Ripper (55 page)

“Why is that Colonel?” Gloria asked as she pulled two of
them off the wall.

“It’s a brutal close-in stabbing weapon, which I believe is the sort of battle we are about to fight.”

“Damn it, I hate it when he’s right,” Virginia said as she also removed two assegais from the wall and handed one to Denise who hefted it and tested the weight.

Sarah placed Henri against the rear wall, but he fought against her in order to stand. She cursed and helped him
do so.

“I think I would much rather go out standing my dear,” he said as he reached down and took Sarah’s small hand, bending with considerable pain and kissing it.

McIntire reached up and, not caring if the others saw her movement, kissed Farbeaux deeply on the lips. “There, we’re even, you ass,” she said smiling and stepping away to get the last two spears hanging from their steel holders.

Henri’s shocked face registered his surprise as he watched the small woman hand him one of the assegais.

“I’m going to go down fighting. I have decided I very much want to live,” Henri said as he looked at Sarah and winked, not knowing if she could see the gesture in the darkness. “If only to have you visit me in prison,” Henri finished as he braced himself against the wall just as Virginia announced
with a fear-laced voice that the second and middle set of hinges just fell to the floor outside the vault door.

As the five trapped people prepared to make their final stand, the beast outside threw them a curve as its animalistic impatience must have overwhelmed its intelligence. It started pulling on the eighteen-inch-thick vault door. At that very moment Europa got the power back on just as
the thick steel was ripped away from the frame. They heard as well as saw the large locking rods slide out of the door, but they had nothing to slide into.

“If it weren’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all,” Virginia said as the lights in the vault illuminated a sight they hadn’t wished to see—the beast raising the two-ton steel door over its head and tossing it out into the corridor.

Brave Virginia, so scared she was furious, was the first to move as she charged the beast before it had a chance to recover from throwing the door. The nuclear sciences engineer stabbed outward with the four-foot-long assegai. The razor-sharp tip slid easily into the creature’s abdomen and struck its liver. It howled in pain and reached down and snapped the Zulu spear off, leaving its tip imbedded
in its stomach. The beast came into the vault. Denise Gilliam, forgetting Henri’s advice, threw her spear and it struck the mercenary in the shoulder where it immediately ripped it free. The creature caught Virginia totally off-guard by swinging the shaft end, and it struck her across the chest, sending Virginia crashing into the steel wall of the vault.

Gloria stabbed next and hit the thing
in the upper thigh. Again it cried out in pain, but it still kept coming. It swung at the CDC doctor, but she easily moved out of the way.

Sarah started forward, but Farbeaux grabbed her and threw her back, sending her crashing into the enclosure where Cetshwayo was laid out in his temperature-controlled sleep. Henri charged, moving slowly due to his loss of blood, but charge he did. He planted
the spear deep into the giant’s chest, pulled it free, and then struck at it again. The beast was so shocked at the sudden and vicious strikes that it half turned and kicked out with its leg. The giant’s foot struck the Frenchman and sent him flying the length of the large vault where he hit the wall and bounced off, striking the floor and remaining still.

The once-upon-a-time soldier roared
in triumph as it regained the initiative and came on. The defenders saw their fate moving toward them and would have liked to have continued the fight but knew they had nothing left to fight with.

Suddenly the vault erupted with bright flashes of light and the creature turned away from its intended victims only to be met by a withering wave of gunfire from outside the doorframe. At least a hundred
and fifty rounds struck the future of soldiering, with the bullets that struck its head dropping the already wounded beast in the doorway. The next thing they saw was a large man in black Nomex battle dress jump atop the still moving creature and empty a full magazine into it.

Sarah held Farbeaux and Gloria roused Virginia from the floor. Denise Gilliam stepped forward and looked up at the man
still standing atop the downed beast.

Captain Carl Everett winked at a still-reeling Virginia Pollock.

“You want to
really
apologize for that cheap shot you gave me in the football game, Doc?”

Virginia shook her aching head, trying to clear it further. “Okay, I did it on purpose.”

“Uh huh,” Everett said as he hopped down from the back of the dead mercenary. “You owe me and my men here dinner
 … no, a lobster dinner.”

