But before his eyes, the face began to reform, and a new limb sprouted from the bloody stump.
The thing bent back its body and roared. The two wing-like ears on either side of its head slapped against its skull when it roared, creating a distinct rattling sound Knight remembered all too well. The shriek was full of rage and agony and made Knight feel very small and helpless. After a few seconds, the beast lunged onto all fours and charged after them.
Knight ducked his head back into the cab of the Humvee and said, “I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Beck glanced in the rearview mirror. “I think we’re going to need a few Apaches with Hellfire missiles.”
12.
The old man had lost track of time as the days, nights and weeks of imprisonment had begun to blur together. He wasn’t sure how long he had been in this place, and he no longer cared. Giuseppe Salvatori reached up to his face and rubbed through the thick gray beard. He felt an odd sense of shame at his shabby appearance. He had always prided himself on his hygiene. Before this, in all those years since he was a teenage boy, had he went a single day without shaving? He didn’t think so. The thought of dying in such a dreadful state filled him with sadness.
Most people found themselves imprisoned due to their shortcomings or mistakes, and Salvatori thought it amusing that he was imprisoned because of his genius and his skills in genetic science. Years earlier, he had mentored a brilliant young man named Todd Maddox. That same young man had gone on to crack the secret behind the legendary Hydra. But before doing so, he had also acquired a position for Salvatori within Manifold Genetics. He had no way of knowing at the time that aligning with his former pupil would eventually bring about his own downfall.
The meager space he had come to call home wasn’t exactly a dungeon from days of old. It was merely a concrete supply closet within a research bunker that had been equipped with an electronic locking mechanism to protect sensitive equipment and data. Of course, this meant that it also contained no cot or toilet, and he had been forced to endure the indignity of sleeping on a mattress on the floor and defecating into a five-gallon bucket that sat in the corner. The bucket didn’t get emptied often, and he imagined that the stench would overwhelm anyone who entered. He had grown accustomed to the smell long ago.
Salvatori heard footsteps in the hall just before a blinding light flooded into his cell. He strained for his eyes to adjust to the sudden illumination. The man that stood before him was impeccably dressed in a gray pinstriped suit that probably cost enough to feed a third world country for a week. Round wire-rimmed spectacles rested upon a small upturned nose, and the man’s salt and pepper hair was parted neatly and slicked back from his face. Salvatori wondered why Phillip Cho would dress like that when he worked alone. Behind the glasses, Cho’s eyes were bloodshot, and Salvatori could see the residue of a white powder beneath the man’s nose. Cho carried himself like some sort of aristocrat, but Salvatori knew that Cho was no less of a monster than the abomination that he had created.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Salvatori said, his voice dry and brittle.
Cho’s face showed disgust, either from the show of insolence or from the smell. He shook his head and made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I really hate to see you like this. Don’t you think it’s time that we end this little game?” Cho moved farther into the room, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I know that you can fix the serum. You hold the key. Maddox was your pupil, and if he could unlock the secret to immortality, so can you. It’s time that you share your secrets with me, old friend.”
Salvatori raised his eyes to meet Cho’s. “If I were thirty years younger...”
Cho laughed. “Too bad that you’re not thirty years younger. Maybe you were smarter back then. Now you’re just a stubborn old man that refuses to listen to reason. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will. I’ll make you beg me for death. Do you understand? I’m out of time, and so are you.”
Cho reached into his jacket pocket, and the locking mechanism of the door clicked open. He stepped into the frame of the doorway and then turned back to Salvatori. “You had better think about what I said. The next time I set foot in this place, I will have my answers.”
As Cho turned away, Salvatori quickly gained his feet and lunged out toward the younger man. He grabbed a fistful of Cho’s suit and struck him in the stomach, but the punch was weak and ineffective. Cho swept out a foot and tore Salvatori’s feet out from beneath him.
The old man hit the concrete, and Cho kicked him hard in the midsection. Salvatori’s vision filled with white spots as his breath was stolen from him. He clutched his arms into his chest and curled into a ball.
Cho swept a hand back over his hair and said, “Damnit, old man. We’ve been given the opportunity to remake the world, to do something that’s never been done. We could be gods.”
Salvatori coughed hard and sucked in a lungful of air. “You’re insane,” he said in a wheeze.
Cho chuckled and kicked the old man again. “It’s always been said that there’s a thin line between genius and madness. I’m going to check on our son’s progress, but I’ll be back soon. We’ll finish this discussion, and if you don’t help me, you’ll see firsthand how insane I can be.”
With the threat still hanging in the air, Cho walked out the door and slammed it behind him.
Salvatori waited a few moments before he moved. Then, still crumpled in a ball on the floor, he raised his hand to his face and examined the small device that he had stolen from Cho’s jacket.
He cursed under his breath. The device must have struck the ground when he fell and damaged the transmitter. He closed his eyes and sighed. But then he willed himself onward, popped the back panel from the device and set to work.
13.
