Undaunted, Hamilton beamed. "And yet, Mr. Hunter, despite your amazing deduction, you were still unenlightened as to the specific purpose, and salient characteristics, of HD-66."
"At the time." Hunter opened his eyes wider. "But with what I've seen, I believe I understand, at last."
"Really?" Hamilton was openly amazed. "Well, why don't you tell me? Because, as much as I would like to believe you, I find it an incredible suspension of reason to imagine that you could somehow deduce the purpose of a substance that you have never seen or studied. In truth, the only means by which you could understand the properties of HD-66 would be through a diagramed molecular synthesis. Which, of course, you do not possess."
"There are two ways to understand something, Doctor. You can know the thing itself. Or you can understand the world around it."
Hamilton seemed abruptly lost.
"I don't quite ..."
"It was you, Doctor."
Hesitation.
"You say it was I?" Hamilton repeated. "How so?"
"Your pride was your downfall, Doctor. Your arrogance. Your self-righteousness. Your greed. Your self-serving satisfaction of your dreams of grandeur. Your maniacal pursuit of scientific glory at the expense of human dignity."
Hunter could determine by the furrowed brow and utterly confused expression that the eminent Dr. Arthur Hamilton was dumbstruck. He decided to end the mystery.
"While you were sleeping last night, Doctor, you weren't the only one in your rather opulent bedchamber. The fact is, I was with you for quite some time."
For the first time, fear was visible in the scientist's pale eyes.
"Yeah, I was there," Hunter repeated calmly and matter-of-factly. "And I searched the entire room, but I didn't find any solid clues. You're quite disciplined at leaving all research materials in the laboratory."
"Yes," the scientist acknowledged, recovering from the shock of Hunter's unknown intrusion. "I am, indeed. And what did you find during your nocturnal skulking, Mr. Hunter? There is no documentation whatsoever in my personal quarters."
"That's what I mean." Hunter almost smiled, but restrained the impulse. "But it's like I said, everything leaves a trace of where it's been, where it's going, what it's thinking. And you're no different from the rest of us. A person just has to know how to read the signs."
"And what was this trace of the truth that you keep mentioning with such obscurity?"
"You, Doctor."
Slight surprise glimmered in the narrow eyes.
"Please elucidate," he said.
Hunter half-laughed. "Like I said, I already knew a great deal. I knew that you had somehow created this thing—a creature that once belonged on the earth, but doesn't anymore. And I knew that it was searching for the rest of the serum. The only question left to answer was why." A pause. "After searching your room, I was about to leave when I noticed the book you'd been reading before you'd fallen asleep."
There was concentrated remembrance, and then the scientist slowly nodded. "Yes," he mused, a thoughtful pursing of the lips. "Heart of Darkness. How observant."
"One of my habits."
"Of course." He laughed with a mocking mirth. "But, please, continue. I am fascinated with your deductive abilities and am well on my way to genuine admiration."
Hunter sensed the shadow glide another few inches. It appeared to be slowly working a path through the computers and desks to a flanking position on the guards.
"So," he added, "I saw that you were reading Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad. And that was curious to me, considering the gravity of our situation. Because usually, in times of crisis, a man will focus his entire energy and attention on the situation until it's resolved. Especially a man such as yourself. A man consumed with his work, and with himself. So I picked it up and paged to a well-worn section that had a single sentence underlined. And in that entire book it was the only sentence emphasized. I know, because I checked." Hunter recited from memory: " ‘The mind of man is capable of anything because everything is buried inside it – all the past as well as all the future.' "
Hamilton's smile was approving. "And then you knew."
"Yeah, I knew," Hunter said, with no tinge of pride. "I had decided a while back that HD-66 was a serum. But for what, I didn't know. Just like I didn't know why the creature wanted it so badly. All I knew for certain was that it wasn't going to stop until it found it. And then, with that, I understood why."
