Separation (16 page)

The question caused Anastasia to blush, quite
a feat considering the fur. “Maybe a little,” she mumbled and asked
them if they’d found out any additional information.

Jason smirked and moved to the first
computer, typing rapidly. “What haven’t we gotten? This has been
one nonstop info-gathering expedition. Man, you have been out of
circulation too long.”

And Jason had to be out of touch. “Haven’t
you been listening?” Harry asked, somewhat peeved. “That nutball
took us captive, and he’s got plans for the big leagues. We have to
stop him. Show us what you got.”

His remonstration caused Jason to get a sober
expression on his face. “Sorry man, let me check this out for you.”
The clicking of keys ensued, and finally he gave a triumphant
exhalation of breath. “This is something we found. We got power
surges all over, movement, and more people being,” he hesitated,
“killed.”

Overton cut in to say, “When you two went
missing, we followed up two separate leads, one in France, where
you were, and another in Spain. We were looking for unusually large
power spikes as well as movement and attacks. We got both.”

In terms of attacks, there had been several
in the last few days, all in Madrid and Barcelona. “The unusual
thing is,” said Overton as he tapped some keys on the computer and
pictures surfaced, “the attackers died shortly after. Some were
shot by security, but three were captured and died in jail.”

Curious as to how they met their maker, Harry
asked, “What did they die from, boredom?”

“It was from multiple organ failure. That’s
what the doctors there said.”

Strange, thought Harry as he considered the
possibilities. Putting them on the shelf for now, he asked about
the power surges. “Where are they coming from?”

Maze chimed in with her findings. “It seems
the mountain ranges in Spain hold all the power.”

On the surface, it seemed impossible. “There
aren’t any power stations there, are there?”

“There weren’t before, but there are now,”
she answered. “Satellite imagery monitored heat emissions. They
showed a tremendous surge in power over the last two days.” She
tapped a few keys on her computer, and a picture of a graph
appeared, showing two large spikes over the previous forty-eight
hour period.

To Harry, it meant someone—more than likely
Allenby—was operating his machines at a high rate, churning out his
warrior clones and perhaps more human copies. Copies of whom, he
wondered. Maybe he was also building an army at the same time, but
that was sheer speculation.

“So, we have two problems,” Overton said.
“One is to find out how many people Allenby has under him. The
second is linking up with the Spanish government.”

“Don’t they know about this?” Harry posed the
question, wondering how no one had taken any action.

The agent let out a sound of disgust. “They
know. Once Maze discovered the power surges, we alerted Interpol as
well as the representatives of Spain. They view this as,” he
grimaced, “an internal matter. They’ve been reluctant to cooperate.
They don’t want any trouble, and if we go over there as legal
representatives, then someone’s going to scream bloody murder.”

“They’ve already got trouble,” Anastasia
interjected, her arms folded across her chest and a stern
expression on her face. “They’ve got a nutcase building his own
copies right under their noses. He’s already had his people kill
innocents. We have to do something!”

“I know, but we have no jurisdiction there,”
Overton countered, giving a heavy sigh as he stood up. “There’s
nothing else we can do except to go over and assess the situation.
Without the go-ahead from the Spanish government, we’d be breaking
international law if we acted.”

“Now,” he cleared his throat, and his manner
became more official in tone, “the Spanish representative—his name
is Francisco Rodriguez—has cleared the way and will meet with us.
We’ve apprised him of the details.”

The only question that remained was when
they’d leave. Overton answered it for them. “The day after
tomorrow, so get ready. Istvan is staying here. Leo,” he turned to
the little mole-man, “you don’t have to go, but maybe they’ll—”

“I will go,” he interrupted. “I make promise
to help. If I help, then maybe I can be turned back to me
again.”

Harry wanted to tell him the process might
not be so easy, but wasn’t sure if Leo would cooperate or not
should he know the potential for failure. Silently, he made a vow
to do everything possible.

