Revolution (18 page)

“
Catic,”
he finished for her.

Anastasia giggled and kissed him hard on the
mouth. Their mirth was interrupted by the sound of the pilot
opening the door. “I’m turning on the television screen,” he called
out. “You have to watch this.”

A second later, the screen lit up. It showed
an empty room with only a few tables and chairs. A laptop sat on
the table. Farrell walked into the frame and took his seat in a
chair. With a trembling hand, he turned on the computer. He looked
disheveled and his eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. When he
spoke, it came out as a whisper of anguish. “Harry, Anastasia, this
was sent to me a few minutes ago. It was a tape that Szabo
made.”

He pointed at the computer screen. The image
was dark, but Harry made out the details easily enough. Szabo stood
in front of a row of cells crammed with frightened, shouting
people. “Goldman,” he said in a voice that held a terrible purpose
and glee in it, “since you have not answered me, I can assume that
you have not accepted my offer.”

Szabo then swept his hand at the cells.
“These are some citizens that my friends and I have invited. I have
others held at different locations. What you see before you are
doctors, teachers, bankers, housewives, police officers and more.
Because of your recalcitrance, they shall
be
no more.”

As Harry watched, transfixed and with a sense
of mounting horror, Szabo snapped his claws and two more mutants
with insect-like heads and human bodies entered carrying large
metal canisters with nozzles attached. They proceeded to spray the
hapless inmates. A second later, Szabo took out a lighter. “Think
about this, Goldman.”

He tossed the lighter inside. Flames
immediately filled the cell and the occupants started screaming.
The tape abruptly cut off. Glancing sideways, Anastasia had her
hands at her mouth. “He didn’t do that... did he?” she
whispered.

“He did,” Farrell confirmed in the grimmest
of all voices. “The tape is real. Those were some of the prisoners
he captured earlier on. I’m going to assume the others are also
dead.”

Anastasia started growling curses in a low,
angry voice. Farrell urged, “Be careful, please.”

The transmission ended. Anastasia turned to
him, a look of murder in her eyes. “He’s going to die. No question,
if anyone deserves to die, it’s him.”

“We have to find him first.”

Anastasia’s look of rage then faded, replaced
by a terrible emptiness. “Can we really do this?”

Privately, Harry was asking himself the same
thing. “No one else can.”

With a quick move, she slid her hands around
his waist and snuggled her head into his chest. “I want to sleep,
but I can’t. Those people...”

Her voice trailed off. “Yeah, those people,”
he echoed as he stroked her fur. “We’ll do what we can. That’s all
we can do.”

They continued to hold onto each other, each
of them lost in their thoughts. Harry remained alert. No talk of
marriage now. They had too many things to worry about, chief among
them when Szabo would strike next. The man-thing was a certifiable
maniac, and killing indiscriminately didn’t bother him at all.
Harry only hoped that if it came to a showdown, then he’d have the
strength to outlast the monster. At the very worst, he’d take Szabo
with him.

One layover in Reykjavik and eleven hours
later, the flight touched down at three-thirty local time and they
taxied into a private hangar. Jet lag hit Harry right away and all
he wanted to do was to get some sleep, but that would have to wait.
The pilot, a thickset man by the name of Murphy, said that their
contact would be meeting them soon. “Good luck,” he said. “I saw
what that thing did. If you can get him, then get him. Farrell said
that you two were special, so try not to get dead.”

With those sage words of counsel, the pilot
once more disappeared behind his door. Anastasia let out a low
whistle. “Don’t get dead, he says. Now that’s a real confidence
booster.”

Harry chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
“Yeah, it is. Let’s go meet our contact.”

After waking Istvan up, they disembarked from
the airplane and found themselves in a large hangar roughly the
same size as the one the FBI had used back in New York. A short and
muscular man in his early thirties stood next to a nondescript
four-door car a few yards from the plane.

