Hunter (26 page)

He knew that, first, he would have to discover what was really going on inside those research stations. That would be the crux, give him something to work with. But to do that he would have to do some very covert work, probably even illegal.

Then he thought of all the good men that had gone down in this, men who were good soldiers, husbands, fathers. And, as an ex-marine, it affected him.

His mouth tightened slightly.

Let's go get 'em.

He was rising as his beeper went off, and he scowled as he looked
down. He was on special assignment and shouldn't be disturbed for anything less than an emergency. Then as he saw the callback he knew that it just might be an emergency. It was Gina Gilbert at the Tipler Institute.

He left the mall quickly and walked outside into a hard rain.

* * *

Chapter 13

Submerged in gloom, he collapsed within a dark leafy silence, holding his hideously injured right arm. The man had stabbed and twisted. He had viciously severed muscle, vein and nerve, and carved into bone.

He had been so close.

He snarled with rage as he breathed heavily, truly wounded for the first time. He had never known pain like this, not ever. The rest, the guns, they could not hurt him. But this had hurt him. He did not understand. The fang—the knife, as his mind remembered it—was dangerous.

It was the same with the wolf.

The fangs tore through his flesh as bullets and blade never could. His arm ached where the demon had savaged him, and closing eyes to rage, he remembered that great weight straining against him, his shoulder twisting beneath the surging strength and the crushing fangs that numbed his arm and would not let go.

Yes, oh yes, they would die for this. If he had to track them to the ends of the earth to kill them all, he would do it.

Once he rejoined his brothers he would return, and together they would destroy them all, eat their brains, and rejoice in the blood. They would hunt them as before, in the night beneath the moon through the shadows of the forest, howls haunting the night as they caught them in the woods and valleys. As they cracked their bones for the marrow and sucked out the delicious black juice.

He attempted to rise, to return to them, to slay . . .

Co
llapsed upon the ground.

Breathed deeply. Shuddered.

A red moon ... black lines against sky.

Almost nothing of what he had been could be remembered, but he did not suffer from it. He was content to be what he had become, content with the killing.

Yet he remembered another time, a time now dim but still there; a great darkness...something he could not define, could not see ...screams and howls, roars of pain and rage and vengeance and defiance and surrender that died ... the wildness, the purity, the ecstasy ... another hunt, a different hunt. And the weak ones had not been the prey ...

But there was blood, always blood.

He could not remember more.

Red moon ...

He closed his eyes.

Silence and quiet repose followed horror in the mine. Tipler had passed out, and Bobbi Jo had carefully monitored his blood pressure, pulse, and breathing. She had administered something to help him relax, then sat down beside Hunter.

Stoic, Hunter was staring at the Magellan Satellite Phone case. Inside was the radio phone that was supposed to be able to reach any location in the world from any other location by sending a signal that triangulated off three satellites to its destination. It was not a line-of-sight megahertz radio as used by most field units. This was a specially modified device that utilized ultra—high frequency modulation and even offered a screen for graphic communication.

If needed, it could provide a visual depiction of weather, troop movements, climatic conditions, and other factors for as much as one-quarter of the earth at a time. It could, if it were working, tell them to within a distance of five feet exactly where they were standing on the planet, and the terrain around them. Seeing it unusable only reinforced for Hunter the reasons why he had honed his skills at dead reckoning to a fine art.

His face was studious, but he cast a discreet glance at Takakura, who rested against the wall on the far side of the professor's cot, and Taylor, who hadn't moved in over an hour, the shotgun laid casually across his legs. Hunter couldn't tell whether he was asleep or not, but the commando was unmoving, his face hidden in shadow.

Bobbi Jo's voice was gentle. "Talk to me. Tell me about someplace that's not this place."

