“Assuming you’re right, how did it wind up under this steel cover so far from town?”
“That I do not know.”
Rook regarded Peder. He could sense the man’s resolve to keep the town’s secrets weakening. Time to play my last card, at least my last one for now. If this doesn’t get him talking nothing will.
Rook said, “I ran into your friend Thorsen today.”
“How is he?”
“Very sad. He broke down in tears on the street and thanked me for trying to kill the creature. Then he embraced me. It was sort of awkward with half the town watching.”
Something about the story didn’t sit well with Peder. He tried to hide his confusion, saying, “I can see how that would have been awkward. The man is grieving and not in his right mind.”
“The thing is, he told me something in a surprisingly clear voice. He said, ‘Pay attention to the victims.’ Would you happen to have any idea what he meant? I got the impression he didn’t want anyone to know he said anything, hence the touchy feely charade.”
Peder put his hands on his head and didn’t say anything. Rook could tell he was suffering and he didn’t have to try hard to allow compassion to enter his voice. “Peder, I don’t want anyone else to die because of your secrets.”
A moment later, Peder looked up. “It is too late for that. But I will tell you what he meant about the victims.”
Peder straightened his back, as if finally telling some of the story would lighten whatever weighed on him. Rook waited.
“Stanislav, three people have been killed by the beast. First was Trond Hagen, a young man who came to this town only about a decade ago. Second was Steinar Dahlberg. And finally, Greta.”
“So three people were killed. What’s the point, Peder?”
“The point is that all three people were scientists. And all three currently or formerly worked for Eirek Fossen.”
Peder’s revelation did not surprise Rook. It made sense that the creature’s motive would somehow tie into Fossen, the man who controlled the town. Nevertheless, Rook remained silent as he digested the new information.
He was glad he did, because Peder continued. “There is something else. Those three victims were not the only ones who worked for Eirek. My Ilsa did also.”
Rook asked, “Who is Ilsa?”
Peder sighed, and his eyes watered. “Ilsa was the most beautiful woman in the world. For fifty years, I was lucky enough to be married to her. Ilsa was my wife.”
Rook phrased the next question in as gentle a tone as he could manage, though he imagined he already knew the answer. “What happened to her?”
Peder’s voice cracked. “She died two years ago. Brain cancer. By the time we took her to see a doctor in the city, it was too late.”
Rook put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Peder nodded, then kept talking. “If the creature is killing those who worked for Eirek, maybe that is why it is targeting my animals. It won’t kill me, since I didn’t actually work for him.”
Rook thought Peder could be right, but he also though the Norwegian was being too hard on himself. “Or maybe the damn thing is just hungry. Don’t worry about the reasons, just focus on how we stop it.”
Peder stared at him, and might have dipped his chin, Rook couldn’t tell. Then he lifted himself off the couch and went through the door into his bedroom without a word. Rook let out a breath before he got up and headed out to the barn. That old man is seriously hurting.
He turned his thoughts to killing the creature. Rook and Fossen had agreed not to start their next round of stalking until midnight, when Fossen would contact Rook via walkie-talkie to let him know where the wolves were. Nothing had happened before that time on previous evenings, so they didn’t see the need to waste a lot of time wandering.
Rook, however, had no intention of sitting in Peder’s barn until that time. Leaving the tracking chip behind, at eight o’clock he made his way down to the area where the creature had disappeared the night before. Specifically, Rook went to the tree he’d climbed, which had enough upper branches to conceal him. He climbed the tree again and settled in the elbow of a branch near the top of it, a spot from which he had a clear view of the top of the embankment.
Night vision goggles would have really helped on this mission. If he could have enlisted Deep Blue and the satellites at his disposal, they could have scanned the area for heat signatures and possibly discovered how the monster had escaped. He had none of those options, instead relying on the AR-15, the Desert Eagle and his five senses.
On this clear night, the moon provided enough light that he would be able to see the creature if it came up the embankment. Rook didn’t like to wait, and he’d likely spend three hours staking the place out with nothing to show for it. But he couldn’t think of any better alternatives.
His mind wandered as he watched. He wondered again if this was what he wanted, wasting time cut off from the world instead of returning to his teammates. This kind of withdrawal wasn’t like him, but he’d never failed so utterly at a mission as he had in Russia. The fact that it wasn’t his fault didn’t ease the bitterness about the outcome. He still didn’t feel ready to go home.
Returning his mind to the matter at hand, he considered the victims, as Thorsen had suggested. If he were a detective or a mystery writer, the fact that all three victims worked for Fossen would provide motive. But how intelligent was the thing? How much would motive even be relevant?
Rook didn’t know. He did suspect that Greta’s death had caused Fossen to change his tune about having Rook in town. With that killing, Fossen had surely figured out that his scientists were targets, and the town’s leader would suspect that he might be the next in line. Rook would bet money that Fossen didn’t know the creature’s origin or where it had disappeared—otherwise Fossen wouldn’t need him.
So, Rook could assume the creature had a grudge against Fossen. Aside from indicating that using Fossen as bait might be a good strategy, that fact didn’t get him anywhere. Maybe he’d suggest the bait idea tomorrow if tonight didn’t pan out.
