Silence…
And finally — steadiness.
Flying steadily, Chaney was rigid and possessed at the controls, utter exhaustion evident from his profile. He said nothing on the intercom, nor was it needed. They were safe, and it was enough. And the suicidal atmosphere in the cabin was grim with exhaustion, relief, and a slowly gathering rage that each one of them fed in silence, knowing what they had to do.
Dixon, relief expressed in his slow words, spoke. "Where are we going, Hunter?"
Groaning, Hunter reached back and pulled a headset from the wall. He mounted it, adjusted the mike. "Punch in White Mountains Park into the Magellan," he said. "There's a creek there; it's called Fossil River. It runs between the north and south sides of the range. We need to head upriver to find a cave. I'll tell ya more when we're closer." He paused. "Are the others following us?"
Hesitation as Chaney checked the radar.
"Radar says some of 'em have decked for refueling," Chaney said. "But there's a shitload on our tail, just the same. I'm tracking about seven Blackhawks and six A-14's circling. Damn, they musta’ had a cruiser off the coast or something. They ain't doing nuthin', though. Just circling. I guess 'cause they don't know what we're doing, yet." He paused. "Want me to tell 'em something?"
"Yeah. Tell them we have Dixon. Tell them to give a message to whoever’s in charge that we know where it's gone. And tell 'em we're gonna put an end to this." Hunter blinked; so tired now, so deathly tired. "Tell them that if they want this thing brought down quiet, they need to leave us alone 'til it's over."
Staring at Dixon, Brick suddenly rose, grabbing the CIA agent and tossing him roughly to the front of the bay. Then the hulking ex-marshal felt along the back wall, searching.
"For combat missions," he whispered to himself, though Hunter somehow heard, "these things always got a stash."
Chaney's voice came over the headset: "They say they're just doing surveillance! But I gave 'em the message! Everybody knows the score! They ain't gonna do anything!"
Hunter lowered his head, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. They had sent him out to die and he had survived, and now they both cursed and feared him. But this was the last of the game. Either he would die or it would die; there was no other way for this to end. Then remorse and affection struck him at once, and he gazed at Bobbi Jo.
She was waiting for it, was already staring at him.
What was spoken — and Hunter knew that she utterly understood, and agreed — was done without words or expression. Then she smiled — a sad smile — and he bowed his head.
Yeah, they'd finish it.
"I got it!" Brick shouted, and the back panel of the bay fell; a wall of steel lowered to reveal an entire arsenal of weapons.
Hunter saw stacked grenades, a flame-thrower, M-203's, rocket-launched grenades and two extra Barretts. The lower half of the compartment was packed with crated ammunition and extra napalm canisters for the flame-thrower.
Smiling or frowning, Brick looked down.
His voice was grim.
"Let's see the son of a bitch survive this," he said.
Chapter 21
A vast wall of rolling gray storm followed them through the canyon as if to terrify and isolate them during their final battle against the beast.
The air rippled with ceaseless lightning, causing the chopper to tremble with thunder, as the Blackhawk descended into a jagged valley of broken stone cut deeply by a river that whitened over rapids and swirled into strangely cut eddies that disappeared beneath heavy overhangs of stone.
Inside the craft they defiantly loaded weapons, each of them committed to the last battle with this creature that they had come to understand too well. Beaten and bloodied, they paid little attention to their wounds, taking time only to staunch the bleeding of their most serious injuries.
Hunter wrapped Bobbi Jo's torso in heavy gauze, using most of the surgical tape. Then she replaced her shredded vest with another, tightening the elastic straps to further secure the dressing.
All of them were covered with dried blood from their own wounds and the creature's, but Hunter was the most seriously marked, with uncounted contusions and abrasions.
A wide cut on the right side of his face — a vicious injury he didn't remember receiving in the last chaotic exchange — still bled. But there was no way to bandage it without compromising his vision, so he had cleaned it and left it alone.
His forearm where he had blocked the beast's last thunderous blow was severely slashed and blackened with blood, as if the creature's skin alone were a weapon. He wrapped the forearm with what remained of the gauze and taped it; it would have to suffice. If they lived, he could attend to it more carefully later.
Rising from the bay, Hunter took the seat beside Chaney. He mounted the headset, dimly hearing the rest of them loading and preparing weapons.
Chaney was keeping steady distance on the storm, flying low and level. The radar revealed that the rest of the helicopters had detoured south, still close but avoiding the lightning-slashed sky behind them. His voice reached Hunter over the intercom system: "Could it have gotten this far so soon?"
Hunter barked a humorless laugh. "Yeah, it could have. Believe me."
Chaney took his word. "All right. So where is this cave that we're trying to find?"
"Further upriver." Hunter pointed. "It's probably somewhere around that bend. We're looking for a waterfall that comes out of a cliff face. And on either side there will be two rock faces that resemble… I don't know, something like wolves. Tigers. It shouldn't be too hard to find."
Chaney continued in silence for a moment. "Tell me something," he said finally. "If this thing was around ten or twelve thousand years ago, how did it survive the Ice Age?"
"Lots of species survived the Ice Age," Hunter responded, searching the cliff walls intently. "And this… this species, if it's as intelligent as it seems, could easily have found shelter in these mountains. Something like a cave where it could have weathered it out. Plus, it has a high degree of adaptability." He considered it. "Yeah, it could have survived easily enough. It probably thrived when the rest of this region was dying out. That's why they wanted it. For its ability to adapt to disease, its immunity factor, its genetic mutation factors. They wanted a species whose genetic superiority made it basically un-killable."
Chaney grunted. "They did too good a job."
"What they didn't understand was that they had to take the bad with the good," Hunter said more slowly. "They wanted something that was unkillable. And what they got was something that lived to kill." He was silent a moment. "Stupidity. They wanted to live forever. And they killed hundreds to obtain it."
The helicopter moved upriver.
"Well," Chaney responded, "if these things stood at the top of the food chain, with no natural enemies, then why did they ever die out?" He stared. "I mean, something had to kill them off, right? But what could have done something like that? According to what I've seen, nothing that ever walked or crawled could have even killed off one of these things. Much less a whole race of them."
Meeting his gaze, Hunter said nothing. After a moment he stared away, considering. "I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe we're gonna find out."
"There it is," Chaney said suddenly, bringing the chopper to almost a dead stop as he swung it smoothly to face the south wall.
Hunter saw it instantly.
A waterfall at least three hundred feet from the valley floor cascaded heavily from the cliff side. And above that, slightly to the side, a fissure disappeared into darkness. On either side of the cleft, larger than he had anticipated, two jagged outcroppings seemed unnaturally cut into protruding stones.