Revolution (13 page)

Jason and Tina appeared at the top of the
stairs holding hands and giggling. “Hey, nice to see you again,”
Jason called down.

He and Tina descended the steps, still
laughing. At the bottom, he said, “We were just taking a break,
gaming on the newest console we’ve got in Tina’s room.” He leaned
forward as if to impart special information. “Separate rooms, you
know?”

Tina smacked him on the arm. “We’ve been
dating for six months. You could at least get my name right.”

Jason’s face turned red. “Sorry, Maze.”

Embarrassed by the bad timing on his friend’s
part, Harry mumbled, “Uh, thanks for telling me about the sleeping
arrangements. Did you find anything?”

“Not as much as we wanted,” Maze cut in and
waved at the desktop closest to them. “I’ve managed to get a couple
of suspects, but I’m not sure if that’s what these guys—” she
jerked her thumb at Farrell—”are looking for. ‘Scuse me a second,
I’ve got to get something.”

She ran to the kitchen and came back with a
paper bag. “I can’t work without my usual stash. These guys have
zero taste in chocolate.”

Holding the bag in one hand and dipping the
other inside to snag a few chunks of chocolate, she crammed them
into her mouth, sat down at her work station, and began to tap the
keyboard with light but incredibly fast fingers. Harry, Anastasia
and Istvan took up positions behind Maze and watched silently.

A few seconds later, a picture appeared on
the screen. It was of a man wearing what looked to be a Hungarian
army uniform similar to Bartok’s. “I don’t know this guy,” Harry
said.

“Yeah, you do,” Farrell replied from behind
him. “That’s Szabo.”

The picture showed a man in his mid-twenties,
roughly six-five and built like a pro wrestler. He had a face like
a clenched fist with dark, expressionless eyes and a thin slit of a
mouth. It was hard to believe that this man and the shark-bear that
had attacked them were one and the same, but the name soon came up.
“Meet ex-Lieutenant Zoltan Szabo,” Farrell stated in a sour voice.
“He’s a deserter from the Hungarian army, turned anarchist
extraordinaire. The information from Bartok came in just a little
while ago. There’s no mistake.”

It was a little hard to believe that the
monster that had savaged two men and probably more was ex-military,
but then again, he had training and the willingness to use it.
Harry walked over to a couch and sat down, Anastasia beside him.
“What’s his story?” he asked.

Farrell picked up a file from the desk.
Crease lines of worry or anger or perhaps both formed in his
forehead as he went through the facts. Zoltan Szabo was born just
outside of Budapest, got into trouble at an early age and never
stopped. “Seems he had no father, was raised by his mother, got
kicked out of three schools for fighting, and once he was old
enough, the judge gave him the choice of going to jail or joining
the army. Has authority issues.”

Farrell went on to say that Szabo’s
rebellious streak continued while in service of the Hungarian
government. “He enlisted at eighteen and moved up in rank to
Lieutenant, got busted twice for insubordination and for fighting,
but showed an aptitude for leadership in spite of his other
negative qualities. On his twenty-third birthday, roughly two years
ago, he deserted.”

“Does that file say why?”

Farrell ran his finger down the paper and
stabbed at something. “Apparently, his time in the army didn’t lead
to any change in behavior. The army psychologist considered him
sociopathic and borderline psychotic. He didn’t like taking orders
from superiors, didn’t mix well with others.”

He rubbed his forehead and continued to cite
the strikes against Szabo. “When ordered to lead a group of
soldiers on border patrol, he refused, hit his commanding officer,
broke his jaw and his arm, and was brought up on charges, but
escaped. He eventually fell in with a gang of bank robbers and
staged a series of high-profile robberies, but he didn’t care for
them, either.”

This was getting better and better. Or worse
and worse—it depended on your point of view. Either way, Szabo was
a nasty piece of trouble. “So he’s got daddy issues and hates
authority,” said Harry, expecting the worst and getting it. “Let me
guess, he killed a couple of them?”

“He killed them all,” Farrell answered
without blinking an eye. “It was then that he escaped over the
border and eventually made his way to Russia. We all know what
happened after that.”

