Guinea Pig (29 page)

Elia pushed him all the way. She made him carry on until his hearts were racing and sweat was pouring down his face. Until the blood was pumping through his body as never before and his wing muscles burnt. It was hard. Impossibly hard. But that wasn't what bothered him about the exercise. It was why she was making him do it. She was getting him ready to fly. And he was in two minds about that. Part of him wanted to. More than anything else in his life he wanted to be able to fly. It was the one redeeming feature in this entire nightmare. But at the same time he was scared of it. He didn't like heights and he absolutely didn't like falling. Maybe he wasn't the best choice for a winged man.

And then there were the dreams. The waking nightmares as he tried to climb and couldn't. They had gone, mostly. But the memory remained. And he was scared that he would end up in that exact situation. Flying, trying to rise to be with the Choir and failing.

But apparently he didn't have a choice in that either.

Still, as he worked and sweated, there was one thing more that worried him. Perhaps the most dangerous thing of all. At some stage this would be over. The transformation would be complete. And then something would happen. He would have to do something. He didn't know what. He suspected the Walkers didn't know what either. And the little they did know they wouldn't share with him. But something big was coming. Maybe the same something big that was in his dreams.

And the one thing he was certain of was that he didn't want it.

Chapter Thirty Five.

Gamut lay in the long grass with his rifle trained on the cabin, waiting for his prey to appear in his sight. He was a little annoyed that he should have to.

His original plan had been to simply walk into the hospital with a pistol and shoot William Simons in the head. But he had been held up. First there had been endless reports to fill out about what had happened to the hospital. And then with his normal operational commander dead, there had been delays in getting the resources he needed. Mostly that was a new rank so he could walk into a military base and not be arrested, and then transport into the affected zone which was restricted. And then by the time he had made it back to the ruined hospital they had escaped, leaving him with a whole new problem – finding them.

But he had found them. It had been difficult; their escape had been well orchestrated and the fog that had conveniently covered their escape had stopped anyone from seeing which way they'd gone. To add to that Los Angeles was a complete mess. Finding someone in it was next to impossible and tracking their journey through it more so. But he had been lucky. They'd taken an ambulance. And every ambulance, even an old one that should no longer be in service, had a GPS tracker in it.

So it was simply a matter of finding which particular ambulance they'd taken, getting its tracker number and then using the satellite tracking system to find it. Police could do it, and one of his past identities had been as a police officer. His ID was still valid even years later. He kept all of them operational, just in case.

The hardest part had actually been going back to the hospital to find out what ambulance they'd stolen. Finding the missing ambulance was easy; there were only five and when four of them were sitting there in the underground car park in pieces, that left only one. But facing the soldiers still stationed there was hard. Many of them knew his face, and some knew what he'd done. Those who did weren't happy about it and he had seen the disgust in their faces. When he returned however, he had a new name, a new ID and most important of all a new rank. No one messed with a colonel. They jumped to attention and did whatever he asked, whatever they thought of him.

What was hard was listening to them as they constantly spoke about the escape. About the white haired woman who had appeared in front of them, and who had somehow stopped bullets, rockets and shells with an invisible wall. Just before the fog had come. That was madness. These were trained soldiers. They knew better than to give into delusion. They had all the gas masks they needed in case of some sort of gas attack. And that was the only explanation he had for what had happened. Some sort of hallucinatory gas had been unleashed on them. They should have recognised immediately that it was a chemical attack and put on their masks. They shouldn't have been able to be overcome. And yet they had been. They had been deceived completely. All of them. All at once. And they still believed it had happened. They still pointed to the curved wall of spent munitions on the ground as if it was proof of something.

It was a disgrace. He would have had them all up on charges if he'd actually been a real colonel and their commanding officer. Especially those who had run away afterwards. Apparently a considerable number had simply thrown down their weapons and headed back to their homes and families. That was nothing less than desertion. But when it was over fifty men that had fled and they had possibly been under the effects of whatever chemical agent the woman had used, it would have been hard to prove. In any case he had a job to do. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted.

