Carpathian (20 page)

Zallas downed the vodka and then poured another. He stepped from behind the bar and paced to one of the large windows at the end of the car. He slid the window open and took in a deep breath of the air that filtered in from the outside. If he leaned over just enough he could see through the rear of the cave’s opening and barely see Castle Dracula sitting three miles up the mountain. The lights were blazing and the night was still.

“I will have all of the extra security you will need. My guests…” Zallas hesitated and then smiled before downing his second large vodka. “My guests are the type of gentlemen,” he bowed toward Gina, “and ladies, that feel more comfortable away from authority but well protected in their pursuit of enjoyment. They will have their own security, but we will be covering their security with our security.”

“The attacks?” Vajic persisted, not showing how the information that every man and woman would be armed to the teeth inside his hotel scared him more than any children’s stories.

“Stop worrying about fairy tales, Vajic. I have made several inquiries, even before I sent the hunters up the mountain. There have not been any wolf sightings in these mountains for two hundred years. It seems the locals wiped them out because they favor sheep over monsters.”

“Then why did you send the hunters up there to hunt animals that don’t live in the mountains any longer?”

Zallas turned from the open window and took in both his partner and the general manager. The Russian gangster waved a hand in front of his face as if he were a magician.

“Ooh, the true mastery is one of illusion, my brother. Make people believe they are safe and it usually turns out they are. Give them confidence that they will be taken care of.”

“They don’t intend to hunt?” Vajic asked, looking from the ruffian Russian to Gina, who couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Hunt what, Janos? A sheep dog that’s mad at the world? A maniac that’s been driven mad by tending sheep for fifty years that lives in one of those remote villages up there? No, my man will deliver what was needed to another
mere
man up in the pass and there you have it, problem solved.”

“Dmitri, what we have here is a real problem with the staff: they hear the rumors and the people in this area tend to believe the old tales of the southern Carpathians.”

“Enough!” Zallas said as he tossed Gina his empty glass. “There is nothing mysterious up in those mountains. All you have is the superstition of a backward people that never knew the last century just ended. Vajic, there is nothing up there but men and women with the same weaknesses as everyone else in the world!”

As they stood by the open window of the cable car they all heard it.

Vajic looked out the window but the view from the small opening was limited. He could see the base of the castle but that was all. The tremendous howl of an animal that no longer existed in the deep mountains seemed to come from further up, closer to the Patinas Pass. Vajic straightened and then looked at his partner.

“That thing that can’t possibly exist just answered the question for us.”

“Can you feel it?” Gina asked as she stepped toward the open window.

“Feel what?” Zallas asked.

“Something has changed here. It’s like the mountains have come alive after many years of hibernation.”

“Oh, for the love of Stalin, am I going to have to get replacements up here for everyone who believes this crap?” an angry Zallas said as he turned and stormed out of the cable car. That left Vajic looking at Gina and they both knew that this was going to be a very stress-filled weekend ahead of them. The two followed the Russian. “Listen, the people we purchased these agreements from live up there. I am the only man here to handle them. I need certain information against these people and then we can move to secure the rest of the land.”

“The rest of the land?” Vajic asked as he tried to keep up with Zallas.

“Do you think we stop at the castle, my friend? No, no. I have visions of an all-encompassing resort with the finest ski runs in all of Europe.”

“The Patinas Pass?” Gina asked as she lowered her ever-present clipboard from her ample chest, sending the eyes of the Russian mobster down to her blouse. “It is my understanding that those villagers up there have no intention of selling or granting access to that area.”

“That is my worry, not yours. After this weekend I suspect that many attitudes in and out of the mountains will be changing for the better.”

Gina looked at Vajic and they both now realized that Zallas had plans they had never been aware of. To expand the resort into the pass not only would cause trouble with the locals, but also the government.

“Uh, Dmitri, the Romanian government has just signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization charter. We are now a part of NATO, and they have designs on that pass for emergencies. They will have agreements in place with the locals of the pass that will secure their lands forever. As a matter of fact there will be NATO members in the mountains this weekend.”