“I’m not that sorry,” Virginia said as she hugged the blonde captain. The vault filled with the remnants of Everett’s fire team who had finally made it to the armory on level forty-two and were now assisting with a wounded Farbeaux and the others.

“Okay, we have to get these people out of—”

Everett saw the giant shadow rise from behind him. He saw the reaction of every
person still inside the vault when the beast they thought they had killed rose from the supposed land of everlasting peace they had sent him to.

“Oh, damn, the bastard’s right behind me isn’t he?” Everett said just as the beast screamed in triumph and sprang at Carl’s exposed back.

Suddenly a deafening roar filled every square inch of level sixty-one. The heavy popping noise pierced through
the air and almost knocked everyone standing inside to the floor with its power. As Everett dove for cover he felt the heavy impact of metal against flesh. Before he hit the floor he heard the slap and thump of something hitting the beast. The creature was struck so hard that it didn’t have time to react to the attack.

“Jesus!” Carl called out as he turned over on his back to see round after
round strike the beast in the chest, legs, neck, and head, sending it reeling backward. The fifty-caliber bullets kept filling the air to the point that the echoes and the actual sounds of the rounds exploding became one and the same.

Silence filled the air and then they all heard the voice outside.

“Hah, got you! That looks like it hurt!”

Everett tried to stand on shaky legs. He looked over
at Sarah who was holding the head of Henri Farbeaux in her lap. Once standing, Carl walked to the doorway and looked out. He had to smile when he saw the face of Will Mendenhall as he leaned against the large electric cart that held the still-smoking Browning fifty-caliber machine gun.

“Nice gun,” Everett said as he leaned against the sill of the vault.

“I’ve got a torpedo bomber that comes
with it.”

Will stepped inside and helped the others leave their small sanctuary. It was Gloria who came up and gave Will a deep, well-meaning kiss on the lips.

“What about the reactor?” Sarah asked.

“Europa says we have someone down there restarting the cooling pumps right now, but we still have to get the hell out of here,” Everett said.

Sarah and Denise helped the unconscious Frenchman sit
up.

“Carl, give us a hand,” Sarah said as she struggled with Henri’s weight.

“Do I have to?”

LEVEL EIGHTY-FOUR

“There is now three minutes, seventeen seconds until core meltdown,” Europa announced just as Smith attacked the two men.

Collins quickly pushed Charlie Ellenshaw out of the way as Smith hit him full force, sending him flying once more across the reactor room. The creature laughed
as it turned on Ellenshaw.

Crazy Charlie knew he had to get to Jack because he didn’t know where the fuse box for the cooling pumps was located. He hurriedly scrambled back behind the water tanks, turned, and made his way toward the spot where the colonel had landed. Instead of coming after him, Smith went for the stunned Collins fifteen feet away.

Jack opened his eyes as he took short, painful
gasps of air into his damaged lungs. He felt the heavy steps of Smith as he came forward to finish the job. The drool hit Jack’s back as the beast stood over his prone body. Jack tried desperately to get his hand under his body as he knew he only had seconds before Smith stomped him to death.

“I remember you now—Jack Collins, Fifth Special Forces Group, Afghanistan, 2004,” came the horrid deep
and booming voice. Smith chuckled. “You going to tell Congress about this, Collins?” the beast asked as it reached down and picked Jack up by the body armor collar and lifted him to face level.

Jack opened his eyes and spit blood into the distorted face of Smith who raised his free hand and wiped the blood away, licking his fingers as he made a yummy sound deep in his throat.

Charlie charged
at the creature’s back, not firing his weapon as before for fear of hitting the colonel. He jumped onto Smith’s back and started pummeling the giant with his thin-fingered fists.

Smith shook his body vigorously until he dislodged Ellenshaw. Charlie hit the hard floor and lay still.

“He is irritating. Is that the best you can do Collins?” The fetid breath struck Jack, helping to bring him around.

“You now have one minute, fifty-one seconds to reach safe distance. Core meltdown is imminent.”

Jack heard Europa’s calm voice and smiled, wondering why he had never been able to find the culprit who had altered her voice synthesizer to that of the deceased Hollywood sex goddess.

