Replica (15 page)

The thing snarled once, then howled at his father. The Prince could not comprehend
how
Khalid had become what he now was, but he half-remembered that a word existed for them, and in a moment, it came to him.
Werewolf:
monstrous half-breeds, part human, part wolf.
His son was no werewolf, no unfortunate freak of nature.
Then he thought of another word.

Monster.

This wasn't happening; this
couldn't
be happening. This was some kind of a mistake. A horrible mistake.

Maddeningly, the Prince knew he had no one to blame but himself.

The still-mutating creature sprang out of bed in a shot, stopping directly in front of the Prince. It sniffed the shaking man. Habib wondered if it recognized him, if it knew, on some level, that he was its father.

The beast then reared back and howled at his father, almost nose to nose. Rancid spittle stuck to his face, burning like acid. The monster took one last look at Prince Habib, then crashed through the window in a blaze of fury.

The Prince tumbled backwards against the bed. Regaining his footing, he staggered to the window just in time to see the creature,
his son,
running toward the open desert.

One year later

Washington National Zoo

P
ETER
C
ARLSON GAZED AT THE
newest exhibit in the marsupial house. Ellen Choy stood beside him, her arm folded around his.

"He seems to be doing really well," Ellen said.

"Remarkable, isn't it?"

"What do you two think?" Peter said to Jack Baker and Tracy Mills.

Jack smiled. "I think he's a lot nicer than his cousins."

"And a lot better looking, too," Tracy chimed in.

Peter took a last look at the tiny Tasmanian Tiger. He had finally fulfilled his grandfather's, and ultimately his own, lifelong dream. The young pup was perfectly healthy and had quickly become the most popular attraction at the zoo. As they walked toward the exit, Ellen looked up at Peter. They were alone now, since Jack and Tracy had stayed behind to take in some more exhibits.

"What about Poguba, Peter?"

He shook his head. It was the last thing he wanted to think about. "I don't know.
I just don't know."

Turn the Page for a sneak preview of Bill Clem's next thriller!

ANOMALY

April 23, 2004

Kisangani, Central Africa

It was a two-hour ride to the site during which everyone was mostly quiet. Only the hum of the Rover's engine and the grinding of the worn clutch kept Frank Pierce awake. Pierce had endured forty-eight hours of one rickety plane after another to reach the Congo, then had boarded a recently defunct helicopter that was quickly repaired, which sole purpose was to get his team of five anthropologists to a point where they could take a Land Rover to the excavation site.

As they approached a ridge, Pierce could see an elaborate system of tents scattered at the base just beyond an expanse of prairie. The Rover weaved through the maze of canvas and pulled up alongside a large field tent.

Seven high-tech solar panels were set up to collect the sun's energy and transfer it through a tangle of black cables and into the tent. The panels powered specialized machines; DNA analysis, carbon dating, gene typing and other unique operations. A few laptops sat outside on an aluminum fold-up table. Pierce noted a satellite uplink dish set up behind the tent.

Whoever is bankrolling this thing has some big bucks.

Samantha Coulter, a twenty-three year old graduate student from Princeton greeted Pierce when he climbed out of the Rover behind the rest of the team. He had met her on a dig the year before and was very impressed with her tenacity and intellect.

"This is big, Frank," she said.

"You must be walking on air."

"You want the nickel tour?"

"Sam, I want to see
it."

She'd told Pierce that this find was something not recorded in
any
fossil record. As he followed Samantha up a gentle slope, all other matters disappeared from his consciousness. She had found in a cavern something that might finally vindicate him.

They approached a rocky overhang, the entrance to a system of caves on the northeast ridge. Two men with AK-47 rifles stood up as they approached the roped-off entrance.

"It's okay," Samantha said to the taller man.

She lifted the rope and held it for Pierce. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light, then Samantha handed him a miner's helmet. They followed the stream of light to the back of the cave, where Pierce noticed a smaller opening. They squeezed through the tight seam and into the next chamber. Huge folds of volcanic rock dominated the tight cave. A few feet ahead lay a large blue tarp, supported by a framework of thick planks. Pierce stopped.