“Then we will have to invite some of them to the grand opening of Edge of the World.” Zallas smiled and when he saw his small joke didn’t play well he lost that smile just as fast. “Politics are my problem, Janos. The securing of the land is also my problem, and everything is lining up perfectly. We should have not only a fine opening for many influential men and women, but also a very good time.”

Zallas walked away and the two Romanians once again exchanged worried looks as they both turned and looked out of the expansive dome toward the mountain above them.

Several loud reports were heard in the valleys of the mountain that night of mist and darkness. The gunshots faded to nothing after twenty minutes but the howling continued on throughout the night.

The Golia were on the move from the high peaks of the Carpathians.

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

The two desperadoes of the Event Group that night had broken regulations again. Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III and Pete Golding had used illegal means to bypass security and broken into the Ark. The darkened drinking establishment was empty of all personnel at four-thirty
A.M.
and they had the run of the place. The rebuke they had received for assisting Alice had both scientists feeling hurt and bewildered.

Both men had tall glasses of something Ellenshaw mixed up that he claimed took the life of Jim Morrison back in 1971. After swallowing the multicolored drink Pete grimaced and forced his stomach to stay where it was designed to be anchored—in his body.

“God, that was awful,” Pete cried.

Ellenshaw looked nonplussed. He took another pull from his glass, then quickly set it down on the bar and started frantically searching for his glasses in his wrinkled lab coat.

A pair of hands magically appeared and then reached over Ellenshaw’s shoulder and pulled the scientist’s glasses down from where they had been perched on his head. The wire-rimmed spectacles were placed on his nose and that was when the clear vision of Will Mendenhall appeared to Charlie Ellenshaw. Both he and Pete had their eyes widen until the lieutenant thought they would pop from their heads. Standing next to him was a zoologist from the San Diego Zoo neither Pete nor Charlie could recall meeting personally but knew by reputation and from their copies of the academic roster.

“Doc, why didn’t you and Dr. Frankenstein come to Ryan or me with this Alice investigation? If you had you wouldn’t be in Director Compton’s doghouse right now.”

The computer genius looked almost as wounded as he did inebriated. “We … we thought … you and Ryan would tell on us,” Pete Golding mumbled as he tried to no avail to focus on Will’s face.

“Then you really don’t know me and Ryan all that well, do you,” Mendenhall said while staring at both men. “The difference is, boys, Ryan and I would never have been caught. You two were. Now get up and come with me, you have a meeting to attend.”

Ellenshaw’s head shot up from the bar. “It’s…” He looked at his wristwatch but couldn’t focus on it at all. “It’s … it’s … boy it’s early.”

“Come on, the colonel’s waiting for you.”

Both scientists exchanged worried looks as they resigned themselves to further humiliation at the hands of the man they respected—and feared—most in the world: Jack Collins.

“Come on, it will only hurt for a split second and then your minds will go blank, almost like they are right now,” Mendenhall said as he tried to hide his smile.

“Oh, God,” Pete and Charlie said simultaneously.

*   *   *

Jack was the first one to arrive at the vault. On his way down he relieved the security man at the arch and sent him away to other duties on the vault levels. This would be a private gathering of the Event Group’s best, or as Collins himself thought, the people most expected to go outside the lines of Group regulations. As Jack stepped over the steel threshold of the vault he looked to the center of the room and saw the glass enclosure that held one of the strangest specimens of animal life the Group had ever come across and the subject of the meeting.

He looked past the specimen and up into the darkness of the viewing gallery high above the floor of the vault. The area had seating for students numbering a hundred as did most of the vaults at the complex. Jack’s eyes lingered on the darkness there for a moment and then his attention was taken away by three people moving into the vault.

Alice Hamilton walked through the stainless steel opening and into the small enclosure. She was flanked by her closest friends, Virginia Pollock and Sarah McIntire. Jack nodded a greeting and then directed them to a table that had been set up on his orders. Collins smiled at Alice and then pulled out a chair for her. Alice returned his smile but the colonel could tell she was apprehensive. He was sure she expected to be set up by him and possibly Niles to convince her and the others that her proof of an animal that has existed alongside mankind for thousands of years just wasn’t enough for an Event to be called.

Jack looked up and saw a shaky Charlie Ellenshaw preceded by Pete Golding step into the vault. They both stood in the doorway with their eyes not focusing on any one thing inside the hermetically controlled environment. Collins shook his head.

