"It has to have some weakness."
A moment passed, and she smiled. "You've got guts, Hunter."
Recovering from shock, he laughed.
"I've been told worse."
*
Chapter 9
They survived the night, emerged into light only to see a darkening sky. Clouds low, black, and sliced by lightning. But the temperature was too high for snow. Hunter didn't care about the rain but knew it would adversely affect the professor, whom Bobbi Jo had tended to through the long night.
They began the day early and covered distance cautiously. Professor Tipler held up well until noon, when the terrain grew steeper and he began to need more rest. Without saying a word, Hunter knew it would be one more night before they could make it to safe ground. His mind began to ponder, but he had no ideas. He knew, somehow, that the trick he used last night wouldn't work again.
It would find a way.
They kept walking until finally the professor sat down, exhausted, on a fiat slab. Hunter didn't even have to turn back to know what had happened. He knew everyone's rhythm, gait, shuffle, and Taylor's Frankenstein plodding. He stopped and looked and saw that Tipler was pale, haggard, and sitting with head bent low.
Hunter didn't want to usurp Takakura's authority, so he motioned quietly for the Japanese to join him in a private conference at the front of the line. Together they knelt and Takakura spoke exactly what Hunter was thinking: "Yes, I know. He cannot go much further." There was a decided lack of fear in the statement, and Hunter remembered "Expect nothing."
"I don't think that what we did last night will work again, Takakura,"
Hunter said. "It's getting smarter by the moment. And we're almost out of ammo."
Takakura gazed around, analyzing. "This is as good a place as any to make a stand. We have at least one hundred meters on each side. Perhaps, if we are lucky, we can discourage it with the Barrett."
Hunter released a deep breath. Yeah, it was a good place, but that thing could cover a hundred meters in six seconds. And that was too fast to acquisition for a shot. Still, he didn't have a better idea.
He shook his head.
"It's gonna be a hell of a fight."
***
Hunter gently gave Tipler a drink of water, noticing the ghostly paleness of the old man's face. His hands trembled slightly and he moved with an odd stiffness. Hunter estimated that some of the rigidity was due to the severe testing of muscles, but it could be more.
"How ya feeling, old man?" he asked.
Tipler laughed, "I am feeling splendid, my boy. I just need a night to rest a bit, and then we shall be on our way."
"You bet." Hunter smiled. "But right now all you need to do is rest. I'll be back in a bit to check on you, and Bobbi Jo is gonna be close. She'll be looking in on you, too." Hunter winked. "You just don't go trying to pick her up. She's too young for ya."
Tipler laughed.
Hunter laughed with him as he rose and exited the tent. Then he examined the perimeter. It was a hundred yards across, and Bobbi Jo crouched dead-center in the middle of it, rifle pointed at the sky. She was wearing night-vision goggles and had her back to the fire. She was also wearing what most referred to as "wolf ears"—devices that amplified sound for humans so they could hear as well as a wolf. Hunter had never needed them.
Takakura, also keeping his back to the flame, held the MP-5 close, and was wandering a tight circle while the rest held established positions. Hunter walked directly to him, and Takakura, acutely aware of any movement, turned slowly to face him.
"It has the advantage, Takakura," he said.
"Yes," Takakura responded. No emotion.
"But I think I know how to keep it from attacking."
Takakura stared an unusually long time. The black eyes narrowed. "And what would that be?"
"A challenge."
Consternation in Takakura's face betrayed his confusion. "I believe we have given it as much of a challenge as possible, Hunter. I do not understand your—"
"It's an animal, Takakura, and I understand animals more than any of you. It's the alpha of this forest. The strongest. The ruler of the forest, if you want to put it like that. We're on his ground now, and he doesn't like it. He wants to show us he's boss."
Takakura replied, "And?"
"And so we show him that he's not. That's a challenge he can't resist."
Silence.
"And how would we go about doing such a thing?"
Hunter lifted his head to the darkening forest that surrounded them. "I give it a challenge. It won't be able to resist. If I go out there, I'll be the alpha. It will hate that. It will hunt me instead of you. Then it won't attack the camp."