"Do you have any idea of the implications you're raising?"

"That's just it, Frank. I'm not raising them," she said, "he is..."

She ripped back the tarp in a flourish and let it drop to the cave floor.

Pierce had to choke back his response. He felt himself flush and his mouth went dry instantly.

"My God, Samantha. What on earth have you found?"

"What on
earth?
I'm not sure that's the right question, Frank."

A half hour later as they exited the cave, Pierce's mind pored over past research, keeping time with his thumping heart. He asked like what seemed a hundred questions. He barely gave Samantha enough time to answer before he fired another question at her.

"We found something else, too," Samantha said. "Something that doesn't exist here."

"In Africa?"

Samantha paused.
"No, on this planet."

Before Pierce had time to contemplate it, a thundering of rotors exploded overhead as two U.S. Army Chinooks, hovered above and prepared to land.

When they touched down, Pierce realized it was no fellow scientists. Someone stepped off the chopper and gazed around. Whoever he was, he looked like a funeral director. Although Pierce knew the mortuary business was competitive, he doubted anyone was here to measure them for caskets.

The man approached Pierce, side stepping some video cable. He barely acknowledged them and went directly into the tent. Pierce stepped over to the tent, pulled the flap back, and watched the spectacle unfold.

"Kevin Howard," the man said. "I have direct orders from President Ritter to take over this excavation site at once."

"You have some identification." Howard asked.

"My identification is not important, Mr. Howard."

Howard glared at him "It is if you expect me to pick up and leave. I don't know who you are, but I have a permit from the African government to be here."

"I'm well aware of that."

"Then you understand I have an invest--"

The man's eyes bore down on Howard. "Mr. Howard, you
will
gather up your equipment and assistants, and leave this site at once. Otherwise, those nice soldiers over there in those two birds will remove you by force."

One of Howard's assistants taking measurements trudged over and looked at him. "What's going on?"

"Pack it up, we're finished here."

* * *

Samantha Coulter stood frozen in place as the funeral director exited the tent. He went to three soldiers poised with rifles and paused. Samantha craned her neck around the side of the tent and listened.

"What's our orders, sir? One of the Marines' asked.

The next words from his mouth made Samantha's blood run cold.

"Kill them all."

May 21
^st
, 2007

Suburban Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland

Claire Walters gulped down her second espresso of the morning as she rushed down the first floor corridor and glanced at her watch.
Damn. Late again.

Since starting her OB/GYN residency, she'd become the poster child for arriving late for rounds. Moreover, try as she did, it was in her nature to try to squeeze in every extra minute of sleep that she could. Thus, she was always fighting the clock, and this morning was no different. Except that the medical center was starting a new, experimental invitro fertilization program, and there was an important lecture, she was supposed to be at
fifteen minutes ago.

Claire tried to be as quiet as she could as she entered the long conference room, but the heavy doors banged shut and every head turned to see her flushed face, which was almost as red as her hair.

She slid into a chair and sunk down, knowing the chief resident was one of those turned heads, and no more had the thought entered her mind than she saw him glaring at her across the room.
Shit!

The Chief of Obstetrics was standing next to a large bulletin board going over some statistical analysis about failure rates in current invitro fertilization programs. Claire found it boring and had it not been for the caffeine surging through her veins, she could have fallen
back
to sleep.

An hour later, and with the lecture behind her, she was now facing a lecture of another type. The chief resident had asked her to stop by his office as he left the conference room. Claire was sure she was about to be chastised once again by someone whom she deemed to be inferior to her and every other resident she knew. How he'd come to be the Chief Resident was beyond her, although it was rumored his father had contributed millions to the medical center. This made Claire resent him even more.

She was a simple girl from a simple family. Like most work-ing-class Irish, she'd worked hard all her life and nothing had ever come easy to her. Her father's credo, after a few beers, was "wake early, work hard, and always tell the truth, and you'll get somewhere in life."
Well, she got the work hard and tells the truth part right, as for the wake early... that was another story.

