The Flock (19 page)

“You look a bit
stunned
to see me. Surely you can't say my visit is completely unexpected.” Irons was not smiling, was not frowning; he seemed neither pleased nor angry.

Tatum shuddered, visibly. “I thought that you would call me in,” he said.

Irons removed the cigar and waved it with a great, exaggerated flourish worthy of any stage. His bio, which every employee was required to read, said that he'd been an actor as a youth, and had abandoned that career by his twenty-fourth year, when he'd worked his way into surer, more lucrative work in the film industry. “You thought that I'd
call you in
.” He blew out a puff of smoke. “That's really amusing, Tatum. Truly it is.”

The security chief sat motionlessly, afraid to move, afraid to stand, afraid to comment. He merely sat and breathed, and waited.

“I thought you were a professional. I thought that you knew how to get the job done, my friend.” His face remained a stony, unreadable mask.

“The men I chose for the job were a poor choice. I admit it. I won't even try to lay the blame elsewhere. It was my fault,” he admitted. And, really, it
was
his fault.

“Well, I'm happy to hear you claim that.” Irons moved toward the desk, toward the frozen William Tatum, chief of security. As soon as he was at the desk, his thighs
just
touching the oaken platform, he brought his perfectly manicured fist down on the top of it with a great deal of force. “I
like
it when a man admits he has
completely
fucked up!”

Even though he had known something like that was coming, Tatum flinched. He knew deep down that the somewhat voluntary reaction was at least partially for Irons' benefit. It was best not to make him any angrier than he already was. This was, in fact, the only time Tatum had seen anything like a true, human emotion coming out of the man.

“Fortunately for you, no one has been able to trace the
idiots
you hired back to this company. God,” he breathed out hoarsely. “I'd hate to think of the money I'd have to outlay to shut it all up.”

His voice cracking, Tatum tried to squeak a further apology. “I'm sorry, Mr. Irons. These men have worked for me in the past. Had done some exemplary work. Up until…until the moment they were discovered with…with,” Tatum was struggling with a way to say it without stating the obvious. He could see himself trying to explain away his words in a court of law.

“With Dodd's body, you mean?”

Tatum stared at the boss, the ultimate chief.

“They got away, though,” Tatum said. “The police didn't capture them, even though they recovered the…the…his…”

“Dodd's body. Yes.” Irons continued to stand and to silently puff away, examining Tatum as if he were some interesting but bothersome pest. “Did you know that they even fouled up their little visit to that fellow from Fish and Wildlife? The one who had talked to Dodd?” He waited for Tatum to answer, but got no reply.

“You won't have to worry about the police questioning them. They weren't around to be questioned. They did that much, at least. And even if they left a fingerprint, it won't matter. Neither has a criminal record.”

Michael Irons used the cigar to jot a decimal point in the air. “Oh, we'll
never
have to worry about those particularly inept
assholes
. I won't. You won't. The company won't. Their families won't. No one will. No one will ever again have to waste a moment's grief on either of them.”

“What?” Tatum croaked.

“Well. To put it in plain terms, my fine, stupid friend: I had them both aced. They're dead.” He removed the cigar from his lips, unclenching his jaws in what appeared to be an almost painful manner. There was something akin to a grimace upon his smooth, unblemished, too-young-for-a-chairman face.

“And as for you, Mr. Head of Security…” He paused, drew in a breath and released it almost silently. “You will sit here for a while and do nothing beyond see to it that nobody picks any pockets in the malls, or steals some tourist's rental car, or takes advantage of some dumb broad visiting one of our fine hotels. I've passed along the responsibility of taking care of our…eh, our
problems
. You will
not
interfere in any way with the Colonel or any of his actions. Do I make myself clear? Hmm?”

“Yes, sir. Very clear, sir.” Tatum remained sitting rigidly in place, but risked a swallow.

“You know…it's not
right
for a man of my position to raise more than an eyebrow in a situation like this. A man such as myself needs to not have to worry about such trivialities. It's not
right
for me to pick up a phone and deal with such unpleasantness and be forced to make
outrageous
offers or spend ridiculous sums of money. It isn't right, damn it.”

“I understand, sir. You should never have felt the need t…”

“Shut up, Tatum.”

Tatum stopped. Did not finish the syllable. Looked up at his fate.

