Holes in the Ground (15 page)

Jerry stared into the cell.

Wolfie stared right back, his ears pricked up like the tips of spears.

• • •

Kane’s computer blinked. His eyes narrowed. He glanced up at Rimmer and Gornman and then leapt out of his seat.

“What is it?” Rimmer asked, his hand instinctively moving over his holstered pistol.

Kane shoved past the two of them, heading for the door. “Someone’s opened up cell number 5. I did not authorize that.”

“Who?” Rimmer asked.

“Sun Dennison-Jones.”

“But she’s in the infirmary. She couldn’t be up on her feet yet.”

“Exactly.” Kane moused through his surveillance cameras until he came upon the werewolf’s cell. “It’s that British pest.”

• • •

Jerry stepped forwards into the gap between the glass barrier and the wall. Wolfie padded backwards, looking both curious and nervous—almost cowering. Up close, Jerry realized he had underestimated the size of the beast. Wolfie was closer to the size of a pony than a dog. It was clear by the animal’s body language that he was unused to someone being inside his cell. His fur had spiked up and his shoulders narrowed.

It’s his territory.

Jerry considered backing out of the cell and closing it again, if only because of the smell. The stench inside the cell was primal, beastly. It made his eyes water. Jerry looked down at a bundle of blankets that formed Wolfie’s bed and saw spoor mixed in with the straw that lined the floor. He also saw something else.

“Is that…”

Jerry reached down towards the blankets.

Wolfie let out a low, rising snarl.

Jerry slowed his movement, held out a hand. “It’s okay, boy. I’m not going to hurt you. Easy does it.”

Wolfie stopped snarling, but his lips remained curled.

Jerry grabbed the rubber ball amongst the tangled blankets and straightened up with it in his hands.

Wolfie hopped backwards, lowered on his haunches, his rear in the air. If not for the wagging tail, Jerry might have thought the animal was about to pounce.

“You like that, don’t you, boy? You like to play with your ball.”

Wolfie wagged his tail faster and yipped.

Jerry threw the ball. It sailed down towards the back of the cell and hit the rear wall, bouncing back the way it had come. Wolfie raced after it, leaping in the air as it almost sailed over his head. He spun around with the newly-captured prize in his mouth and flopped down on his belly, losing the ball so that it rolled back to Jerry’s feet.

Jerry bent down and picked up the ball, held it in the air. “You wanna go again?”

Wolfie reared up ecstatically and waited for the ball to be thrown again.

“You’re just a dog, aren’t you? Is the reason you’re down on subbasement 5 just because you took a chunk out of that asshole, Kane? I bet you were up on subbasement 1 before he came along.”

Wolfie wagged his tail, barked at Jerry.

Jerry threw the ball. This time he threw it harder and added spin, trying to add a bit of variety for Wolfie to enjoy. The ball bounced off the rear wall and this time it flew far over Wolfie’s head and back towards the front of the cell.

Jerry giggled at the sight of the huge beast sliding on its paws before spinning around excitedly and giving chase in the opposite direction. Wolfie threw himself across the cell like a bat out of hell, almost taking Jerry off his feet.

“Hey, Wolfie, stop. Slow down.”

The ball continued racing through the air and flew out of the gap between the barrier and the wall. Wolfie immediately followed, wagging his tail dementedly. Seeing that he had just inadvertently let the animal loose, Jerry sprinted out after him, urgently calling his name.

“Wolfie! Wolfie, back in your cell, before they—”

There was the sound of gunfire.

Wolfie flew sideways across the concrete floor. Jerry put his hands up and saw that Rimmer and Kane were standing in the corridor. Kane had a mean-looking revolver pointed out in front of him, the barrel smoking.

Jerry looked left and saw Wolfie’s large form panting on the ground and bleeding. His pained whimpers filled the cramped corridor.

“Wolfie!” Jerry attempted to rush to the animal’s side but Kane shouted him to a halt.

“You stay right where you are. One move and I’ll put you down, too.”

Tears in his eyes, Jerry turned to face the general. “We were just playing ball and I threw it too hard. Please, just leave him alone. He might still be okay.”

“You let out a monster, you fool.”

“He’s not a monster. He’s just a big dog.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. He was coming right at us.”

“He was chasing a goddamn ball!”

