Jenkins stood there a moment longer and then turned back to the skyscraper. He took off in a sprint with Knight and Beck on his heels.
As they ran, Beck said, “Are you sure that building is out of the blast radius?”
“Not really, but I hope so.”
“That’s great. Your confidence makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.”
“I tell you what,” Knight said, “let’s make a little wager.”
“I can tell that I’m going to regret asking, but what do you have in mind?”
“Nothing too complicated. If I get you out of this mess alive, then you go wreck diving with me. And you wear a bikini while we do it.”
She gave him a strange look and raised both eyebrows.
He thought back on what he had just said and added, “I mean…while we dive.”
“Fine. But if I’m the one who gets you through this alive, then you get to wear the bikini.”
Knight was about to complain, but realized that either way, she was agreeing to join him. Distant gunfire ruined the moment and pulled him back to the present, spurring him forward.
30.
Donahue succumbed to a fit of coughing after a few moments of screaming and banging on the hull of the Osprey. It felt like his chest was on fire and his lungs were caving in. He felt light-headed, and the world pulsed and throbbed along with the beating of his heart and the pounding in his skull. When he looked down at the hand he had coughed into, he found it slick with blood.
He leaned his head back against the Osprey’s fuselage and allowed his eyes to slip closed. He felt so tired. He just needed to close his eyes for a moment to recharge his battery. Just close his eyes for a few seconds and he’d be fine.
He jerked his head up and slapped himself across the face. If he fell asleep now, he suspected that he’d never wake up. A soldier’s will to fight was all that he had left. His men deserved to be avenged, and he refused to let them down.
A few more rounds from his pistol sailed into the distance. His screams lasted until his lungs had no more power, and then he used the butt of his weapon to clang against the bottom of the Osprey.
Where the hell was that thing?
He feared that he’d already be dead by the time it came to kill him. That would be no fun for anyone.
He pulled himself to his knees and checked his work on the warhead one last time. Everything looked in order, and he allowed himself to slip back down to the pavement.
Then he saw a clawed hand reach over the top of the concrete lip of the parking structure. It pulled itself up slowly and then sat there watching him.
Its eyes darted around the wreckage as if checking for some kind of trap. It was the first time that he had seen the creature show any kind of caution. Apparently, Knight had made an impression with his distraction.
The creature’s eyes settled back on him. Fury burned in the red, reptilian spheres, and the beast hissed softly.
“Do you worst, you ugly bastard,” Donahue said.
The creature’s massive legs stomped slowly forward, and its lips peeled back in a snarl. As he studied the gleaming white fangs, Donahue prayed that Knight was in position and ready to keep up his end of the plan.
31.
Knight took aim at the beast through the scope of the XM500. He estimated that his vantage point was right at one and a half miles from his target, meaning that he was beyond the effective range of the weapon but still within its maximum boundaries. It wasn’t easy to hit a target from one and a half miles. A huge number of variables had to be considered—wind, distance, drift, the curvature of the Earth—and there were only a handful of people on the planet that could make such a shot.
Thankfully, he was one of them.
He made the necessary adjustments in his head, released his breath and squeezed the trigger.
Through the eye of the scope, he saw the beast flop to the side from a direct hit to the cranium. He shifted his aim to Donahue and felt a pang of remorse for the man, but also felt proud to have known him. Only the rarest men could look death in the face and not cower in fear. The device utilized a two-stage explosion, so they needed to make sure that the beast couldn’t escape before the second stage was activated. The first stage would blow the casing and disperse the accelerant, fluoridated aluminum layered between the charge casing and a PBXN-112 explosive mixture. The second stage would detonate the fuel, and anything not incinerated would be crushed by the resulting shockwave.
Knight watched Donahue prepare to detonate the first stage just as the beast gained its feet. It must have sensed some type of danger. It seemed almost fearful. He sighted in and fired again, keeping the beast pinned down and unable to escape.
It flopped to the side but continued to crawl toward the edge of the building.
Most any living thing would be destroyed within a mile of the blast, but with this creature, he wanted to be sure that it was as close to the eye of the storm as possible to ensure that every last cell was annihilated.
The beast pulled itself up and tensed its legs to jump clear.
Knight fired again, but then a blinding light filled the eyepiece of the rifle. He jerked his head away, white spots filling his vision. The thunderous boom arrived a moment later, shaking the air from his lungs. A wave of warm air coursed over his body, pushing dust and debris away from the blast-zone. After a moment, he looked back to see the mushroom cloud rising into the air above the spot where the parking structure had once stood.
At his side, Beck said, “If that didn’t kill that thing, then we might as well just give up and head to the beach.”
“Sounds about right to me. Let’s just make sure everyone else gets out alive, first.”
She nodded.
He looked back toward the center of the fireball. It wasn’t just the creature that had died. A good man had gone with it. Jenkins sat with his back against the wall, facing away from the blast. Knight leaned over and placed a hand on the last remaining SAS officer’s shoulder. He squeezed and said, “He did you and your mates proud.”
Jenkins nodded and said, “I know. Now let’s go find the bastard responsible for this.”
