The Omega Terror

by Nick Carter

  I had seen vultures in East Africa. They could tear a gazelle to shreds in fifteen minutes, picking the bones clean in another fifteen, so that all that was left was a dark spot on the ground. The big birds had no fear of a live animal, even man, if that animal was disabled. And they had lousy table manners. They had no compunctions about starting their grisly meal before the animal was dead. If it could not fight back, it was ready for the picking. There were stories about vultures and disabled men from white hunters and African trackers that I would rather not have remembered. It was best, I had heard, to lie on your face after you became immobilized, but even then you were vulnerable, because they would attack the kidneys which was more painful than the eyes.

  “Go away!” I yelled weakly at them.

  They seemed not to hear. After the sound of my voice had died away, the desert appeared even more quiet. The silence was a buzzing in my ears, a sound itself. I let my head fall back onto the hard clay, and the double vision returned. I moaned aloud. It was only mid-afternoon, with several hours of scorching heat ahead before dusk came. I felt I would collapse long before that. And then the birds would get me. Very quickly.

  I raised up on one elbow again. Maybe I had been walking in the wrong direction. Maybe I was putting more and more distance between myself and the road, removing any hope of rescue from a passing traveler. It was possible that every time I got up and moved I was moving closer to death.

  No, I couldn’t think that way. It was too dangerous. I had to believe I was heading toward the road. Otherwise I would not have the courage, the will, to move at all.

  I struggled again to my knees, my head feeling twice its size. I gritted my teeth and inched forward along the clay. I would not give up. I wondered briefly if Zeno had known I was not dead when he left me, but decided to let the desert do the killing. That would be typical of him. But to hell with Damon Zeno. I no longer cared about him. I no longer cared about the Omega Mutation. I wanted only to survive this day, to live.

  Foot by foot I dragged myself along. I had little idea where I was headed. But it was important to keep moving, keep trying. I stumbled along, the hard clay burning and cutting me as I went, and I thought of Gabrielle. I thought of her in a dark, cool hotel room in Mhamid, lying on the big bed, naked. And then I was in the room with her, and I was moving over to the bed. Her arms embraced me, pulled me down beside her, and her flesh was cool and soft and scented like jasmine.

  A short time later I found that I had passed out again. I was lying on my back, and the sun was broiling. Six vultures spiraled over me. I licked at dry, cracking lips and pushed myself up. But I did not have the strength to move. One of the vultures soared low and settled just a few yards away, making that stiff-legged goose-step at the end of the landing. Then another bird came down.

  I yelled weakly at them, my heart pummeling the inside of my chest. The two birds made a couple of hops and in a dry, heavy rustling of feathers, lifted off again and joined their comrades aloft.

  I lay back. I was wheezing hard, my pulse racing. I had run out of strength. I had to admit to myself that I had lost. Damon Zeno had gotten me. The sun and the birds would end it before another hour passed. I had no idea where I was, I could not see clearly for even a few yards. I suddenly thought of Wilhelmina for the first time and felt for its familiar shape in the holster at my side. It was not there. I had had it out when Zeno bushed me. He must have taken it. Even Hugo was gone. I had no weapon to use against the birds.

  The vultures swooped lower and lower, floating and gliding, their bright, darting eyes eager and hungry. I rolled on my stomach and began crawling. With blood-smeared hands I crawled along like a snake, expending the last ounces of energy.

  I was jolted to sudden consciousness by a sharp, tearing pain just under my left eye. I had passed out again and was lying on my back. My eyes shot open in terror, my hand coming up automatically in defense.

  Two big vultures stood on my chest. The long scrawny necks, the obscene darting eyes, the hooked sharp beaks filled my field of vision, and their odor filled my nostrils. One vulture was jabbing and tearing at the leather of my holster strap, and the other had made its first stab at my eyes. The second bird was just about to make another try, when my hand came up. I yelled aloud and grabbed at the ugly neck.