Hunter, although he was virtually unarmed and outnumbered, controlled the atmosphere now with the straightforwardness of his will, his utter lack of fear, and his unflinching moral courage in the face of insurmountable odds. He could read their reluctant respect in their posture and silence, though he knew it would not alter their intentions for him. He finished his thought.
"That thing out there, which you're responsible for, wants to remember all that it was because its past is somehow genetically remembered in its DNA coding," he concluded. "But the serum that transformed your colleague wasn't only imperfect, it was incomplete, wasn't it?"
Hamilton shrugged. "It was ...experimental. At that stage, we were still fundamentally unaware of what, exactly, we were dealing with."
"I know. So, not only did the experimental formula transform your friend into something that was neither animal nor man, the DNA had insufficient coding to fully restore the creature's genetic memory." Hunter was so confident of his reasoning that Hamilton's assertion, or a dispute if it had come, would have meant nothing at all. "Its genetic memory is and always has been incomplete, and it knows that. So it wants the part of itself that's missing. And whatever remains of your colleague knows where to find it. And that's why it's been destroying the research facilities. It's searching." He shook his head. "Yes, Doctor, it wants HD-66, its own heart of darkness, so that its cellular memory will be restored. It wants the serum so that the transformation is absolute."
Hamilton stared for a moment, a condescending grin spreading slowly, before he clapped his hands. "Bravo, Mr. Hunter!" He laughed. "And I had categorized you as a base wild man filling an inconsequential existence with inconsequential thoughts. But you have truly astounded me— a rare pleasure for a man such as myself." He nodded curtly, dropping hands to his sides. "I congratulate you. This was a remarkable intellectual accomplishment."
Despite the steel reasoning required to assimilate all he had learned into a definitive explanation, despite the haughty harassment of Hamilton, despite the finely focused attention of the guards, Hunter had not failed to follow the shadow of the still-unknown intruder as it maneuvered into position behind the masked soldiers. He knew from the lack of overt aggression that it was not the creature; the beast used no subtlety in attacking. So he felt certain that it was someone from upstairs. But whether that person intended to assist him, or not, remained a mystery.
"And now"—Hamilton turned his head to the guards, nodding curtly—"I am afraid that—"
Hunter moved.
Exploding in a violent movement not telegraphed at all, he leaped forward and collided hard with Hamilton to take them together over a computer dais—a wild and twisted tangle of arms and legs—to the other side. Paper and laboratory materials scattered chaotically at the impact and reckless descent, and Hunter was first on his feet, volcanically heaving the scientist around as a shield, his Bowie knife already at Hamilton's throat. Before Hunter spoke a single word Hamilton's upraised hands halted the onrushing guards.
"Stay where you are, you fools!" he bellowed, suddenly graceless. Hunter was amazed he had swung the situation around with a single dynamic move. He pushed the old man forward, hoping to control the situation by ruthlessly taking advantage of their temporary confusion and emotional shock.
Then the large figure of Brick erupted on the far side of a bookcase— the soundless shadow Hunter had followed so long.
The big man held the large, double-barreled Weatherby in both hands with pistols and grenades and extra ammo attached to his brown vest. A leather bandoleer
of huge bullets was slung from shoulder to hip, and in a flashing glance Hunter registered yet another rifle—some kind of semiautomatic—slung across his back.
"Drop 'em!" Brick bellowed and two of the guards, quicker than the rest, spun with rifles raised. But before the first guard had completed the turn Brick fired, the enormous expanding flame of the Weatherby reaching out six feet, and the guard's chest exploded with the impact. Then Brick swung the barrel and fired again, thunderously lifting the second guard off his feet as Hunter threw Hamilton to the ground and the laboratory was ripped by gunfire.
Chaney was becoming more frustrated as the moments passed, moving in and out of the trucks, Humvees, tankers, and transport trucks at the motor pool. The area was checkered with pits of black that could have contained anything: he had left his night-vision device in the facility, not reckoning that he would need it.
