Hunter

by James Byron Huggins

  Chaney was silent. It was one of his habits, when speaking to superiors, to say as little as possible. He figured it was hard to incriminate yourself when you don't talk, though he often rode the crest between caution and rudeness.

  "This is it." Skull laid the file out. "It seems that we've had a military incident up in Alaska that—"

  "The army?" Chaney looked up. He couldn't conceal his surprise. "They have their own marshals. What does that have to do with us?"

  "Just hear me out." Skull gestured, uncommonly patient. "It seems that some oh-so-slightly more than classified research stations have had some serious trouble. Like dead people. A bunch of them. I want you to look into it."

  "Why me? More important, why us?"

  Skull said nothing for a moment, then rose slowly to stare out the window behind his desk. In the distance Chaney saw traffic moving slowly along the Beltway, which bordered the rear of the facility.

  "Because some of our friends in Congress are worried about a rumor that the research stations may have been doing some off-the-books biological warfare research," Skull said finally. "That's not the jurisdiction of the FBI. It's not our jurisdiction, either. But the Hill wants us to take it."

  "And you want me to take it?"

  "Yes."

  There was something about this that Chaney didn't like at all.

  "Well, just what, exactly, am I supposed to investigate? I don't know anything about biological warfare. I wouldn't know a cold virus from Ebola. I could be up there investigating for a year and not find anything that—"

  "Your assignment is in Washington," Skull said.

  Chaney didn't even try to conceal what he felt. "Washington?" he asked slowly; the pause lasted a long time as he studied Skull's downcast face. "What's going on here, Marshal?"

  For a long time, Skull was silent.

  "Chaney, if someone is using government resources to develop biological weapons illegally, then that means people at the highest levels are involved in covert activity that directly countermands not only the mandates of the President but the 1972 United Nations agreement prohibiting the experimental development of such weapons systems." He paused. "I presume you understand the implications of that?"

  A cold feeling settled on Chaney's spine. "Yeah, I understand. So you want me to investigate the Pentagon, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency to determine if they're running a black operation in direct contravention of a presidential directive."

  Skull nodded.

  Chaney took his time to respond.

  "All right," he said finally. "But I'll have to go outside procedures for this. Way outside. I want unlimited funds and my own crew, all of 'em handpicked by me. I also want written preceding authority to travel wherever I want, both me and my crew. And I want my own check vouchers." He was studious. "Plus, I want marshals in each district instructed that they will cooperate with me without hesitation, no matter what my requests entail. And, no offense, boss, but I want all that in writing or you can give the job to someone else." Chaney nodded. "That's my deal. You know what you're asking me to do."

  The words hung heavy in the air.

  Skull was obviously reluctant. "You've never let me down, Chaney. But I'll have to clear something like that with the Chief."

  "Take all the time you want. We can talk about what a jerk I am later. If I live." Moving away, he paused at the door as Skull called after him.

  "Hey, Chaney."

  Chaney turned back.

  "You asked why I selected you for this job." Skull's gaze never left Chaney's face. "The reason is simple. I got lots of guys smart enough to be a cop. I only got one smart enough to be a crook."

  ***

  Hunter spun like a panther.

  What he glimpsed—outlined in distant shadow for the fierce single beat of a heart—was unmistakable. Before it was gone.

  Eyes narrowing at what was no longer there, Hunter stared with a frown at a ridge over a half mile distant. He knew that eyes could play tricks at that distance, with shadow and foliage joining to throw a myriad of threatening shapes amid the waving brush of movement. But something deeper told him no; he wasn't mistaken.

  He had caught the most frantic, fleeting glimpse of a faraway shape—a manlike form that stood in the gloom and purposefully stared back, challenging. Engulfed in foliage, it was there and then turned—gone in a heartbeat as Bobbi Jo came up tiredly behind him, kneeling to rest. She had seen nothing, he knew, nor would he share the knowledge.

