Hunter (35 page)

The chopper set down on a pad and a team of EMTs met them, instantly entering the bay as the team members slipped out. In seconds they had loaded Professor Tipler on a gurney and were rolling him into the complex, already checking his vitals.

Though he was almost too weak to stand, Hunter refused to show fatigue or weakness. He frowned as he saw Maddox approaching. "What about the rest of the team?" Maddox asked, incredulous.

Takakura's tone was not friendly.

"Dead," he said simply.

Maddox paused. His shock was apparent as his eyes moved from Hunter to
Takakura, then to the rest of the team. "All of them?"

Takakura walked past him without reply.

As the rest fell in silently behind Takakura, Hunter waited. Then he walked over to Maddox, staring into his eyes.

"I'm gonna talk to you in the morning," Hunter said menacingly.

Maddox glanced down at Ghost. The wolf was fixed on him with mesmerizing intensity. "Of course," he managed. "This is ...
Good Lord
! ... A great tragedy!" He managed to recover. "But then not as bad as I feared. When we failed to make contact with you, I had assumed you were all casualties. At least some of you have survived." He looked at Hunter. "And the creature?"

"We don't know."

Maddox glanced toward the fence. "I see."

Closing on him slightly, Hunter whispered, "Let me tell you something, Maddox. You see those men at the fence?"

"Certainly, yes."

"Well, get them inside that fence and close that gate. Pump up the voltage as high as it'll go and break out every dog you've got. Keep 'em moving night and day. And take your men off those M-16's and put 'em on whatever elephant guns you've got. You have some M-60's around here?"

"We have two positioned on the roof."

"Put all of 'em up there. As many as you got. Snipers, too. 'Cause I think that that bastard is comin' this way and right now you've got nothing that can stop it. It's gonna hit that fence at a dead run, take the charge, and tear its way through. Or it's gonna just leap clean over it."

Maddox was incredulous. "That's a twelve-foot electrical fence, Hunter."

"Maddox," Hunter growled, "that thing could leap that fence with you in its teeth. Do as I say and you and your men might live."

"You are certain of this?"

Bending over him, Hunter stared him hard in the eye.

Maddox recoiled and nodded. "I'll follow your ... advice."

Feeling exhaustion claiming him, Hunter walked toward the infirmary. Ghost fell in beside him.

Maddox called after him, "You probably know this creature better than anyone!"

Luther, Hunter thought.

"You could say that," he said.

***

Dr. Arthur Hamilton, bent in concentration over a microscope, raised his head as a white-shirted lab technician approached. Neither friendly nor indulgent, the doctor's tone indicated that he wished not to be disturbed.

"What is it?" he murmured.

"They're here, Doctor."

Hamilton absorbed it with the greatest calm.

"I see," he answered. "Very well. I will deal with them when they are rested and fed." His demeanor was that used when dealing with animals. "See to it that they are airlifted on the first helicopter returning to the air-base. Their mission is officially over."

"Sir, they're pretty badly beaten up," the technician said, with a hint of fear. "I don't think they're in condition for flight just now. And they seem
...well, angry. The old man, the professor, he's just regaining consciousness. His heart—"

"Yes, yes, I'm certain they had a difficult time." Hamilton rose up
straighter on his chair. "But nevertheless, their job here is done. This afternoon the NSA, which retains full authority and command, issued the ruling. Therefore they have no further authorization to remain on the base. In the morning, when they are prepared, I want all of them transferred." He did not blink. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"Good. Now, if you please ..."

He bent over the microscope.

The technician turned without a word and walked out of the laboratory. As he vanished, Dr. Strait, having witnessed the conversation, approached and stood in silence.

"Yes, Emma?" he said, still intent over the microscope.

"We have it," she said.

Her voice was oddly cautious.

Hamilton raised his face, a flush rising in his cheeks. His mouth was open a moment as he stared at her. "You have isolated the gene which allows the immunity, the longevity, and separated it from the transmitters which promote cellular domination and absorption?"

She nodded faintly. "Yes."

Hamilton was instantly on his feet as she handed him a printout. Then he scanned the pages, flipping them rapidly, reading just as rapidly until, finally, he lowered the pages to his side and raised a fist before his eyes. He slowly turned, staring at the ancient man suspended in the electromagnetic matrix, and he smiled.

"At last," he whispered. "To be
... immortal."

Silently he gazed. Finally he turned back. "How long before we can isolate the genomes and prepare buf
fers for human DNA?"

"Perhaps by tomorrow night. But we'll need
... human test subjects. We'll need to be sure that the serum doesn't kill outright or cause another severe mutation."

Hamilton's face froze. "Test subjects," he said softly, lifting his eyes to the ceiling.

Above them was the first subbasement, filled with equipment. And above that, the ground floor: the commissary, the barracks and offices.

And the infirmary.

A grim frown became a satisfied smile.

"I believe I know just where to find them," he said.

Hunter was so exhausted that he had trouble thinking coherently. His entire body felt like a mass of contusions, strains, sprains, and twisted joints.

He had been hurt and exhausted before, but rarely anything like this. He revolved his head, moving it slowly, but it didn't do anything except cause
him more pain and make him worry that he had somehow permanently crippled himself. He figured that he'd know soon enough; they were all being examined by the medical team.

Tipler was in ICU on an IV and a number of medications. He was still unconscious but Hunter knew the old man stood a much better chance here than in the mountains. He wasn't as worried as he had been, even feeling some sense of relief that they had been given a brief respite from the ordeal.