“Uh, sorry,” Anastasia interjected. This time
she didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm. “
We
don’t know what
happened.
We
just know that something with a shark’s head
and a bad attitude is trying to kill or capture us.
You’re
the one with the information, and we had to get the details from
Istvan.”

At the mention of his name, the little
pig-man crept to the stairs. “I am curious about this place. May I
look around?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Farrell said and waved his
hand at the second floor. Istvan mounted the steps quickly and
disappeared into a room.

Jason had been listening to the byplay, but
said nothing. His girlfriend was typing furiously on her computer
and images flashed by at incredible speed. Farrell uttered a weary
sigh. “Szabo’s a rotten scumbag, but he’s just a pawn in all this.
We’re still searching for the main man.”

“Almost got him,” Maze said from over her
shoulder.

Ignoring the sound of keys being tapped,
Harry asked, growing more confused by the second, “How could Szabo
be just a pawn?”

“Because that’s what he is,” stated Farrell,
his voice growing angrier by the second. “Bartok told us before we
went out that Szabo wasn’t working alone. And you said that Szabo
isn’t smart enough to conjure something like this up by himself, so
think about it. He destroyed a lab, yes? He killed all the
competition. He left no traces, but he doesn’t want to become
normal again or even semi-normal.”

As Harry listened, he had to admit that
Farrell was right. Szabo was strong, but he wasn’t overly smart,
unless you counted tactical knowledge. In this situation, that had
made all the difference. Szabo had managed to skirt the FBI’s
security and take out three men with no trouble, and he had
enhanced powers of regeneration, strength and speed. Harry knew how
well he could fight. He remembered the power of the other
man-thing’s grip, the smell of death coming from him... and the
fear he’d felt.

A pang of uncertainty coupled with the memory
of the incident hit him right then and made him shiver. With an
effort, he fought off the emotion. “So you think someone else is
pulling the strings?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure who.”

“I got him!” Maze said with a triumphant note
in her voice. “Get over here and look.”

Obediently, Harry pulled Anastasia over to
the computer and called for Istvan.

The little man carefully picked his way down
the staircase, but sat on the couch instead of venturing over to
look at the screen.

The picture Maze had called up showed a
short, stocky man who appeared to be in his early thirties, with an
oval face, deep-set dark eyes, pale skin and a shock of brown hair.
“Meet Dmitri Kulakov,” Farrell said. “He used to work for the
KGB.”

Harry peered at the screen. The information
said that Kulakov was born in the late nineteen-thirties. That
meant he had to be almost eighty years old, if not more. And he was
still in the program? There was a time for bull to be tossed, but
this wasn’t just one bull. It was the entire herd. “Uh, basic math
suggests this guy should be spending time at a retirement home or
taking a dirt nap,” he offered, trying to be helpful. This had to
be the wrong guy.

“It can’t be anyone else,” Farrell
replied.

Harry turned away from the screen and took a
seat on the nearby couch. Propping his chin in his hand a la
The
Thinker,
he tried to make sense of it all. If this Kulakov was
the real brains behind it, was he up to same kind of life-extension
trickery that Grushenko had been up to? It was possible. It was
obvious that he had the same technology available and the
intelligence to use it. Those thoughts and more circulated through
his mind at light speed.

A touch on his shoulder made him start and
brought him back to reality. Anastasia’s breath, warm and soft,
caressed his face. “Boyfriend, when you get broody, you get really
broody. You must be thinking of something heavy.”

How did she know all this? “Does it
show?”

She chuckled softly. “Yeah, your forehead
scrunches up and you get that
I’m thinking of something
scientific
look on your face. You know, lips pursed, nodding,
just like all the other geniuses out there.”

Her tone came across as kidding, but all the
same, it stung. It pigeonholed him into being something he didn’t
want to be, not all the time, anyway. In his mind, he wanted to be
like everyone else, not think so deeply about life... but right
now, he had too much to worry about.

“I...” he began to say until a squawk from
outside interrupted him.

An agent, short and stocky, ran through the
door, panic in his eyes. He made a beeline straight for Farrell.
“Sir, we have a perimeter breach about two hundred yards from here,
straight ahead, into the forest.”

