Revolution (25 page)

“Anastasia’s too good for you,” Harry
answered, angry that this monster would use her name so casually.
“She wouldn’t—”

“Would not... what?” Szabo interrupted with a
smirk. He seemed to be enjoying this immensely. “If you are
thinking that I am interested in your girlfriend, then the answer
is no. She is attractive, but she is not who I desire.”

Harry remained silent. Shifting his eyes left
and right, he reconnoitered the area, but the entire region seemed
inaccessible. He only hoped that the transponder was giving out its
signal and that Maze and Jason could track their whereabouts.

Szabo caught him looking around. “Oh, please
do not think that the transponder you have swallowed will work
here.” He held up a small device, the size of a cigarette lighter.
“This interrupts the signal. You are not as clever as you thought.
I figured it out after the attack in Serbia, and your girlfriend
could not hide its existence from us.” A malicious grin split his
features. “We beat it out of her.”

Inwardly, Harry raged at Szabo’s last
statement. Adrenaline and the desire for revenge made him start
forward, but he held himself back with a supreme effort. Right now,
there was nothing he could do about it. The monster had everything
planned to the last detail. “Okay, you got us. So what do you
want?”

A throaty laugh, laced with menace, rang
through the air. “In due time, I shall tell you,” Szabo said. They
walked a bit more and soon found themselves at the base of one of
the pillars. “We are here,” he announced.

The sound of wings flapping overhead made
Harry look up. It sounded familiar. Sure enough, Martuska circled
down slowly to land in front of them. For a change, she wore a
smile—and it was directed at Szabo.

In return, he smiled at her, but when he
looked at Harry, the smile faded and a malevolent look crept into
his eyes. “You are not that clever,” he said from the side.

Once again, Harry cursed his inability to
figure things out and waited for the inevitable blow. If he was
going to get slammed, he figured it would be quick.

It was indeed quick, as he never saw the ham
hock fist that crashed against his jaw. He did, however, see the
stones and dirt that came up to meet his face. Then the blackness
took over.

A hoarse voice cut through Harry’s
non-self-imposed sleep. “Wake him up.”

This voice wasn’t Szabo’s. He didn’t want to
wake up, but a second later, a massive hand smashed into the side
of his face, jolting him into full awareness. Harry groaned and
slowly sat up. He found himself in a cell lying on a filthy cot. If
there were hellholes, then this was it. The other cell in Serbia
had been a luxury hotel compared to this place.

There was no sink, no toilet, and the floor
was black with streaks of red showing through the muck. In the
corner he saw a pile of bones, many of them distorted. Some still
had bits of meat on them. The smell was beyond rank and he breathed
through his mouth.

Another slap brought him face to face with
Szabo. With his mouth open and jaws ready to bite, he looked more
shark-like than ever. “Get up, little man,” he commanded. “Get up
or I shall tear off one of your arms—”

“Not just yet,” the hoarse voice interrupted.
“I must speak with Goldman alone.”

Szabo grunted and moved out of the way.
Behind him stood an even greater monstrosity, and Harry couldn’t
help but let out a gasp. “You’re Kulakov?”

“I am... and I was. Now, I am more.”

Kulakov’s description was correct. He might
have been a man once, but not now. In Harry’s mind, he couldn’t
even be classified as human anymore. A large, amorphous gray blob,
he had to be almost six feet in width as well as in height.
Numerous arms and legs dotted his body. Long, muscular and
constantly on the move, they made him look like a cross between a
spider and an amoeba. He still had a human’s head, though, oval and
hairless, with piercing black eyes and a thin slit of a mouth.

The man-shark hovered in the background,
grunting with impatience at some task yet unfinished. Apparently,
Kulakov didn’t think much of the tough-guy act as he swiveled his
ahead around and ordered, “Szabo, get out and check the laboratory.
Do it now.”

His voice, cold and devoid of passion,
sounded more than commanding, and it sent a shudder of fear up and
down Harry’s spine. Szabo uttered a grunt, but left, reluctantly it
seemed, as a frown flickered briefly across his mouth.