"You are speaking of ..."
"Yeah. I go out there. Let him chase me instead of me chasing him. Turn things around on him. It'll be surprised at first, but it'll take the bait. I can lead it south."
Takakura said nothing for the longest moment, as if the idea did not deserve a reply. "If you encounter the creature in the dark, it will tear you to pieces."
Hunter bent to retie his moccasins. "That's a big 'if Takakura. 'If bullfrogs had wings they wouldn't bump their butts when they jumped. But I'm taking Ghost with me. And nothing can sneak up on him. Not even this thing. And I can give it a run for its money." Hunter stood. "I can keep it away from the camp until daybreak."
"1 cannot allow this."
"It's your outfit, Takakura. But it's my life. And I'm not under military command. I'm only telling you this ... as a friend. Either way, I'm going out and play a little cat-and-mouse. If I'm not back by dawn, head southwest for twenty miles. Follow the Yikima Creek for five miles, then strike across. The research station is another five. If you push hard, you can make it in six hours."
"The professor cannot make such a journey."
"Build a cot for him and carry him." Hunter removed his shoulder pack and checked his thick leather belt, pulling out a small fist-sized piece of steel with a long thin wire attached to it.
"What is this?" the Japanese asked.
Hunter suddenly grew grim. "A last chance." Then his mood changed and he inserted it back into his belt. He strapped the Marlin to his back, cinched it tight, and turned his face to the almost totally darkened tree-line. "Game time," he whispered.
"Ghost!" he said sternly.
Instantly the wolf was at his side, and Hunter was moving for the darkness.
Takakura called after him. "Hunter!"
He turned back.
"This thing we hunt, it also hunts you."
***
It was a dismal, strangely soundless and chilled afternoon when Chaney strolled casually into the McMillan Deli. It was the habitual watering hole for off-duty, and sometimes on-duty, government agents and was owned by a retired FBI agent named Frank "Brick" McMillan.
"Brick" had earned the nickname twenty-five years ago when, as a deputy marshal, he had been trapped in a house that was fully aflame and all the exits were blocked. Not content to be burned alive, Brick—a former fullback for Texas A&M—just got a good running start from one end of a long hallway and "made" a brand new door in the rear wall of the structure before it collapsed behind him. Somehow, the nickname seemed to stick through the rest of his career.
Chaney sauntered through the crowd with a few handshakes and some smart remarks about how the service was doomed for the graveyard under the new administration. He went back to the kitchen and saw Brick standing over a stainless-steel counter, deftly slicing meatballs and lettuce for a sandwich.
Bricks flattop haircut hadn't changed in thirty years. He claimed he kept it that way because it was "economically and theologically correct." And the wide bull shoulders and expansive gut were still present, as were the tremendous gorilla arms and tree-trunk legs. Brick looked up as Chaney walked forward, smiling broadly. He wiped his hands on a rag hanging from his gut and laughed.
"Hey, boy," he said, extending his hand. "What'd they do, make you work for a livin
g?"
"Naw." Chaney picked up a meatball. "I'm faking it. Like always."
"Like I taught you." He laughed.
Chaney looked at the meatball. "Damn, Brick, this is good. Did you make this?"
"Nope. Edna does all the cooking. I'm just a gofer."
"I'll bet she does. How you like retirement?"
"Best of life, kid. Best of life. Just wait 'til you get your twenty so you can tell them to kiss your heinie and they can't touch you. And they still gotta pay. Revenge is best served cold." His square face split in a becoming smile. "But that ain't why you come to see me, is it? Just to see how an old man's getting along?"
Chaney smiled. He shook his head as he sat on a stool. "I guess I still gotta go some to sneak up on you, huh?"
Brick laughed. "Some." He slid the sandwich on the mantle. "Order up!" Turned to Chaney. "Come on. I gotta check the beer anyway. Those CIA goombahs drink like fish. Must be the burden of all their sins."
Chaney followed to the storeroom and Brick continued, "So what you got?"
"Still keeping your nose to the wind?" Chaney sat on a crate as Brick effortlessly shifted four cases at a time.
