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Authors: Jon Land

BOOK: Fires of Midnight
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“Y
ou have to pay for that,” Blaine heard the voice continue after a pause long enough for the sound of footsteps to clack across the floor. “You and the boy both, Dr. Lyle.”
Susan Lyle … the Firewatch team leader he’d encountered in Joshua Wolfe’s room. Now their paths had crossed again, and this time the boy was with her.
McCracken gazed at Wareagle, whose eyes were riveted on the open hatchway, expecting an assault through it any moment. None came; the attention of those in the garage above was focused too intently elsewhere to notice the anomaly.
“I think we can dispense with the pleasantries,” the voice continued, sounding farther away from the hatch. Fuchs’s probably, or maybe Haslanger’s. “Krill,” he said, “bring her.”
Blaine stiffened when a number of barely discernible footsteps clipclopped across the asphalt. He recognized the sound from the assault on him in the New York Public Library by some hideous mutant, a
living
creation of Haslanger’s, most likely.
McCracken waited until the sounds of voice and footsteps had vanished before he reached for the ladder again, his eyes seeking out Johnny’s. “Find us something to travel in, Indian, and get ready for a rough ride.”
 
 
“W
hat am I to do with you?” Colonel Fuchs accused Susan and Joshua Wolfe, shaking his head as he closed the door to the test chamber behind him.”I don’t want to be unreasonable, in spite of your abuse of my trust. Let’s just talk for a moment.”
The chamber where his guards had escorted Susan and Josh consisted of a small viewing gallery looking straight through a glass wall into an inner room that was currently dark.
“Sit, please,” Fuchs ordered.
Susan and Josh took chairs at the observation room’s single table. The broad-shouldered security men stood rigid at either end. Dr. Haslanger lingered behind Fuchs, but it was the man-shape who had accompanied them up from the garage Josh found both repulsive and fascinating at the same time.
“I see Krill has secured your interest, young man,” Fuchs continued.
“He makes me sick.”
“He shouldn’t: you’re very much the same, he and you.”
The boy’s face knotted up in puzzlement.
“You belong here, my boy, just as he does,” Fuchs continued. “You are as much a part of this place as any of the other experiments we have conducted. You are nothing more than the residue of one lost in the past before our tenure began.”
“Why don’t you tell him the truth, Colonel?” Susan shot out suddenly. “Why don’t you tell him the only thing he’s here for is to save your ass? Washington’s ready to toss you out and shut this place down.” She stole a quick glance at Josh before proceeding. “Don’t bother to unpack your bags.”
Fuchs’s eyes blazed her way. “I’m most impressed, Doctor. It would seem your expertise at research does not stop with test tubes.”
“You looked into my background. I looked into yours.”
“And it all comes down to backgrounds, doesn’t it? Yours, mine …” His stare swept back on Josh. “His.”
Josh returned the stare wordlessly.
“Come now, young man, can it be that you have not come to suspect the truth even in the aftermath of your conversation with Dr. Haslanger last night? Think of his past.”
Josh’s eyes flew from Fuchs to Haslanger and then back to Fuchs. He looked dumbfounded. His lips trembled.
“The connection should have been obvious to someone of your intelligence. Dr. Haslanger
created
you. You are the product of one of his early experiments before he joined Group Six. It was called Operation Offspring. And its purpose was the
creation
of genius, to be used in any way its creators desired.”
“My God,” Susan muttered.
Fuchs let his eyes wander to the man-monster, ignoring her. “Now, Krill was created for an entirely different purpose altogether. The desired genetic elements of other species identified and blended to form … well, you can see what they form. Not all the products of the good doctor’s work turned out as they were supposed to, but Krill is as close as he ever came.”
“You’re the real monster here, Colonel,” Susan said sharply.
But Fuchs didn’t so much as gaze her way. “You, my boy, on the other hand, are exactly what he envisioned you would be. But circumstances forced him to abandon your development, the careful grooming that would have assured you achieving an even higher level of your capabilities. Regrettable but necessary.”
“Bullshit,” said Joshua Wolfe. “You’ve been steering my life for as long as I can remember.”
“Not us, I’m afraid. We would have handled the situation with considerably more tact and responsibility than Dr. Haslanger’s replacement. Beyond that we would have provided you with the resources that would have much more fully allowed you to realize your potential. As proof I offer this.”
Fuchs placed a small vial that had been found in Joshua Wolfe’s pocket on the table before the boy. “A most productive day on your part,” he said, “thanks to the wondrous facilities we are blessed with.”
The boy remained silent.
“I am assuming the contents of this vial represent your attempt to ‘fix’ CLAIR.”
The boy nodded.
“Of course, there is nothing wrong with CLAIR. From our perspective it worked just fine in Cambridge and we would like to acquire it in precisely that form. I would ask that you now provide us with the formula.”
“So you can kill more selectively than you’ve done so far,” Susan broke in. “Not the kind of track record that inspires any faith. Where would you test CLAIR out first, Colonel? Where would you botch things next time?”
Fuchs finally looked at her. “I would suggest you are no one to speak. A woman who took her maternal instincts too far. You interfered, Dr. Lyle. I trusted you and you abused my trust.”
“You set me up from the beginning.”
“A safety net, nothing more.”
“You knew I’d help the boy escape. You knew I couldn’t let you have him.”
In that instant Josh realized all eyes in the room were on Susan. Before any stares turned back on him, he reached forward and snatched the vial of clear liquid, bringing it into his lap before stuffing it into his pocket.
“Because you are unfalteringly predictable. Of course, the methodology of your and the boy’s plan was obvious. All we had to do was wait for you to commit yourselves.”
“I was right to try. This proves it.”
“And tell me what it’s gained you. Do you feel better, more motherly, for the effort? Do you think you have somehow beaten back the dreaded cancer that is probably just beginning to show itself as microscopic cellular abnormalities no one can detect in your system? You can’t save yourself, Doctor, and you cannot save Joshua Wolfe. There are bigger things than both of you.”
“You, for instance.”
“Me? No. Group Six, yes. To pursue what this country needs to survive, there is no rule that can’t be broken, no step I will not take.” Fuchs nodded to himself and turned back to Joshua Wolfe. “The formula for CLAIR. Now, please.”
Josh shook his head in stiff defiance. “I won’t give it to you. I won’t give you anything.”
“Please reconsider.”
He shook his head again.
Fuchs sighed in genuine regret and nodded to the two broad-shouldered security men. As Josh watched, they grabbed Susan, hoisted her from her chair and dragged her to another chair set away from the table. One plunked her down into it while the other tied her arms behind her.
“What are you doing?” Josh demanded. “Let her go!”
“I will, young man,” Fuchs assured him. “All you have to do is cooperate.”
“Let her go!”
Krill stepped forward and pulled an odd-looking object, like a singlebarreled gun with a button instead of a trigger, from his pocket. A foot long maybe, its exterior shining in the room’s dull light.
“You know what that is, of course,” Fuchs prodded.
“No,” said Josh, “I don’t.”
“Dr. Haslanger, if you don’t mind …”
The old man moved slightly forward. “You are familiar with the Taser electric shocking device, I assume. This is a variation we have developed here, equipped with variable voltage settings instead of a single one. The barrel shoots out a pair of prods at a distance we have raised to thirty feet, capable of delivering shock ranging from incapacitating to fatal.”
“Ten settings,” Fuchs picked up. “We’ll start at five.”
Krill switched the shock gun to the proper level.
“There is no need to feign bravery at this point, Dr. Lyle,” Fuchs told her. “You are among friends.”
Krill stood ten feet in front of Susan, optimum distance.
“Now, Dr. Lyle, I suggest you advise your young friend to give us what we want. I suggest you advise him to tell us where the fax machine chip containing the formula for CLAIR can be found.”
“Go to hell,” she said, trying hard not to look at Krill.
“Young man,” followed Fuchs, turning his attention to Josh, “I suggest you show some maturity where Dr. Lyle is clearly not prepared to. Your brother Krill is even less patient than I am. Please give us what we want.”
Trembling, Josh looked at Susan for guidance. Her rigid expression told him what he had to do.
“I’m not giving you anything.” He swept a hand through his hair and found it was shaking badly.
“Krill,” Fuchs signaled.
The giant steadied the shock gun.
“Wait!” Josh shouted, leaning forward without leaving his chair.
“Have you changed your mind, young man?”
“I, I …”
“Fire.”
Krill pressed the button.
 
