"Pretty much."
"And after that?"
A shrug. "Well, after that things just sorta’ happened. Whenever someone was lost, they'd call me. Then people in other places started calling me to hunt down camping parties, to find people." He rolled his neck, loosening. "I guess I've tracked just about everywhere. Mexico. Canada. Up north. Out west. It's always different, but the same. I've found most of them. But there were some I didn't find until it was too late."
"And what's that like?" She waited patiently for an answer. "To fail, I mean."
He took a long time to reply. "It's hard when I find the body, and it's too late. But all I can do is my best." A pause. "The first time I found a kid, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And I was right. Each time is as good as the first."
"I'll bet it is." She smiled. "I wish I could track like that. But that kind of skill is beyond anything you can learn. You have to have a gift. You have to be born to it."
"Maybe," he said. "I don't think about it."
"You just do it."
"I guess," he mumbled, casting a brief glance back to check on the professor. "Something like that."
She paused a long time, smiled. "You're a strange man, Mr. Hunter. You don't seem to like people. Don't even seem to like being around people. But you risk your life to save them. Why is that?"
His face was unreadable.
"Don't know," he said. " 'Cause I like the ones I find, I suppose."
Rebecca leaned over the table, attempting to gain the reluctant attention of the CIA physicist at Langley. Tall, white-haired, and aristocratic in attitude, Dr. Arthur Hamilton did not look up from the DNA printout.
"Doctor!" she stressed. "You're not paying attention! Look at the integrin matrix! They're…they're like…like scaffolding to an aggregate of molecules that form an adhesion that includes actin, talin, vinculum, and o-actitin. It's not like any regenerative properties we've ever witnessed. Not even in invertebrates that are innately immune to carcinogens!"
Dr. Hamilton's voice was soothing. "And your point is, Rebecca?"
She stared.
"My point?" She laid a hand on the DNA printout. "My point, Doctor, is that this reveals that this creature has a unique ability to activate quiescent integrin molecules so that they adhere to proteins — including fibrinogen — which makes a very powerful bridge for platelets. Then all the systems work together for enhanced healing, no matter the site of infection or injury. It's like this creature's entire extracellular matrix is expressly devoted to some kind of uncanny healing ability." Rebecca went to the edge. "Doctor, I would say that this thing, whatever it is, is completely immune to disease."
Dr. Hamilton stared at her and slowly replied, "That would be presumptive, Rebecca."
"Read the leukocyte level!" She leaned forward, feeling heat from the confrontation. "That printout, which is dead accurate, says this thing has trails to sites of infection like nothing we've ever seen. Look at the reperfusion molecules! The oxidant levels! The molecular adhesion to prevent restenosis! We've never seen anything like this. Not ever! And in that, Doctor, I know what I'm talking about. That's not presumptive!"
He frowned deeply as he studied the printout. "I suppose you have copies of this," he murmured.
"You bet I do."
"Please ensure that you preserve them," he added with greater interest, focusing again on the page. "Will you allow me to run my own analysis tonight? I would like to confer with you in the morning after I have time to collate a breakdown of the D-4 through D-10 to determine a mitosis level."
Rebecca stood back. "All right. Tomorrow. But I want this information in Dr. Tipler's hands by morning. He needs to know."
"Of course. I will see to it personally."
She picked up her briefcase and moved for the door. He spoke after her. "Is there anything the Agency can provide for you, Doctor, while you are staying in the city?"
"No." Rebecca turned back. "I can take care of myself."
"Of course."
Dr. Hamilton watched her close the door quietly and waited a moment before picking up the phone.
Brick shut the bank vault and moved with his familiar, unhurried, bull-like stroll, blacksmith arms falling past his sides at slight angles, to a gun crate.
He poured a glass of Jack Daniel's for Chaney, a larger one for himself. Chaney looked bemusedly around the vault as he took a sip, remembering that Brick had gotten it for a song six years ago from a local bank scheduled for demolition. It was the only place in the house where a conversation couldn't be surveilled by electronic listening devices.
"I don't like what I hear, kid." Brick grimaced as he swallowed a large, stinging sip of the whiskey. "Hoo-wee!" He held the glass up before his face, staring hard. "Man, it's been awhile! Must be gettin' old! But better old than dead, I guess." He sniffed, warming to it. "Which is just what you might be, boy, if you poke around."
Silent, Chaney held the rock-hard gaze. Brick usually spoke with a plainness that obtained immediate attention and respect, but rarely with such a dark grimness to the tone.
"Am I being set up?" Chaney asked.
Brick took a smaller sip, shook his head. "I don't know. All I know is that nobody claims to know much. Which means they do! They just don't talk about it! If they were ignorant, they'd be asking me questions instead. Yeah, for sure, people in this biz can't stand thinking that they don't know what's going down."
Brick's light-blue eyes, arched by bushy white brows that bristled in the dim light, went dead-flat on Chaney. "Why don't you go slack on this one?" he asked quietly. "Tell 'em you can't find nothing. Give it back and go on to something else. You're G-4, so you ain't gonna go much higher, anyway. You only got eight to fill. It won't hurt you to take a little heat."
Chaney blinked; it wasn't a bad idea. Marshals did it all the time, but something about this affair intrigued him. "What did you find' out, Brick?" He took a larger sip as he listened.
Brick sat on a crate of AK-47's. Thousands of rounds of NATO 7.62 ammo were stacked against the wall behind him. The rest of the vault was similarly stocked with shotguns, semiautomatics, pistols, gas masks, food, emergency medical kits, smoke markers, portable ham radios, and two crates of antipersonnel grenades. Brick's career as a marine, plus two tours in Vietnam, had made him a seriously connected gun lover.
Freshening his glass, he continued, "What I got is sketchy. But I know that two platoons of marines are listed as lost in a 'training exercise.' "
"In Alaska?"
Brick waved dismissively. "Don't matter two frags where. That's just how it's done. But they were marines, don't forget that. Not shake-and-bakes who can't do an air force push-up with a gun at their head. The dutch is that they were assigned a real special tour to guard some kinda research station and got wiped out."
"A military research station? Those are only located along the Bering Strait, aren't they?"
"No, it wasn't military." Brick shook his head glumly. "This was some kinda spook job, up near the North Ridge. I don't know what they were doing. The CIA hasn't had any research stations inside the Arctic Circle in thirty years. I can't even remember when they closed down the last one. Anyway, the word on all that is pretty low. I didn't push it."
For a while Chaney digested it. "That could make sense," he said finally.
Brick grunted over another sip. "To you, maybe."
"No, it does. Imagine this, Brick. Some CIA research station up where it shouldn't be. Okay, but for what? What was it doing up there? How did they get the funding? What could be so important about Alaska's North Ridge that would justify a budget?"