NORTH SHORE OF THE STIKINE RIVER
Lynn watched the camp as it settled in for the night. Her attention was focused on a large tent that two guards stood in front of. Deonovich and Sagli had gone inside around sunset and had not left. Earlier, she had seen several boxes of articles moved inside, followed closely by the two Russian criminals.
She once more looked around and was about to exit her small tent when a pair of boots came into view. It was the large man who had threatened her small and fragile bones that morning. He raised his boot and not too gently shoved Lynn back inside.
“We’s will be bringing your supper sooner, until then I do not wanting to see your face.”
“Hey, I heard you guys had a scare this afternoon?” she said, hoping for a reaction.
She didn’t see the large man frown, but she did see him abruptly turn away.
“I guess I will be wanting to seeing your face later,” she said mocking his terrible English.
Lynn took a deep breath and was about to turn to lay down on her sleeping bag when she saw ten men gathering at the small fire in the center of the camp. They had darkened their faces and were in the process of checking some equipment. One of those pieces she saw were night-vision goggles. While she watched, Sagli finally made an appearance and approached the men. He spoke to them in Russian and Lynn could not follow what was being said. While she watched, she also took note that the men were all Spetsnaz. The other members of the team were standing guard or eating in their oversized mess tent.
Sagli said his final words and then looked at his watch. He nodded and the ten men left the fire, and disappeared toward the river where Lynn could no longer see them. She had a feeling that the commandos were leaving camp for a purpose that would not benefit her or anyone who may be following. The men she had seen were the most impressive of the Spetsnaz.
She only hoped if someone was out there they were alert, because she thought they were about to have company.
_______
Jack was sitting alone. He looked at his watch three times in the last few minutes. The camp was fireless and they had finally forced some of the cold MREs down their throats with Henri Farbeaux complaining every bite of the way and constantly complaining about American military cuisine.
Jack watched as Professor Ellenshaw moved away from his sleeping bag where he had been sitting and watching the others. Collins knew something was on Charlie’s mind, but was unwilling to ask him about it moments before he himself was due to cross the river. Charlie approached Jack, rubbing his hands on his pants leg as if he was nervous about what he had to say.
“Hi,” Charlie said, not really knowing how to approach a man who still intimidated him even after years of knowing him.
“Hello, Doc. What’s on your mind?” Jack said looking at his watch one more time and then pulling an old .45 Colt automatic from his side and checking the clip.
“Before you go, I wanted to say . . . well . . . thank you for bringing me along. I know it went against everything you believe me to be.” The professor looked around; the others were busy doing this or that, things Ellenshaw had no idea about.
“Listen, Doc, I do pay attention to what you go through with the other sciences at the complex. A few of them snicker behind your back, but for the most part you’ve become a very valuable asset to the Group. After the things I’ve seen since being on this job, doing what you do probably makes more sense then what ten PhDs from other fields command.”
“Thank you, Colonel. Outside of Niles, and even though you’re a military man in the purest sense of the words, and being as I avoided the duty during my formative years, I respect you more than most for what you have achieved.”
Jack looked the professor over, and then gave him a small smile and a short shake of the head.
“Thanks, Doc. You know, after the story you told about this place and the detail in which you delivered it, I could see you weren’t scared like the others may have thought they saw. What I saw in your eyes wasn’t fear, it was excitement. So telling you that you couldn’t come on this trip would be like telling Mr. Everett tonight he couldn’t go with me on a combat mission. My job is to protect field personnel, Doc; that’s why you’re here, to do your job and see what you can find out about what kind of animal life we have up here. That’s all. You’re here for differing reasons than us, but that doesn’t make you any less important to this mission.” Collins holstered the .45. “You belong here, Doc.”
“I don’t know what to say, I want—”
Jack stood and slapped Ellenshaw on the shoulder. “Save it, I have to go.”
“Colonel?”
Collins stopped and turned to face the cryptozoologist.
“It’s real, you know. It’s not just a legend, and surely not a myth, but a scientific fact.”
Jack rechecked the load in the AK-47 he was carrying, not wanting to look Ellenshaw in the face.
“What is real, Doc?” He finally looked up into the professor’s thick lenses. “Can you say it? Believe me, out here in this place, no one’s going to laugh.”
“The animal is an offshoot of Giganticus Pythicus—the great ape. After many years of thought on the matter, that’s the only thing it could be. It’s here, Colonel, and very much a viable force.”
Collins reinserted the magazine inside the Russian weapon and charged a round into the breach.
“Doc, what is its name? Until you say it, it really isn’t real, is it?” Jack persisted.
“Bigfoot . . . it’s . . . the legend of Bigfoot that’s out there, Colonel.”
“There, that wasn’t so hard was it, Doc?”
Ellenshaw smiled and nodded. The colonel was right; it was far more comfortable once the name was out in the open.
Jack turned to leave as Everett approached.
“You’re a damn fool, Jack. You need help.”
“A long time ago when a woman was stolen by Indians, rescuers never launched a raid into their midst, they always snuck in at night and stole them back.”
“Those men out there aren’t Indians, Jack,” Everett started to say, but saw something behind Jack that made him stop.