Despite stumbling on a dozen listening posts that denied seeing Hunter—he had not chanced upon Takakura and Taylor—he was certain that Hunter said he was moving outside to check the perimeter. He was loping at a respectable gait across the yard, passing the front of the shed containing the two-ton generators that were powering the facility, when he caught a slowly moving form high in the air.
It was a bizarre floating, grayish image—like a ghostly apparition emerging from fog. It came across the earth without touching it, hanging in the air, arms outstretched.
Chaney looked curiously, and although he was among the most controlled of all men, shouted something incoherent.
For, seemingly suspended, neither rising nor descending, the beast was nearly twenty feet in the air, hanging for what seemed an impossibly long time before it came down hard, its stone-heavy impact sending a gunshot effect that made a hundred heads turn together.
So shocked was Chaney that he didn't immediately open fire, somehow doubting against reason that it might turn and flee. Then it leaped again, angling for the domed hull of the green tanker parked beside the shed. Immediately Chaney raised the Weatherby and fired.
He had no idea if he connected as it completed an arching descent to vanish from view, landing without sound on the grassy area between the truck and building.
"HOLD FIRE! HOLD FIRE!" a commanding voice boomed over the intercom system. And Chaney needed no one to explain why. It would be simple for panicked troops, some having never seen true combat, to open fire in fear and accidentally detonate the ten-thousand-gallon tank. Chaney himself had recognized the threat only at the last moment and purposefully shot high, hoping to catch it in the shoulder, virtually assuring that he had missed.
Chaney stared in shock.
Nothing could have prepared him for this.
For what he had seen suspended in the night air made all human conflict seem insignificant. He had almost not believed it even when it landed with such fearless intent, and cursed himself for his hesitation. For he had had one moment for a clean shot and might have caught it as it stood gloating.
As an afterthought, remembering the hulking might outlined by the fog-shrouded skylight, he was glad he had brought the Weatherby and quickly replaced the spent round, clicking the breech closed.
Soldiers in teams of ten and thirty ran past him, taking lateral and frontal positions on the motor pool. Officers bellowed commands to compete with the roar of the generators, and Chaney ran down the line of Jeeps and trucks, hoping for a glimpse. Whatever it was, they had it cornered in the twenty-acre lot of automotive vehicles.
A hideous scream that rose in volume erupted in the night for a split second, then died abruptly. A wild rattle of M-16 fire was followed by another and even shorter shout of panic. Then silence. Chaney knew what it was doing; it had located the first listening post situated in the pool, killing both soldiers like lightning.
One platoon, close and tight with weapons ready, moved into the south end of the motor pool. Two more teams of thirty, one in the center and one on the north end, moved with them, a hundred men spreading into a skirmish line as they crossed the first line of vehicles.
Carefully, alertly, they moved forward, the instructions of sergeants and lieutenants to "look sharp and fire on acquisition" repeated over and over in the semi-darkness.
Chaney scanned the vast acreage, and in the distance, at the eruption of another frightful scream, saw a brief blurred shape of black moving left to right in a frenzy. Chaney's teeth came together in frustration and rage: two more down.
It was moving quick, slaughtering methodically.
The skirmish line had covered about a third of the distance when more screams echoed violently in the night. Chaney remembered Taylor and Takakura. He keyed his throat mike and tried to raise them, repeating their designation in order to warn them.
But they didn't reply.
Taylor glanced up and saw Takakura's sweating face silhouetted by a stadium-like display of floodlights. The Japanese was bent, sword in hand and a .45 pistol in the other. His eyes were feral, staring with rage, and his teeth shone white in the pale light that made his dark face glisten. He stared high and then dropped, silently searching underneath the truck beside them. When he rose he shook his head in frustration, snarling as he spoke: "It is working its way to the north end, away from us. It is methodically working its way through the listening posts."
"You wanna go after it?" Taylor asked, tightening the bandoleer so it wouldn't slide from his shoulder in violent movement.
