Cain (18 page)

And Cain charged.

Closing with the sinuous speed of a panther he was among them, whirling and striking as Soloman twisted down and away with a fist thundering over his head. It was a frantic fight with bullets hitting commando and foe, and Cain howled with pain as he laid hands on a rifle, instantly turning to fire. Soloman leaped forward as he killed the first man.

"Cain!" he bellowed, leaping.

Ablaze with fury Cain whirled into the challenge as Soloman fired dead-on, the explosive slugs impacting into the massive chest. A violent eruption of red lava showered all of them at the blast and as Soloman hit the ground he screamed, firing again and again and again to finally send Cain to the ground.

As the giant crashed thunderously to his back
Soloman dove cleanly over him to hit the marble floor hard, rolling to his feet with the shotgun high, jacking a round.

"Kill him!" he roared.

All of them opened up and the museum thundered in automatic rifle fire. But as Soloman managed an emergency reload he saw Cain erupt once more to his feet, taking the horrendous damage only to tear out a throat, a heart, and then shatter a neck like a rotten branch before charging full-force, taking a soldier down in a tumbling heap.

Hurling the unconscious commando over a shoulder like a child, he
bellowed a curse and surged toward a plate-glass window. Only at the last second did he lash out to snatch
The Grimorium Verum
from the table as Malo frantically raised a fist. "Cease fire! Cease fire!" he screamed over the deafening din of battle and flame. "Cease fire or we'll hit our own man!"

With the force of a freight train Cain smashed through the window,
landing far on the sidewalk to stagger into the street where he turned, the soldier held effortlessly. Pausing in darkness and blood he glared with hellish wrath at Soloman.

"In time,
Soloman!" he raged.

Soloman
charged. "Let's do it now, Cain!"

With a curse, Cain ran.

Was lost.

***

"Three by three!" Malo shouted, hurling the MP-5 aside to
haul his shotgun from his back. "Bravo! Charlie! Delta! Echo! Go with Green Light! Initiate! Initiate! Initiate!"

Everyone leaped together to disintegrate what remained of the glass ina shower of shards, fearlessly pursuing Cain into the night as Malo bel
lowed over and over: "
Kill him
!
Kill him
!
Kill him
!"

Soloman
hit the street in a rush, mind moving like lightning. Even as he landed, he slammed more rounds into the SPAS and visualized an overview of the surrounding alleys and roads, trying to anticipate where Cain would go. Decision made instantly, he whirled at Malo.

"There's no way out of here
on foot!" he shouted. "Cain's got to steal something!"

Malo lifted the radio, and
Soloman heard the sounds of police and military choppers closing on the building. "Cain's last known direction of travel was northeast!" the lieutenant shouted. "I repeat! Cain's last direction of travel was northeast! Triangulate on him! Triangulate! If he doesn't have our man with him I'm authorizing cannons! I repeat! I'm authorizing cannons!"

Soloman
was already running, passing several Delta commandos as he heard the chopper pilot on the radio. "I've got visual acquisition of the target! He's moving north! He's going for Drake and Cloverdale!"

Soloman
cursed.

No way to make it
!

He knew it in a heartbeat.

Because in the last few seconds Cain had covered almost a quarter mile and Soloman couldn't match the giant's speed. But he also knew that Cain was badly wounded and had to be tiring fast so he would have to find a vehicle. It was his only chance for escape.

Soloman
remembered that Drake and Cloverdale was an overpass, and he slammed another round hard into the SPAS, running instantly toward the tunnel that connected the streets to the interstate. It was a battle decision and it could have been dead-wrong but Soloman knew from experience that that was all there was in true war, instant decisions that won the battle or lost it.

He ran in an all-out sprint and then heard the chopper pilot on the radio: "Cain has stolen a dark blue four
-door at Drake and Cloverdale! He's dropped the prisoner and he's moving for the tunnel! I repeat! Cain dropped our man! He's moving for the tunnel!"

Focusing on the radio traffic
Soloman heard Malo shouting, "Take the shot! Take the shot! Take the shot!"

"Negative, sir!" the pilot screamed back. "I'll hit civilian vehicles!"

Using a field and then a dry drainage ditch to cover the distance with surprising speed, Soloman reached the overpass as the chopper came up the roadway in a white haze, the spotlight highlighting a dark blue four-door that weaved frantically in and out of traffic. Threading a reckless path, the vehicle closed on the tunnel and Soloman knew there was no way to fire without hitting surrounding cars.