Collins turned and saw Punchy Alexander step into their small clearing. He nodded a greeting as he approached the two men.
“Where is Will?” Everett asked as he heard Jack click the selector switch on his weapon from its safe position. Carl wasn’t wary until that moment. He had left his M-16 on his sleeping bag.
Alexander didn’t answer. He went to one knee and then looked at the two men before him. Then he saw Ellenshaw, and just as quickly dismissed him. He found Henri Farbeaux lying on his sleeping bag, watching what was happening.
“Colonel Farbeaux, if you would remove your hand from that Colt at your side, you may live through this,” Alexander said.
Henri sat up and held up two empty hands.
“What in the hell is this?” Everett asked, wondering why Jack remained silent.
“Professor Ellenshaw, please sit on your sleeping bag and make no silly movements.” Punchy then turned and waved to the darkness behind him. “I’m afraid we have company,” he said as he looked Jack in the eyes. “Sorry Jack, the bastards snuck up on me after they took the young lieutenant.”
There was a grunt and then a man was thrust into the clearing. In the darkness, both Everett and Jack saw it was Will Mendenhall. He landed with a thud not far from them and Carl reached down to assist him to his feet. Mendenhall was bloodied somewhere in his scalp and his nose was broken.
“Sorry, Colonel . . . Captain,” Will moaned, wiping blood from his nose. “This fucker cold-cocked me,” Will said as one of the largest soldiers any of them had ever seen stepped into the clearing with his weapon leveled at Mendenhall’s back. Then the Russian pointed his automatic at Alexander and gestured for him to join the others.
“I guess I’m getting too old for field work. I’m sorry, Jack.” Alexander raised his hands as he stood next to Collins.
The la
rge Russian waved his right hand and then the clearing became crowded with Russian commandos. They stood far back from the Americans, the Canadian, and lone Frenchman, but their weapons were well equipped and they were all aimed at preselected targets. Collins eyed the men surrounding them and then looked at Alexander.
“Will, do you think you’re going to live?” Jack asked Mendenhall as he looked over the situation.
Will nodded his head, not liking the way it made him dizzy, but he didn’t want the Russians to see how bad he was hurt. “I’ve been hit harder by my sister, Colonel,” he said as he tried his best to stand straight, but kept most of his weight leaning against Everett.
“It’s my fault, I was at point, I should have seen—”
“It’s time to quit playing the good guy, Punchy.”
Everett looked over at Alexander and saw a small smile appear as he lowered his hands.
Punchy turned and walked over to the largest of the Russians, the one that had slammed his rifle butt into Will’s face, and reached out and took the holstered automatic from the man’s side. Then he turned and faced Jack and the others. He clicked off the safety and then raised the weapon toward his one-time friend with the smile still on his face.
“Nice friends you have, Jack,” Everett said as he reached out and steadied Will as he swayed, almost falling down.
Collins remained silent as he looked into the eyes of Alexander.
“I told you, Jack, you shouldn’t cross the river tonight. My friends knew we were here and would have been waiting, and for the moment I can’t have you hurt. You’re far too valuable. However, everyone else here, including young Lynn across the way, are now expendable. Your sister has done quite well at luring you into the open, Jack . . . let’s not waste that.”
Charlie Ellenshaw, without warning, reached out and tried to grab a weapon that was in the firm hands of the Russian closest to him while at the same time pulling out the switchblade he kept in his back pocket. Jack and Everett tried to move, but for the first time in their professional lives, found they couldn’t.
“Doc, no!” Collins finally shouted out.
Ellenshaw actually did manage to take the Spetsnaz off guard. He grabbed the barrel of the man’s Kalashnikov, while at the same time slamming home the small knife into the man’s arm, but that was as far as he got. While the Russian soldier screamed at the insult of the knife entering his arm, Punchy Alexander raised the automatic and shot Ellenshaw in the back. The professor, still holding the barrel of the weapon felt the bullet strike. He stumbled forward and fell, the bloody knife still clutched in his hand. The commando, ignoring the small wound to his arm, moved his feet out of the way and Charlie hit the dirt and lay still. The Spetsnaz watched the body go still and then spit on Ellenshaw’s back.
Everett lunged but was stopped by Jack. Mendenhall turned and shouted something that was incoherent.
Collins gently shoved Carl back and then tossed the AK-47 to the ground. Then he looked up into Punchy’s face.
“I’ll kill you for that.”
Alexander stood and shoved the still-smoking weapon into his waistband as he motioned for the Russians to take control of their new prisoners.
“The days of you making good on threats are over, Jack,” he said as he stepped up and whispered into Collins’s ear. “Tell me, as little as five years ago, could I have maneuvered you out of wherever you were hiding in the thick recesses of your black world and trick you into following your sister’s kidnappers without you suspecting something was wrong?”
“What in the hell is he talking about, Jack?” Everett asked as he was shoved to the ground by a Russian and frisked.
“It was a setup from the beginning,” Collins said as he, too, was shoved to the ground and roughly checked for more weapons. His pistol was tossed away and then for good measure, the large Spetsnaz shoved Jack’s face into the dirt.