  "What is it?" she whispered, sweating in the humidity.

  He stared down a moment, shook his head.

  "Take a break," he said without tone. "Have some water. You're gonna need it." He moved away as she recovered from hauling the monstrous sniper rifle through the deep brush.

  Considering the horrific sight, Hunter shook his head: None of this was right. Whatever he had seen had stood upright. But nothing, nothing did that. Not if it could rip a steel door off hinges and separate a man's head from his body with a blow. Hunter tried not to let his consternation show.

  Takakura and the rest, Dr. Tipler straggling slightly, came up beside them. The doc seemed to be narrowly holding his own, despite his age. But Takakura seemed slightly fazed by Hunter's unrelenting pace. And that spoke of extraordinary conditioning because Hunter hadn't yet rested, though it was nearing late afternoon.

  Hunter himself didn't even feel the strain, and he had long ago ceased to wonder of his endurance, knowing that it was a specific kind of strength perfected by a brutal life. Just as he knew that he could go sleepless for days without feeling any effects or cover a hundred miles in a day by foot if needed. But he didn't expect that from others and was forced to remind himself frequently to slow down.

  Takakura bent, fatigued, but glanced at the ground as if searching. Hunter smiled; even the Japanese was slowly learning to track. Then he glanced around the ridge, back at Hunter. "We are closing on the creature?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Hunter said, debating what else to say.

  He wouldn't withhold information to the point of endangering the team, but he wouldn't speak before he was certain. Losing credibility in this outlandish place, and under these conditions, could endanger the entire team.

  "Hai, this is good," Takakura grunted, resting the rifle.

  He knelt, staring out, and what Hunter saw in those coal-black eyes assured him that the Japanese, no matter what secrets were concealed in this mysterious operation, had only one purpose. The Japanese was a man committed to his work. He would do his duty, even if it killed him.

  Remembering what he had discovered in the research station, scanning the rest of the team, Hunter was pleased there was at least one member he could trust.

  ***

  Exhausted, Taylor sat and raised his head to see Hunter on the ridge. The tracker was unmoving, talking in muted tones to Bobbi Jo and Takakura.

  The old professor was off to the side, wiping perspiration from his face. And the big wolf lying at Hunter's side was, as always, alert with black bat-like ears standing straight up.

  Another team member, Buck Joyce, came up beside him and laid an M-203 on a jagged stump, the remnant of a lightning-blasted tree. Buck was much smaller but six years in Special Forces had burned him down to a lean wiry frame.

  Taylor wiped sweat from the back of his neck. "That guy never stops," he mumbled, glancing at Hunter's powerful frame. "I ain't covered this much ground in a single day since I qualified for damn Delta. Fifty miles with a full pack." He shook his head. "That guy'd burn Bragg instructors to the ground in a week."

  Buck laughed, glancing easily at Hunter and Ghost silhouetted on the ridge. "Yeah." He released a tired smile. "And that dog is something else, too."

  "It's a wolf, moron."

  Buck smiled. "Hell, Taylor, I know what it is." He laughed again, genuinely amused. "Biggest damn wolf I ever saw, that's for sure. Meanest looking one, too. I ain't getting close to it, myself. You can't tell about them thing
s. They can turn on you."

  Taylor's scarred face twisted as he shaded his eyes, measuring the height of the sun. "We gotta make camp and set up a perimeter in less than three hours or we're gonna lose this light. Dark comes fast in these mountains. I been here before."

  "Yeah?" Buck was interested. "When?"

  "Ah, back in the late 'eighties." He spit to the side. "Some big recon thing on the North Ridge. I didn't know what we was doing. Supposed to be looking for a cavern or something. We found nothing and froze our butts off."

  "Well, you're back in the saddle again, my man." Buck stood as Hunter and the rest began moving from the ridge toward the valley below. "But then, chances are, with the way that thing moves, we won't get a shot at it anyway."