32.
Salvatori thought that he had lost track of time or miscalculated as the flash of light filled his vision. But somehow he was still alive. A tremor of pain lanced through his wounded side as he swiveled toward the explosion and wondered what had just happened.
As he watched the giant mushroom cloud billow skyward, he realized that the soldiers being used as a field test must have found a way to kill Cho’s beast. He laughed, sending more tendrils of pain through his abdomen.
He checked his watch. Forty minutes until everything was set right again.
He looked back toward the mushroom cloud. He felt a stabbing of sadness that those soldiers had come so far and fought so hard. But now, despite all that, they would share his fate and be destroyed when the nuclear warhead contained somewhere deep below his feet detonated. He wished there was a way to warn them, but unfortunately, it was in God’s hands now.
33.
After hot-wiring an abandoned Toyota min-van and picking up the kids, Knight drove toward a section of the city that, according to Jenkins, thermal scans from a British spy satellite had identified as giving off an unusual amount of energy. The area stood out like a flashing neon sign within a city that contained virtually no activity. Now that the beast was out of their way, they needed to track down its handlers, uncover their plans, and put them out of commission.
Unfortunately, the satellite photos could only narrow the search grid down to a radius of five city blocks, which meant they had a lot of distance to cover, and Knight feared that their prey would soon go to ground now that their little pet had been destroyed.
“This is it,” Beck said from the passenger seat.
He slowed the van and began searching for anything out of the ordinary. The research headquarters could be housed within one of the surrounding buildings, but it could also be locat
ed beneath the city streets. He planned to make a couple of passes through the search zone and hopefully find some clue. If not, they would have to start a methodical search of every building, which could prove to be a dangerous and time-consuming prospect.
Up ahead, he caught sight of an old man sitting on the curb staring off into the distance. He brought the van to a halt and scanned the surrounding area for a trap. The interior lights of the van suddenly came on and the door ajar light flashed to life on the dashboard as Beck threw open the passenger door and ran toward the old man.
“Beck! Wait!” he screamed after her. He jerked open his own door and scanned the nearby windows with the FS2000. There were a million places to hide a shooter.
“Salvatori!” Beck called out as she ran.
The old man turned toward the sound of her voice and struggled to his feet. He stumbled back and nearly fell. Beck reached him just in time and steadied him. “Knight,” she called over her shoulder.
He swore under his breath. He looked into the vehicle at Jenkins and said, “Keep an eye on the kids.”
When he reached them, Beck said, “Knight, this is Dr. Giuseppe Salvatori.”
He immediately noticed the man’s gaunt features, shabby appearance and what appeared to be a bullet wound in his side. Those things spoke volumes to Knight and gave instant credence to the fact that Salvatori had been an unwilling participant in the events surrounding the creature’s development. The old man extended his hand, and Knight took it. “Pleasure to meet you, doc. Pardon for me being blunt, but it’s been a long day, so do you want to tell us what the hell is going on around here?”
Salvatori smiled. “At my age, Mr. Knight, you learn to appreciate the effectiveness of being direct. The creature that you’ve undoubtedly become quite familiar with, was the product of experiments conducted by a man named Phillip Cho.”
“I remember Cho,” Beck said. “He always struck me as a bit of a moron. Manifold security even caught him trying to sneak drugs into one of the facilities. I don’t know how he managed to keep his job after that.”
Salvatori bobbed his head in agreement. “Cho was a bit of a reptile himself, but he always had a way of surviving. I should have never gotten mixed up with him, but after Manifold was essentially shut down, I hated to think of how close I had come to making a significant mark upon the world. Cho gave me an opportunity to continue my work. He filled my head with lies, and by the time I learned his true plans, it was too late. He had used the resources of a splinter of the Chinese government, who hoped to prove the feasibility of world-wide communist domination to the government majority, to further his own insane scheme to achieve immortality.”
“You referred to him in the past tense. What happened to Cho?” Knight said.
Salvatori laughed then winced and clutched his side. “Like the angel Lucifer, Cho’s own vanity and pride were his downfall. Cho thought he had found a way to limit the side effects of his serum, but his manipulations to our original formula had actually caused additional side effects. He tested it on himself, and it killed him.”
Salvatori looked to the horizon, but then his eyes suddenly shot back to Beck. With surprising speed, he reached out and grabbed her arm. The sudden movement made Knight’s hand fly to his weapon.
“My God, Beck, in the excitement, I nearly forgot,” Salvatori said. “We have to get out of here. I activated the facility’s self-destruct system. In a few moments, the entire city will be leveled. Quickly, we must get to the roof. Cho has a helicopter up there, but I had no idea how to use it.”
“Don’t worry. I can fly anything,” Beck said.
Knight’s head jerked back to Jenkins and the kids. “Come on! We’ve gotta go now!” Jenkins ushered the kids from the vehicle and joined the others.
Salvatori turned toward the entrance to the building at his back, but Knight reached out and grabbed his arm. “Are you sure that Cho is dead and all of the research will be destroyed?”