Jerry’s legs folded and he collapsed onto his side, moaning and crying. His blurry gaze met Wolfie’s as the two of them lay on the cold ground. Two outcasts, all alone in the world, so very far from home.

“It’s okay, boy. It’ll be okay.”

Wolfie whimpered. His eyes focused intently on Jerry as his pink tongue lolled out between his jaws. Jerry reached out, managed to place a hand on Wolfie’s snout. There was a brief wag of the animal’s tail and Jerry felt a lick against his wrist.

“I need a team and a containment crate in here immediately,” Rimmer said into the intercom on the wall.

It wasn’t necessary. As Jerry wrapped his arms around Wolfie and patted his massive head, the beast let out a lengthy sigh and closed its eyes for the last time.

Andy stood up at Sun’s bedside. “Was that a gunshot?”

Sun said nothing. She was sleeping.

Andy sighed. “I really hate this place.”

He took off, heading out of the infirmary and into the conference room. Dr. Gornman stood with her arms crossed, looking irritated.

“What’s going on?” Andy asked her.

Gornman tutted and shook her head. “That young buffoon you brought along with you has just jeopardized the entire safety of the facility.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the idiot opened up one the cells.” Her eyes narrowed. “With your wife’s access fob, no less.”

Andy needed to see for himself. He raced out of the conference room and into the cell block. What he saw didn’t alleviate his confusion; it added to it.

Something lay on the floor, dead, bleeding, and covered in thick matted fur. Jerry was on his knees with his hands cuffed behind his back, Rimmer standing behind him, looking predictably stoic.

Kane was standing over the dead animal. The look on his face was almost trance-like.

“What the hell is going on?”

Rimmer glanced up at Andy. “Stay there, Mr. Dennison-Jones. Your wayward companion has just tried to compromise this entire facility.”

Rimmer elaborated. “Kid opened up cell 5 and let the dog out.”

“The bastards killed him,” Jerry yelled. “They had no reason to. He was just chasing his ball. The… the
bastards.
”

“The shooting was justified. Sergeant Rimmer will vouch for me. The beast was running straight toward us. Isn’t that right, Sergeant?”

“It was. It shouldn’t have been out of its cell,” Rimmer said to Jerry.

“He was only on subbasement 5 because you hated him, you Nazi fucks. You have cameras all over. You could see we were just playing.”

“You were playing with a werewolf, kid,” Rimmer said.

“He wasn’t a werewolf! Did you shoot him with a silver bullet? No! And he’s dead. You killed the last one in the world, for no reason at all.”

Kane cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Preston, your recent actions qualify as terrorism. Your actions could have seriously compromised this facility and its agenda. Therefore, Sergeant Rimmer is going to incarcerate you under the terms of
The Patriot Act of 2001
. You will remain in custody for whatever time I deem fit.”

Jerry spat at the general’s feet. “Do what you gotta do, bitch.”

“You can’t be serious,” Andy said. “He’s not a terrorist. He’s just a kid.”

“He screwed up,” Rimmer said. Then he looked at Jerry. “What did you think was going to happen, kid? You were going to become best friends and run away together?”

“You’re all a bunch of wankers.”

“Take him away, Sergeant Rimmer,” Kane ordered. “You know what to do with him.”

Rimmer didn’t seem happy about it, and Jerry seemed even less happy, but it only took a few seconds for Rimmer to put Jerry into a submission hold and yank him to his feet. Jerry didn’t struggle as Rimmer led him away.

Kane turned his attention back to Andy. “Now, Mr. Dennison-Jones, the only question remaining is whether or not you had anything to do with this.” He produced one of the blue rubber fobs from his breast pocket. “This is, after all, your wife’s access fob, yes?”

“I didn’t even know that Jerry had taken it. My wife nearly died. I was by her side.”

“So how did he get the security code?”

“He was there when
you
told it to us, remember?”

Kane rolled his upper lip over his lower lip; nodded very slowly. “Okay. You’re dismissed.”

“What are you going to do with Jerry?”

“It isn’t your concern.”

Andy blew out a stiff breath. What else could he say? Jerry had apparently released a dangerous animal from its cage, and there wasn’t any way to defend that.

“Just let the boy go. Send him home to face the music.”

“Return to your wife, Mr. Dennison-Jones. She no doubt needs you. Let me worry about running the Spiral.”

