Dexter picked up the report and fingered through the notes. An incredulous grin teased his lips at the sight of good Samaritans picking up the world’s most dangerous man. “What’s Excalibur doing there?”
The Director met his eye. “You know what he’s doing there.”
Dexter nodded. Breathing heavily. “Have you contacted Dr. Jim Patterson, to warn him?”
“Yes.”
Dexter raised his eyebrows. “How did he take that?”
“He said he already knew about the wreck of the Hoshi Maru washing up on Cannon Beach. He already figured Excalibur had survived.”
“How did he take that news?”
“How do you think he took that? What would you do if you discovered Excalibur had survived and was spotted on his way to find you?”
“I’d run.”
“Exactly.”
“Did he?” Dexter asked, his voice almost hopeful.
The Director remained silent for a moment. “No. Dr. Patterson said there was nowhere on Earth he would ever be safe while Excalibur was alive. Better that he bunkers down at his place, and rolls the dice. Live or die. There’s a team of US Rangers — Delta Force I believe — on their way now to help.”
“Did you tell them what they’re up against?” There was an urgency in Dexter’s voice.
“Of course I did.”
“And?”
The Director placed the palms of his hands skyward. “They didn’t believe me. How could they? If the roles were reversed, would you?”
Dexter thought about that for a second. His shoulders slumped forward. “No.”
“That’s right. And now they’re flying into a trap.”
“How many men?”
“Twenty. Two choppers. Two teams. It might be enough.”
Dexter expelled a deep breath of air. “God help them. They have no idea what they’re up against.”
His assistant’s cell phone rang. It made him jump with a start. He answered it on the second ring. “Yes?”
His assistant listened for a while, his face turning ashen gray. Finally he said, “Yes, I understand.”
Dexter swallowed. “What is it?”
“That was the Commanding Officer of the US Ranger’s Delta Force strike team. They just arrived at the doctor’s house.”
“And… what did they find?”
“Dr. Patterson’s dead. His body was carved with surgical precision into small pieces and then set up to look like it was laughing at them all, like some sort of sick joke.”
The muscles around Dexter’s lips tightened into a grimace. He felt his gut churn. “Really?”
“That’s what the Ranger said.” His assistant sighed. “It’s the sort of thing Excalibur would do.”
Dexter sighed. “You’re right, some weapons can’t be destroyed.”
“There’s something else you should know.”
“What?”
“They found a note written in the doctor’s blood.”
Dexter said, “Go on. What did it say?”
His assistant bit his lower lip, gritted his teeth. He expelled a deep breath of air. “It said, ‘You’re next, Dexter’”.
Dexter was silent.
His assistant asked, “What are you going to do, sir?”
Dexter remained silent, his mind ticking over like clockwork, every answer returning to the same conclusion. If he stayed, he would be dead.
“Do we come clean about the project?” his assistant asked.
Dexter shook his head emphatically. “Oh God, no! We’ll have civil rights groups from around the world breathing down our neck. No. We destroyed all records from that part of the program and shut it down for good.”
“What about Excalibur?”
Dexter swallowed. “You mean, do we go after him again?”
“Yeah.”
Dexter shook his head. “You saw what the project did to a god damned dog! What the hell do you think it would do to Jason Faulkner?”
“Ah… Christ!” The Director said. “I wasn’t in charge when the program was running. The name of the man who became Excalibur was still a secret, even to me, as well as all the scientific and archaeological details. But I know Jason Faulkner. Whose stupid idea was it to test the program on an elite SAS soldier? It wasn’t bad enough the man was already a trained killing machine, we had to imbue him with additional physiological powers!”
Dexter swallowed. “It was his own choice.”
The Director considered that for a moment. “How long before you knew you had a problem?”
“Nearly six months.”
“What went wrong?”
“Nothing. The ethics committee shut us down.”
The Director lowered his eyes. “I know the whole program was kept in the dark, but I know damned well the ethics committee shut the program down on paper after it was revealed the test had been performed on a dog. So, don’t give me this shit that everything was fine, and you only tried to destroy Excalibur because of an internal ethics committee.”
Dexter nodded. “All right. All right. We knew early. But no one wanted to acknowledge it. By the time there could be no doubt, we were no longer in a position to eliminate him.”
“Why? What had happened?”
“The experiment had the same effects on both of them — higher IQ, greater EQ, physiological changes including increased structural integrity at a cellular level…”
“Meaning?”
“They’re tougher than you and I… and steel, for that matter.”
“Go on. So, what was different? I was told the dog turned out perfect.”
“There was something about the procedure. I don’t know what caused it. Maybe it’s just a side effect. Maybe it was there by design. I suppose this is the problem with tampering with someone else’s research.”
“For God’s sake, Dexter, what happened?”
Dexter exhaled heavily. “Look. Where the procedure seemed to enhance Caliburn’s natural good nature, the opposite could be said about Excalibur.”
“You mean, the procedure enhanced Jason Faulkner’s evil side?”
Dexter nodded. “I mean. He was an asshole before he became Excalibur. Maybe even before he became a secret operative for the SAS. Maybe killing people off the books had already turned him that way. I don’t know. One thing I do know for certain is that after the procedure, he seemed to feed on evil. Growing darker by the day.”
“That’s when he went AWOL?”
“Yep.”
The Director said, “Only he took seven men with him.”
Dexter grimaced. He had been hoping he wouldn’t have to go there. “Look. He was an asshole, but he was smart as hell and there was something about the procedure that gave him a way with people. Where it enhanced his evil, it also made his ability to command people supreme.”
The Director nodded. “I’m sure all that money the seven of you were set to make made him all the more persuasive.”
Dexter was past trying to deny it. Instead, he answered the next question that he knew the Director would be asking. “Excalibur became volatile. Dr. Patterson became concerned. When Excalibur refused to listen, we made a unanimous decision to execute him.”
“Which clearly failed.”
“Clearly…” Dexter turned his gaze away. “After the coup, Excalibur went around hunting down each and every man in that team.”
“Patrick was on the Hoshi Maru when it was hit by the tsunami. The shipwreck’s only been on the Oregon beach for a day and already he’s managed to kill Dr. Patterson.”
“And that leaves you as the only surviving member of the original team.”
Dexter nodded. “The only one who knows the truth. He’ll come after me for sure.”
“What will you do?”
“What Jim Patterson never could.”
“Which is?”
“I’m going to run like hell.”
Chapter Eleven