He quickly unslung the shotgun and whirled, focusing for a wild split
-second on a bus slowed by traffic. There was an instant spent on careful aim and he shot out tires on the left side, the exploding shells demolishing rim and rubber together as the bus driver desperately tried to pull away.

It stalled in the intersection, back
-piling traffic.

Timing it as he ran forward,
Soloman knew that Cain would already be halfway through the tunnel. He dove far from the concrete walkway with the shotgun slung across his back and hit the ground rolling, coming instantly to his feet from the terrific momentum, running. And as he reached the exit of the tunnel in a sprint he saw Cain smashing his way through the deadlock, forcing a path to freedom.

Caught in a breathless commitment to carry this fight to the death,
Soloman hurled the shotgun aside and shouted as he snatched the tanto from his waist, diving forward to land on the trunk of the car, all fear forgotten in the fatal decision.

As he crashed against the vehicle he stabbed downward, ferociously impaling the blade in the thick steel of the truck. Then Cain found a path and surged forward, blasting a smaller car from his escape route.

Soloman rose to a knee and lashed out to shatter the rear window. He didn't even feel the pain though he knew he was injured. He barely held balance as Cain hotly accelerated, the spotlight of the chopper glaring, blinding all of them.

Soloman
snatched a grenade from his waist as Cain accelerated even more, approaching a bridge over a river and raising an MP-5, firing back blindly over his shoulder.

Seeing the weapon raised,
Soloman rolled away as the blast tore a jagged steel path across the trunk and with the slow-motion acuity that comes only in combat knew everything in a vivid second, desperately pulling the grenade pin with his teeth as the car hit the bridge at a hundred miles an hour.

White water flashed past in freezing wind as
Soloman cast a wild glance toward the guardrail and moved on it, twisting back to smash the grenade through the window. Then in the next second he slammed his foot violently on the edge of the trunk, hurling himself into the night.

Soloman
sailed over the side, narrowly missing a girder to be engulfed by cold. Then he was falling through endless dark as the night behind him exploded in a roaring white light and he spun to see a fantastic circle of fire pin-wheeling down the bridge.

With a vengeful scream, he hurled up a fist.

Struck the water hard.

* * *

CHAPTER 12

Blood seeped slowly through gauze binding the wound in Soloman's forearm. He didn't remember being hit by a round as Cain fired the MP-5 through the window but a single bullet had indeed caught him, cutting a narrow hole through muscle and skin.

But the bleeding had almost already stopped and no bones were broken, no nerves cut. And he felt the quickly administered morphine injection freeing his mind from the pain as he analyzed the situation.

Cain's car had been demolished by the grenade, cart-wheeling down the bridge before spectacularly striking the guardrail and going over the edge in a mushrooming firestorm. It descended over 150 feet to collide like a meteor with the river where it slowly vanished in hissing steam and flame leaving a superheated fog on the waves.

It was the last thing
Soloman saw before being savagely pulled down by the undercurrent, a drowning deliverance that tumbled him over and over through deep moving water until he frantically tore off the heavy vest and equipment belt and fought clear of the suction. Without hesitation he threw over two thousand dollars' worth of equipment into the brink, but that was the price of war. Equipment was expendable; men who could effectively use the equipment weren't. It was a fundamental part of elite commando training to sacrifice money and equipment for lives.

Straining to the last moment to hold exploding lungs,
Soloman inhaled violently as he reached the surface, finding himself a hundred yards downriver, and amphibious assault training took over once more. Fighting the current, he made it to the shore.

The surviving Delta soldiers quickly lifted him from the water and as
Soloman saw their shocked expressions he knew that they held him in new respect, as always happened when soldiers witnessed another soldier do something so daring in the field.

They weren't men who impressed easily, he knew, but they regarded him with something like holiness as he sat silent and bleeding, having paid the price for his true authority. And he knew that it would last; they had seen him in the field now, knew he was for real.

All of the commandos were Navy trained as corpsmen and a few minutes after they'd lifted him from the water his wounds had been completely tended, his hand being the most seriously injured with glass embedded in the skin. Even the bullet wound wasn't as serious because a through-and-through hit to an extremity almost always caused less damage than people anticipated and rarely prevented a soldier from fighting. But if a man's hands were injured, then his ability to return force was instantly and severely limited, which could lead to far more serious complications—like death.