“Drop the colonel and back away,” said a voice in back of Jack, “you ugly son of a bitch!”

Smith looked up and saw
twenty men facing him. But still he smiled as he knew they would never kill him in time to stop his eventual suicide.

“Come and get him,” boomed the unnatural voice as the beast raised Jack up closer to its head and almost unhinged its jaw as it opened its mouth wide with laughter, realizing that any rescue was now too late. It wouldn’t be stopped.

Jack found his opening. He had what he had
reached for in his hand as Smith opened his mouth with that irritating laugh of his. Jack had already pulled the pin on the grenade before he had been lifted free of the floor. He drew his arm back and then let the safety handle pop free. He slammed the round grenade as hard as he could into Smith’s exposed mouth. He broke teeth off as the beast realized what had happened. Smith let Jack fall free
and then tried desperately to dig the grenade from his large and deformed mouth.

As Jack hit the floor he rolled away, damaging his ribs even more. He finally stopped and managed to look up.

“Fuckhead,” Jack whispered lowering his head and covering up just as the grenade detonated.

Smith’s eyes widened when he realized what was in his mouth. His fingers finally managed to lock around the object
and as he tried to pull it free, it went off, sending brain matter and skull bone out in an arc that covered the two reactor vessels.

Before Collins knew it, hands were on him, turning him over. He opened his eyes into the smiling face hovering over him.

“Hello Jack.”

“Grateful Dead, I’ll be damned,” Jack whispered.

“That you will my friend. It looks like we were a bit too late to save the
day here, so I guess all us grunts are damned,” Garcia said as he cocked an ear upward just as Europa sounded her final warning.

“Detonation of nuclear material will occur in one minute and forty-one seconds.”

“The fuses,” Jack said low in his throat.

“What’s that, Jack?” Garcia asked.

Suddenly the warning alarms ceased. The red and yellow reactor lights started to slow their steady pulse
and Europa made her last announcement as Collins tried raising his head.

“Core temperature has now been stabilized at six hundred fifty-two degrees. Coolant flow has been restored.”

Garcia helped Collins sit up as Charlie Ellenshaw came around the number ten water tank. He was waving his hands through the air as if to cool them. He grimaced as he saw the DELTA team and even Colonel Collins looking
at his burnt hands.

“I couldn’t find the damn fuse box for the pumps. And then I didn’t know that you couldn’t push the fuses back in with the switch handle in the
on
position. That freaking hurt!” Crazy Charlie said as he waved his charred hands through the air.

“Hmm,” Major Garcia said as he looked down at the man who had trained him ten years before. “One minute and forty seconds to spare.
You’re getting old Jack; you used to be exciting.”

Collins closed his eyes and passed out.

LEVEL EIGHT

Doctor Denise Gilliam had every bed and most desks filled with wounded men and women. Virginia, Sarah, and Gloria had volunteered to assist the doctor as she tried to bring things under some kind of control. Niles Compton was complaining more than anyone that he would like a real doctor to
help him as Virginia did her best to place the temporary cast on his ankle.

Two men no one recognized stepped into the clinic. They stopped and noticed Denise Gilliam attending her patients.

“You got room for one more Doctor?” a large man asked as he slung a weapon over his shoulder.

“Sure, the more the merrier,” Denise said with weariness lacing her voice. “Who is it?”

“Well, he may be one
of yours. We found him passed out on the loading dock about a half hour ago.”

“What makes you think he’s one of mine?” Denise asked as curiosity finally made her look up from one of Everett’s security men.

The two strangers looked at each other and everyone could tell they wanted to laugh but held back.

“Well, ma’am, he’s wearing what looks like a candy striper’s outfit.”

“He?” Denise asked.

“Bring him in,” the first man called through the door.

As everyone inside the clinic waited, even the director stopped complaining long enough to watch. Two other men in black clothing brought a third man in and laid him down on one of the desks.

Will Mendenhall had to stand up and shake his head in wonder. Sarah’s eyes widened, and Niles had to laugh at the escapee from a hospital in downtown
Las Vegas.