  The big bird screamed raucously and tried to get away. I hung on to the snakelike neck as the other vulture flailed its broad wings, scratching my chest as he pushed off. The one I held thrashed about wildly to free itself, beating its wings against my face, my chest, and arms and digging into me with its talons.

  But I would not release that scrawny neck. I imagined the hideous head was Zeno’s, and through all the thrashing and the squawking, I managed slowly to get my other hand up and onto the neck, the sharp beak jabbing at the hand all the while and drawing blood. Then I rolled onto my side, pinned the bird to the ground and with a desperate surge of strength bent the long neck double. Something snapped inside, and I let go. The bird beat the clay with its wings for another couple of moments while the rank smell of it assailed my nostrils, and then it lay still.

  I was sick from exhaustion. I thought for a moment I might throw up. But slowly the nausea subsided. I glanced around and saw the others. They were all on the ground now, some moving around me in a tight circle with that stiff-jointed neck-jerking walk, some just standing impatiently, watching.

  I lay back, exhausted. A couple of them edged closer. I felt numbly under my left eye and there was a shallow gash there. My hand came away with blood on it. But the vulture had missed the eyeball.

  I glanced at the dead bird with a small amount of satisfaction. They might get their grisly feast before the day was out, but I would make them work for the meal.

  The other birds were now moving in slowly, their grotesque heads bobbing in quick, weird movements. They were excited by the smell of blood and very impatient.

  I felt a sharp peck at my right leg and looked to see the bird standing beside me. The others were close too, inspecting the body for signs of life. Only one had been distracted by its dead companion. I was the meat they were waiting for. I swung weakly at the bird that had pecked me, and it fluttered backward a couple of feet.

  Well, it would not be so bad after the first shock of pain. Men had died more terribly at the hands of L5 and the KGB. I could manage it, too. But I would not let them have my face. Not first anyway. I rolled heavily onto my chest and laid my face on my arm.

  I lay there quietly, thinking of Zeno and my failure, and what that failure would mean. It appeared I would not be around to see the results. I listened to the rustle of feet and feathers growing louder as they closed in.

  THIRTEEN

  There was a great fluttering of wings, and another sound accompanied it. It was a familiar sound— a car engine. And then there was the voice,

  “Nick! Mon Dieu, Nick!”

  I moved my arm from my face, and my eyes fluttered open. The sun was going down in the sky, and it was not so bright now. I moved the arm again and rolled onto my side. Then I saw Gabrielle, bending over me, concern and relief in her eyes.

  “Oh, Nick! I thought you were dead.”

  She was pulling at the shredded cloth of my shirt. “Thank God, I found you in time.”

  “How . . . ?” It was difficult to speak. I couldn’t manipulate my tongue.

  She helped me up and leaned my head against her. Then she was unscrewing the top of a canteen, and I could almost smell the water as the cap came off. The miraculous wet stuff was washing down my throat, gurgling its way to my insides, moving into the vital places replenishing my energy and my fiber.

  “You’re only fifty yards from the road,” she said. She pointed beyond the Citrõen. “Didn’t you know?”

  I could actually feel the energy returning with the water. I moved my tongue, and it would work now. “No, I didn’t.” I took another swig, then Gabrielle was touching my parched face with a damp cloth. “But what are you doing out here? You’
re supposed to be in Mhamid.”

  “Someone came into town with news of the fire. I could not just sit there at the hotel, thinking you might be in trouble. I was heading for the lab when I saw the two sets of car tracks leading down this road toward Tagounite, the next town from here. Since the laboratory had been leveled, I figured you were either caught in the fire or you belonged to one of those tracks. I preferred to believe the latter, so I followed the tracks. They turn off the road just up ahead, but I saw the vultures first. And they led me to you.”

  I sat up slowly, and the throbbing in my head had subsided somewhat. I grimaced in pain from several sources.

  “Are you all right, Nick?”

  “I think so,” I said. I noticed for the first time that the double vision had gone. I tried to get up and fell against Gabrielle.

  “Come on, I will help you to the car,” she said.

  I found it hard to believe that I was still alive. I let Gabrielle lead me to the car, and I slumped heavily into the front seat.