  Taylor grunted. "Buck, you idiot. Don't you know nuthin'?" He gestured up the hills. "You're SF and you can't tell by now how good that guy is? That mother ... He is tough." He took a second to shoulder his shotgun. "Ain't never seen his kind and I seen army trackers; they're supposed to be the best but they can't do in a day in the sun with what this guy can do in fifteen minutes. He reads everything, son. And I mean everything." He paused. "No, he ain't gonna let it get away."

  Casting a last glance at Buck, he moved forward.

  "You better lock and load, son."

  Hunter was staring at the ground as Bobbi Jo knelt beside him. When he spoke, his voice was so low she could barely hear it. Somehow, she realized, he had used the sound of rushing water in the stream to cover the words.

  "This morning, they started out okay," he whispered. "Now they sound like a herd of buffalo." A pause. "Happens like that. People get comfortable. Then they get careless. They cross a stream ninety-nine times and don't see a snake. Then they don't look down for the hundredth time 'cause they think it's safe. And that's when it's there. And that's when it hits them. Habit. It gets you killed out here."

  She gazed about, then turned to see the team on a far slope. She could hear nothing from their direction, but the sound of the creek dominated in the descending light of day. As she watched, it seemed that they still moved in silence, carefully placing their feet in a standard single-file advance, each man ten feet apart.

  Wondering what had Hunter so alarmed, she moved up carefully beside him, leaning close. He was studying everything around him in silence. She saw a single track in the hardened bank and nothing else. It was as if the creature had simply disappeared from the face of the Earth.

  Hunter turned his head slightly to the side.

  "Ghost," he said softly.

  Moving with uncanny grace, the huge black wolf crept forward, head bowed with a kind of eerie calm. Bobbi Jo couldn't help but clutch the rifle slightly tighter at the savage profile, the wide head and the black eyes that revealed no life at all.

  Pointing to the track, Hunter said, "Search."

  Within a moment the wolf vanished around a bend in the river, lost to the lesser blackness of this seemingly infinite forest. Bobbi Jo waited but Hunter said nothing more as he continued to stare intently at the print. Then, taking a chance on this man who seemed so at home in the forest, Bobbi Jo spoke. "What is it that's bothering you?"

  Hunter didn't reply for a time.

  Then, "It doesn't make sense."

  "What doesn't?"

  "The pressure release marks in this track." Hunter looked to the right, ahead of them. "This thing moved to the right, but there aren't any tracks to the right. Just that ridge."

  A sharply angled rise was beside them, over a hundred and fifty feet high. It was edged shale, revealing no path. They could free-climb it easily enough but there were no signs that the creature had used it, so there was no purpose to follow.

  Bobbi Jo whispered, "You know, Hunter, it's been staying close to water all day."

  "That's what bothers me."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Animals this size don't stay close to water during the day," he said, using the water to cover his voice, and then she understood how he was doing it. He was altering the pitch of his voice to blend with that of the current, modulating his words to fit the slightly lower rushing of the water beside them. She was amazed that he could so perfectly blend into the environment. It was as if he himself were part of the wild.

  He continued, "Big animals always drink at dawn, then they drink again at night like clockwork. And they don't stay close to water during the day. During the day they hunt and feed."

  "But the thing hasn't fed yet," she responded, trying to lower her voice so it would blend in with the current. "It's been moving fast."

  "Yeah," Hunter answered. "That bothers me too. It's moving too fast. And a big animal doesn't do that. They cover maybe ... three, five miles an hour. But this thing is making serious distance. None of this is right."

  She leaned even closer. "Hunter, I think I might have a good idea on this. It's been moving beside water all day."

  "Like a man would do," he said, not lifting his eyes.

  She paused. "Yeah, well, maybe. But the fact is that it tends to stay close to water. And that's probably what it's doing now because it's not going to suddenly change its habits. This thing is strong beyond belief. But I think it's gonna continue doing what it's been doing."