“You will stay here. Right here in Salutations and act like you're nothing more than small town police chief. You'll stick your nose in nothing more serious than a fender bender, because that is the absolute limit of unpleasantness that I want anyone to experience in the confines of my town for the next little while. Do I make myself clear?”

Tatum nodded.

“Good. I'm glad that you are aware of my position.” He put the cigar back in his mouth and clamped down on it. Tatum could hear his teeth mashing the rolled leaves of tobacco. “And Tatum? Stay here. Go nowhere.” He held his arms out to indicate Salutations. “This township will be the extent of your little world until I say otherwise.”

With that, he turned and walked back to the door. Quietly, he opened it and stepped out into the hall, which remained just as silent as when he had entered Tatum's office. No face peered their way from down the hall, no head popped out of any adjoining room to see what had happened. Everyone in the building was currently doing his job at peak performance. The Shark was about, cruising, and it was best to lie low during such times.

Irons went out into the hallway, closing the door to Tatum's office as he left. Inside, Tatum put his head in his hands and actually contemplated suicide.

In the dawning, Walks Backward was not entirely surprised to see that the heads of the Flock had decided to bed down in close proximity to his own position. There were plenty of reasons for such a move. The Scarlet was not adhering to the laws, was not acting in a rational way. It could be that they were there at precisely the one point that the rogue would be most likely to attack were he to do the unthinkable and pierce the carefully hidden daylight sanctuary they had chosen to rest out the sunlit hours. It could be that they merely wanted to be close to Walks Backward, who guarded the welfare of the Flock as no one but themselves, and who was sometimes to be rewarded for that service by the honor of their physical presence while he lightly slept.

Or, more likely, this pair of intelligent mates suspected that their faithful watchguard was preparing for mutiny. Perhaps they knew that he had already chosen a prospective mate and that even the embryonic moves toward a mating ritual had begun. It could be that these two, who had spent their lives guarding and watching over their fellows, were aware of what was going through the mind of Walks Backward, and they wanted to be as close as possible should he actually threaten their primacy.

Walks Backward lay in the temporary nest he had chosen for himself. It was clear of the bothersome ants, and the colors of the forest floor and the surrounding plants perfectly matched his mottled coloration. The shadows and patterns of light that played over his feathered body revealed nothing to any eye but that of another of his own kind. He was merely a bit of brown there between the branches; it an additional patch of darkness in the shadows. He crouched there, at rest, but his hugely powerful legs bunched lightly beneath his torso, those gigantic claws even then tentatively touching the loam, prepared to dig in to produce solid purchase in the softness of decaying plant matter.

His head was locked into a position low to the ground, but high enough above it to afford him maximum sight of the surrounding territory. By flicking his great head in the tiniest of movements, he could make a complete circuit of their defensive bubble. He could see in each direction of the compass, and clearly, and he could also watch the forest canopy for any suspicious motions. And he could observe the skies. Few creatures bothered to search the skies or the roof of the forest. Men did that. And the Flock did that. Walks Backward twitched his huge, menacing head and looked toward Egg Father.

The rival-to-be was looking directly at him. There was something new in that wide, unblinking gaze. And Walks Backward had to admit that Egg Father knew. His leader, his lawgiver, his
commander
was aware of the ideas that had been forming in his mind; the emotions at war with long held beliefs. Walks Backward met Egg Father's gaze, the two great eyes, each clearest blue rimmed in crimson, staring unflinchingly into the other.

I know what you are planning,
that gaze said to the watcher.

You know also why I have to do this,
was the reply.

For a long time the pair merely sat and stared. But even so, Walks Backward continued to do his job, as he was able. His opposite eye continued to make a circuit of the surrounding territory, taking it all in, viewing with an amazing clarity of peripheral vision impossible to imagine for any man, or any mammal. And his keen hearing caught the breaths of the Flock, the tiny murmurs of chicks and young, of their fellow forest denizens moving and twitching and living. All was well in their world, for this moment, except for the probable danger each huge and terrible predator posed against the other. There was, perhaps, no avoiding it, now.

For hours the pair continued to stare, communicating things in ways alien and efficient. In their ways, they debated what had happened and what was going to occur. Walks Backward did not wish things to be this way, did not
want
this terrible thing to happen. But he was to be given no other option. This was how it was going to be.