M
cCracken pinned his shoulders at the break in the corridor leading to the room Susan Lyle and Joshua Wolfe had been ushered into and studied the guards posted on either side of the door twenty feet from him. Twenty feet was too much to cover in a single dash. Blaine was considering his options when he heard the scream. A woman’s scream, a high-pitched wail elevated by awful pain.
Susan Lyle
…
The realization reduced his options to one.
McCracken hurled himself into the hall, both his gun and his eyes aimed away from the guards, pretending to be one of them, approaching as if panicked.
“Is the colonel inside?” he yelled, not quite turning.
The two men gazed at each other, hands near their guns, clearly unsure of how to react.
“
Is the colonel
—”
That was all McCracken needed to add to bring him close enough to dispose of them. He slammed the barrel of his pistol into the jaw of the closest and then lurched toward the second man, who had just drawn his gun. Blaine rammed his tightly curled knuckles straight into his windpipe, shattering it and sending the man’s hands clawing for his throat as he slumped, eyes bulging. The first man managed to turn on him, face a mess of torn flesh and dripping blood, and McCracken slashed his SIG butt-first into the bridge of his nose. Blaine felt the bone crack and recede. The man crumpled.
McCracken turned instantly and pulled from his pocket a prewired pack of C-4 plastic explosives. He peeled the protective coating off the detonator and wedged it against the door near the frame. Then he popped the detonator outward. Its trigger had a twenty-second delay, which gave
him plenty of time to poise himself against the wall a safe distance away, pistol ready and ears plugged.
 
T
he shock gun hadn’t so much as moved in the giant’s hand. He activated the retracting mechanism and the barrel swallowed up the miniature electric prods once more. Susan was writhing in the chair now, spasms racking her body. A trickle of blood slid from her mouth where the convulsions had forced her teeth into her tongue. Finally she slumped as low as her bonds would allow.
Fifteen feet away, Josh’s eyes tried to find life in her cloudy gaze. “Stop,” he mouthed, then said out loud, “Stop it.”
“We want the formula, young man,” Fuchs told him. “Give it to us.”
Josh looked at Susan, back at Fuchs.
“Krill,” the colonel said, “turn the setting up to seven.” Eyes back on Josh. “I’d speak now if I were you, young man.”
Josh watched the giant steadying the shock gun on Susan once more. “It’s here,” he said, words racing ahead of his thoughts.
Fuchs looked at Haslanger briefly. “What do you mean it’s
here
?”
“The fax chip. It’s in my room. I brought it here from Florida.”
“You were searched thoroughly in the hotel. Sinclair assured me of that.”
“Not thoroughly enough. I stuck the chip in the center of a piece of gum and stuck the gum inside my mouth. I took it out in the bathroom on the plane.”

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