Even from a distance, Harry saw the scars on
his face. It looked like talon marks had left deep purplish-red
grooves down the right side of his face. It didn’t take a genius to
figure out what had done that. An eye-patch covered his right eye.
He wore a dirty green uniform similar to what American army grunts
wore and saluted them as the approached. He gave Istvan only a
passing glance. Instead, he focused his attention on Anastasia and
Harry. If he felt any displeasure at seeing them, he didn’t show
it.

“My name is Dobrilo Ilic,” he said in a thick
accent. “I am attached to the Eleventh Infantry Battalion of the
Serbian Army in Novi Sad. That is where the attacks were. I am
pleased to see that you are on our side.”

His grammar was decent enough, but Harry
found his accent tough to get straight in his own head at first.
“Nice to meet you,” he answered. “I’m Harry and this is—”

“I know who you are,” Ilic interrupted.
“Agent Farrell of your FBI told me. He also sent me pictures of
tape that showed people being roasted alive. Those were Serbian
people.” A scowl crossed his features. “Come, we have much to
discuss.”

He pointed to the car and they got in, with
Ilic at the wheel and Harry, Anastasia and Istvan in back. A pack
of cigarettes sat on the dashboard and Harry prayed that the man
wouldn’t smoke during the drive over.

Ilic drove quickly out of the hangar, got
onto the highway that led from the airport, and started north. “It
will take about one hour to get where we are going. From where we
stop, we must go into forest on foot. It is bad place, has bad
memories. We must be careful.”

As he drove, he pulled a cigarette from the
pack on the dashboard and lit up. So much for prayers, Harry
thought. A stream of smoke wafted over to his position, making his
eyes water and causing Anastasia to cough. “Mind if I open the
window?” she asked.

“Go ahead.”

She cracked the window open a few inches and
a warm stream of air poured in. It was summertime there, and the
temperature was around seventy-five, with a fresh breeze and the
aroma of flowers, crops and more all being grown. The city, with
its quaint brick buildings that sat next to more modern glass and
steel jobs, lay near the Danube. A smell of water filtered in.

The scene gradually shifted to one of the
countryside and the brick and mortar gave way to trees and
shrubbery. Ilic drove quickly but steadily, smoked incessantly and
kept silent. Harry put his head down for a quick nap and felt
himself going under, but the sound of crunching tires and bumps
woke him up. “We are here,” Ilic announced. “Come, I will tell you
what happened.”

He got out of the car and they joined him,
looking at a vast green field with a low mountain off in the
distance. Harry strained his eyes and saw two distinct places, a
green meadowland and a forest.

“That,” Ilic said, pointing, “is Fruska Gora
Mountain. It is national park. The bottom part is very famous place
for family picnics. The upper part is where many birds and wild
animals live and it has very...” he gestured with his hands,
pulling them wide apart, “how you say it, fat forest?”

Anastasia chuckled. “I think you mean thick.
The trees are close together?”

“Yes, thank you,” Ilic nodded. “We were
off-duty about one month ago, three of my men and me along with
three other women. It was party for us, yes? We were having party
in forest near base when something attacked us.”

“What was it?” Istvan asked. “I am sorry,
your face is—”

Ilic’s expression never changed. “Ruined?” he
asked in an even tone. “It was bird-thing. Looked like a woman with
wings and claws. She got me good. She was very strong... they all
were.”

For the first time his face wore a look of
uncertainty, Harry recognized that look. It was fear. Ilic had
mentioned others. “How many others did you see? What did they look
like?”

“Yes, others came.” Ilic nodded his head in a
slow, grave manner and his voice grew troubled. “There were many of
them, things that I have never seen before and no want to see
again. They were... monsters.”

He went on to describe them as mixes of birds
and various wild animals. Roughly twenty in all, they came at night
and struck without warning. His friends had been having a drinking
party with the women—it was warm, and they were all drunk. The
party crashers proceeded to rip, tear and slash everything in
sight, all the while screaming in rage.

“The bird-thing, she scream the loudest,”
Ilic said as he lit a cigarette with shaky hands. He puffed on it a
few times, then the trembling stopped and he tossed the butt away.
“She slash my face and I fall down. Then she go after woman I am
with. She cut my woman’s throat and my woman bleeds, bleeds fast.
My army friends, they have guns and shoot, but bullets do
nothing.”