Slowly, painfully, the Sun arced overhead, having come from its nest in the dawn and inching toward the same nest on the other side of the world for its evening rest. Its own life was the mirror image of that of the Flock. They had once, long ago, led the life the Sun lived. But for many generations they had been forced to go in the other direction, to hunt and to
live
at night rather than in the daylight hours. All during those long, hot hours the two lay, their eyes locked in soundless conversation.

And then.

And then, night was coming. The Sun was going, fading toward the horizon, the trees beckoning to it, supplying it with a place to settle with its great, red wings. In time, the heat of the day gave way to the cool of the night, and the Flock began slowly to stir, their breath coming faster, quicker, more lively, until they were moving, stretching their small arms, pairs of claws on each hand inching up and down, preparing for the hunt. And in the grasses and from the brush and from out of the trees came the Flock. They were ready, but waiting only for the Egg Father and Egg Mother to speak, to help them make order from the night.

Walks Backward stood, slowly, stretching his stiff muscles, breathing deeply and letting out a long exhalation. He watched Egg Father do as he did. The battle was going to come. Clawed feet tensed, talons digging lightly into soil.

The Egg Father raised up his huge, beaked head. A sound came out of that razored mouth. The Flock waited to hear the command.

Walks Backward was prepared for indignant accusation, for a rage and an acceptance of the challenge he was ready to offer.

But something else came out of Egg Father's powerful throat. Out of his great, wise head. He was commanding the Flock. The command was not “hunt,” but an alteration of that familiar order. The command was
kill,
it was
war,
it was
self-defense;
and it gave a target, a recipient of the results of that singular command.

The target was the Scarlet rogue. The Scarlet rogue would be this night's prey. The one who threatened their existences would now pay for his foolishness by being dead, by becoming food for the Flock. Egg Mother's beak opened wide, and the command was copied, reinforced.

And a third voice trilled the same message into the night air, into the ears of the Flock, into the minds of young and old, male and female. Walks Backward had lifted his own head into the night air, joining them,
with
them, as was right and proper.

Kill,
the three guardians said. Again and again. In unison.
Make war,
they commanded. Together, as the unit they would always be.

Something was amiss.

Holcomb was sure of it. All of his employees who knew the frequency of his radio also knew that he had forbidden it to be used. He had, in fact, informed them never to use it, even though he had given it out to four people. Kinji Kamaguchi had it, as did Adam Levin, Billy Crane, and Kate Kwitney.

When he had paused, as planned, to use his radio to get in touch with Kamaguchi and Levin, there had been a severe feedback. Initially, Holcomb assumed that there was something wrong with the set, but he soon knew better. The small handheld radios had a range of about six miles. More than enough for the work for which he intended of them; they were powerful for their size. But as soon as he switched his on, the feedback had been tremendous. It was something that should not have occurred, for he was using that specific frequency not utilized by anyone transmitting in the area.

Something was very wrong. This was more than just his careful paranoia at work.

Holcomb switched the radio off and waited, to make sure it wasn't just a temporary glitch. As soon as he tried it again, the air was alive with that same feedback, the radio squealing at a high pitch. Alone there in the forest, the ATV's engine warm with gasoline fumes, he sat and thought. Gazing all around, he spotted nothing but the familiar sights of the wilderness. Even above, the sky was clear and the nearest plane was nothing more than a streak of white tens of thousands of feet overhead and many miles north.

The source of the competing signal was obviously either on his person or aboard the ATV. Slowly, methodically, he disrobed there in the forest, examining each piece of his clothing until he stood completely nude, the soles of his bare feet feeling the cool forest loam. And just as slowly, he climbed back into his clothes, checking each piece for the source of the signal. It was possible, if the device were very small, that it might be concealed in the fabric of what he was wearing, or in his boots. But he found nothing out of the ordinary.

Moving away from his vehicle, he switched the radio on again. The feedback was still there, still severe, but he discovered as he walked away from the ATV that the feedback grew less and less powerful. So, he knew where it was. Perhaps someone had merely stowed another radio onboard and had left it on by accident. Quickly, Holcomb returned to his ATV and looked into the storage area behind the driver's seat. Deciding to just start in the most obvious place, he reached in and pulled out the last item he had placed there. It was his backpack, which could have been touched by any, or all, of his trusted assistants. In fact, thinking back to the moment he had left, the place a din of motion and sound, he realized that Ron Riggs had even been present. Someone with Riggs had lifted the pack to hand off to Kate who had brought it to him.