The creature’s obvious protection of the wolves also served to add to the confusion. Combined with the apparent grudge against Fossen, it made Rook wonder if Fossen’s “research” had any negative impact on the wolves. The more he considered this, the more likely he thought it, but it didn’t help him to know any more about how to find and kill the creature.
Other questions started popping into his head. Why had Fossen’s son tried to kill him the night before Fossen turned friendly? Who had fired the shot at his tire today? Was anything at all in this town what it seemed on the surface?
Rook knew the answer to the last one was no. As for the rest, he had no clue. Things were spinning out of control, and none of the town’s residents with the possible exception of Fossen seemed to sense it. All in all, Rook couldn’t have found a more appropriate place for a Special Forces soldier to wind up on vacation.
Around ten o’clock, Rook saw a shadow at the top of the steep grade. A moment later, he could make out the yeti’s outline in the moonlight. His hunch had paid off.
Now what do I do?
Rook’s plan was to try again to figure out where the creature was coming from. He’d wait until it disappeared, then go back down the hill and not stop looking until he found something. If it took past midnight, Fossen might wonder what the hell was going on when Rook didn’t have the sensor, but he’d talk his way around that one. He did have the walkie-talkie with him.
Tonight, the creature moved with a noticeable limp, something Rook noted with satisfaction. About time, he showed signs of mortality. Thank you, Eirek Fossen, for doing something brave and stupid and firing those shots at it.
As the creature reached the edge of the clearing where the wolves had circled the previous night, Rook dropped silently from the tree. The odor was strong, and unlike the previous evening, Rook hadn’t become accustomed to it yet. Maybe he’d get lucky.
He turned on his headlamp and headed down the embankment. When he reached the bottom, he sniffed, trying to gauge the smell. It was certainly stronger than it had been during the day. Rather than walk a specific grid, he tried to let his nose guide him.
After a few minutes, he had narrowed down a small area from where the smell seemed to originate. It was not as strong as right at the base of the hill, but moving in any direction other than back the way he’d come caused it to weaken considerably. Right here is where the creature must have come from.
Looking at the ground, nothing jumped out at him. He’d been over this ground the previous evening and a couple of times earlier today. Aside from a bush about two feet high and five feet in diameter, the frozen ground had no distinguishing features. He examined the bush, pulling back each branch, one by one.
He saw evidence of broken and crushed branches, but he couldn’t assume that was due to anything other than some animal trampling it. As he reached its roots, though, he made a discovery: The ground around the roots in the center was solid.
In fact, when he tapped it with his hand, he heard a small reverberation. Scraping away at the dirt, he saw metal glinting in his headlamp. Rook knew with certainty now that the bush was hiding some sort of cover or door.
He considered how to expose it and open it. Perhaps it could be opened only with some sort of remote, but he doubted that. He had resigned himself to scraping away dirt until he found the edges when he noticed that closer to the outer perimeter of the bush, the ground was a little higher than in the center. He stepped back and grabbed the roots nearest to a spot where that difference was noticeable, and he pulled.
He heard a creaking sound, and the bush lifted a few inches off the ground. He didn’t have much leverage, and the root slipped out of his hands, dropping the bush back to its former level. He noted how the dirt seemed to drift right into the correct spots to make the seam all but invisible, and he wondered how they managed that.
He got a better grip and tried again, and this time, he lifted it completely, the bush turning sideways as a trap door about four feet square, opened to vertical. He stared down the opening and the creature’s odor rushed up at him, causing him to swallow and his eyes to water. Despite the vile smell, he grinned when he saw the ladder descending into the darkness.
He’d struck pay dirt. He had found the yeti’s lair.
11
The smell only got worse as Rook descended the ladder. Before he did, he pulled the trapdoor shut, figuring he should cover his tracks to the extent possible. The ladder dropped about twenty feet before ending in a tunnel six feet high. The tunnel was carved from the rock, and crumbled stone littered the bottom of it, suggesting that the tunnel’s top might have some structural problems. His feet crunched over the fallen stones as he made his way down the tunnel, away from the ladder.
He had a sense that the tunnel was generally sloping downward in the direction of town. He made slow progress, ducking his head the whole time, but after five or six minutes, he estimated he’d come a quarter mile. He found himself at a metal door with a frame embedded in the rock. The word “Ragnarök” had been stenciled above the door. Rook knew that Ragnarök was a Norse prophecy about the end of the world that included a massive battle in which many of the Nose gods—Thor, Odin, Loki, etc—die. The word actually translates to “Doom of the Gods.” The story included the near destruction of the human race, but the survivors would reclaim the Earth, now a paradise. What that had to do with this place, he had no idea, but he was sure that whoever came up with the name had a flare for the dramatic.
The door had no handle, but Rook knew the creature must have a way to get through. The upper right seemed to have a space between the jamb and the door, and Rook was able to use the tips of his fingers to get it open. It took the right combination of leverage and strength, and he couldn’t see how a creature with massive hands could pull it off.
The door slammed shut behind him, and Rook took in his surroundings. He was inside some sort of laboratory, and while the equipment seemed ancient, it wasn’t in disorder. The smell had gotten even worse, and Rook had to wrap his black handkerchief around his nose to ward off the nausea.