  We drove slowly along the road, moving past the place where Zeno had driven into the desert and I had followed. Then, several hundred yards beyond that point, I saw the tracks. The Land Rover heading back out onto the dirt track. And turning away from Mhamid again, toward the desert and Tagounite.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “Okay, we head for Tagounite.”

  “Are you quite sure?” she looked worried.

  I glanced over at her and grinned, feeling my cracked lips try to bend. “Zeno took my favorite playthings,” I said. “I think it’s only right that I should make him give them back.”

  She returned the smile. “Whatever you say, Nick.”

  We arrived at Tagounite just after dark. It was Mhamid all over again, but somehow it looked even dustier and drier. As soon as we drove into town, I sensed that Zeno either was there or had been there recently. No physical evidence, just a gut feeling, one I had learned to pay attention to on other occasions. We came to a small square just after entering town, and a gasoline pump, painted red, stood outside a place that looked like an inn. It was one of those Spanish pumps that you put a coin into and get your own gas, but this one had been converted to exclude the automatic exchange of coin and fuel.

  “Just a minute,” I said to Gabrielle. “I want to ask some questions here.”

  She stopped the car, and in a moment an Arab came out, a young, thin fellow wearing a desert kaffiyeh on his head. He grinned a big, toothy grin, and we asked him to fill the Citrõen’s tank. While he did, I got out of the car and went around to speak with him.

  “Have you serviced a Land Rover tonight?” I asked in Arabic.

  “Land Rover?” he repeated squinting at me as he pumped the gas. “There was a desert car here an hour or more ago, sir. An open top, it had.”

  “Was a man driving it, a man with gray hair, a tall man?”

  “Why, yes,” the Arab said, studying my face.

  “Did he speak to you?”

  The Arab looked at me and a small grin came onto his face. “It seems I remember something . . .”

  I took a wad of dirhams from my pocket and handed them to him. His smile broadened. “It comes to me now, sir. He mentioned getting a good rest tonight.”

  “Did he say where?”

  “He did not.”

  I studied his face and decided he was telling the truth. I paid him for the gas. “Thanks.”

  Back in the Citrõen, I told Gabrielle what I had learned.

  “If Zeno is here now, he will be here tomorrow morning,” she said. “If you find him tonight, Nick, he will probably kill you. You look terrible. You’re in no shape to go after him.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Well get a hotel room. But I want you to wake me at dawn tomorrow.”

  “All right. But until then, you will rest”

  The hotel room was cleaner than the one in Mhamid, and the bed just a little softer. Gabrielle slept with me, but I did not even notice when she climbed beside me in a short, filmy nightgown. I was asleep almost as soon as I hit the bed.

  At midnight I sat bolt upright, yelling obscenities at the vultures and waving my arms at them. It was all very real for a moment. I could even feel the hot sand under my thighs and smell the stink of the birds.

  “Nick!” Gabrielle spoke sharply to me.

  I was really awake then. “Sorry,” I mumbled. I leaned against the head of the bed and realized that I felt a hundred percent better. The pains were going away, and I had some strength.

  “It is all right,” Gabrielle said softly as I fit a cigarette. I inhaled, and the red coal glowed in the room. “Are you cold?” She moved her body against me. She was soft and warm and I responded in spite of myself.

  “Just right now,” I told her.

  She noticed my response to her body. “I had better stay on my side,” she said. She started to move away.

  My hand stopped her. “It’s all right.”

  “But Nick, you need your rest.”

  “I won’t go back to sleep for a while anyway.”

  She settled back down against me. “All right. But you just relax and let me handle tilings.”

  I smiled as she kissed my mouth, caressing me all the while. She was taking care of me, and I loved it. Soon she kissed me again, and there was real fire in it, and she knew the time had come.

  Gabrielle made gentle love to me, and it was unforgettable. From that moment on my strength flowed back quickly. When she had fallen asleep beside me later, I dozed off quickly and woke at dawn feeling refreshed and renewed.