Salvatori smiled. “Cho was paranoid. The only copies of the Hydra DNA and his research are contained here. No backups. And the changes he made to the serum surely killed him.” But then Salvatori’s eyes went distant for a moment. Knight waited, letting the doctor work through his thoughts. “Unless…”
The ground shook beneath his feet, and Knight said, “Is that from the self-destruct system?”
“No, it wouldn’t be causing any tremors. Besides, we have—”
The ground shook with increased violence, and they struggled to stay on their feet. A giant fissure cracked open in the middle of the street in front of them, and the pavement bulged upward.
“What the—”
The street exploded. Pieces of pavement rained down around them. A thick cloud of dust filled the air and obscured visibility. Knight grabbed for the children, pulling them back from the gaping hole in the Earth and the falling debris.
A giant roaring sound emanated from the dust cloud. It was so loud that it shook his eardrums, and his hands instinctively flew to the sides of his head.
As the dust settled, he saw the giant creature climbing from a hole that Knight assumed to have once been a subterranean research facility. The enormous monster was misshapen and disfigured. It was humanoid in basic form and shared some similar characteristics with the creature they had just destroyed. It was vaguely reptilian and had elongated front limbs.
But unlike the previous creature, this monster was forty feet tall. Its skin pulsed and bubbled, and its body was disproportioned. Its bulbous elongated head bulged at odd intervals with strange tumor-like nodules. It reminded Knight of some nightmarish cross between the Hydra, a burn victim and the Elephant Man.
The grotesque abomination didn’t seem to notice them. It stared at its hands and rubbed them over its malformed skull. It roared with one part agony and one part anger.
Jenkins, apparently struck with blind panic at the sight of the monstrosity, screamed and opened fire on the giant.
The bullet strikes had no effect other than causing the repulsive face to swivel downward and take notice of them. The massive creature that had once been Phillip Cho bellowed another deep roar. Then, as if smacking a bothersome insect, it slammed a giant misshapen fist down upon the final SAS survivor, grinding him into the pavement.
34.
Knight’s training kicked in immediately, causing him to formulate a plan and act upon it while the others stood frozen in terror. “Beck!” She turned to him, her eyes wide and frightened. “Get to the chopper! Get the kids and the old man out of here. I’ll buy you some time.”
Once again, she didn’t question his orders and instantly shoved the others toward the building’s entrance. The giant’s eyes followed the movement.
Knight took off toward the mini-van. He screamed at the top of his lungs and opened fire on the beast. The massive head jerked toward him and a clawed hand fell from the sky.
He dived forward and rolled as the street behind him was obliterated. The creature raised its hand to its face and seemed confused to not see a bloody smear.
Knight reached the van and swung the door closed. The accelerator slammed to the floor, and the van jumped forward with the sound of squealing rubber.
The beast swiped down and clawed fissures into the pavement, barely missing the van. Knight sped away down the street, dodging debris. The monstrosity bellowed and took off after him in an awkward, loping gate.
Knight skidded around the corner and saw one of the van’s hubcaps rolling away in the passenger mirror. He took another immediate sharp left turn, trying to lose the creature.
The speedometer showed his speed increasing down the abandoned street. One eye remained on the rearview, expecting to see the giant appear behind him.
But then, he detected movement in a building coming up on his left. At first, he didn’t know what to make of it, but then he slammed the brakes to the floor.
The building came toppling over into the street. Glass, concrete and steel girders exploded everywhere as
he twisted the wheel to the side. The giant rode the crumbling structure to the ground. Knight whipped the vehicle around in the opposite direction and punched the accelerator.
He watched the monster gain its feet in the rearview. Then, he jerked the wheel away as a massive arm slammed down into the street at his side.
He kept the gas pedal to the floor as he swerved from one side of the road to the other. The van bounced up and down and nearly tipped over as he launched over debris from the shattering road. The beast continued to slam its fists down around him.
His heart slammed against his rib cage, and he felt like passing out from exhaustion. His eardrums vibrated from the beast’s shrieking, and every muscle ached from fighting to maintain control of the vehicle amid the constant barrage of attacks and ground tremors. But he needed to keep the creature distracted long enough for the others to escape. He would have plenty of time to rest in a few minutes when the bomb went off.
The giant was right on top of him, stomping, slamming its arms down and trying to grind him into the concrete. Knowing that he couldn’t keep this up much longer, Knight whipped the mini-van down an alleyway.
The opening was too narrow for the beast, but that didn’t stop the thing from slamming its formidable bulk into the adjacent buildings and trying to squeeze through. It shrieked in rage and rammed a clawed fist into the opening. But Knight was just out of reach. The creature slammed into the buildings again, and a large chunk of the brick building on Knight’s left broke free and dropped into his path.
Caught between a rock and a giant reptilian monster, he goosed the engine of the mini-van and drove up the pile of debris as if it were a ramp. The van shot into the air and slammed against the building on the right, tearing off the passenger side mirror and sending out a fountain of sparks, before slamming back to the ground.
Callsign: Knight - Book 1 (A Shin Dae-jung - Chess Team Novella) Page 8