They were sitting side by side. He glanced over and saw her eyes closed, her face tight. Her head was bent slightly forward, as if in sleep, but like the rest of the team she was too stressed to sleep. The team was alive because of her skills with her rifle. That was as it should be; this woman was a warrior. The surprise was that his friend, the professor, was alive only because she had given him such tireless attention despite fulfilling her combat responsibilities. Now that she had a moment to rest, he was more than willing to offer her some relief.

He leaned back, relaxed.

"Okay," he said gently. "Well, let's see. I guess I could tell you how, under a big, white full moon the Grand Canyon looks like a dream might look, and how, in firelight, you can feel like an angel walking the crest of a mountain. Or I could tell you about how the woods of northern England are so quiet and mossy and peaceful that it's like walking through time, to the days of kings and queens, and princesses waiting for their princes. Or what it's like to finally find a kid that's lost and scared and cold, and how they love you for it. What it's like to see their face when they see yours. All of that shared at once, and how it lasts forever. All that happiness, all that joy brought out of fear." He smiled. "Maybe that's the best."

She smiled gently at him. "I would like to know that feeling," she said quietly. "I could use that feeling."

"You could do it," Hunter said, holding the Marlin easily. "You're as good as anyone I've ever seen."

"Not as good as you."

"Sure you are."

"Nobody is as good as you, Hunter. And you know it." She smiled with it, meaning it. Of a sudden, Hunter was surprised that they were so physically close. He hadn't really been aware of it until her eyes closed and her head leaned against his chest.

She continued, "I've never seen anyone like you. I've never seen, or even heard of anyone, who could see so much. Who understood so much." She paused. "Is it like that for you in everything? Is that why you don't like to be around people? 'Cause you see so much?"

Hunter paused, shrugged. "Could be. Never claimed to be too sharp. Maybe it's just that I don't need much."

"Just that crazy wolf."

He laughed. "Yeah, he's crazy all right. But he's my friend."

"Is he the only one you trust?"

He shook his head. "No."

"The doc?"

"Yeah." Hunter looked at the professor. "Yeah, I trust him. Always have."

She was staring at Ghost. The big wolf was resting without removing his coal-black eyes from the shattered wall. "You know something, Hunter. You and that wolf are a lot alike. You both like being alone. You're both quiet. And you don't play games. But you're always there when someone needs you." She paused. "I could stand being like that."

Absorbing the words, Hunter studied her face. She continued to stare at Ghost for a moment, looked at him close. "Do you always want to be alone?"

Hunter waited, let the silence speak for him for a moment.

"No," he said, and she smiled. He looked away, sniffed. "I guess I'd like a family. Always have, I suppose. I ... I really love kids. I just never got around to it. Not the right person, whatever." He laughed lightly. "Wouldn't be so easy for a woman to live with me, anyway."

"And why is that?"

"Oh," he began slowly, "I don't know. I travel a lot. I prefer a hard life to a soft one. The things that matter to me aren't money and power. I got plenty of that, but it ain't life. I guess what I call life are kids, love, a family. Old-fashioned stuff. It don't go over too good nowadays when people think life is jet-setting and doing as much as they can as fast as they can."

"Tell me about your place in New York," she said. "Why don't you stay there more?"

"Oh, I stay there a good bit," he answered. "That's where I have my equipment. Sort of like a base. When I'm dealing with all the environmental agencies, or the Institute, I generally stay there. Got all my computers, my library."

"You read a lot?"

"I don't know. I guess I've got a few thousand books, maybe more. Read all of them. And I've collected some things, mostly art. I like art. And I've got some work from the Baroque period, some Neoclassical and Romantic period work. I
...you may have never heard of him, but I have some bronze work by Antoine Louis Barye."

She laughed. "You're right. Never heard of him."

They smiled.

"Well, he was a French sculptor.  He primarily portrayed animals in
tense, dynamic situations. His bronze work is his best, and I invested in a few pieces in Paris. His romantic works, his strongest images of the wild, usually depict one animal struggling against another for supremacy." Hunter paused a long time, as if even he wasn't exactly sure why he enjoyed the work. "That might be why I like them so much," he added softly. "The reality of the struggle."