Silence fell over the room, and Overton
rubbed his hands together briskly. “Good, then it’s all settled. We
go in, take out the facilities or whatever’s down there if we can,
and get out. I want Allenby alive, if possible. If not, I won’t
lose any sleep over it.”

Speech made, he exited the room, followed by
Jason and Maze. That left the four to get some sleep, while three
of them geared themselves up mentally to take on what had to be the
biggest challenge of their lives.

It was late afternoon when they arrived.
Madrid turned out to be hot and humid. Inside the hangar in a
cordoned off area, they met with Senor Rodriguez. A short and
slender man in his late thirties with slicked back dark hair and a
pair of flashing black eyes, he greeted Harry, Anastasia and Leo
with professional courtesy, bowing slightly and shaking hands with
Overton. He spoke in a thick accent, gesturing all the while.

“Our government is aware of the problem. We
did not know about Allenby until it was too late. We know where he
is, though.”

Anastasia asked, “So why haven’t you arrested
him?”

He turned to regard her with a grave
expression. “It is not that simple. He is sequestered in a
mountainous area, and has a number of guards, a seemingly limitless
amount of them. Apparently, he has been, er, amassing his army for
a long time.

“Also, the area in which he has sequestered
himself is well protected, and he has already killed a number of
our personnel. We are trying to keep this quiet, for we do not want
the public to panic and go on a hunt for anyone not human.”

He threw an apologetic look Harry’s way.
“Forgive me for saying that, but we are still not sure of how to
treat transgenics.”

“How about treating us like people?” asked
Anastasia, the anger clear in her voice.

“We would like to,” Rodriguez countered and
his manner wavered between officiousness and conciliatory. “There
is suspicion and mistrust on both sides, and we do not want to see
the conflict build. The public does not want more killing, and if
they see such... they may just take the law into their own hands.
We have kept the reporters away, due to the possibility of this
being broadcast. It has been,” he wiped his brow, “a nightmare for
all of us.”

“What about the other transgenics?” Harry
wanted to know.

A shrug greeted his question. “We have asked
the other transgenic individuals to join us, but they have been
reluctant to help. I can understand their problem. Perhaps once
this man is gone from our country, we can talk about fixing our
differences.”

He then turned to point to a limousine. “Come
with me. We will take you to where they are. You will understand
once we arrive.”

The trip took around four hours, ending up in
the area of Andalusia, the city of Sierra de Cadiz. Andalusia,
Senor Rodriguez explained, was an autonomous region in the southern
area of Spain, consisting of eight provinces. Sierra de Cadiz was
one of the most sparsely populated provinces, with roughly a
hundred thirty thousand inhabitants.

“You understand, this man, this Allenby, he
must have come here years ago to begin construction. We did not
know what he was up to until it was too late.”

Harry gazed up at the fast approaching
mountain range. They’d arrived after dark, but he made out the
immense wall of stone far ahead, the flat and open terrain, and the
fact the topography offered no shelter should they decide on a
frontal assault.

Stopping far away from the mountain area,
Rodriguez produced a pair of binoculars and peered through them.
“These are enhanced to include night vision. If you look straight
ahead, there are more than fifty... things... patrolling the
entrance to the facility. We only found out about this location a
few days ago. I must tell you, they have mined it as well. Four of
our men were blown to bits when they attempted to enter. Twelve
others were shot.”

“I don’t suppose you tried bombing it,”
Overton suggested.

Rodriguez shook his head. “Our government
will not allow such an area to be attacked that way. As for the
enemy, they are inside, but with what kind of machinery, I do not
know.”

Harry took the binoculars and checked things
out. No fence, but transgenic goat-men and bear-men held
high-powered rifles at the ready, and others were armed with
anti-tank weapons. “How’d they get the weapons?”

A second later, he remembered Allenby had
already dealt with certain former Soviet powers, and Overton’s next
words underscored his thoughts as he took the binoculars. “He
probably worked something out with the Russians. They smuggled
things in, no doubt.”

After scanning the area, he handed the
binoculars back to Rodriguez and gave a grunt of
dissatisfaction.

No one said anything for a time until Leo
asked, “How deep are mines?”

