Bobbi Jo shook her head, drawing deep breaths.
"Not a chance in hell," Brick rasped.
"That's what I thought," Hunter responded, revealing no trace of disappointment or fear as he moved away from the wall. "Look sharp and use your ears. And don't forget to keep checking the roof up there for silhouettes. It might climb up the other side and attack you from above. Look quick."
"You'd better take this." Brick handed him the Weatherby and bandoleer. "You got two fresh rounds. They hurt him, but it ain't gonna put him down for the count."
Without another word or expression, Hunter loped quickly and lightly across the yard with silent, tiger-like leaps. He did not slow down until he reached the motor pool, engulfed in darkness.
Chapter 20
Hazy lights came slowly into focus, and Dr. Arthur Hamilton stared, unknowing. He saw a white… ceiling?… Slender white rods… Fluorescent lights… Tiles… Black pinholes in chalky white…
The laboratory!
It came to him.
"What the —?" he shouted, rolling painfully to a knee and reflexively reaching for something, anything, for balance. His knee and shoe crunched fragments of broken plastic, glass, paper, and other debris. He crouched like a boxer, staring in a daze. Speechless, reviewing the situation as he could remember it before he lost consciousness, he was appalled at the carnage, understanding with raw emotion the consequences of what lay before him.
Hunter had survived!
"My God," he whispered. "My God…"
He turned toward the back of the laboratory. "Come out, you cowardly fools!" he called, not troubling to disguise his anger. "Come out before I come back there and drag you out!"
A moment of silence passed.
Then Emma Strait's black-haired head peeked timidly around the corner. A male and female assistant looked out from behind her shoulders, holding onto Emma as if she were their security. Emma's face was fearful.
Dr. Hamilton regained enough emotional control to hesitate, drawing breath. He would have to ignore the stiffness in his neck, the strange lightness in his step. Understanding that Hunter had apparently struck him across the neck, he motioned with forgiveness for Emma to step forward.
Then, to further ease her fear, he leaned back heavily on a computer terminal and rubbed his neck. And as she watched him so closely, he made a smooth display of interpreting this event as a tragic but expected occurrence. His act was polished brilliance, even without words: a madman was in their midst, and he had done this…
Not appearing so agitated as to seem unhinged, he looked back at her and nodded. "Come, Emma, we must nevertheless deal with this unfortunate situation. Nothing can be gained by securing yourselves in the bunker. Although I'm sure it was a prudent measure at the time. Yes, we are fortunate, very fortunate, to be alive."
On an impulse that he wished he could have avoided he glanced at the tube and saw that the creature's coffin was shattered by rifle fire, the body disintegrated. Nothing remained but a smoking mass of liquefied flesh and starkly visible bone. Hamilton could not conceal the bitter grimace that twisted his face. When he glanced back at Emma, she had stopped in stride.
"Oh, it is nothing, Emma." He gestured, trying to maintain a smooth manner. He tried to close his mind to the horror of all his great effort, now destroyed by this base wild man, this nobody, this tracker who would not surrender to superior forces. "I… I was simply wondering how much damage our complex had suffered in this… this gunfight… which I seemed to have missed entirely."
"You… you missed it?" she asked.
"Oh, yes." Hamilton made a great display of rubbing his neck: you must make her sympathetic. "I'm sure you and the others were secured safely in the bunker — I'm glad that I included it in the budget — but I was out here among them, trying to reason with them.
"The intruders, apparently renegades from this hunting party, surreptitiously stole in here to either injure us or acquire something. The guards caught them, and I attempted to negotiate, in order to avoid senseless injury. Then one of them — this madman called Hunter — struck me unconscious. I suppose I am fortunate to be alive." He grimaced. "Yes, I need medical attention, but now is not the time. A cursory examination will have to suffice as long as we remain under his attack."
Emma, followed closely by the rest, had cautiously moved closer to him. But Hamilton attempted to make it seem of no importance, as if saying, "Of course you would stand beside me. Why not? Have I not protected you thus far? Am I not your colleague? Your teacher?"
He gestured to indicate that he had no doubt of their loyalty. "Now we must discover if any of the data have been stolen."
Bending to indicate pain beyond what he truly felt, Hamilton continued, "Please run a file check, the times and user, to determine what has been examined in the past three hours. Then do a physical inventory of the vault, and determine if any materials have been removed."
Unmoving, they stared.
"Well, come on!" Hamilton used his authoritative tone, knowing that by now they had been properly prepared; their suspicions were dulled, their fears assuaged by his honest appearance of his own pain and shock. He added more angrily, "We have work to do!"
Swarming like worker bees who knew their responsibilities without instruction and were willing to drive themselves to death in order to fulfill their roles, the crew assumed their shattered work stations. Some of the terminals were still smoking, and the ten-man technical team immediately initiated undamaged backup systems housed in adjoining rooms.
Hamilton's last orders were all but lost in the activity as he turned to Emma.
"Please contact Mr. Dixon on the NSA satellite immediately," he instructed calmly. Then, as an afterthought: "And, just in case, have someone lock the entrance to this level. I believe it is time to secure the vault."
Hunter moved stealthily and silently, knowing the creature would be forced to track by scent in this chaos. Frowning, angry and fearless now, he'd make it work.
Hesitating beside the body of a dead soldier, he reached out and touched the man's gaping wound, feeling compassion. Then he rubbed the blood on his boots and continued moving, crossing the path of a dozen more slain soldiers, repeating the procedure, mixing his scent with the scent of the dead.
It was impossible to remain in the darkness because blazing orange light from the inferno of the tanker and disintegrating shed threw dancing diagonal shadows across the motor pool. So he kept loping, going high over the roofs of trucks and descending to the ground again.
He held the Weatherby close as he threaded a path through an army of dead men. But he saw nothing, heard nothing, sensed nothing. Then, heart flaming, he heard a low moan and whirled, searching with narrow eyes.
In the distance, perhaps thirty feet away, he saw a hand weakly raised in the air and loped easily toward it, all the while alert to any movement or sound beside or behind him.
It was a young soldier. Almost a boy.
Hunter almost groaned at the sight, and knelt beside him.
A slashing blow had torn away part of the boy's chest. Blood had matted in the wound, concealing its depth. He grasped Hunter's hand weakly, and Hunter knew he could do nothing for him. The creature's blow had torn away ribs, leaving the chest cavity exposed; it was a matter of moments.