  Slowly, Hunter turned his head to look up the ridge, inch by inch. His mouth hung slightly open and his face was frozen, as if with revelation.

  "No," he whispered, "this would do something ...else."

  His hawk-like eyes roamed the ridge.

  "Tell you what," Bobbi Jo said, "how about if I cross-trail about a hundred yards out? I'll be careful not to mar any tracks if I find them."

  She waited a long minute before he spoke.

  "Yeah," he murmured, studying the jagged ridge. "You do that. I'm gonna have a look around here." He turned back to her, face hardening. "Don't go any farther than that."

  "I won't." She rose with the words, stepping lightly from rock to rock, moving down the stream.

  Hunter studied the cliff for a long time, reading ridges, slabs, and crevasses. A good man could climb it in about twenty minutes. Then he stepped forward and grabbed an outcrop, hauling himself easily over the edge. He effortlessly picked a path up the ridge, setting his feet firmly, testing the rock before placing his weight on it, choosing the easiest route.

  The procedure was in effect just an extension of the method he used for moving in silence. He knew that in order to move through the forest without sound you had to set the ball of the foot down first, then settle the foot slowly, front to back. Also, it was important that you knew the step wouldn't make any sound before you placed your weight upon it by choosing solid ground. And if nothing but twigs were present, placing the foot down parallel with them.

  Cautiously, he reconnoitered the rock, searching, reading every disturbance of the gray-brown dust that settled on the rock. And after twenty minutes of careful investigation he found it: a deep impact of claws branded in rock.

  Crouching, Hunter turned his head and gazed down at the stream. He measured the distance and shook his head at the overall, overpowering impression before he calculated the leap to be at least thirty feet. It was an incredible distance for any creature to jump, even a tiger.

  To confirm that he was correct, he looked around and found claw marks clicked in stone, marks of incredible clenching strength. He saw where it had climbed from a hundred infinitesimal signs that would have easily been overlooked by an inexperienced tracker. He nodded; yeah, this is why there weren't any more tracks in the streambed.

  He moved up the cliff, climbing surely to the summit. Staring down, he observed Takakura crouching at the head of the team, still far away.

  He waved them closer and waited until Bobbi Jo entered the open from the far side of the stream. When he saw her, he waved an arm and she nodded, coming toward them.

  When the team arrived at the base of the cliff, Hunter simply pointed to the top, and together they began climbing.

  *

  Chapter 6

&
nbsp; Fangs distended beneath gleaming red eyes, he stalked into the light of a pale moon that hung like a haggard skull over the mountains. Hulking and horrific, his slouched shoulders swelled beneath a vaguely human face and savage glare.

  With animal grace he reached up to brush a branch aside and moved into a wide grassy glade, now that his sleep was done—and that what he had once been was gone.

  As he entered the light he could be seen—hunched, tremendously muscular, hands slightly clutched. Long black talons extended from his fingers. He was distinctly mannish, though his bulk and brutal muscularity surpassed anything that could be called human.

  He would attack them at night, he had decided. And when the moment was right, he would kill them all. For he had expected them to follow, had known that they would follow and try to destroy him for what he had done. Yes, he would kill them all, but not yet. He would not kill them until he cornered them in a place where their helicopters and support teams could not be their salvation.

  Another day, and perhaps another.

  He thought back over what he had observed ...

  During the day he had carefully watched the man who wore the moccasins, the one who moved with the wolf, following its steps so surely. And although he did not recognize fear as they knew fear, he knew he could not escape this one as he had the others.

  Yes, he would have to kill the man first. Then the others would be chattel, slain at his leisure as he hunted them through the days and nights. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, some might escape. But he would kill the man with the radio quickly so they could not communicate; he understood this much of their ways.

  Snarling, his mind returned angrily to the man . . .

  Yes, he was dangerous; a hateful phantom of days when he had battled truly powerful enemies who had injured him. For certain, with the man he must strike quickly, and finish quickly.