Laying the pack on the seat, he put the radio beside it and turned it on. The squawk of radio noise was insane. As methodically as he had disrobed and dressed himself, he began to go through the pack. It was a good, internal frame pack—the only kind he used. By the time he had emptied the fourth outer pocket, he had found the planted transmitter.

Holding it in the palm of his hand, he took a close look. It was a fine bit of workmanship. Not much larger, and about the same dimensions, as a cigarette; it looked to have been cobbled together in someone's workshop. Breaking it open, he soon found the power source, a tiny disc-shaped battery, and disconnected it.

Holcomb felt a curse rising out of his throat, but he stanched the flow of words before they could begin. He had always made a habit of never speaking when he was out in the bush. Animals might forget the sound of an engine, once the machine was silent for long enough. And they might ignore the casual sounds of something, even a person, moving through their environment. But they would always be spooked by human speech, so he never raised his voice over a whisper when he was doing his scouting. Holcomb clenched his jaws tightly and said nothing. But he did allow himself the pleasure of shattering the ingenious bit of electronics under the heels of his boots. He stamped down on it again and again until it was just a ruined bit of metal and plastic.

Something serious was about to happen. He was sure of it.

With the transmitter in ruin, he went back to the ATV and tried his radio again. There was no feedback, at all. He set it to a band that should have raised Levin and he whispered into it. His biologist was under instructions to be near enough at this point to hear him. “This is Holcomb. Over.” He waited, giving his employee some time. He tried again. There was no response.

Something was happening.

Holcomb switched to the band that had been agreed for the use of Kamaguchi. His voice was a whisper there in the vast forest. Bluejays called nearby. “Kamaguchi. This is Holcomb. Are you there? Over.” Time passed. There was no answer.

Something had already happened.

He could think of no reason any of them would deviate from their plans when they
knew
he was attempting to make a visual contact with the flock of terror birds. Even if the compound were afire, they would have left the lines of communication open. There was only one thing that came to mind that would cause his careful team to abandon or forget their routine.

Someone must have discovered that something previously unknown was living on this land. And if that were true, he supposed that they were trying to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Or else one or more of them had done something to reveal the secret. Either way, something was very wrong.

He had pondered this in a somewhat paranoid manner since the day he had found the flock of phorusrachids. Vance Holcomb had learned a valuable lesson when his Filipino friend had vanished from his own home. A man such as Vasquez, wealthy beyond most human dreams, with fantastic resources at reach, had still found it impossible to survive when at war against his own: the wealthy who lived only to increase their profits.

Knowing this, Holcomb had of course taken certain security precautions. And he had gathered a small circle of professionals who seemed more interested in a solid cause than in treason. However, there was always a chink in that particular armor. Even a seemingly inspired person could be swayed by circumstances. How did the saying go?
Need and opportunity makes a thief of any man
. Holcomb actually trusted no one. He realized that there could always be a Brutus among his disciples.

Someone had been trying to make him easy to find. Someone who had thought he wouldn't discover the hidden transmitter until it had served its use and he was found. But by whom? And for what reason?

He didn't know exactly why, but the reason could not be an honest one. Something nasty was waiting for him back there. Of that he was completely certain. He wondered whom, among the four, was at the core of it. Again, it could be anyone he trusted, or any combination of them, or perhaps someone from the outside. That fellow Riggs. It could be
all
of them. It was because of this that he always chose to do his field research on his own.

None of them knew just where it was that he would sneak away to in order to see the flock in action, to steal those rare photographs and videotapes. None among them realized just how much he knew of the flock's habits and motivations. These birds were, he had decided, far beyond any animal he had ever encountered in sheer intelligence. They were, he had learned, on a par with humans.

Holcomb had discovered the plant while he was headed across the southern edge of the smallest of the savannas that the flock enjoyed hunting. Quickly, he disconnected his radio from its battery pack. He didn't want to chance it being used to triangulate his position. If they were going to find him, now, then they'd have to do it the old-fashioned way. Being an excellent tracker, he thought that he could throw off the best of them.