Questions began immediately by confused police and the Los Angeles Watch Commander dealt with Ben personally, backing down because he'd been briefed by higher-ups—men of cautious political instincts who knew this involved national security. No one with rank objected to
surrendering authority of the situation to the major general. But angry street officers, reflexively antagonistic to federal agents of any kind, were openly resentful that they had to clean up a situation they hadn't created.

Ben came up to
Soloman as a commando finished bandaging his hand, and Soloman gazed up like a man too exhausted to be angry. He was trembling violently from adrenaline and cold, and a wool blanket had been draped over his shoulders. Abruptly he noticed that he was holding a hot tin of coffee; he had no idea who'd given it to him.

"Well," the general began, morose, "we lost six men. They're dead.
And Chatwell's leg is broken but he'll live. He wanted to stay, but he's a              liability now, so after they fix him up I'm sending him back to Bragg. And I've called for the county rescue boys to start dragging." He stared, licked his lips nervously. "Sol, do you think ..."

Knowing what it was as the question faded,
Soloman shook his head. "There's no way to know whether I finished him or not." He took a               deep breath. "He was hit hard, but he's been hit hard before. I'm not going to believe he's dead until I see it."

Rising slowly,
Soloman began a weary path up the rocks. "Let's get back to the safe-house," he added. "And have somebody get back to the museum to pick up the priest. I need to talk to him."

"What?" Ben's eyes hardened. "You're not going to bring a priest to the safe
-house, are you?” He stared. “C'mon, Sol, you can't do that. If the JCS finds out, they'll have both our heads on a stick."

"Just trust me on this,"
Soloman said as they reached the chopper. "He's got information that we need. I'll take a stint at Leavenworth if it burns down."

"That happens," Ben muttered, "we'll be sharing a cell."

***

Enraged, Malo stalked the floor.

"As God is my witness, I'm gonna kill that thing," he growled over and over. His swarthy beard virtually stood on end, and his fists clenched and unclenched as he added, "He killed six of my men and nobody kills my men and lives. Nobody."

It had only been an hour but members of the Los Angeles County Rescue Team were already searching the river. Yet
Soloman, shocked by Cain's display of superhuman strength, feared they would find nothing but the scorched vehicle itself.

He had simply witnessed too much. Had seen Cain survive almost measureless damage only to counterattack like a
Force of Nature, killing and killing and killing, then escaping again. He was beginning to fear that nothing could destroy whatever it was that Cain had become – and was
becoming
.

It was rare that Delta commandos showed emotion in combat; they were trained to subdue it. But the superhuman strength and sheer animal brutality that Cain had displayed had shaken all of them, even the normally implacable Malo. And now, because blood had been shed, the game had forever changed and
Soloman wasn't sure how solidly he could control either Malo or the rest of the Delta unit.

Soloman
knew it was almost impossible to keep a hard hand on soldiers who were taking and returning fire – men more concerned about staying alive than following a bellowed command. And, as it was in this situation, a chaotic battle with high casualties left the survivors super-heated for vengeance.

Standing dark and menacing before the lead-reinforced window, Malo
had already hotly disputed Soloman's recommendation to reconstitute the team with new men. Turning to stare down, the lieutenant persuasively argued that this ... this thing was outside the parameters of any combat training they'd ever received, so what was the use of getting more men?

"They don't exactly train us to fight monsters, Colonel," he growled. "At least we've seen what this thing can do. And we won't be taken by surprise again. But if you bring in more men who can be taken off guard by that thing's speed or strength, maybe even guys who've never seen any combat, then you're going to have a lot of dead soldiers on your conscience."

Soloman understood the reasoning, and in truth half-agreed with it. He also knew that Malo and the remaining commandos, knowing what they did and as heated as they were about putting Cain in the ground, were probably worth three or four flesh squads.

It was one thing to see Cain's inhuman power on tape; it was another to narrowly evade those talons and fangs while frantically tracking for a shot. That kind of combat experience c
an’t be replaced.

Yeah,
Soloman thought after a moment, with good luck and a good plan they might neutralize at least a measure of Cain's inhuman superiority. And, for certain, none of them would ever underestimate the terrific scope of that bestial force again. When they hit him the next time they would hit him together and wouldn't stop firing until every round and RPG was spent.

Lighting a cigar and listening closely, General Hawken wisely let the
debate reverberate between Soloman and the Delta lieutenant, although he could have pulled his formidable rank. And Soloman respected him for it, knowing it wasn't something a lot of generals would have done.