After he left, Kulakov nodded and rubbed his
multiple hands together. “I must show you our compound. This is
where we—and you—shall make magic happen. It will be the magic of
science, young man, and not something a magician conjures out of
the ether.”

“If you think I’m going to help you, you’re
crazy,” Harry stated. “What makes you—?”

“Come with me,” Kulakov interrupted. “There
is only one reason, and that reason should be impetus enough for
you. I will show you.”

He moved away from the cell and gestured with
one of his arms. “Move ahead of me to the door at the end of the
hallway,” he instructed. “There are stairs. Go down two flights.
There, you will see your answer.”

Knowing what he’d see and yet not wanting to,
Harry walked ahead of the blob. Kulakov made a squishy, unpleasant
sound as he moved along, like grapes being trod on to make wine.
Harry did take a look behind him—once—just in time to see one of
Kulakov’s limbs drop off with a mass of flesh attached to it. The
sight almost made him gag and he faced forward again.

After he opened the door, the smell of decay
smacked him in the face. Mold lay thick upon the walls. The stairs
were blackened by soot. Carved out of the rock, they were also
uneven, and he stumbled at times. Dim lights overhead lit the way,
throwing ominous shadows in his path.

“What is this place?” he asked as they went
along.

“This is the first laboratory ever built
during the Cold War,” Kulakov said from behind him, his tone
conversational. “I am told that it was built almost seventy years
ago, hewn out of the earth and built to last. This is true.”

The two lower levels contained laboratory
equipment, tables, beakers, centrifuges, DNA analyzers and more.
They also contained multiple Genesis Chambers, which looked to be
fully operational. There was also one gigantic fish tank the length
of the room with a very large shark swimming in it. It was a Great
White.
What else would it be?
Harry thought without
humor.

“It took a long time to find the proper shark
to work with. It cost a great deal of money to have it sent over.
However, it was worth it. That is what we bred Szabo from,” Kulakov
said. “I keep the shark as a souvenir.”

“At least you’re not calling it a pet.”

His comment earned him a throaty laugh. Szabo
stood near one of the tables, motionless. “I am almost finished,”
he said. “Everything will be ready shortly.”

Kulakov continued onward, not deigning to
look at him. Szabo grunted and turned away while the scientist
pointed ahead.

As they left Szabo to his chores, Harry said,
“You two aren’t exactly friends, are you?”

“No, we are not,” Kulakov answered after a
fashion. “However, he is useful to me. He was one of Grushenko’s
first experiments that succeeded. He could not be stopped, however,
and wanted to live his own way. He escaped and came here. After
some discussion regarding our mutual goals, I gave him more
enhancements.” He nodded at the shark tank. “Their DNA is
instrumental in healing, you understand.”

Sickened by the whole thing, Harry got out,
“You know what he’s after, right?”

Kulakov’s head bobbed up and down in his
jelly-like body. Waves of flesh accompanied the movement. “I am
aware of his goals. He can have his own realms if he wishes, and if
he can control them. I will have mine. That is enough for me.
Continue walking downstairs, please.”

At the bottom, they stopped in front of a
heavy looking door. “It is made of solid iron,” Kulakov said. “Six
inches thick, it can withstand almost anything. Open it. You have
the strength to do so.”

When Harry yanked on it, it resisted at
first. He exerted his strength, and the door creaked on rusty
hinges. He walked in, staring at the row of cells that lay ahead.
They were all filled with the most hideously deformed people he’d
ever seen, their eyes bugging out or non-existent. He saw the
silent screaming faces, twisted limbs and combinations of all types
of animals. He turned his head away in disgust. It may have been an
act of mercy to know that they were already dead, but it didn’t
matter. This took the term perversion to a whole new level.

“It sickens you, does it not?” Kulakov asked.
His voice retained its light tone, but it now had an edge to it.
“It used to sicken me, but I have become inured to it. In time, so
will you.”

Harry tried his best to keep the gorge from
rising, couldn’t and doubled over, spewing out bile. When he
finished, he stood erect and wiped his mouth, only to find the mad
scientist staring at him, his face expressionless. “If you are
finished,” he said, “go to the last cell on your right. You will
find her there.”

Doing as Kulakov suggested, he walked over
and found Anastasia lying on a filthy cot. “Anastasia!” he
yelled.

