Hybrid - Forced Vengeance (5 page)

Erik swerved his car over to the side of the road. “Don’t you think I know that? Who are you to tell me about grief, young lady? I’ve lost her, Brianna, and I face that fact every waking moment.

“I don’t want this assignment, but there are some things I have to do, compromises that I’ve had to make since the Hopedale incident to assure that you, your mother, Shanda and I could have some semblance of a normal life. These aren’t things I’m doing willingly. Someday, maybe you’ll understand, but I would rather be here with you for your birthday than putting my butt in the furnace every time some bureaucrat with an agenda needs a mess cleaned up.

“But that’s the price I have to pay; and I pay it willingly so ten or eleven months of the year I can be around and be a father to you and so I could be a husband to her.” Erik struggled with his emotions. “But I can’t be her husband anymore because she’s gone,” he added as his voice broke. “You’re all I have left in the world and I never want to hurt you or cause you pain. I’m sorry.”

“No, Daddy,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” She leaned across the seat and wrapped her arms around him then wept. “I can be a selfish bitch sometimes. I still remember who came for me in that tunnel, and what you went through. I’ll never forget that as long as I live.”

Erik returned the hug. “I love you, Bri. Never forget that.”

“I won’t; I promise,” she answered, then kissed her father’s cheek.

The black Monte Carlo SS pulled into Silver Hills Estates. Brianna said her final good-bye and her father watched her walk up the driveway. An inspiration struck him; maybe he wouldn’t be here to teach her to drive, but he could do the next best thing. He quickly rolled down the passenger window.

“Brianna!”

Erik got out of his car and reached underneath the vehicle’s chassis. He pried loose a magnetic box and opened it. His daughter meandered back down the long driveway.

“I know Richard won’t let you touch the Jaguar or the Lamborghini, but don’t let your mother embarrass you with her Caravan. Learn to drive in a real car.” He tossed her the spare set of keys to his vehicle.

Brianna caught the keys, and her eyes popped open with delight at the implication.

“Don’t touch the nitrous!” he warned as he saw her wicked grin.

Margaret would be cursing him each time she sat in the passenger seat of his car.

“Who, me?” Bri asked innocently.

“I’d like the car back in one piece,” Erik warned as his daughter rushed back toward the house. It was a small token, but it was worth it to see a smile on her face.

Chapter 6: Gestation Day 34

Hidden agendas

OSA agent Michael Sparks made a dozen phone inquiries and called in every political chip he held with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense. The fruits of his labor began to pay off.

Classified briefings and folders lay scattered across his desk and stacked file boxes cluttered the conference table in his office. Someone was pulling the strings behind Operation Homegrown, and he was several steps closer to learning the whole ugly truth.

The common thread through the confidential files was a monolithic corporation named Pendelcorp. The corporation had diversified its assets by purchasing several small defense contracting agencies and now held a respectable piece of the market share. This was an unheard of anomaly as Pendelcorp was a mining and real estate company.

What possible interest could they have in moving into the defense industry? And when did this occur? No articles of incorporation had been filed for any of the defense companies acquired by Pendelcorp; each search he performed in the Public Federal Database came back with only mining and real estate charters. Defense contracts were long term-affairs with complicated bidding and selection processes. The fact that Pendelcorp was able to buy out several companies and actually bid upon and win several contracts in such a short time reeked of favoritism or fraud.

Reaching for another stack of papers, Sparks muttered, “I smell a big, fat, ugly rat. Where’s the connection to the Denton, Marques and Priscoli law firm and Agent Knight?” He moved files around. “It’s in this pile of shit, somewhere, and I’m not stopping ‘til I find it.”

He suddenly stopped when he laid eyes on a file tab marked ‘Personal Knight Divorce.’ “Hello!” He scanned it quickly.

A wad of legal papers stated that the president and CEO of Pendelcorp was married to the ex-wife of Special Operative Erik Knight; details regarding the messy divorce and failed child custody battle – one Pendelton had dropped for no particular reason – were spelled out.

Sparks shuddered as he reviewed the devastating case Pendelcorp’s attorneys had presented during Knight’s divorce proceedings. The amount of liable and slander perpetrated against the private investigator was devastating, not to mention the fact that Knight’s attorney had been paid off by Pendelcorp not to challenge certain ‘facts’ brought to light in the courtroom.

“That guy got screwed six ways from Sunday; his ex marries a billionaire, and he has to pay her child support.” Sparks noted that the court date for Brianna Knight`s custody hearing, which was dropped, timed almost perfectly with Erik Knight’s employment with Martin Denton and with the United States Government.