"But you don't like the struggle, do you?"

He shook his head lightly. "No ... no, I don't."

"That's why you're so good at it. Did you know that? Because you really don't like it. To you, it's a terrible thing. So you do it quick. Get it over with."

He raised his brow slightly. "Could be." Smiled. "You're pretty smart, girl."

She laughed. "And something else. I know that, inside, you're really soft. You don't want to hurt anything, or see anything hurt. That's why you repeatedly risk your life tracking these kids, Hunter, when you're their only hope. You care. It's also why you stay away from other people, really. It's not because you're a hard man. It's because you're a hard man who has a gentle heart. It's not that you don't care. It's that you care too much. And that's not so bad, either." She smiled gently. "Seems like a good place to be."

Turning to her, Hunter gazed seriously a moment. "Some things aren't so hard."

She met his eyes, silent.

A long time passed, no words spoken, then Hunter added, "You know, when this is over, maybe you'd like some R and R." He hesitated, easy with it. "I know a nice place where you could relax."

She laughed softly. "After this, I might retire for some permanent R and R, Hunter." Silence. "Do you really think we're gonna make it out of here?"

He frowned, knowing it was the second time she had asked, and she wasn't someone prone to doubt. She was a professional soldier, trained to fight to the last, no matter what. But as he considered his answer it was clear that she had her reasons; good ones.

They were cut off from support and hunted by something that couldn't be stopped by small-arms fire. They were alone in a million acres of wilderness and nobody knew where they were. Plus, they were handicapped with the burden of carrying Dr. Tipler, unable to leave the old man or move quickly as they carried him. Except for the fact that Bobbi Jo possessed a weapon powerful enough to injure the creature, they had no advantage. He had set out to track it; he had succeeded too well.

His eyes settled once more on the Magellan Phone Satellite System. Something within kept piquing his attention, drawing it back again and again to the instrument.

It was odd that the Magellan had become inoperative almost immediately, when it was a highly dependable communications instrument. He had used one himself on several occasions without complications or glitches. Something wasn't right; so much didn't fit together.

Hunter's eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. Slowly, he reached back and removed a Gerber all-purpose pocket tool from a pouch on his belt. Moving quietly, so as not to attract more attention than necessary, though he knew he would, he knelt over the satellite system. Takakura's voice came from the gloom. "What is it, Hunter? The system is inoperative. Wilkenson already attempted to fix it."

"Yeah." Hunter nodded. "I know."

He opened the case and then the system, which resembled a portable laptop with a phone built inside it. Instantly a screen lit up, stark white. He shut the monitor and flipped it on its face. Then, carefully, he removed the screws holding the back-plate in place.

"What are you doing?" Takakura asked again.

"I'm gonna take another look," Hunter said, indicating that he wasn't asking permission.

In ten minutes Hunter was staring at the guts of the machine.

"Wilkenson already did that, Hunter. I even attempted myself." Takakura seemed less patient. "I have already told you this."

"Yeah, I know." Hunter took his time, scanning the interior. From his pouch he took out a small flashlight the size of a cigar and shined it over the schematics. "Well, if Wilkenson took a look at it, and you couldn't fix it either, then it must be seriously broken. I can't do any harm taking another look."

Hunter studied the transmitting panel, examining each aluminum thread and solder joint, each matrix configuration as he slowly worked his way through the printed circuit cards. He was dimly aware that Takakura had stood up in the half-darkness of the cave and was staring at him curiously. The Japanese spoke.

"What are you doing?"

"Just looking things over again," Hunter replied absently. "Wanted to make sure."

"You can do such a thing?"

"Well, I pick up a little here and there. I might be able to help."

In truth, before taking one of these machines into the field, Hunter had devoted hours to learning the mechanics of the sophisticated communications system, imagining every conceivable worst-case scenario and what might be required to correct the malfunction with the meager tools he regularly took with him.