Moving through the room, he went through one of its two doors. This one was just a small storage closet with some crumbling boxes in it. Returning to the room’s other door, he came to a larger room, one which encompassed several small offices as well as containing a couple of doors with the universal biohazard stickers on them. Rook moved to one of those doors.
When he did, he heard a howling sound, a pitiful echo of what the wolves outside were capable of, but loud enough in the enclosed space. He put the strap of the AR-15 around his shoulder, readied the Desert Eagle in his right hand and opened the door.
He saw several built-in cages rising to the ceiling, and one of them was not empty. It contained three wolves.
These wolves were nothing like the others, however. Their coats were missing large patches of fur, and they were small and scrawny, every rib visible. Each was deformed in some way, with one having only one eye in the middle of its forehead, another missing an ear and the front left paw and the third with something like a fifth leg dangling from its belly. The animals whimpered as he approached.
Holy shit, Rook thought. Are these Fossen’s experiments?
He stared at them for another minute, trying to keep his mind off the pain in the animals’ eyes. Then he exhaled and left the room without looking back. He could feel the blood draining from his fingers due to the tightness of his grip on the Desert Eagle, and he had to force himself to unclench his hands.
The other biohazard room contained nothing, so Rook moved through the one other door off the main room. Unlike in the previous areas, this new room he entered had a source of natural light, a small window near the top of one of the walls. Despite the ray of light peeking through the top, he saw nothing but dirt packed against the glass outside the window. Under the window, he could see a set of double doors, and he got the impression that this room had once served as the entrance to the whole lab.
Testing out his theory, he tried to open one of the double doors. He did so slowly, which he appreciated a moment later when dirt started falling through the opening. He shined his headlamp through it and just as with the window, he saw nothing but earth on the other side. The conclusion was clear: Someone had buried the main entrance to the lab.
He forced the door closed and looked at the rest of the space. In the corner, he saw a long couch, torn and filthy, with several old blankets on top of it. Near it, he saw a pile of bones and decaying flesh, and he knew these were the animals stolen from Peder’s farm.
He approached the couch. Wow. Yeti’s bedroom and kitchen all rolled into one. I hope it isn’t his bathroom too, though the smell’s so bad already I guess it wouldn’t matter.
On top of the strewn blankets, he saw a faded brown folder. It seemed out of place in the clutter, placed there deliberately. Rook snatched it up, jumping away as he did. He knew he looked foolish and that the idea of a folder triggering a booby-trap was ridiculous, but he’d seen too much craziness in Fenris Kystby not to use caution.
His heart rate sped up when he saw the logo on the outside of the folder. The same Nazi logo he’d found on the medal earlier in the day. The symbol of the Ahnenerbe.
He opened the folder and began to read. It started with documents dated in the 1960s, written in German, but soon the language switched to Norwegian. The documents were what a U.S. corporation would call executive summaries, research results translated into high level conclusions suitable for non-scientists. They pertained to biological experiments, specifically genetic engineering. Rook couldn’t tell from these documents what the goals were, but most of the summaries detailed failures. Horrible mutations, stillborn monsters, constant returning to the drawing board.
All the documents bore the same signature, that of an Edmund Kiss, with Ahnenerbe scrawled under the signature. Rook consid
ered this. Genetic experiments and a survivor from a Nazi group somehow tied into a remote location in Norway. It didn’t sound real, but here he was seeing it with his own eyes.
As he neared the end of the folder, the dates moved into the early nineteen-eighties, and the signatures grew less legible. Rook’s eyes were blurring, but he tried to focus, looking for any details that might tell him what had happened at the lab and to Edmund Kiss.
Then he saw it. A summary describing a success. A huge increase in size accompanied by few side effects except increased hair and odor emission. He assumed this was the origin of the yeti, not some experiment gone wrong, but an experiment gone right. They must have started with apes, not wolves, though the documents only used the word “subjects,” so it was not clear.
On this document, the handwriting was not recognizable as anything but a scribble. Perhaps Edmund Kiss suffered from progressive arthritis or some other such ailment. Rook turned to the next document, the last one in the folder.
This document was different from the others. It read like a diary entry rather than an official report: And it was written in German, just like the first few documents.
When he read its contents, he stopped breathing.
None of the others, not even my son, had the fortitude to take the necessary steps. The old ones are still waiting for a Führer who will never return, while the young ones know nothing of sacrifice. I am now a living testament to success beyond our wildest dreams.
The wolves responded well physically, but they went mad and we had to destroy them before they chewed off their own limbs. The others thought we simply needed more experiments to get rid of the behavior, but I knew better. Wolves are mad by nature, and the procedure merely enhanced that along with their physical size. Choosing a different subject was the only answer.
My influence has waned, and they rejected this approach. They tolerate me the way one tolerates a lame dog nearing the end of its life. By rights, I should be dead already, but I am convinced that my purpose is to serve the good of the Aryan people and bring about paradise. I experimented on the only subject remaining to me.
Callsign: Rook - Book 1 (A Stan Tremblay - Chess Team Novella) Page 7