“So much for security,” Anastasia commented
and proceeded to bare her claws.

She got up and walked over to the agents.
“What’ve we got—a bear-shark thing or a flying thing?”

The junior agent gulped and shook his head,
wiping the fear-sweat off his face. His eyes widened to the point
of popping when he saw her and got even larger when Harry came over
to stand next to Anastasia. “We’ve got neither of them Miss, er,
Ms., uh...”

“Get on with it,” Farrell replied testily and
pointed his finger at Anastasia as if to demonstrate her realness.
“She’s a person, got it? She’s with us and so is he,” he added,
flicking his index finger at Harry. “What did you see?”

“It looked like a centipede mixed with a
goat.”

Mixing insects and mammals—whoever was doing
this had an inventive as well as a sick mind. It took a certain
kind of warped thinking to crossbreed two different species. The
thought of the result disturbed as well as frightened Harry, but he
was also curious as to what it looked like. “We’ll take a look
around,” he said to Farrell. “Call your men off.”

“But I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Anastasia interrupted. “If
it’s what this agent thinks it is, then you can’t handle it. We
can.”

As Farrell pulled out his phone, a thudding
sound came from the back door, followed by a primal scream like a
banshee mating with a rabid dog. Maze cried out, “What the hell is
going on here?”

Jason put his arms around her and she hugged
him tightly, shaking like a leaf. “Yeah, I’ll second that. What’s
going on?”

“We got company,” said Anastasia in the
grimmest of all voices. “Stay here and don’t move. Boyfriend, you
ready for this?”

Not really, but was there any choice? Harry
steeled his nerve. “Let’s see what’s out there.”

Anastasia took a step to her left and nodded.
Harry opened the door, and something that looked like a cross
between dog and frog stampeded in and didn’t stop. The far wall
stopped it, though. Its head smashed right through the wood. It
hung there for a moment and then with a grunt it pulled itself out
and turned around, swinging its head back and forth and slavering
at its mouth.

“Holy god,” Harry heard someone say. It
didn’t matter who said it, as he was too busy focusing his
attention on the creature in front of him. At six-plus feet in
height, it had a long canine snout and powerful, muscular legs like
a frog. Its body was also hyper-muscular, with a dull green coating
of fur. It took a swipe at Harry. He ducked and lashed out with a
punch that caught the thing flush in the jaw and knocked it
down.

Just as quickly, though, it bounced to its
feet. “Kill you, kill you!” it screamed and tore back at him.

Harry caught it around the neck and lifted it
off the floor. The monster clawed at him and its jaws snapped
hungrily. This thing was out for blood. Enhanced strength or not,
Harry wasn’t sure if he could last much longer until Anastasia
cried out, “Toss it!”

Good idea. Spinning around like a hammer
thrower, he heaved the thing straight up. It came down in dive-bomb
mode, its jaws snapping hungrily. Anastasia sidestepped its bite
and took a swipe at it with her claws, catching it under its
throat, and it fell to the ground. Blood poured from a six-inch
hole in its neck. Its body spasmed for a few seconds before it lay
still.

“Holy crap, what was that?” Maze yelled,
shoving off her boyfriend’s clutch. “What
was
that?” She was
still shivering all over.

“That,” Anastasia observed, entirely without
sarcasm, “was the preliminary. The main event is outside. Coming,
boyfriend?” she asked Harry.

They sprinted out the door toward the forest.
As they ran, three agents wearing shredded black suits ran toward
them. All of them had lacerations on their faces and bodies and
blood streamed from their wounds. Harry caught one of them by the
arm. “What’s out there?”

Apparently, this agent had been briefed on
what Harry and Anastasia looked like, for he didn’t give them the
goggle-eyed stare others usually did. Instead, he wiped tears of
anger and frustration from his face. “Jesus, it’s some kind of
thing.
”

“You want to be more specific?” Anastasia
asked.

The man panted and wiped away the river of
blood that was pouring down his forehead. “Uh, it’s about ten feet
long, lots of legs and built low to the ground. It has a goat’s
head. It got three of our men. We tried shooting it, but it’s got
some kind of exoskeleton. We hit it, but the thing kept on coming.
It also uses some kind of spray.”