“Damn! This is better than an afternoon soap opera,” the agent mumbled. He continued to leaf through page upon page of documents obtained from a supposedly, non-existent federal database called ‘Eyes,’ a huge archive of data from court cases all around the country as well as a detailed listing of every large corporation and its employees.

Michael Sparks had several pieces of the vast jigsaw puzzle, but every answered question generated another. Erik Knight, a special operative for the government – due to his special talents and abilities – was connected with the colonel and major because of the Hopedale Mountain incident.

The guard duty in France would be the perfect assignment, and the least he could do to keep the operative from serious threat. Guarding the French socialite during the six-month tour of her homeland would divert him long enough for Colonel Ross and his cronies to perform their operation.

As far as the world knew, Shanda Kerwin-Knight had been killed by a drunken fuel truck driver, her body vaporized beyond recovery in a fiery inferno over a month ago. It was the perfect cover story for a perfect abduction.

How Colonel Ross knew the young woman was pregnant and how his team managed to time such an impromptu abduction were still unsolved mysteries, part of the bigger puzzle he was determined to piece together.

Sparks stared at the telephone lying on his desk. “I could stop all of this with one phone call.” But the price of that call could very well cost him his life. He expected his office and phones – with the exception of his scrambled line – were probably bugged, as well as his home phone lines.

If he called Denton, he would also be placing the elder attorney in jeopardy. Mere humans were susceptible to bullets, and there would be several for every person who disrupted Operation Homegrown or contacted Erik Knight.

Knight, however, was impervious to bullets of any type. When Knight became his other self, there was no known limit to his physical strength and endurance. The silvery metallic substance of his flesh was immune to any conventional weapon. What especially interested scientists was how the silver warrior had healed himself after the savage combat with the Seelak monstrosities. The titanic being generated a massive field of bio-organic energy and harnessed that energy at will. Based on eyewitness accounts, the weapon he’d used during his combat seemed to flow and shift physical composition according to the wielder’s desire.

Upon his acceptance as an operative, Knight had been deliberately vague concerning his capabilities and had sternly warned against involving his family or friends in any manner during the course of his contract with the federal government. Martin Denton and the representative from the OSI had assured him that his family would now enjoy the privileged protection of the United States Government.

Sparks laughed at the irony; a player in the governmental food chain apparently decided that the contract with Knight was no longer valid. Erik Knight was an unapproachable, un-controllable resource with seemingly unlimited potential locked within him – too much will and raw, unknown power for the government to simply take by force. Knight’s child would most likely have the same genetic mutations.

All the pieces were in front of him in this overwhelming wealth of information and all he had to do was take the time to study it. Sparks required the knowledge as leverage if the stakes of the game were raised too high for his comfort.

Knight was the wild card in the deck, the vial of nitroglycerin that needed only be jarred to explode with devastating effect. Should that explosion occur, Sparks wanted to be far away when it happened, but not too far away that he couldn’t conduct a body count after all the broken parts had landed. It was time to clean house not only for his country, but for his own personal redemption.

He gathered up the documents and placed them in his office safe. They would still be there tomorrow, when his mind was fresh and sharp. He locked the safe, gathered his suit jacket and headed out of his office.

He paused by his secretary’s desk. “Nancy, it’s 6:30; go home. You’re making me look like a slave driver.”

She raised her head, smiling. “In a few moments, sir. I just need to finish this last document.”

* * * *

Nancy Bertoni waited until her supervisor vanished into the elevator before she reached for her private cell phone. She touched one number and a pre-programmed series of digits dialed to a soft tune. The voice that answered on the other end was hard as granite.

“You wanted to be informed if certain documents were being accessed,” she began. “Everything on your list and then some. Mr. Sparks is ‘Eyes’ cleared. He’s pulling up everything he can find on Pendelcorp, Erik Knight and the Hopedale Mountain incident.”

Listening to the harsh voice giving her specific instructions, she nodded, knowing that her future depended on carrying out these instructions exactly.

“Yes, sir,” she confirmed crisply. “I’ll keep you informed.”

Nancy slipped the phone back in her purse. She hated spying on her boss; he was a decent sort, but she needed the money to put both her teens through college. Perhaps a little would be left over for her retirement. She was doing nothing illegal; it was simply a higher branch of government snooping on a lower operative. She followed orders of a higher authority.

Either way she came out a winner.