Rodriguez stared at him as if he were crazy.
“They are only buried under the sand. But the weight of twenty
pounds or more will set them off.”

A sniff came from Leo. “I go deeper. Someone
give me rope.”

With a look of curiosity on his face,
Rodriguez opened the trunk of the car, searched around, and came
out with a coil of nylon rope, perhaps sixty meters’ worth. “Will
this do?”

Leo snatched the rope and slashed at it,
cutting it into a number of sections. Soon, he had more than
fifteen lengths and tied them around one wrist in a slow, laborious
gesture. “Wait for me.”

Before anyone could say his idea was
ludicrous, he started to dig furiously, and his large paws threw up
chunks of sand and sod. In a blinding flurry of movement, he
tunneled down and was soon lost to sight. “Madre de Dios” muttered
Rodriguez, and he trained his binoculars on a pathway to the
mountain.

“What’s he doing?” whispered Overton.

“He is tunneling.”

Obviously he was. Harry snatched the
binoculars from Rodriguez’s hands. From the furrows and sand being
thrown up, Leo was moving and moving fast. The mines—he had somehow
managed to fasten a number of them to the various ropes he had, and
he was dragging them under the sand toward the guards.

“Oh crap,” Harry whispered.

“What is it?” Anastasia asked as she took the
binoculars.

“He stopped.”

Apparently he had, as the guards converged on
a lump. Leo didn’t appear, but one of the guards went off to alert
someone—probably Allenby—and two steps into his journey, blew up,
with bits and pieces of flesh scattering over the area. That scared
the other guards and they began to flee, only to be blown up in
turn.

“He repositioned the mines,” Harry said in
awe. “Now’s our chance—let’s go!”

Overton cautioned him to wait, but Anastasia
had already taken off, and Harry couldn’t let her have all the fun.
Racing to keep up with her, he panted out, “You realize there might
still be mines here.”

“We’ll just have to trust Leo.”

As luck would have it, the mole-man poked his
head out of a hole and called, “This way, this way, the way, she is
clear!”

Good idea, and they ran into the entrance.
Leo did his best to keep up with them, and after venturing over
three hundred meters, they found themselves at a ledge. An elevator
led down, and staring at the action below him, Harry understood the
master plan.

In a vast cavern the size of two basketball
courts, Allenby had managed to set up a number of Genesis Chambers.
These looked somewhat different. They were larger in scale, perhaps
done to accommodate the increased size of other, warrior-type
transgenics. A computer sat on a table in the center of the cavern,
a memory stick placed to the side of it. It had a red dot on it.
Allenby had used the false information Harry had given him. He’d
used it... but he wouldn’t like the result.

“Look,” Anastasia whispered and gestured at
the far wall.

There, more than eighty chambers stood, each
with figures inside them. Even at this distance, Harry saw things
clearly. Some of the occupants looked humanoid. The others didn’t
resemble anything human in the slightest. No one seemed to be on
the ground below, but the hum of machinery came through loud and
clear. “We have to destroy everything,” Harry whispered back.

“That’s a great idea, but how do we do
it?”

“Follow me.”

They rode the elevator down to the bottom,
and once there, Harry took stock of the situation. A doorway at the
far end of the cavern had to lead somewhere, and he guessed Allenby
and his horde were behind it.

Hugging the wall, Harry crept along as
quietly as possible, just in case any of the opposition showed. He
didn’t know much about wiring, but he did know how to overload a
machine and proceeded to turn every switch and dial up to its max
capacity.

A sharp whine sounded, followed by another
and yet another. The generators sat off to the side, and Harry
turned those up to maximum capacity as well. Soon, they began to
smoke and tremble. The shaking got worse, and dust began to sift
from the ceiling.

“What’s going on?” Allenby emerged from the
back room with three enormous bearlike lackeys in tow. They were
armed with pistols, while their leader was not. “What are you
doing?”

“We’re putting you out of business,”
Anastasia replied, waved her hand at Leo and then pointed at the
elevator. “Enjoy your retirement.”