Knight grabbed the AA12 automatic shotgun from the crate and slapped on a 32-round drum loaded with explosive shells. He popped back up through the hatch and judged the distance to the creature. Beck was pushing the vehicle at a quick and steady speed. The lack of vehicles and pedestrians on the road made it possible for her to do so without swerving in and out of traffic and throwing off his aim. Somehow, the beast was keeping pace.
“How much farther to the SAS camp?” he called down into the cab.
“Probably another couple of miles.”
“Radio ahead and tell them that we’re coming in hot.”
The radio at his belt squealed to life. “Knight, are you okay? We’re scared.”
He grabbed the radio from his belt and said in a flurry, “Everything’s fine. I just have to deal with a little pest problem.”
He sighted in on the beast loping along behind them, pushed out a breath and squeezed the trigger. The weapon kicked hard against his shoulder and three explosive rounds shot forward and struck the beast dead center in its chest and head. Small explosions bloomed to life and halted the creature’s momentum, driving it backward and off its feet.
But Knight knew that it wasn’t out of the fight.
“Stop the truck!” he said.
To Beck’s credit as a soldier, she didn’t question his orders, and the large, black vehicle skidded to a halt. The smell of burning rubber mixed with the aromas of gunpowder and burnt flesh filling the air.
The beast was already pulling itself from the ground, the jagged wounds in its abdomen sewing themselves shut. He sighted in again and unleashed a steady barrage of fire. The butt of the rifle hammered against his shoulder, and it took considerable strength to keep his aim from drifting skyward.
He kept the trigger pulled back until the shotgun clicked empty and the entire cylinder of explosive rounds had wreaked havoc upon the creature’s body. The small explosions blew the beast back in a bloody mess, howling in agony. Its ruined flesh lay in pieces scattered across the pavement.
The keening wail was like a hot needle in his ears. The pain had to have been beyond imagining—more than any man or beast should ever have been forc
ed to endure. But right before his eyes, the bloody pieces of flesh began to reform outward from the creature’s core.
He shook his head and called down to Beck. “Get us out of here.”
14.
The SAS had positioned their staging area within the loading dock of a large building designed for use as a shopping mall. But all of the storefronts were bare and their signs blank. Light red bricks dotted with white bricks that came together in artistic shapes when viewed at a distance, composed the structure. It appeared to be a sizable multi-tiered complex with half of the space stretching up three stories high, plus a basement. The loading dock sat on the back half of the building in a carved out niche that opened into the basement level. Two stories of empty shops and food stands rested above the bank of waist-high doors designed for trucks to pull against and be quickly unloaded. An enormous parking lot sat behind the loading docks. There wasn’t a single car on the lot. In fact, Knight had seen no more than five vehicles since he had arrived in the city.
Beck parked in the lot close to the entrance, and they walked up a ramp and into the loading dock. Knight felt the itch on his skin of eyes staring down gun sights. Beck carried one end of his crate, and he held the other. He had given her the AA12 and strapped the FS2000 over his shoulder. He kept the weapon at his back and tried to make his movements deliberate and non-threatening. He had enough problems without worrying about a friendly-fire incident.
As they pushed through the door, the black-clad SAS soldiers swept from the shadows and fell in around them. They weren’t being overtly aggressive. Their weapons remained pointed at the floor, and they tried to make their movements seem casual. But he could plainly see that the SAS boys were ready to take the two of them down at the slightest hint of trouble. He could see their fingers coiled tightly around their weapons, and the sweat beading up on their foreheads.
An angry voice called out in a thick Scottish brogue. “Where the bloody hell’re my men, Beck? And who’s your friend?”
The man stepped out from behind a long table containing an assortment of maps and gear. He wore black BDUs and carried himself like an officer who had seen his fair share of combat—tight and efficient yet relaxed and confident. A black beret covered reddish brown hair, and the flesh on the right side of his neck was mangled from a nasty burn scar.
“Your men are gone,” Knight said. “And we’re next unless you listen up.”
Surprise fell over the man’s face, but his eyes quickly narrowed into angry slits. There was a bulge of chewing tobacco in his front lip, and he spit a black liquid stream onto the floor. Knight saw the man bite back an angry comment, as the officer looked him up and down. Instead, he said, “Okay, I’m listening.”
“I’m American spec ops. The rest of the U.S. team is gone. Killed by the same thing that took out your men. It’s big. It’s nasty. And it’s tougher than anything you’ve ever come up against.”
The SAS commander snorted. “Quite frankly, kid, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. So don’t talk to me like I’m one of the sodding paper pushers. I’ve probably spilled more blood in more mud than your whole damn unit combined.”
Knight rolled his eyes. The old-timers always looked at his smooth, handsome face and assumed that he was some kind of newbie. And they didn’t have time to swap war stories and compare scars.
Beck said, “You should listen to him, Donahue. He’s experienced in situations like this. You’ve heard the reports of what attacked those bases.”
Donahue waved her off. “I’ve heard the horror stories, but I’ve yet to see any hard intel to back them up. Just you showing up here with some stranger making a bunch of wild claims.”
Confusion contorted Knight’s features. “What are the two of you talking about? What bases? What attacks?”
Donahue gave him a strange look. “I thought you were with the Americans?”