Out of sheer pride they would have thrown in their considerable weight,
taking charge over those who knew far better than they. But Ben was from the old school, the old Army, and had long ago learned that in the field you had to trust those who knew the true nuts and bolts of combat.

Finally
Soloman agreed to proceed with a single unit of seven men, and Malo stared down a moment, seething. "I'm going to kill that monster, Colonel. As God is my witness, I'm going to kill it."

Father Marcelle, sitting silen
tly across the room, smiled slightly. And asMalo lifted the MP-5 he cast a glance at the priest. Then Malo crossed himself before dropping his hand over the hilt of a wicked-looking bowie knife strapped to his gunbelt.

"Pray for us, Father," he said coldly.

Marcelle nodded without expression to gently cut the blessing in the air. "
Dominus vobiscum coram inimico vestro
."

Malo, as fierce and warlike as any soldier
Soloman had ever seen, bowed his head a moment to bless himself again and repeated, "In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen." Then with a frown he vanished through the darkened door, head bent like a medieval warrior casting himself upon some doomed quest.

Ben turned and picked up the phone as it rang. When he laid it down he stared at
Soloman, gloomy. "Cain ain't in the car," he said. "They found it, and he ain't in it. They're gonna drag the river for his body but ... but I wouldn't hold out hope."

"I don't,"
Soloman mumbled, lifting a hand to his head. Somewhere in the chaos his face had been cut and he couldn't even remember how. A slender gash ran from the corner of his eye to his mouth. "This guy is going down hard, Ben. As hard as it gets."

"Well," Ben began, "let's talk truth, old son. You already gave it to him hard. If you can't put him down with that much ordnance, you probably can't put him down at all."

"He died once. He can die again," Soloman said simply. "We've just been playing the wrong game." He shook his head. "We've been playing
his
game fighting him with brute force. But that's not going to work because
he is brute force
. We have to neutralize his advantages, somehow. Have to put him in a position where he can't use that strength and speed. We have to put him on a human level."

A heavy silence held, endured.

"Cain ain't human, Sol." The general's voice was flat with conviction. "I don't know what the hell he is. But he ain't human."

"He's an animal."
Soloman closed his eyes, released a tired sigh. "He's an animal. And that's how I'm gonna hunt him. That's how I'm gonna hunt him. That's how I'm gonna kill him."

***

"Your analogy of an animal is quite probably accurate," Marcelle said after he'd retrieved another hot cup of coffee for Soloman. The priest walked slowly away, thoughtful. "Cain may indeed be an animal. But, to your advantage, he may also be a confused animal. I believe you possess more advantages than you realize."

Finishing a slow sip,
Soloman set the cup down on a table, staring for a moment. "There's always advantages, Marcelle. The difficult part is rationally implementing them in a condition of pure terror. That's why so few plans survive the first thirty seconds of combat."

The priest walked forward. "Yes, I agree. But I believe that Cain revealed a weakness tonight. Nor do I think that it was a ruse. It was something he did out of pride
– as always."

Casting a glance to see Ben's scowl,
Soloman was glad that the general didn't fully understand the true nature of the discussion. Ben was a good man, and he had his own suspicions, but the last thing he needed right now was yet another debate about supernatural forces at work. Marcelle apparently also realized it, tempering his terminology.

"Expatiate,"
Soloman said.

"It was expressed by Cain himself, Colonel." Marcelle was eminently priestly, standing without moving. "Cain said that he would remember all that he knew
, which means he does not remember everything at this moment. And that may be the key."

"Yeah,"
Soloman agreed. "But remember what?"

"There is no way to be certain. This concupiscent misuse of Nature
creates too many unknowns. Even Cain, who is more aware of his power than"—he glanced at the general—"than any other, has no certainty. But he is definitely frightened of something."

"Earlier you said he fears time."

"Time is only a measure of what he fears. There is something
within
time that he fears."

"How can you know that?"

"Because Cain's unnatural strength has virtually no limitations. He can kill and kill and kill almost without limit and could be, for all practical purposes, immortal. Even these men surrounding you possess only a slight chance for success if they again engage him in combat. And your narrow victory tonight may or may not be repeatable. You injured Cain primarily because you retained the remarkable presence of mind to tactically out-think him. But it is not a feat you are likely to repeat – neither you nor any other. Because no measure of human will and skill, or even courage, can match the force that Cain has become and is continuing to become."