The Chief resident had an office on the forth floor that overlooked an ally and a set of green dumpsters that belonged to a Chinese carryout behind the medical center. Claire found it amusing that it was the least desirable office in the whole place and she knew the current occupant found it offensive given his place on the social ladder, compliments of his rich daddy.

Harold Goldstein was tapping his pencil on a small, grey metal desk when Claire walked in. His thick glasses gave her the impression she was looking at a large bug.

"So, Hal, what's up?'

"Cut the crap, Claire. You know why you're here."

"Come on, I was fifteen minutes late."

"Yea, fifteen, today, twenty yesterday, a half an hour on Monday. When does it stop? I'm tired of you disrupting everyone with your tardiness."

"And."

"And... if it happens one more time, I'm going to the administrator and have your residency suspended."

Claire could feel her blood pressure approaching the danger level. She wanted to reach across the desk and rip his glasses off, then gouge out his eyes.
Damn he was a pompous ass.
Instead of blinding him, Claire reigned in her Irish temper and relaxed.

"Okay, Hal, I'm sorry. I've had a lot on my plate lately."

"Look, Claire, I'm really sorry about your father, but they've put me in charge here, and I need to work within certain parameters. Otherwise, they'll have my ass in a sling. You understand, don't you?"

For a moment, he seemed almost human to Claire. Then she remembered, this was the same guy who just a minute earlier threatened to have her suspended.

"I'll be sure and be on time from now on."

"That would be great."

Claire got up and left without saying anything else.
Fuck him,
she thought.

As Claire left the office, she noticed a young woman on a gurney she thought she recognized. It was her colleague's patient from yesterday. If her memory served her, Claire recalled the woman had come in for an emergency C-section. Judging by the size of her abdomen under the sheet, they must have postponed it. And what was she doing on the fourth floor? There were no obstetric suites up here. Claire watched them push the patient to a set of double doors marked:

AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY

Claire flattened herself against the adjoining wall and stood transfixed as the two men stopped and one wrangled a set of keys from his pocket. He opened the doors and they pushed the gurney through, and then disappeared from site. Claire felt her body flush.

Something just didn't fit.

A minute later, Goldstein came around the corner.

"You still here, Walters?" You better hurry. We have afternoon rounds in ten minutes."

Claire was about to ask Goldstein if he knew anything about OB patients on the forth floor, but then decided against it.

No, this was something
she
wanted to check out. She would definitely come back after rounds and find out for herself where her patient went.

Linda Freedman awakened in the middle of the night, dry-mouthed, with a sudden pain in her abdomen. She had been nauseated before she went to bed, thinking it was from the enormous dinner she and her boyfriend had eaten. Was it the lasagna or the chocolate tort? She went to bed expecting to wake up just fine.

Now as she lay on the exam table awaiting the doctor, she felt worse than ever. She was horribly weak and dizzy. And she was having cramps.

Bad cramps!

The doctor entered the room and smiled as Linda adjusted herself on the exam table. Her feet were up in the stirrups of the specially designed table and she wore only a paper gown allowing the doctor easy access to her vaginal area. An assistant, Freedman recognized as Gloria, came in and gently rubbed her arm.

"How are you, Ms. Freedman? Having some cramps?"

Freedman nodded. She was the first volunteer for the new invitro-surrogate program at Suburban Medical Center. The first four months had been great without a hitch, and Linda and her surrogate family were looking forward to the new baby arriving near Christmas. Now, though, Linda felt that hope was dashed. She was also scared to death. If she didn't carry this baby to term, the contract would be void, which meant Linda would be broke again. She didn't want to go back to the homeless shelter. It had been a nightmare, until she was approached by the liaison from Suburban. They gave her enough money to support herself and set her up in a nice apartment. And once the baby was born, she was guaranteed another twenty thousand dollars.