He transferred his gaze to Harry and his
voice began to tremble. “They do nothing. I lie there and think
that they will kill me, but maybe they think that I am already
dead, there is so much blood on me. Now,” he fought to gain control
of his voice, “now we are here and I want to kill them all. I am a
soldier and this is what I must do.” His face was set with
determination.

“Did your commander believe your story?”
Anastasia asked.

Ilic shook his head. “Not at first,” he
replied. “I call him on emergency number. He drive up and say that
I must be drunk and get into fight. But when I show him pieces of
my friends, he changes his mind, call around and then your FBI man,
Farrell, call us. He say there are more things like that walking
around. Then my commander believes him. Only three hours ago, he
show us that tape of shark man burning people.”

A shrug came from him as if to say orders
were orders. “This Farrell and my commander, they talk about many
things. My commander hangs up phone and says this is national
security. So I get my orders to go ahead, find the monsters and
kill them. Our battalion is on maneuvers now near border. But my
commander excuses me and said that I can go help you.”

“Can you show us where you were attacked?”
Harry asked.

“We are going there now.”

They got back into the car and drove to the
base of the mountain. There, Ilic stopped and said, “We must go on
foot from here. Do not worry about others seeing you.” He pointed
to a rope that had been strung around the perimeter of the forest.
A sign hung on it. “That sign means this area has been sealed from
public. We will be safe.”

Once again, Harry had the idea that the
general public would have a fit if they saw him, but this wasn’t
his country. He was a guest and had to act like one. “Thank you,”
he said. Anastasia slapped him on the arm and rolled her eyes.

Trudging up the side of the mountain on a
well-worn trail, they spotted numerous birds along with a few elk.
The scent of animal droppings and urine registered strongly in his
nostrils. However, the gamy, pungent smell of death that Szabo and
the others possessed... he couldn’t get a reading. “Anastasia, you
have anything?” he asked.

Like him, she also tested the air with her
nose. “I got nothing.”

“Me too,” added Istvan. “I have nothing.”

Ilic kept leading them further into the
forest. Finally, he stopped and pointed. “It was over there.”

Numerous traces of dried blood still dotted
the trees and bushes. Ilic stared at the ground, his mouth working,
but he said nothing except “You have better smell system than
people?”

“We are people,” Anastasia reminded him. “We
just look a little different, is all.”

Ilic grunted. “I am sorry for my words. I do
not mean to insult, but after this...”

His voice trailed off and Harry took up the
slack. “They’re still people, too. They’re just on the wrong
side...”

“I have something,” Istvan interrupted.

“What is it?”

Istvan didn’t speak at first. Instead, he got
down on all fours and snuffled around. In the middle of his nasal
examination, he stiffened, got up on two legs and pointed to his
right. “I have a smell,” he said. His voice rose with excitement.
“It is same smell as lab in Hungary. It is over there.”

He scampered off and they followed him. Once
they got to a small clearing, they found the same kind of door as
the one they’d previously seen. Chalk one up for Russian
consistency, Harry thought. Undecided as to what would happen next,
he asked, “What do we do, ask for an invitation or knock?”

It was the most obvious question to ask.
Before anyone had a chance to answer, Ilic pulled out his pistol,
cocked it and said, “I no need invitation. I get them now. Help me
to pull open door.” He started to yank on the chain and the door
squealed out its rage on unoiled hinges.

Great, Harry thought, advertise our presence
here. Suddenly, a feeling that they were being watched swept over
him. Anastasia seemed to get the same idea, as the fur on the back
of her neck stood up and her hackles rose. Istvan swung his head
back and forth, taking in the action and asked in a frightened
voice, “Should I hide now?”

“It’s a good idea,” Harry answered. At once,
Istvan took off, ran for a mound of sticks and leaves and squeezed
his rotund little body under it.

Ilic continued to yank on the chain, his
voice getting louder and angrier. Finally, he hauled the door open.
“Hey!” he yelled into the hole. “I come to kill you for what you do
to me and to my friends. Come on up!”