Andy headed through the conference room and back into the infirmary. When he got there, there were a couple of nurses milling about, and he asked them if his wife had woken while he’d been gone. He’d only been gone ten minutes but it felt much longer.

“We haven’t checked in on her,” said the nurse. “We thought you were still with her.”

Andy wasn’t happy to hear that, but he had left without informing anyone, so didn’t feel he had the ammunition to complain.

“Was that a gunshot I heard?” asked the nurse.

“Yes, but everything is under control.”

“Thank God for that.” The nurse smiled and went back to her duties.

Before Andy made it to Sun’s room, he bumped into Dr. Chandelling.

“Ah, Mr. Dennison-Jones. I was hoping to find you.”

“You were? Why?”

“I learned something about our Manx guest.”

“Lucas?”

Dr. Chandelling nodded enthusiastically. “All of the previous tests I conducted were fruitless. Then I had the idea of sending a picture of him to some acquaintances in the NSA. I figured if we can’t find out anything about his insides, we could see if there’s anything we can find about his identity. You see, I found that by cross-checking—”

Andy waved a hand. “I’m anxious to get back to my wife, Dr. Chandelling. What is it you’ve found?”

“Of course. I’ll get to the point.” Dr. Chandelling mumbled something else before producing a small tablet from the large side pocket of his lab coat. “Facial recognition software has reached a point where Internet images can be searched, and not surprisingly, the NSA does it all the time.”

“So the NSA can identify people from pictures posted online?”

“Yes. Here, take a look.”

Andy squinted at the shiny screen and saw a black and white photograph of a white man standing next to a man in a turban.

“This is Lucas with Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, second in command of Al-Qaeda. We believe it was taken a few weeks before 9/11.” Chandelling swiped his finger on the tablet and changed the picture. “Here Lucas is again, in 1994, with Juvénal Habyarimana. Habyarimana’s assassination was the catalyst for the genocide in Rwanda. Close to a million people killed.”

It was definitely Lucas.

“Now here he is in a picture with Pol Pot. This picture is dated between 1978 and 1979, during the Khmer Rouge period. You know what happened then, I take it?”

“More than two million Cambodians died.” Andy shook his head. “I don’t understand. How could he have been present during so many awful situations? How could he know they were going to happen? Is he psychic?”

“He’s much more than that.” Dr. Chandelling typed something into his tablet before turning it back around so that Andy could see. “Take a look at this one.”

Andy’s mouth hung open. “That’s… Adolf Hitler.”

“Yes. And that’s Lucas standing right behind him in a Shutzstaffel uniform. The United Nations have never been able to identify the man in the picture before. He has remained a mystery.”

“And now we have him in subbasement 5.”

Chandelling nodded slowly. “There are two things to be gleaned from this. Number one is that Lucas has been present at several truly awful human events—genocides and mass murders, wars. Number two; I will allow you to come to the conclusion on your own.”

Andy stared at the tablet for a few moments; looked at the spitting image of Lucas standing behind the
Fuhrer.
“He hasn’t aged. He looks exactly the same in this photograph of World War Two as he does now.”

“Absolutely fascinating, wouldn’t you agree? One more picture. Not as clear, because of its age. We had to clean it up digitally, but the NSA spooks say it is a 93% match.”

Chandelling clicked on an old, faded, sepia-toned picture of a man in a Calvary uniform, perched on a horse. He was instantly recognizable by his huge mustache.

“George Armstrong Custer,” Andy said.

“And look who is on a horse, to his left.”

In a cavalry uniform, smiling pleasantly, was Lucas. “That’s… impossible.”

“Not only does Lucas have no discernable DNA, but apparently he doesn’t age, and has been around since at least 1876. He apparently has met with key people involved in some major historical events that led to innumerable deaths.”

Andy rubbed at his eyes with his palms. He felt exhausted. “I need to speak with Sun,” he said. “I need to think this through.”

“Of course,” Chandelling said. “I’m going to share this with Kane. I believe the threat Lucas presents has gotten many times greater.”

Andy nodded as Chandelling left.

Was Lucas over a hundred and fifty years old? It seemed impossible, but so did the majority of the occupants of the Spiral. And could this mild-mannered Manx man—so polite and soft-spoken—somehow be involved in countless deaths?