William Simons had to die. Whatever had happened to him, whatever he was, he had to be killed. He was in the end responsible for the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. And if he wasn't killed soon many more would die. Large chunks of the country itself might be destroyed. And that could not happen. It didn't matter that Simons was probably a victim. It didn't matter that he probably wasn't doing it deliberately. It only mattered that this attack upon his country end. That was his duty. The duty he'd failed to carry out before.

Finding William Simons so he could end that threat though was going to be a problem. Even now that he'd found the group. Because his target was nowhere in sight. Gamut could see the others. The pathetic Doctor Millen who had somehow created this nightmare. The annoying priest who objected to everything. The insipid technician who just sat at his computer all day and said nothing. The bishop who seemed to think so much of himself. Even the nurses. They were all out in the open, sitting on the porch drinking cups of coffee and by the looks of things enjoying the sunshine. He could have killed them all. He probably should have for what they'd done. And one among them, Doctor Millen absolutely deserved to die. He had created this disaster after all. Despite his obvious remorse he deserved to die. But Gamut's target was nowhere in sight.

The chances were that he was inside the cabin in a bed somewhere, still recovering. Maybe he was too crippled to recover, and was just lying there helplessly as he begged for death. And though Gamut would grant him his prayer, it was going to be tricky if he couldn't come outside. In the end he would have to go in, and that would get messy. More would have to die if they got in his way. Many more.

Still, that was simply the price that had to be paid to do his duty. And his duty was to the country, not to these traitors.

Gamut stayed there for a while though, watching the cabin door and windows in case of movement. It was always possible that he could move a little. Or that maybe the others would carry him out into the sun. That would be for the best. One shot, one kill, and he could leave, his duty done. And time was on his side. He had all afternoon. If he went in it would be after dark when his night vision equipment would give him an unassailable advantage.

And then something happened that shook him. A woman appeared. An old lady with long white hair, exactly as the soldiers had described and he knew a moment of doubt. Intense doubt. This was surely the woman who had overcome an entire army. A small army but heavily armed. And she was here too?

But of course she was here! Abruptly the pieces clicked together. She had helped with the escape. So presumably she had brought them here. The only real questions were who she was and what her agenda was. And he could find those out from her corpse. After he had killed Mr. Simons of course. She was an enemy of the United States and she would die. But his first mission objective had to stand. She would die second.

For the moment though she had no idea he was there. She was just standing there chatting to the others without a clue that her face was squarely in his gun sight. That made him smile. For all her cleverness and the way she had overcome an entire armed force with her tricks she was no more prepared for him than anyone else. They never were.

He studied her for a while, wondering why she had done what she had done. Who she was and who she worked for. There was nothing about her that spoke of North Korea or the Middle East. And she wasn't wearing a head covering making it unlikely she was a Muslim. She could perhaps be Russian, but they were a spent force in the world these days. As for the Chinese not only did she not look Asian, but they had no reason to attack their largest trading partner.

If anything he thought, she looked like a little old lady with white hair. Perhaps a bit straighter and more spry than many, but there was nothing about her that spoke of an enemy. A librarian perhaps. But not an enemy agent.

Gamut's attention was drawn away from her though as a moment later another figure entered his field of fire. A man with wings.

Gamut's heart suddenly raced as he realised he'd found his target. And strangely his target was out walking around easily, showing not the least sign of injury. In fact he looked strong. How could that be? And how could his wings be so large? He was wearing only a pair of shorts and because of that Gamut could see everything.

Maybe they were only a foot and a half or so in length, but that was more than twice the size they had been. And they were covered in white hair. Strangest of all they flapped as he walked, moving independently like real wings. That was shocking. There was a chance that whenever whatever the pathetic Doctor Millen had done to him was finished, he would actually be able to fly. And then what? If he could bring about such terrible destruction when he was a basket case chained to an autopsy table, what would he be able to do when he was finished?