“Now, now, we’ll have none of that. Our friend here is about to do us a great service. Let’s move them across the river to meet the men they came here to meet?”
“Let me check the professor,” Mendenhall said as Farbeaux was shoved into him.
“I’m afraid there is no use, Lieutenant, he cannot be saved,” the Frenchman said. “And for that, I am sorry. I was becoming enamored with that quirky little man.”
“Professor Ellenshaw is where he wanted to be, surrounded by the very forest that occupied his mind for so many years.”
The four men were pushed toward the river. Collins passed close by Alexander and looked at him, but Jack said nothing—his statement on Punchy’s future had been made and there was nothing left to add.
Charlie Ellenshaw moaned when he finally came to. His shoulder and the bones beneath hurt in such a way that he knew he had been paralyzed by his stupid action earlier. His line of thinking was a confused one in the moments leading up to his dreadful mistake—what could he do to save the others? Well, he managed to get himself shot and it hadn’t made one ounce of difference to his friends, they were now captive and he was as good as dead. He had thought about what the colonel would do, or Captain Everett, if given an opening like he had been given and everything went well until he had decided to act upon his ridiculous thoughts.
Charlie tried to spit dirt and sand from his mouth, but found even that feeble effort too much for his overly taxed system. As his thoughts swirled around the fact that he was dying, his mind eased somewhat at the prospect. As he lay there he could hear the river and the voices of his killers as they moved about by the water’s edge. The sound of a boat motor and then more shouted orders. Ellenshaw took a deep breath and wondered how long it would take to die. His pain had eased somewhat as his mind came to grips with the small factoid that here is where he would stay. At that moment, Ellenshaw realized he was no longer alone in the small clearing. It wasn’t so much that he sensed it, but actually felt a heavy thud next to his head. Then he smelled that same gamey odor they had caught on the shifting winds coming from north of the Stikine.
Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III smiled. Then he thought back to a time when he wasn’t in pain, when he still thought the world made some sort of sense, and in his mind he was almost an immortal that summer of ’68. His memory came into play and he started in a low and halting voice to sing “Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James and the Shondells. When the words became too much to force out of his mouth, he hummed the verses, thinking he was doing it in his head.
When he finally ran out of breath, trying to hang on to a good memory from his youth, the song continued to be hummed. The sound was deep, harsh, but it was humming, and had all the nuances of the song from the sixties. He realized that something was mimicking his own version of a moment before. Then the humming stopped and silence permeated the empty camp.
“I’m ready,” Charlie whispered.
As he said those two words, he felt the ground actually shake and then something touched his tousled hair. As his eyes fluttered open, he felt something tapping on the right lens of his thick glasses. He tried to focus on the large finger and thick black nail as it almost pushed his glasses into his face with the force of the tapping. He heard a grunt and then felt pressure on his back where he thought he had been shot. Something probed his wound, and then the feeling disappeared. Then he heard a smacking sound as if something were tasting him.
Ellenshaw, repulsed at the idea of being eaten before he had actually passed over to the great beyond, or the last great adventure he had always told his students, tried to turn his head and look up. He managed with a tremendous amount of shaking to get a few inches off the ground. That was when he realized he was looking at the largest foot he had ever seen. As his eyes traveled upward he saw a set of knees as whatever was about to eat him was squatting next to his prone body. He finally managed a few inches more, and then he saw the face that slowly surveyed him from far above, seemingly a mile or so to Charlie’s wounded mind.
“Oh . . . my,” he said as the last vision he thought he would ever
see faded to black.
The great beast rose to its full height of eleven and a half feet. It stood perfectly erect and raised its head and sniffed the air. It grunted deep in its chest and then looked back down at Professor Ellenshaw. The animal held a large wooden club about eight inches in circumference and six feet long. It raised it into the air with its muscled and powerful arm and then savagely swung it at the large tree three feet away, the long arms easily connecting through the distance. The beast struck out six times and then stopped and listened, its long brown and black hair blowing in the breeze that had started a few minutes before. Far off to the north the giant heard a response. It seemed satisfied, sniffing at the air once more. It grunted as it surveyed the area around its massive frame.
When Charlie moaned, that drew the animal’s attention back to the wounded man. With its large self-illuminated brown eyes still watching the woods around it and its small ears listening to the sound of men and their boats leaving the south shore, the great beast reached down and took Ellenshaw by the right leg and lifted him free of the ground as easily as a man would pick up one of his child’s toys. With a last grunt the animal turned and left the clearing with Professor Ellenshaw dangling from its grip.
As the Zodiac pulled onto the north shore of the Stikine, Jack, Everett, Mendenhall, and Farbeaux watched as Alexander was the first one out of the boat. He was met by two men, one of average size and one large and brutish looking.
“Sagli and Deonovich, I presume,” Everett whispered, and then he received a sharp poke in the back by an AK-47 from a Russian seated behind him.
“No talk,” the Spetsnaz said in the slow drawl of a man who knew only enough of the Americans language to get by.
Primeval: An Event Group Thriller Page 33