“Lieutenant, escort Baby Face Nelson and Mr. Dillinger to their seats, please.”

Mendenhall smiled as did Virginia Pollock as Ellenshaw and Golding were led to two seats in the middle of the table as if to their own private inquisition.

Jack paced to the head of the table and retrieved Alice’s thick file. He walked to the enclosure that held the specimen recovered from Bordeaux, France, just after World War I. He opened the folder, took a deep breath, and then looked up at Alice, who held Jack’s gaze without shame and without flinching.

“Europa, Vault 22871—describe the history of its contents, please.”

“Specimen stored inside Vault 22871 was discovered in Bordeaux, France, on December 11, 1918, by American Expeditionary Forces after the close of World War I. Specimen is believed to be part wolf but verification has not been confirmed by Department 5656 staff. The object was recovered during excavations by American forces and returned to the United States for analysis. The specimen has been declared a hoax perpetrated on the villagers of that region three hundred years before. Said specimen is scheduled for decommission and storage at the Virginia depository for Department 5656.”

“Professor Ellenshaw,” Jack said in a voice somewhat louder than normal startling Charlie until everyone present thought he had a stroke. “Please step up to the enclosure and describe what you know about the subject matter inside.”

Charlie had seen this vault and examined the wolf no fewer than fifty times. The object always held a special place in the hearts of anyone who examined it. He also knew that the specimen had been ridiculed by every lettered academic in the Group and even some out of it to the point that he always voiced no opinion on it until Alice came to him and asked for his help. He himself was always afraid of even more ridicule toward his rather unorthodox department of Cryptozoology.

The remains of the animal were deposited on a white satin cloth inside the glass chamber. The beast was curled in a fetal position. There was very little of the deep black fur that once covered the animal. The skull, with the animal’s nose tucked under the front paws, made the skeletal remains look as if it had just curled up and died. What was amazing about the exhibit was that the wolf had to have been eight hundred pounds when alive. Although shrunken with age and diminished by decomposition, the animal would have clearly stood well over six and a half feet long, or as in this case, almost seven feet in height.

“What we have inside the specimen case is what is typically known as
Canis lupus
, a relative of the jackal, coyote, and even the domesticated dog. This particular specimen has been tested out no fewer than five hundred times and has been tagged with and most closely resembles the North American timber wolf. However, fossil analysis cannot pinpoint the exact species of wolf.” Charlie tried but could not stop the series of hiccups that erupted unbidden to his description.

“Europa, Slide 7879098, please,” Jack said as he shot a quick glance into the student seating above them in the darkened gallery and then looked away.

“Yes, Colonel Collins.”

Before Jack could thank Europa the entire wall illuminated with slides of X-rays and CAT scans that had been done on the animal for the past one hundred years. The slides were placed on a continuous circle of high-definition monitors. As the slides came up the lights dimmed and that afforded Collins a quick look at Alice, who sat stoically between Sarah and Virginia. She had the look of a woman sitting at a defense table and that made Jack nervous—that perhaps the old woman had given up and that didn’t suit Collins at all.

“Professor Ellenshaw, what is the most obvious anomaly on this particular specimen?”

Charlie held a hand to his mouth as he tried to control his hiccups.

“Well, to anyone who has ever studied how the wolf works, plays, and eats, they can easily see that this particular specimen was born with two pelvic bones and two differing hip bones. Both made to easily slide one bone from the hip socket to easily slide into another. In other words we have two very distinct hip and pelvic bones. These bones are supposed to act like a snake’s jaw, unhinging itself so it can consume prey larger than its mouth. Well, these particular hip and pelvic bones act in the same way. You see the socket that is empty on this X ray just forward of the rear socket. Well, this leg bone is supposed to remain intact at all times because the wolf is a quadruped. It is designed to run on all fours. Now this animal,” he switched positions and pointed to a clear X-ray of the beast, “if we are to believe what we see has the capability to dislocate its upper thigh bone from its socket and then slide that thigh bone into the secondary socket forward of the original. As a model you can actually see the grooves that have been made by the constant movement of leg and hip bones into varying sockets.”