He took his ATV a few miles beyond the point where he normally left it. He had driven it north-northwest of the savanna, to a point he usually would have considered uncomfortably close to property owned by that right wing madman, Winston Grisham. Still, he had to say one thing for Grisham: the man expected his private property to be respected, but he never violated another's property lines, either. To Holcomb's knowledge, the Colonel and his private army had always stayed on the Grisham side of the line. So, he took the chance and stashed the ATV at a place that was barely a hundred yards from the strands of barbed wire that encircled most of the old Marine's land.

Leaving the vehicle, Holcomb had concealed it both in its vinyl covering, and with a neat and seemingly haphazard array of forest trash. He was quite good at that type of camouflage, had learned it from a Nepalese Army officer years ago. Only a trained eye could find his ATV. Without another concern over it, he had strapped the heavy pack that his people had helped him prepare to his back, and set out for a place which no one other than himself had any knowledge.

For most of that day, using up all but a sliver of the daylight left to him, he had made double time. He'd crossed the southern savanna, pierced a dense stand of tupelos and red oaks that grew on a low ridge of sandstone, and had pushed on until he had made the western arm of the largest of the savannas lying within the wilderness. This wasn't where most of the flock's activities occurred, but it was where he had painstakingly erected a very special structure. Concealed in a stand of white pines, partially buried in the limestone cap was a hidden room that he'd built, panel by panel over the previous four years. Holcomb had carefully dropped in each section of the small building by use of a glider he owned.

Every time the rich man came to his private and unknown little fortress, he thought of the glider drops, of sliding dangerously low on the currents to release his small packages of building material and other supplies. It had been during one of his flights, on that unpowered vehicle, that he had first seen the flock. No one else, he assumed, had ever flown over those savannas using a glider. The flyer made no sound; any sound,
any sound at all,
would have alerted those foxy creatures and he never would have found them.

But he had. Flying in low one day, the tow plane having long since released him, he had sunk perilously low, maybe two hundred feet above the treetops. And he had seen the flock.

At first, they had seemed to be merely dark places nestled down in the tall grasses of the longleaf prairie he floated silently above. But then he had turned about, tilting the left wing and had circled like a gigantic owl, no sound betraying him, his shadow far out and away from the things that had attracted his eye. A second pass had revealed that the spots were, in fact, living things. So a third pass was risked. And then, in the lazy, reddish light of the afternoon, one of the animals had stood.

And Holcomb, long ridiculed for his fanciful quests to seek out the sea monster that lurked in Loch Ness, to find the
mkole mbembe
in the Congo, to locate living mammoths in Nepal, had seen something he never truly believed could exist on Earth. He had found dinosaurs stalking a forgotten wilderness in the most unlikely of places. And it was then that he knew that he had been chosen to save them. Any way he knew how.

Later, he had discovered that the creatures weren't, technically, dinosaurs. They were great, predatory birds that had evolved the extremely efficient body forms of their saurian forebears. For a year, he had watched them, alone, not daring to reveal what he had found. It was only when his own attempts to purchase the vast acreage held in an accidental wilderness state were challenged that he had deemed it necessary to bring others in. He had built his compound and he had hired a core of research scientists to help him and to keep the knowledge a secret until he decided the world should share in it.

But none of that crew knew of his secret outpost here in the midst of that wilderness.

And one or more of them was about to betray him. The fortunate discovery of the transmitter had told him that much.

In the waning light of afternoon, he had come to his secret place, his fortress invisible. There were devices inside it by which he could find out things of which he was currently ignorant. Spying worked both ways.

Coming to a tuft of tall, green sedges, he had knelt and pulled the stuff aside. There, hidden, was the shallow tunnel entrance to his dome. He had pushed the heavy backpack in ahead of him and had closed the entranceway behind, inching his way along until he came into the secret room. As the sun set, as the darkness fell, he had activated a bank of batteries, closed a number of fragile circuits, put on a set of headphones.

He could use these to sometimes hear what was being said within his compound, and soon Holcomb was listening to what was happening at the Eyesore.

His paranoia was not paranoia, at all. Merely reason. When he heard the first gunshots, he knew he'd been right. But he remained ignorant of an even tinier transmitter that had been placed cleverly in his backpack, a small device left permanently open and sending out a regular pulse that would make triangulating his current position a very easy prospect.