Final Challenge (31 page)

 
From inside the house they had followed the scene mired in tension and uncertaint
y. The attitude of his mate
didn't cause stupor at Hanson, because he knew him. Marvin was always so correct, so noble, capable of compliance with the law to the limit of the logical, but the reaction of Clerigan also caught  unprepared to Hanson, so he was the first surprised as he saw Marvin collapsed to the ground so when he tried to shoot to Clerigan, it was too late.
Meanwhile, Susan had passed from the joy of seeing her husband in the distance to the uneasiness of being aware of the risk he was taking, and from it to the paroxysm as she attended like helpless witness to the cruel end of the scene.
She went out the door, desperate, gun in hand, r
eady to avenge her husband. Hanson, posted in a window, had barely
time
enough
to reach her, grab her by the waist and put her inside as she unloaded her gun firing in the air without rhyme or reason.

Souza could not sit still. Crawling, he tried to reach Marvin. It was a relief for t
he Brazilian
hear his voice.

- Souza, for heaven's sake!  Put at safe place and shoot them. Don't even think about approaching! ... I'm ... fine. Don't worry, it's just ... a shot in the left leg.

Souza disregarded it and continued toward his companion and friend of the FBI. He had always avoided compromising situations, and did not like risking his life or that of others, but when fate had put him between a rock and a hard place, he never had doubted. Souza knew that was one of those moments where, if you weigh your chances of success then you never would give the step.
When he had reached the side of Marvin, was exposed, unprotected, was an easy target for Clerigan. Two accurate bullets, one in the head, took the lives of Souza.

Clerigan beckoned their two men to cover him, and disappeared into the shadows as darkness had taken over the garden. Only the dim light of the full moon allowed minimal visibility. Marvin, lying on the ground and with little ability to move, took his gun with the little strength he had left.
Men of Clerigan had incorporated in order to move more freely in his distraction maneuver and Marvin had one of them at shot. He cursed his luck as he tried to shoot because he could check that he had no bullets in the wrong time. He looked to Souza, his eyes were wildly opened, sure sign that his last look had been for him, as had been his sublime effort to save him.
But he had no time to mourn if he wouldn't follow the same path, so he crawled towards him as he could. There was only fifteen feet, but in such circumstances seemed more.  Fina
lly he managed to get the gun of
Souza, pointed to the mercenary and fired, killing him.

Kelly, who ignoring orders of Souza
had followed his two peers
at some distance, hiding behind trees, knew it was time to intervene. Marvin's shot had betrayed him so he was in danger of someone returned to finish him, so she approached running to him and dragged him with difficulty to a tree, despite the insistence of the agent to leave him there so she could to be safe.

The last man was left to Clerigan perceived the action of Kelly. He was close enough to have a good target and aimed his rifle. The young scientist-turned-police froze when she crossed her look with the last person who would probably have occasion to see in her life, the person that would finish with her life.
In a split second went through her mind many images,
e
specially those of recent days. What most felt was not having a chance to say goodbye to the real man in her life, the man that just weeks ago she had known but from which she had fallen in love so deeply.

 
Three shots were heard, after there was an eerie silence. Kelly saw in amazement as his executioner fell to the ground as if struck by lightning. Hanson, who observing the action of Clerigan was examining one by one all possible access points to the inner the house, turned ar
ound and ran toward the entrance
. He saw Susan nervous, excited, on the porch with the gun of the president in her hand.

- Sorry that I have ignored your order. I could not allow it - said Susan confirming what was obvious - 

Hanso
n looked around and watched as
Kelly dragged Marvin to a nearby tree. Then he noticed the new corpse lying near Souza.

  - Good shot, Susan!

According to his calculations, the only survivor among the attackers was Clerigan. He didn't know where he could be, so they should still be cautious.

- Kelly, stay where you are and do not move under any circumstances! - He shouted - Watch around you!

Then urged Susan to accompany him inside the house, although she insisted that she didn't want to l
eave her husband alone and hurt
.
It was not easy to him convince her that was in good hands and that they could not risk going out, Clerigan was playing with advantage, he knew better than nobody every corner of the house. He could be posted in a place from which he had them to shot.

 
  Hanson had been even more worried if he had witnessed as Clerigan had surrounded the house up reaching to a hatch that opened on the outside, hidden among the vegetation, about seventy yards from the mansion.
From there one
could access to a ventilation duct so narrow that only a slight man of little bulk as Clerigan could slip through it before emptying into the pris
on cells, from which in turn one
could enter the house through the trap in the basement.

Taking advantage of the confusion outside, and the absence of Hanson, he had entered and taken unawares Klein and the President. So when Hanson and Susan entered to the house again, they took a nasty surprise. Clerigan was upstairs, he had lit one of the torches that was resting on a support in the wall, as the visibility inside the house was almost null. He had one of his hands on the shoulders of Tommy. With the other was pointing a gun to the President.

- Come, come in and close the door, or I leave your country, that's no longer my own, without its President.