She stirred, lifted her hand in an exhausted
gesture and then let it drop. “I’m fine, Harry,” she said in a
weary voice as she moved into a seated position. Her face was a
mass of cuts and bruises. Deep gashes scored her body. Martuska’s
handiwork, he figured. She sagged down then, weary and beaten, but
picked her head up long enough to launch a gob of spit in Kulakov’s
direction.

Whirling around, Kulakov wore a sly smile of
victory on his face. “You see what I have,” he said with a note of
triumph in his voice. “Now come with me. I will tell you what I
want.”

Not wishing to leave, but having no choice,
Harry nodded at Anastasia, mouthed, “I’ll be back” and left with
the monster-guide shepherding him upstairs.

At the laboratory on the second floor, Szabo
was busy sweeping up. “Is there anything else that you wish me to
do?” he asked, grinding his teeth together. His tone indicated that
he thought menial work beneath him.

“Yes,” Kulakov replied. “Go upstairs and
search for that pig. Take some men if you have to, but find him. I
want him back alive.”

So Istvan had gotten away. A sense of
satisfaction went through Harry, but it faded after Szabo nodded
and bared his teeth. With an audible snap, he shut his jaws and
left the room. An uncomfortable silence filled the air until Harry
asked, “Who are you, really?”

“What did Morozoff say to you?”

The answer surprised Harry and he started.
“You know him?”

Kulakov let out a sigh, the first human trait
he’d exhibited so far. “Please be aware that we have followed your
every move since you and your girlfriend began living in that cabin
in upstate New York six months ago. There is very little that we
don’t know.”

He paused to scratch his head with one of his
arms. It flowed through his body a good six inches before stopping.
Another limb dropped off and Kulakov gave it quick, somewhat
regretful glance before continuing his story.

“Morozoff may have told you a few things, but
not everything. I will. A man named Roslov was the head of the
KGB’s medical section when it was at its peak of power and control.
I was a doctor, researching life-extension techniques. I graduated
medical school at the age of twenty and continued to work at the
school after that.

“I may have been young, but as my professors
considered me the brightest in my classes at medical college, they
contacted the KGB. After that, at the age of twenty-three, the KGB
recruited me. I served them faithfully for over twenty years. And
yes, I met Morozoff a few times in the course of my duties, mainly
to ask for funding. As I recall, he was about three years older
than me.”

His answer stunned Harry. Morozoff was over
eighty, which meant that Kulakov had to be...

“Yes, I am seventy-nine years old,” the
scientist replied as if reading his mind. A crafty smile appeared
on his face. “Have I not aged well?”

Not really, no, Harry thought, but instead
asked, “What happened?”

Two bulges formed in the gelatinous mass that
simulated shrugging shoulders. “I was interested then as well as
now in extending life. My first experiments were crude, using
glands, hormones and insulin, among other drugs. There was some
success, but at a price. Most of my subjects died. Some lived, but
suffered massive brain or physical trauma. The KGB threatened to
cut my funding. Only Roslov believed in me and set me up in this
laboratory before he turned his mind to other things. He gave me
freedom to work, but always demanded results.”

Another brief sigh came from him. “Results
take time. To placate him, I helped him with the sports programs.
They were very successful, needless to say. The glory from that
earned me the right to ask for more funding and gave me time to
concentrate on my real work.”

He continued speaking, his voice growing more
impassioned with every sentence. Stories about
Glasnost,
funding being cut, the KGB losing power... he relayed everything
and laid out the history of this program. “When the openness of
Glasnost
happened under Andropov, this program was one of
the first to be developed. It was necessary for everything to
remain secret, and I was put in charge. Our backers consisted of
ex-KGB, bankers, and industrialists, all of whom loved Mother
Russia.”

“You continued experimenting on people?”

Kulakov nodded. “Yes, but as I have said,
many failures occurred in the initial stages of testing. So, I took
the risk and experimented on myself. The results did not show at
first, but after a few years, it became apparent. My body, my
cellular makeup, began to break down. It was only after I consulted
Nurmelev and Grushenko that they managed to stabilize my
condition.