  I still hurt when I moved. But the wound at the base of my skull was healing, the gash under my left eye had formed a small, thin scab, and Gabrielle had patched up the cuts on my back. She also changed the bandage on my side, where General Djenina had inflicted the flesh wound. We had coffee sent to the room while we were dressing, and after I had the thick, dark stuff inside me, I felt like a different man from the one who had stumbled into that Citrõen the previous afternoon.

  Out in the car again that morning, with the sun just coming up over the flat, white rooftops of the village, we headed for the other two hotels in town. I was looking for the Land Rover. Of course, if Zeno really wanted to hide, there were probably private homes where he could have gotten a room. But he had little reason to think I was still after him. I figured he would be at one of the hotels. And I also figured he would not get out before dawn.

  We scoured the parking areas around the first small hotel, but there was no sign of the Land Rover. He could have changed vehicles, too, but again there seemed to be little point.

  As we approached the second hotel, Gabrielle and I spotted the Land Rover at the same time. It was parked just across the cobblestone street from the entrance, and a tall man was leaning into it over its topless door.

  “It’s Zeno!” I said to Gabrielle. “Stop the car!”

  She followed orders. “Nick, watch out. You don’t even have a gun.”

  I climbed from the Citrõen carefully. Zeno was still arranging something on the seat of the vehicle. With some luck, I might be able to move up behind him. He had not noticed our car yet.

  “Don’t turn the engine off,” I said softly to Gabrielle. “Just sit here. Quietly. And keep out of the way.”

  “All right.”

  I had taken three steps toward the Land Rover when Zeno looked up quite suddenly and spotted me. He didn’t recognize me at first, but then he took a second look. He seemed not to believe his eyes.

  I had despised Damon Zeno before I had ever met the man, but since the horrible hours in the desert, I had developed an overwhelming hatred for him. I knew that my feelings were dangerous because emotion almost always gets in the way of efficiency. But I couldn’t help myself.

  “This is the end of the line, Zeno,” I said to him.

  But he didn’t think so. He pulled Wilhelmina from a hip pocket, aimed at me and squeezed off a round. I ducked down and the slug zinged over my head
and ricocheted off the paving stones behind me. I ran to a parked Fiat nearby, and the Luger roared again, denting the roof of the small car. Then Zeno was in the Land Rover, starting the engine.

  I went for him but stopped halfway when I saw the car lurch forward and screech away down the street, toward the edge of town. I turned quickly and motioned toward Gabrielle and the Citrõen. She stripped gears, and the car charged forward, pulling up beside me.

  Gabrielle made room for me and I hopped in behind the wheel. By now several Arabs had appeared on the quiet street, talking excitedly about the gunshots. I ignored them and put the Citrõen in gear, the tires spinning and then grabbing hold as we got into motion.

  The Land Rover was still in sight about three blocks away. I shifted all the way down the long street, tires squealing and rubber burning on the cobblestones. At the end of the street Zeno wheeled around a corner to the right, skidding as he went. I followed the Citrõen making the turn on two wheels.

  Zeno was heading out of town on a paved road. A couple of early-morning pedestrians stopped and stared as we roared past, and I found myself hoping no local constabulary was out and around at this hour. In just a few minutes we had left the village behind us. The pavement ended, and we were on a semi-improved dirt road heading again into the desert. The rising sun was almost directly in front of us, and it glared into our eyes through the windshield.

  For perhaps twenty miles we roared along. The Citrõen gained some distance but wasn’t able to overtake the other car. The road disappeared almost completely, turning into a rut-filled, sand-clogged track that made us bump our heads against the ceiling of the Citrõen as we kept pace with the Land Rover. Then, as he had that other time, Zeno left the track completely in an effort to lose us. I wheeled the Citrõen after him through scrub brush and hard clay, and now Zeno had a distinct advantage. The Land Rover was made for this kind of travel, with its sturdy frame and four-wheel drive, while the Citrõen was a highway car. In five minutes we had lost sight of Zeno, though a trail of dust allowed us to stay in the right direction.