Pulling The Dragon's Tail (15 page)

Free from the assailant’s mighty grip, she
yelled, “Shoot him!”

Nate squeezed the trigger, and the PPD found its
intended mark. Momentarily the man was stunned, but shrugged it
off. “You call that a weapon?” he angrily intoned, his words
echoing off the holoroom’s walls.

Nate knew the PPD’s effective range decreased
proportionately to the distance, but he was amazed the man didn’t
at least stumble and fall. And he knew they were out of weapons,
that is, unless and until, he could get Dugan working again.

The man grabbed the prone Campbell and once more
held her in his powerful grip. He took her PPD and smashed it to
the ground. With his right hand he brandished a pistol. “A Colt 45
trumps your little play toy any day, you pacifist fool.”

After directing Nate to drop the PPD, he
approached Nate with Campbell in tow. When they got to within a few
meters, Dugan suddenly whirred to life.

The man deftly put the pistol away and pulled a
knife out of his pocket, placing it against Campbell’s throat. “I
suggest,” he said, still closing the distance to Nate, “that you
shut off that CCR.”

Finally finding his voice, Nate replied, “Why?”
Dugan’s our best hope for a way out of this mess
, he
thought.

“Don’t give me that shit! Turn it off! NOW!” he
bellowed. “Or the woman dies!”

“Okay, okay!” Then Nate said, “Otto pom sigmon.
Otto pom sigmon. Otto pom siglat.”

Immediately Dugan’s programming began its
shutdown sequence.

“If your doggie so much as lifts a paw, this
woman dies!” hissed their assailant. “What’d you tell him?”

“To not attack and I’m just shutting him down.”
A little lie of omission. “What do you want with my CCR?” said
Nate, ratcheting up his courage. He saw Campbell’s helpless look as
the large hunting knife grazed her throat.

“It’s just a stupid piece of machinery. But,”
and he smiled mischievously, “the dog has some valuable info for
me.”

Nate’s heart raced.
Who is this man? What’s
he want with Dugan? How’d he get in to Hilliard’s fortress? His
words, demeanor—familiar in some way…but how?

“Bring it over here; put it down next to me!
Then back away!”

Nate meekly but quickly complied with the
demands, carrying the now lifeless CCR to the mysterious man.

The assailant shoved Campbell towards Nate, who
caught her before she fell to the ground.

The man savagely kicked Dugan. Campbell winced,
but Nate remained calm. He knew the circuitry would remain
undamaged. His shutdown orders would see to that. But only time
would tell whether he should risk remotely turning Dugan via his
wrist implants. If a PPD shock wave, although weak, hadn’t felled
this stranger, he doubted whether a defensive reaction programmed
into the CCR would do any better, or would only serve to enrage him
further and place them all in even greater danger.

The stranger, with gun pointed, smiled. “Well,
well. I get a three for one deal: the CCR and Skip—and his
girlfriend.”

As hard as it was for Nate to imagine, the use
of his nickname helped him deduce a vital piece of information.
A childhood friend? No! They’re probably all dead,
he
concluded.
So who else would know me as Skip—the Alpha
Group?
He mentally reviewed his Alpha Group colleagues—then
took a long, hard look at the man in front of him.
Was this man
the person Dugan had spoken of earlier? No. Dugan had mentioned a
protector, and clearly this man was no protector.

Besides the strength he drew from Father
Abraham, Nate concluded that they could use a protector right now.
He breathed a silent prayer, gazing upward.
Eyes open, face to
the sky
.

“So you really are one of them from the
Andromeda Religion—the church of the flying saucer,” said the man
derisively. Then he approached and got to within an inch of Nate,
staring him down for several seconds.

Nate stepped back a half-stride. Taking a deep
breath, he returned the man’s steely stare and thought,
No
mistake about it—those passionate eyes, those broad shoulders—could
only be one person.

“Browning,” he said to the man
matter-of-factly.

It was the stranger’s turn to step back. “That
was my name. Now I go by—“ He caught himself, then smiled
gently.

For the briefest of instants, Nate caught a
glimpse of the Browning Watts he once knew.

“You’re looking good, Skip. ‘Course, I’m looking
even better than you.”