"Well, kid, I hear things. 'Bout like usual."
"Heard anything about a few stations up in Alaska? Any kind of trouble up there?"
Brick set the cases down with a thump. Turned slowly. "They give that one to you?"
Chaney nodded.
With a grunt, Brick wiped his hands on the apron. "Well, I don't know too awful much. Heard some cowboys got killed. Bad scene. Made me want to stock up the bunker."
"You get that from the Agency?"
A guffaw. "Oh, hell no, kid. You think I trust those goons? You know better than that. At least I hope I taught you better than that. I wouldn't buy an apple from them and I always keep both hands in my pockets when we talk." His laugh was a hoarse rumble inside a huge barrel chest. "No, got it from a friend of mine uptown. Seems like the army, or the marines, were on it. Don't know who had full authority and command. But the Corps ain't too happy about what happened. Seems they lost a lot of recon guys. Tough hitters, 'bout like you used to be before you retired to work for the bleeding Marshals Service. And nobody is talking much, which means there's a lot to say."
Brick focused fully on Chaney, and the full weight of it disturbed Chaney as much as it did twelve years ago when he was a rookie deputy marshal and Brick was his training officer. "What's that got to do with you, boy?" Military affairs ain't your jurisdiction."
Chaney sighed. "I'm supposed to find out what happened, Brick. So, yeah, it's my problem."
"A CIA screw-up ain't your problem."
Chaney didn't blink. "It is now."
There was uncomfortable tension as Brick gazed about. Chaney noticed that Brick seemed as robust as he was over a decade ago. He was a bull-thrower then, he was a bull-thrower now. Brick lowered his voice slightly as he replied.
"You sure you ain't bein' set up? Made any enemies inside the agency lately?"
"No." Chaney shook his head. "Skull is pissed, but that's just Skull. You get used to him. No, he wouldn't do that. Truth is, Brick, I don't know what's going on. Not really. But if there are some dead marines, then one of those leatherneck senators is going to be going ape."
"So you can't use official lines."
"No. This has got to be done quiet. Just like the ol' Reagan days, when we could actually get things done, shake people up. 'Cause if anyone gets wind that I'm sniffing around, they'll just close ranks and start shredding. I can't have that."
"If you want to stay alive, yeah," Brick grunted. "Okay, drop by the house tonight. I'll see what I can get. And don't go acting like an investigator between now and then. Be a good boy. Keep your head down and your mouth shut, just like I taught you. I'll see you later."
Rising, Chaney said, "I owe you, Brick."
Brick winked. "You always will, boy."
Chaney smiled, walked away.
***
"This can't be right," Rebecca whispered. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at a printout of the DNA strand. "No, Gina. This is impossible. This points to something we've never seen before."
Gina shook her head. "I know. But that's what we got. The machine doesn't lie."
Neither of them said anything as they stared at the display on the electron microscope.
"If this is not contaminated, Gina, it's incredible." She flipped a dozen pages of numbers, graphs, curves and comparison charts. "My God," she whispered. "Look at the fibronectin and talin in the inhibitors. This thing ... it has to ... it has to have an incredible resistance to infection. Look at the epinephrine enhancers. Incredible. We've never seen this kind of overabundance of factors." Pause. "Just what in the world is this thing?"
"Well, Rebecca, the DNA go ninety-nine percent Homo sapiens. The rest is as unknown as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. This particular strand doesn't collate with anything in the bank, but you can see that with all these restrictive enzymes and retroactive proteins this thing has a super powered immune system. I don't know what it is or how it's done, but it's there. I ... well, I really don't know how else to classify it."
For a long time, Rebecca stared at a photon level image of the tendril recovered from the plaster. She had a hard time tearing her eyes from it. Then her mouth tightened, almost angrily, and she spoke. "All right. Record everything. Make three copies. You know where to put them. I'm taking one to the lab at Langley. They need to see this or they won't believe it." She waited. "Hell, I don't know if /believe it, and I'm staring right at it."
It started in the thickest darkness Hunter had ever known, but he knew it was more than just the night. With Ghost at his side, he moved in total silence, alert, sensing every empty shadow. They caught the first hint of it in twenty minutes.
