea. Some kind of enhanced combat rig that gives them strength and supports their weight.”

  “We’re not living in a science-fiction novel,” said Hu. “We’re years away from that sort of thing.”

  Bug stared at him. “Um, Doc . . . you’re defending scientists who can make unicorns and you call an exoskeleton sci-fi?”

  Hu conceded the point with a shrug.

  “I can’t believe Hack’s gone . . . ,” said Grace hollowly. “For what? For nothing!”

  “That’s not true, Grace,” I said. “We may not know the full shape of this thing yet, but we will . . . and that means that their deaths will matter, because they are part of the process of stopping and punishing whoever did this.”

  “Why? To clear the way for some other bloody maniac to do even more harm?”

  “No,” I said, “because what we do matters. We take the hits so the public doesn’t. We save lives, Grace. You know that. It’s what soldiers do, and Hack Petersen knew that better than anyone. So did everyone on Jigsaw Team.”

  Grace turned away and I knew that she was struggling to control her emotions. “All we ever see is the war,” she said bitterly. “All we ever do is bury our friends.”

  I said nothing. The others in the room held their tongues.

  There was a knock on the door and the deputy head of our communications division leaned into the room. “Mr. Church . . . we have another video!”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  The Dragon Factory

  Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes E.S.T.

  Hecate was both amused and disgusted by her brother’s weakness. He should be stronger and wasn’t. They were both aware of it, though they never openly spoke of it. By ordinary human standards Paris was a monster of superior skill: smart, careful, vicious, inventive, and cruel. By the standards of their family, he was the weak sister while Hecate was the true predator. Paris had directly murdered six people and had shared in the murders of several women during sex play. Hecate had personally murdered fifty-seven people, not counting the sex partners. Paris knew of nine of her kills. The others were not his concern, though she did nothing outrageous to hide them. Paris knew only as much as he had a stomach to know.

  The playtime with the two operatives sent by Alpha and Otto had shown Hecate how weak her brother had become. He hadn’t participated at all. For a while she thought he was going to disgrace himself by throwing up. Even that muscle-brain Tonton had seen it. He asked Hecate about it later, in bed.

  “What’s with Mr. Paris?”

  Tonton lay under her, his massive frame covered with scratches and red pinpoint bruises. She had used teeth and nails on him. He liked the intensity, and when she could coax a yelp of real pain from him it made Hecate come. She’d come over and over again.

  Sitting astride the big man, Hecate shrugged. “Paris has other tastes.”

  Tonton ran his rough hands over her small breasts. Her white skin was still flushed to a scalding pink from her last orgasm. He was on the edge of exhaustion, but she still had that fire in her eyes.

  “He’s not like you,” murmured Tonton. “No one’s like you.”

  Hecate smiled, thinking about how right he was. There was no one on the earth quite like her. Not anymore.

  Tonton was only semi-erect, but Hecate moved her hips in a way that had three times changed that. It was taking longer this time. She smiled to herself, thinking, Men are weak.

  She decided to throw Tonton a bone. “No one’s quite like you, either, my pet.”

  “Nah,” he said. “I’m just another grunt.” It was feeble humility. Though it was true that there were hundreds of Berserkers now, it was equally true that he was physically far stronger than the others. The gene therapy Hecate had given him had brought him to a different level. His muscle mass was 46 percent denser than an ordinary man’s. He was six feet, eight inches tall and carried his 362 pounds of mass as easily as an Olympic athlete. He could do one-arm chin-ups in sets of fifty and he could do those for hours. He could bench-press a thousand pounds without straining. He could climb a redwood tree and snap a baseball bat in half in his bare hands.

  Tonton loved his strength. So did Hecate. He was the only one of the Berserkers she allowed into her bedroom, and over the last few weeks he’d gotten that call from her at least four times a week.

  “How come Mr. Paris isn’t like you?” he asked as she moved slowly up and down on him. He was hoping to distract her long enough for her to switch off. She may not have limits, but he did.

  Hecate had her eyes closed, concentrating on what she was doing, and Tonton thought she wouldn’t answer, but then she murmured, “We’re like lions, my pet.”

  “I don’t get it. . . .”

  “The males are dumb and lazy and they lay around while the females do all the wet work. We hunt; we kill. We’re the real pride leaders.”

  Tonton said nothing.

  Hecate opened her eyes and the blue irises were flecked with spots of hot gold. She smiled—at least Tonton thought it was a smile—and in the uncertain glow from the candles her teeth looked strangely sharp. More like a cat’s teeth than he remembered them being.

  Hecate said, “All the males do is look pretty and fuck.”

  She ran her sharp fingernails over Tonton’s throat and increased the rhythm of her hips.

  Tonton understood the message, and tired or not, he did his best to serve the needs of the leader of his pride.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

  Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes

  Church logged into his old e-mail account from his laptop and his fingers flew over the keys.

  “Same sender as the hunt video,” he said. To the communications officer he said, “Track this back and find out where the user logged on. Do it now.” The officer sprinted out.

  We were still reeling from the shock of the news about Jigsaw, but the fact that we might have another clue was like a shot of pure adrenaline. I wanted a scent I could chase down. I wanted someone in my crosshairs. I wanted someone’s throat in my hands. I wanted it so bad I could scream.

  Church sent the video to the conference room server and punched keys to display it on the flatscreen. The screen popped with white noise, faded to black, and then we saw the face of a young teenage boy, maybe fourteen. Dark hair, rounded face, a slight gap between mildly buck teeth, and brown eyes that held a look of such comprehensive despair that it chilled me.

  “If he finds out that I sent this, he’ll kill me,” said the boy. It was recorded with some kind of stationary camera, maybe a webcam. Grainy and dark, with a weak streaming image. “But I had to try. If you got the other file I sent, then you know what’s going on from what the two Americans said.”

  “But the sound kept cutting out
,” Bug said. “We could hardly—”

  “Shhhh,” said Hu.

  “You have to stop them. What they’re doing . . . it’s . . .” The kid shook his head, unable to put his horror into words. “I don’t have much time. I stole one of the guards’ laptops, but I have to get it back before they notice I took it. I read Otto’s file, so if you’re who I think you are, then you have to do something before everyone in Africa dies. And maybe more than that. You got to stop them! If you can’t find this place, then see if you can find the Deck. That’s the main lab; that’s what you have to find. I know it’s in Arizona someplace, but I don’t know where. Maybe you can find that out when you get here. And then you have to do something about the Dragon Factory. I don’t know where that is, but Alpha thinks it’s in the Carolinas. I don’t think so because I heard Paris tell his sister that they had to get back to the ‘island.’ I just don’t know which island.”

  He paused, looking desperate.

  “I don’t even know if I’m making sense. Oh. . . . wait!” He obviously spotted something and darted out of shot. We heard the rustling of paper and then he was back, with a big piece of white paper in his hands. He turned it in a few different directions, trying to orient it, and then turned it around toward the camera. “Can you see this? I think this is us; I think this is the Hive.”

  He suddenly stiffened, lowered the paper, and sat with his head cocked in an attitude of listening.

  “Someone’s coming. I have to be quick. If you get this, if you come . . . then broadcast on this frequency.” He read off the numbers. “It’s only short range, but I made it myself. If you’re here, I can help you get past the guards . . . but you have to be careful of the dogs. The dogs aren’t dogs.”