* * * *

Colonel Ross sat in his office nursing a cup of coffee, his eyes riveted on the flat-panel display screen that relayed the picture of a comatose Shanda Knight and a seemingly inactive alien captive. For all of the months the military had the alien and its ship in their clutch, the government scientists knew very little about either. One fact remained: The hull material of the craft had an organic component. A few short days after the ship was raised off the ocean floor, the hole that Sentinel’s weapon had burned through – both the inner and outer hull – had been repaired as if by magic. No signs of any exterior weapon damage to the area could be seen. If the outside of the craft could repair itself, then he presumed the inside was capable of the same function. To what extent, remained another unknown in a sea of unbalanced equations.

The frail gray creature knew the functionality of the vessel, and removing the alien from confinement of the heavy telepathic shielding would be hazardous as it had the power to impose its will upon humans. Thus far, there existed no safe way to control the alien once it was out of confinement, yet the cost to keep the creature alive and captive drained the project’s financial resources.

Ross did the hard math in his head. He couldn’t keep both subjects captive forever. Shanda Knight would be terminated upon the removal of the offspring she was carrying. The alien, who offered no intrinsic value with the exception of being a showpiece to high-level visitors, was also becoming a liability.

The UFO and Operation Homegrown were Ross’s pet projects. Each one, if successful, would advance science and technology by hundreds, if not thousands of years. The hybrid’s genetic abilities could lead to legions of invulnerable soldiers. The healing capability of its DNA could bring cures to life-threatening diseases. The Alien ship’s power source had an interstellar, if not intergalactic drive. That kind of energy could power an entire city, if not an entire state. Also, the technology could finally enable earth to defend itself against future invading forces.

If only their scientists could figure out both mysteries, and thus find a way to duplicate and harness the biological and technological marvels. Acquisition of these secrets was core to the prosperity of mankind.

Colonel Ross stared at the monitors again; Shanda Knight was still in a near-death state.

“The only man who could possibly save you and stop me is probably half way around the world babysitting a socialite wallflower.” He leaned closer to the monitor. “I own you and I own your child.” He sneered. “Your husband was so overconfident in his own invincibility that he couldn’t conceive this type of threat.” He settled back in his chair satisfied.

“No one could possibly create such a well-organized deception except your hubby’s major nemesis, Richard Pendelton. Here’s to you Pendelton, to a man who loathes loose ends and coming out second best.” Ross raised and drained the contents of his coffee cup.

Ross reached for the telephone to get a status report on Agent Knight. He wanted confirmation that Knight was in France before they revived his wife.

Would the shielding and the distance be enough to hide her from her husband if Knight transformed?

Based on the hybrid’s battle with two other creatures, his raw physical strength had no boundaries in human terms. Based on computer extrapolations while in warrior mode, the hybrid could lift over 200 tons. His energy output, prior to the final series of blows that killed the second opponent, measured in the kilowatt range.

The recovered blood samples taken while he was in warrior mode were yet another frustrating mystery. His blood had not perished like the hybrid’s victims, but its cellular structure decayed rapidly if exposed to the slightest electrical impulse. Advanced races were most ingenious in their methods of secrecy. But within the time span of less than a year, their scientists would have their own hybrid to study, analyze and possibly clone at their leisure.

An army of silver warriors would make the military invincible and catapult the United States decades ahead in the fields of genetic research and development.

Success depended on how much alien DNA resided in the developing offspring. Too much and any blood sample drawn would dissipate in accordance with its programming; not enough, and the alien DNA factors couldn’t be properly identified and isolated. Everything was a matter of time now. It was crucial they have enough time to allow for the harvest of the fetus and its transfer to an incubation tube where it would be carefully monitored and studied as it developed.

Gestation Day: 35

Erik tossed his duffel bag on the opposite seat in his favorite booth. Alissa came over and poured him a cup of coffee.

“The usual for breakfast?” She smiled.

“The usual.” He returned the smile, adding cream and sugar to his coffee.

Alissa studied the duffel bag then turned to Erik. “You don’t have the appearance of a man traveling overseas for six to eight months.”

He shrugged. “A few changes of clothes, my Wilson .45s and a few other trade tools I’ve come to rely on while performing my assignments for Martin and company. I’ll be spending most of my time dressed in formal wear which the French government will be providing for me.”

Alissa’s attention went back to the bag. “Is it in there?” she asked in a whisper.

She was referring to his sentient staff, “No, it doesn’t like being apart from me, unless it’s sleeping in the gun cabinet. It seems to view the cabinet as its home away from me.”

The weapon had helped him destroy both creatures from Hopedale Mountain, by activating the Esper DNA, semi-dormant in his body, and transforming him into an Esper-human hybrid.

The genetically engineered DNA had done far more than its creators had anticipated. He was far stronger than his genetic sire, and had a command of nature and the elements that no Esper scientist would have believed possible. Alissa was privy of the power he held in check, but no one else knew of the extent of his abilities.