It was about six hundred feet north, and Hunter was west. Calmly, Hunter crouched, studying all there was to see in the silver moon. The night gave just enough light to see the ground. Good enough.
"Come on, boy," he whispered.
It was accustomed to prey fleeing its wrath.
Hunter ran straight toward it, toward the north, closing the gap much, much quicker than it would anticipate. Then he saw the right terrain and leaped high, one foot hitting a boulder that launched him higher to a tree limb, where he leaped onto a slope.
Ghost made the tremendous leap without the advantage of the boulder, landing beside him.
Instantly Hunter angled uphill, running as quickly as the steepness allowed, slowing on moccasin-padded feet as he crested and crouched. Below him, he saw a ravine no more than ten feet wide, and then ... a tremendous hulking shape of a humanoid creature. It was shuffling, confused, and even at that distance Hunter could read the anger in its face, its stance. It turned this way, that, searching with quick, jerky movements. The scent was strong here, it knew, but the prey ...
Hunter smiled, knowing that the very first move he made would snatch its attention. He decided to make it a good one. Backing up a few steps, he rubbed Ghost's head. The wolf knew what he was going to do, was going to do it with him.
Hunter ran toward the gap in the ravine, and leaped, wasting one second to glance down and see the beast whirl as if shot. And he knew what it saw. A man and a great black wolf suspended in the air, soaring across a narrow moon.
Hunter landed lightly on the other side, and Ghost was beside him. Then Hunter was running, running, weaving a complicated path through roots and trees and over boulders, doubling back, avoiding inclines because they slowed him, and then he began laying traps, tricks, immersing himself in a freezing stream and floating downriver until he lifted himself out with a limb and climbed from tree to tree for a hundred yards before dropping to earth.
He stopped in place.
He had landed before a gigantic stone tablet, at least two hundred yards across. It was utterly level, as if ancient glaciers had shaved it. But now it was also littered with boulders, the remnants of earthquakes, volcanic erup
tions, flood. Instantly he began a complicated trail, in and out, around good ambush sites, which the beast would approach slowly. He worked for ten minutes, running quickly, crisscrossing a dozen times. He left trails that led into the surrounding forest in a myriad of directions. When he was finished, he was sweating heavily and his legs were numb. But Ghost seemed to have enjoyed it.
Hunter looked at him, smiled. "You idgit-head. All you want to do is fight him, don't you?" He rubbed Ghost's head. "He ain't the alpha, old boy. You are. You always will be."
Afterwards, Hunter floated down a frigid stream, downwind, and finally saw an overhanging limb—too far to reach! In a split second Hunter had grabbed the snare from his belt and held the steel tube, and as the branch came closer he saw a broken limb, short enough for one good throw. As he passed under it the titanium lasso lashed through the air, silver and spiraling. The loop landed solidly on the projection, tightened, and suddenly cold water was splitting around Hunter.
Hands cutting to the cord, Hunter hauled himself back to the branch, and only by the most extreme strength of his forearms was he able to maintain a grip on the titanium as he hauled himself up. His hand lashed up, settled on the limb and he was clear.
He sat on the limb a minute, breathing heavily, freezing, but he knew his clothes would dry quickly. He could endure. He attempted unsuccessfully to undo the lasso from the four-foot-long limb for five minutes, but the lasso had been designed so that, once closed, it would not open. With his heavy Bowie he severed the limb at the trunk and carried it with him. After another ten seconds of hacking he had severed the limb, unwinding the lasso to replace it carefully in his belt. He smiled to himself; the makeshift device was coming in handy. He climbed the tree to another and then down to the ground at least a hundred yards distant.
Then he sat. Waiting.
Ghost, beside him, listening to the night, was uncannily alert. And Hunter was already exhausted, so he ate some pemmican for strength. Then he gave Ghost a large slab of beef jerky.
If the beast eventually unraveled the trail, Hunter would be able to confirm that it could hunt by scent as well as sight. Every discovery he accumulated about it was important because Hunter never knew what he might be able to use for an advantage.
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