He had to die quickly.

Gamut lined up his rifle, adjusted for range and checked on the wind speed as he waited for his target to stand still. It wasn't a long shot, less than five hundred yards and the conditions were good, but even so he wanted to be absolutely sure of it. A good clean head shot. All the man had to do was stand still.

But frustratingly he refused to do that. He just kept walking around, chatting to the others, moving unexpectedly, and for a few moments Gamut was worried that he knew. He couldn't know, but he was behaving as if he did.

And then the moment came. It was perfect. His target stopped moving, stood up straight and stared right at him, almost as though he could see him. It was shocking, but it was also something Gamut was used to. It happened from time to time, and the men never could actually see him. It was just a trick of the powerful lens and chance. It didn't stop him gently squeezing the trigger.

The shot was perfect. He could feel it in his bones as he always did, and the gun barely kicked as it fired. But something went wrong.

He didn't know what; all he knew was that for some reason no blood appeared on Mr. Simons' forehead. Somehow he'd missed.

But he hadn't missed. He never missed. It was a straight forward shot and he'd allowed for everything. He couldn't have missed.

But it didn't matter. They'd heard the shot, and while for a second or two they might be startled and looking around, he knew the people would begin to run very soon. There was only one thing to do do.  Gamut started firing as fast as he could, sending bullet after bullet into their midst. Into his target's body. No more head shots. Not now. It was time to bring him down, cripple him properly and then finish him off later.

But even that didn't work. He got off five more shots before they even thought to start running, all of them aimed into the centre of Mr. Simons' chest, and not a speck of blood appeared. He was still missing his target. Somehow.

Confused and a little bit frightened Gamut pulled out the first clip and slotted in the next one, and started firing again. At least he'd thought to bring plenty of ammunition. But by the time he'd started firing again everyone was running and he had no clear target. They knew they were under attack. So he shot at everyone. He thought that if he brought some of them down, it would make it easier for him to finish the job with his hand weapons later. And maybe he'd even wing his target.

But again he hit nobody. It was a shooting gallery, people were everywhere running for the door to the cabin, running for the trees, and he couldn't possibly miss. But he did. Again and again and again. Shocked he emptied the second clip and slotted in a third. Then he started squeezing the trigger some more. Still he hit no one. In fact he realised as he watched the people finally making it inside the cabin, he was missing the cabin as well. There were no bits of wood flying, no glass breaking. How?

The third clip emptied he reached for a fourth, only to discover that he was no longer alone. Two white haired people were standing just in front of him, and he hadn't even seen them arrive. Panicking he rolled, aimed the rifle at the nearest one and squeezed the trigger. Again nothing happened. The man didn't cry out, fall down or bleed. He simply walked up to him, grabbed the rifle out of his hands and crushed it. It was then that Gamut knew he was in trouble. Serious trouble. A man couldn't simply crush a rifle like that.

Still, he wasn't defenceless. He rolled to his feet and in the same move drew his machine pistol. A heartbeat later he was busy spraying both white haired men with bullets, and still missing every time. A dozen bullets sprayed directly at the two men and from only a few feet and yet he couldn't hit either of them. A blind man would have hit them! But he kept firing at them desperately. What else could he do?

Then it was too late. Even as he kept spraying bullets at them the white haired men someone else grabbed him. Fingers suddenly held him by the back of the shirt and his belt, and then hoisted him bodily into the air. A split second later the gun was ripped out of his hand and he was left hanging there, feet dangling, completely defenceless.

“Put me down!”

It was probably utterly stupid to scream that at them when they had him completely at their mercy and he'd just tried to kill them. But his voice was all he had left. Naturally they didn't listen to him. They just turned on their heels and marched him back to the cabin. The cabin where he could see the white haired woman waiting for him.