Campbell choked back some choice words, and had
to force herself from not rolling her eyes.

“Shit!” Browning said, half to himself. “Stop
this chummy crap, you fool! No more happy talk! We walk!” He then
marched them down the enormous holoroom and toward a door at the
opposite end.

“My CCR?” pleaded Nate, glancing back at the
lifeless Dugan.

“Leave your doggie robot alone! I’m comin’ back
for him later!” growled Browning.

Browning Watts seemed to know where generally
they were going. Nate surmised he had entered through the control
room, but according to what Dugan had downloaded, the control room
was in the opposite direction from where they were currently
heading.

The tunnel was unusually straight and uniform.
Nate theorized that Hilliard’s penchant for details must be showing
itself once more. The creator of the Alpha Group must have, in this
cave—that somehow, somewhere must contain the longevity formula’s
secrets—hewed out a secondary access/exit. Main

Several attempts to whisper to Campbell, and she
to him, were interrupted immediately by Browning. They could only
manage furtive glances to each other to study the other one’s face
in the swirling deep shadows.

After about five minutes of walking Nate sensed
a new fresher odor in the air. It gradually replaced the dank, dark
cave smell. But he feared that before seeing the light of day, he’d
be shot or knifed by this man whom he once called a friend, and he
shivered inside.

He felt totally defenseless—just as he had on
the peacefields of Borneo in ‘56 as tribesmen killed one another
with machine guns and machetes. He and five other CHOFA peace
soldiers had surrounded a wounded soldier and were administering
first aid on his leg from a cruel machete hack. Suddenly a dozen
soldiers from the other side surrounded them, glaring with
hate-filled eyes, wanting the life of this wounded man that CHOFA
was trying to protect.

One of Nate’s colleagues, speaking in the
Malayic tongue, tried to convince the aggressors to leave the
injured man, who was from the minority Tamaric sect to CHOFA’s
safekeeping. After several moments of back and forth banter, in
which most of the soldiers relaxed their grips on their weapons,
the lead negotiator suddenly raised his machine gun and killed the
interpreter on the spot. Then the mob kicked Nate and his remaining
colleagues out of the way, hoisted their captive onto their
shoulders, and whisked him away. Nate heard the man utter an
agonizing scream a few moments later, and was still haunted as to
what his torture and slow execution must have been like.

That was the closest he had come to dying—until
now. But he gathered his strength to endure, reminding himself of
the promise from Father Abraham that to bear witness to senseless
violence was a duty and privilege of the highest honor. To be in
the vanguard of the only movement that could save humankind from
itself and would usher in a new era for humankind was his supreme
motivation. Once more Nate trusted the Father, and felt at peace
amidst the depths of evil.

“Is that an exit?” asked a curious Campbell,
peering ahead to what appeared a doorway. Intense light streamed in
from around the corners of the approximately two meter high and
wide opening.

Just before arriving at the doorway, strong
mountain wind whipped at the bifold door back and forth.

“Stop!” bellowed Browning.

Nate felt suddenly uneasy. Wind doesn’t make a
door move like that. It was almost as if—

The doors flew open. Shards of splintered wood
scattered everywhere. Nate grabbed Campbell and pushed her toward
the wall. Black boots emerged through the blinding sunlight. The
boots hurtled past them and landed on their intended mark. Browning
Watts fell hard against the cave floor.

Struggling to blink back the bright sunlight,
neither Nate nor Campbell recognized the identity of the lightning
quick stranger.

Browning had gotten up from the severe blow, and
was fighting the diminutive stranger, who was attired in a
one-piece body suit. It appeared to be a woman, brown-skinned, and
she was giving everything the powerful Browning could handle.

Even as Campbell and Nate cheered her silently
on, they realized the danger of their proximity to the fight. The
stranger knocked the gun out of Browning’s hand. It went skittering
out of the doorway. Campbell lunged for it but missed. As she did
so, she caught a glimpse of their predicament. A steep nearly
treeless slope lay before them. Patches of ice and snow paved the
descent down to Lake Saskatchewa about thirty meters below.

The stranger attempted to reach for a concealed
weapon in her clothing, but Browning gave a swift kick to the head,
sending her reeling. Next she thwarted his knife thrust with a deft
move, rolling over and quickly jumped back onto her feet.