Takakura shook his head sharply. "No ... I don't think so. Then again, it will find us soon enough. As it has found the others." He calculated, his eyes blinking hard and quick. "Yes, it will find us. But not as it found them."
"You wanna set an ambush?" Taylor whispered.
"There remains one more listening post between us and the creature. If it continues to kill methodically and is not somehow deterred, it will finish them next." His face hardened, dark eyes narrowing into slits. "It will be our only chance. It will be upon us in moments." He wasted a single second. "Do you believe those depleted uranium slugs will penetrate its skin?"
"I don't know. It'll penetrate the armor of a tank. But I don't know if these magnum shells give 'em the velocity it's gonna take. I'm damn sure it's gonna feel it, but to kill it ... I don't know." He shook his head, sweat dripping from his scarred face as he took a breath.
"It will have to suffice." Takakura crouched, peeking around the front of a transport.
Frantic rifle fire tore through the night at the other end of the field, a wild continuous blaze of at least twenty rifles on full automatic. A bestial roar rose above it all, and there were the horrifying sounds of men dying in fear, and then the firing became wildly unorganized and sporadic. Even from a distance Takakura could tell from the white muzzle blasts that some of them were firing in all directions or into the air, lost in war madness and fear.
"Now is our chance," he rasped. "While it is engaged we will take up a flanking position near the right listening post. If it comes for them next, then perhaps we can make contact with it before it hits. We must move quickly."
Forsaking greater stealth for speed because the far end of the field still thundered with rifle fire and an occasional bellow that could only have come from a man knowing death was upon him, they located the listening post without being sighted and took up a discreet flanking position. Takakura laid the M-14 across the hood of a Humvee, turning on the starlight scope. And Taylor angled across to the back, securing himself inside the rear of a tent-covered transport truck with a thirty-foot clear range at the probable area of contact.
Startlingly, the next chaotic cries and rifle fire erupted behind them, near the front of the lot.
It was incredible; the thing had traveled the entire expanse of the twenty-acre pool in fifteen seconds, effortlessly bypassing a thirty-man platoon securing the center, to launch an attack on troops searching the south end.
"God help us," Taylor whispered. It seemed incredible that they had survived it in the mountains—unless it was becoming stronger, more cu
nning, and more powerful as it continued to mutate.
Broken rifle fire over a hundred yards behind them erupted, as if they couldn't acquire the target and were simply firing into the darkness. Then the truck, a ten-ton rig with a twenty-foot wooden bed suddenly tilted toward the hood—silence, staring, not moving, staring—and with lionish velocity and grace the massive manlike shape sailed over Taylor's hidden form, landing fully ten feet from the fender, hurling itself forward as it struck the ground.
Almost before Taylor could rise to his knee and fire, it had struck the first man in the listening post, a sweeping blow from a taloned hand that finished the scream. But the second man managed a quick shot that went wide before the same hand struck his chest, smashing through the Kevlar vest like straw and—
Taylor pulled the trigger.
The blast was blinding. Taylor leaped from the truck to see it leaning back against the door, holding a hand to its shoulder. It gazed at him in anger, but without pain, and opened a fanged mouth, unleashing a roar that felt like a hand pressing against Taylor's armored chest.
Taylor roared and pulled the trigger again, only dimly aware of distant shots that told him backup was coming fast. But not fast enough.
As the bestial image of death rushed forward on horrible bowed legs, arms outstretched beneath glaring red eyes, Taylor pulled the trigger again and again, focusing all his skill, all his will, all his training and experience to make certain each of the twelve rounds hit solid. He sensed rather than saw Takakura's leaping shape as he emerged from behind a Humvee and dropped to a knee, instantly sighting and firing. Then the creature was upon him.
Taylor fired his last round.
He saw a depthless wall of gray might that blocked out the night and sky and stars and light; taller, inhumanly massive and indestructible with awful glee glaring from the purest bestial fury. Then it seemed to angle left, its right arm raised high, and Taylor leaped into it, roaring in rage as he reached for his Bowie knife to—
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