He would finish this hunt, but he would be better armed on the next expedition. What weapons he would carry had dominated most of his thinking since they had landed, but he hadn't decided. There was time for that later.

A doctor removed the blood-pressure cuff and listened to Hunter's heart. Very military looking with short-cut black hair and a smooth-shaven face, the physician was in his early thirties. He spoke precisely and confidently: "You have the innate constitution of an ox, Mr. Hunter. Your heartbeat is strong, your blood pressure is perfect, and your pulse is close to normal. You are extremely fit. Perhaps the strongest man I've ever examined. But you're also badly traumatized and dehydrated. Even for someone as strong as you, your body is on the verge of collapse."

He took some time examining the sharp incisions on Hunter's chest. "Hmm, that one's deep," he said. "What did this? A bear? I've never seen a bone scar like this."

"Something like that," Hunter mumbled, rubbing his head. "A bit more hostile."

The physician raised his eyes at the enigmatic remark, turned to the table. "Well, there's no infection. Your medic did a good job cleaning out the wound. So I've given you a tetanus shot and something to stave off any alternate infections. And it wouldn't hurt to have a couple of stitches. It's swollen, but not yet healing."

"Go ahead. I'm not going anywhere."

He performed the antibiotic injections easily and quickly, then prepped a needle with Lidocaine.

"Forget the painkiller," Hunter remarked absently. "Just stitch it up. I can find what I need later, if it hurts that much."

The physician stared at him. "Are you sure you don't want something for the sewing? This will not be pleasant."

"Most things aren't. Just sew it up."

A slight moment of hesitation, and the physician made an expression of "whatever you say" and began. Hunter felt the prick, the needle drawn through flesh, and the stinging of the thread as it was quickly tied off and cut. After five minutes it was over and the doctor dropped the needle and unused silk into a trashcan.

"Took twelve in your chest," he said. "You were lucky it wasn't an inch higher. It could have severed an artery." He wrinkled his brow. "I'd say you were lucky on that one. Lucky or good. Doesn't make much difference. You'll be fine in a few days but I'll need to see you in the morning. Same as all your friends."

Hunter nodded and looked around, wondering how long it'd been since he was in an emergency room; figured it was three years ago when he broke three ribs in a fall. It was a quick trip, in and out, and he had gone back to the search.

Hampered by the pain and lack of mobility, he had nevertheless eventually found the lost party, a hunter who had become lost in a January cold. When Hunter finally found his dead body, he saw that the man still had a backpack of food, a fully loaded rifle, and enough ammunition for a week. A tragedy.

The man had possessed everything he needed to weather out a week in the cold. But he had panicked and, eventually, after burning up precious energy stumbling blindly through the woods, had simply sat down and fallen asleep in the sub-zero temperature.

Hunter had seen it on many occasions—strong men who could have survived for weeks if they had used their tools and remained calm. Yet upon fearing that they were lost, they committed themselves to a senseless stampede that left them too exhausted and shocked to do the very few simple things that would have preserved their lives in even the harshest conditions.

Thoughts like that often gave Hunter pause because he sometimes forgot—so native were his skills to him—that some people simply had no concept of wilderness survival.

Hunter rarely measured his skills against anyone; it was not in his nature to compare himself at all. But in rare moments he appreciated the skills that allowed him, with nothing but his knife, to survive anywhere for weeks or months or years.

Part of it was skill and knowledge, and part of it was years of conditioning, but there was more—a certain hardiness of spirit or soul that reinforced his will in times of physical suffering or fear. It was that part of himself that didn't rely upon intelligence or mind for strength or direction—an ability to allow his lower mind to compensate for whatever his higher mind could not provide, carrying him past the point where most would surrender to pain or cold or hunger and, quite simply, die.

He had seen the phenomenon at work within himself before, and knew that he had the ability to live almost as an animal—hunting, tracking, and killing with that ferocious mind-set of surviving no matter the amount of physical and mental suffering he must endure. It was a certain purity of being—a surrendering to the most basic animal instinct and force of will—and he could turn it on or off, almost like a light switch.

The drawback was, quite simply, that when he gave himself to it he also gave himself to an utterly cold ruthlessness that could be somewhat unsettling.

It made him remember what the creature
... what Luther ... had spoken of. And he knew that, despite the lies surrounding what the beast had said, there was a grain of truth to it.

Deep inside the heart of man, there did
lay a great darkness. Something to be feared even by man himself. It was the place where darkness reigned. Where killing was no more emotional than eating. Where a man could submerge his soul in the blackest sin and feel no guilt at all. Where life was nothing more than the satisfaction of what he desired, and the fulfillment of that desire. It was a place where ruthless strength fed dark desires—the heart of the beast.

Now the dark heart of man had been given indestructible, superhuman form, and was loose in mankind. And Hunter knew he would have to kill it.

And to kill it, he feared he'd have to become it, to release that darkness inside himself.

Hunter didn't want to think about it. When the time came, he knew what he would become. He just hoped it wouldn't be so difficult for him to shut it down when, and if, he destroyed it.

He did know that if he gave himself to the animal within, he would have to be alone. Because no one could keep up with him if he went into it. He would move with astonishing speed, easily covering fifty miles in a day and killing as he moved, eating the meat raw and still moving, killing again, hunting, always hunting—the animal within him selecting the most perilous and difficult of paths as his gray eyes read the faintest faded track.

Athletically, he would be a human tiger—-jumping, running for hours, or descending from boulder to boulder in sinuous leaps that never seemed to pause as he hit one granite slab only to descend terrifically to another before he struck the ground to continue running.