Beck said, “He got dropped into this mess without being briefed. Donahue, just have your men keep an eye on the perimeter, and we’ll all play a little game of show and tell.”
Donahue nodded to one of his men standing in the shadows nearby, and the rest of the SAS team scattered. Beck stepped forward and laid the AA12 on the table. “Okay, Knight. Let’s start from the beginning. Since the Hydra incident, I’ve been tracking down other illegal activities being conducted by Manifold Genetics. I’d been hearing rumors that one of the scientists escaped from the Alpha facility with a sample of Hydra blood. My sources said that this man, who was of Chinese decent, had decided to go to work for his homeland developing the possible military uses for the Hydra DNA. He had recruited another former Manifold employee named Giusseppe Salvatori, who is one of the world’s foremost experts in genetic recombination. Salvatori has done quite a bit of work with reptilian DNA. He’s also an old friend of mine. He must have heard that I was trying to track down what Manifold was up to because he tried to contact me.”
“What did he say?”
“All his message said was that he needed to speak with me and that the world was in great danger. Needless to say, that got my attention—especially from someone like Giusseppe. He’s a very practical man. Unfortunately, I never heard from him again. Neither man popped back onto the grid after that, at least so far as I could tell.”
“Until now.”
Beck nodded. “Two days ago a British clandestine military outpost and a secret American research facility were wiped out. The only transmission received described a creature that couldn’t be killed. That’s when the SAS brought me in as a consultant.”
“Like I said, a crazy horror story,” Donahue added.
“I wish that were true,” Knight said to Donahue then turned back to Beck. “How did you trace things back here?”
“That was your American friends,” Donahue said. “They used some surveillance satellite logs to backtrack the path of a transport chopper that landed near their base. When our governments each learned that the other had also been attacked, this became a joint operation.”
“So the chemical spill explanation for the city’s evacuation was bullshit.”
“Which our governments suspected anyway. They just didn’t know the whole story.”
Knight put his fists flat on the table and leaned over. “And we’re here to fill in the blanks and get to the bottom of this mess.”
Donahue straightened up and said, “I still don’t buy the story about some bloody monster that can’t be killed. I know science today can seem like magic, but how the hell is something like that even possible.”
Knight thought back on the explanations for the Hydra’s abilities that he had been given. He shrugged and raised his hands, unsure of how much classified information to share with the man. “I’m not a scientist, but I know that all life on the planet shares something like ninety-eight percent of the same genetic structure and our DNA bonds in pairs. All of those genetic pairings are glued together with water. But this thing’s DNA is glued together with something called heavy water or D20. It’s this abnormality that allows its DNA structure to contain genes not found in other organisms. Some of those extra genes give it unique regenerative capabilities, among other things.”
Donahue looked at him like he had just recited an epic poem all in Latin.
“Salamanders,” Knight said. “Squid. Lizards. Starfish. They can all re-grow severed limbs or tails. This thing can do the same thing, but on a much grander scale and very quickly. You don’t really need to know how it does this, only that it can. And you need to adjust your tactics to compensate.”
The SAS commander opened his mouth to speak but didn’t have time to utter a single word before a flustered member of his team ran up to them. Fear showed on the SAS soldier’s face, but he still tried to maintain a modicum of respect and composure. The man was breathing hard, and the spaces between his words were punctuated by sharp intakes of air.
“Major Donahue, we’ve lost contact with the outer perimeter guards, and we’ve spotted something big heade
d our way.”
15.
“What do you mean something big?” Donahue said.
The man diverted his eyes. “It looks like… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Knight leaned into Donahue’s field of vision, blocking his view of the other soldier, and said, “You need to bust out the biggest guns you have and prepare for the fight of your lives.”
Donahue hesitated a moment. His face still showed a level of suspicion and doubt. But then he moved toward the front of the loading dock and started barking orders to his men.
Knight pulled the top from his crate of weaponry and ammo. He took out another 32-round cylinder of explosive shells for the AA12. He mounted the drum onto the rifle and yanked back the weapon’s slide. Then, he held out the large, fully automatic shotgun to Beck. She took it without a word. “That’s all the ammo I have left for that gun. Make them count.”
“What about you?”
He smiled. “I’ve got another toy that I’d like to take for a ride.”
She nodded and ran off to join the others in defending the perimeter.
He reached back into the crate and retrieved that Barrett XM500 sniper rifle. The weapon fired a round capable of blowing a man in half from over a mile away. Once the weapon was ready, he grabbed for the walkie-talkie at his belt. “Ling, do you see the monster now?”
After a moment of static, the voice on the radio responded. “We see it! It’s coming your way.”
He didn’t bother to respond; he was already on the move. He sprinted to one of the loading doors and pressed the button to open it. The roll-up door began to rise, and after it had cleared about a three-foot opening, he pressed the button again. The door’s upward climb ceased.
He dropped to his knees and then went prone with the sniper rifle still in his arms. His hope was that a well-placed .50 caliber round through the creature’s brain stem would be enough to finally take it down. But there was only one way to know for sure.
Callsign: Knight - Book 1 (A Shin Dae-jung - Chess Team Novella) Page 4