- Agent, do whatever you see fit. I am one more, my life is not more important than others - Harold told - 

Clerigan then resorted to aim to the head of the children.

- All quiet! Here Clerigan is God. You can't end so easily with him and his work. 

Everyone from the floor
stared at him, stunned. Hanson summed up what others were thinking
.

- I never imagined anyone could be so miserable.

- We were happy in our paradise. You are who have shattered all
!
- said Clerigan using a messianic tone, bordering on insanity,
which would have been familiar
to Kelly -

- Let the children leave, they've already had enough. A mutilated life, they do not d
eserve.
Take me as
hostage.

Clerigan looked to the President, then made a nod to Tommy.

- President ... there is someone usurping your place ...  The older brother of Tommy has done a good job. God now does not need to Tommy. Well, actually neither he, nor you.

- Do you think that you can play, without more, with the lives of people? - President reproached him -

- I have given them a life that without me would never had had. They are in my debt and
they know it. If I ask them its
life because I need it,
be sure that they will repay
it.

 
The slender figure of a woman, wearing a vintage
gown, with a candelabra
in her
hand, was approaching by the corridor to Clerigan until to get his back. She
stood at a distance, listening.
He didn’t realize about it but Hanson yes. She put a histrionic
counterpoint at the scene. As
she was close enough for the light of the candelabrum allowed the agent distinguished her face, he was startled. He had seen that face somewhere els
e.
As a goo
d physiognomist he soon realized
.
He
remembered the
pictures that Marvin and him had rescued from the archives.
That woman, no doubt, was Martha, his wife, who had died after a short and sudden illness. Then he remembered all that Klein had told him about Clerigan and his experiments with the clones and like he was able to get reproductions
of the originals in a few years
.
That explained the issues about Klein,Olsen,Tommy ... and he couldn't avoid to feel a shiver at the thought, Martha's.
He a
lso looked at the girl who was next to Tommy. She seemed greatly to Martha. Then came to mind a picture of one birthday of Clerigan's wife when she was about twelve years old, he
had seen it among many others.
A sinister idea began to surround his head.

 
Hanson asked a question to Clerigan that by his look didn't seem to like him. 

- And neither you
need to Martha, right? 

  Whenever he heard mention the name of his late wife, many memories went through the mind of Clerigan
.

He had fallen in love with that actress who had introduced his friend Ron, the writer, in a matter of days, so deeply that he had never come to understand the real reason underlying such phenomenon. As a scientist he had asked himself more than once.
Could one justify a feeling of such caliber in terms of a pure hormonal chaos, from a biochemical basis as claimed by some of his colleagues? Is produced according to a balance of characters and affinities between two people?
Was it a decision of the human subconscious so it's not partly based on our desires, tastes and concerns, so our ideal match does not need to agree with the one that we always have had in mind?  Would not be that feelings have an animal base, irrational and therefore inexplicable?...
Whatever it was, he could not explain the root of that feeling. If it was true that they had
much in common, their character
were very different. He had met some women throughout his life that had much more in common with him, but they had never awakened in him a similar feeling.
Martha was spontaneous, direct, passionate, dreamy, unselfish. He, however, was rather cold, calculating, he always thought things twice, realistic and he had to admit, quite selfish and egocentric.

No matter the reason, only the result: since he had known her, had been unable to live without her.  He couldn't understand how he had gone from being an independent man, who liked to be at his leisure and dir
ect his life to someone that could
not be happy anywhere if she was not beside him, if he couldn't share with her every moment.
That strange feeling was new, different, but also comforting, satisfying. It was the closest to happiness than he had never experienced. But he only had could enjoy his great love for the space of a few years. As he had found a meaning to his life beyond his work, death had suddenly removed it. Leukemia finished with Martha's life in a few months, leaving him sunk in nothing, despite having refused from the beginning to face the hard truth and fought to save her until the last minute, despite having spent to the last penny in desperate revolutiona
ry treatments.
Behind the last sigh of Martha before expiring in his arms, he knew instantly that he had lost something more than her. It was as if someone had taken away more than half of himself, because without her nothing made sense. He had lost much more than the love of his life. He had lost the will to live, the illusion of getting up every day, his fighting spirit. Or at least it was until he tipped on his work looking for something that he was afraid to acknowledge.

The old professor lowered his head slightly and began to speak very slowly, lowering the tone of voice unison.

- I became in God because her. I achieved resuscitate her, coming back her to life, but now I know that anyone will be like her.

- Why? Was it not what you were looking for?  Another
being with her look, with her
own voice, with her character ... - Hanson said stressing the wound -

- You do not understand ...  I thought the same. I wanted to immortalize her, holding her by my side as she is and will forever in my memory. I knew that a human being is more than a physical, an image, a sound. But what I didn't know was it was much more than a set of genes. Martha was unique, unrepeatable, and as such will live forever in me while I'm alive. She
lives here - pointed a finger to
his head - and lives in me ... only in me!
Do you understand?
...