Campbell and Nate almost made a run back into
the cave. However, as soon as that move was contemplated, both
adversaries careened into Campbell and Nate, who tried to stand
their ground. Nate shielded Campbell by crouching down low to the
ground, shoving her against the wall, desperately trying to
disappear into a non-existent hole.

Closer and closer they were pushed to the edge.
Suddenly, Campbell’s feet slipped outside the cavern’s edge—and she
was gone.

“Campbell!” Nate yelled. He watched her slip
helplessly down the steep slope.

He looked back as the fight ensued between the
two seemingly superhuman combatants. He had to save Campbell!

Nate leapt out of the cavern door, slipping and
sliding down the mountain. He was gaining on Campbell, who was
turning end over end. Nate winced, seeing Campbell’s head just miss
a large outcropping of rock.

Nothing Campbell did slowed her pathway toward
to the lake. A second later she splashed into the icy water. She
gasped in pain and shock as the frigid shards of water pierced her
body.

A moment later Nate splashed in beside her. He
lunged out of the water, seeking a handhold to hoist himself out of
the lake. None was to be found.

He looked up the mountainside. Browning Watts
was clambering up the mountain, above the cave entrance. The other
stranger stumbled out of the entrance. She looked upward at
Browning’s desperate scramble.

Then Nate saw her glance down at them. His grip
loosened on a small rock on the incredibly steep shoreline. He
slipped into the water. Then he heard Campbell’s desperate plea for
help.

In the gray dawn quiescent waves brushed up
against the crusty mix of sand and pebbles on the northern New
Jersey shore. The cool air on this Memorial Day weekend carried the
stark stench of saltwater…and hints of last night’s barbecues from
the rows of summer homes dotting the beach in either direction.
Urban refugees, fleeing from their hardscrabble urban existence
that was the Big Apple, slumbered in their beds.

Shrieking brakes broke through the silence. A
young man, Thatcher Grady, leaped out of his tiny two-door car, not
bothering to close the door on the brand new electric vehicle,
fresh off the robotic assembly lines of China. He hurtled between
two homes, his face unshaven, a mustard stain left on his white
collared shirt from last night’s dinner. Thick scruffy grass,
un-mowed since last fall, clamored at his shoes, transferring the
heavy dew to his dress shoes and dark socks, instantly soaking
them, and making his khaki pants darker.

He paused at the back corner of the house on his
left, pinkish paint peeling off in his hands from the century old
structure. Cautiously he glanced around the corner. The spires of
New York City lay at the furthest reaches of his vision, dominated
by the planet’s tallest superstructure in lower Manhattan.

Then he gathered up his courage and stepped
around the back of the house, certain his night’s long quest had
come to an end.

Ninety-two year old Grayson Detts lie sprawled
out on a leather recliner. He wore khaki shorts and a
tropical-toned shirt that was half unbuttoned. Vanilla white legs
led down to craggy feet and wrinkled gnarly toes. He was alone as
he had intended—at least until that moment.

Each simultaneously recognized the other with a
surprised awkward look.

“I’m dying and there’s nothing you can do about
it!” the elder one insisted. His sea-green eyes topped off by bushy
salt and pepper eyebrows. Thick, gray whiskers chiseled his stern
face, but they couldn’t conceal his tremulous lips as he stared
unflinchingly up at Thatcher Grady.

With a furtive glance sideways, twenty-nine year
old Thatcher Grady noticed a bottle of sleeping pills and a
half-empty flask of vodka next to his friend and mentor. Thatcher
fought against the undeniable conclusion that Grayson was
committing suicide. Thatcher, a child of the ‘40s, wished that this
was only another electronic, brain-port induced hallucination of
his; he could handle
that
reality.
Please, God, let him
be on vacation. Nothing more.

“Don’t call the medics, Thatcher, please. I just
want to join Chels.” Grayson reached a trembling hand up and
Thatcher gripped it with both of his own.

Thatcher had always loved the pet name that
Grayson called his wife, Chelsea; how it poured off Detts’ lips
like honey slowly drips off a spoon. The very act of speaking her
name sparkled with the fondness of his life-long partnership.