Carpathian (21 page)

“Bringing the leg into proper alignment with its body, making the beast capable of walking and running upright,” Alice said with a defiant look in her eyes that Jack was pleased to see.

Charlie nodded toward Alice. “Yes, ma’am, that would be the result.”

“But you disagree?” Collins asked, knowing that Charlie’s blind faith in Alice would not stop him from voicing what he really thought of the animal and its validity.

“I … I … yes, I disagree. This is not a species of animal that ever walked the earth. There is nothing in the fossil record that shows any animal in history with this capability. The closest resemblance is with the bear, which is capable of walking upright at times of defense, but the animal of course cannot maintain that posture for an extended time.”

“Because it wasn’t designed to,” Alice put in. “This animal obviously was. Through many millions of years they have adapted to use this magnificent ability to survive in harsh conditions and terrain.”

All turned toward Alice as the light of the slides reflected off her eyes.

“I am quoting your own notes, Alice, and you have listed a professor of zoology from the University of Toronto.
‘No animal was ever designed to do what this beast would have been capable of doing. If it did what we would be looking at is what our legends described as a werewolf,’”
Jack said and then turned his attention back to Ellenshaw. “What other anomaly stands out to you, Professor?”

“Well, this particular scan of the animal’s paws, or in this case camouflaged paws. As you see this is also a very big impossibility as there has never been any animal outside of science fiction that has an articulated digit system. The very same system we humans and primates have. Only this is perfect. You see in this X-ray how the bones curl inward until it forms a paw shape. On the outside of the fingers when they are curled in for running, we assume anyway, are what we describe as pads, just like the toes of your dog, thick pads for protection against the rough terrain in which an animal like this would run. When the wolf would supposedly walk upright these particular paw pads are not needed, so the beast had the capability of extending actual and very articulated fingers.”

Collins stopped in front of Alice and then nodded his head.

“Okay, Alice, this is your chance. Convince me.”

Charlie and Pete exchanged glances but Alice looked at Jack with defiance in her eyes and then she smiled her old smile. It was like she was going into teaching mode, a job she handled often in her years at the Group. She stood and relieved Jack of her file. She opened it and then placed it on the glass top of the enclosure.

“I never thought about this vault twice, even when I first saw it in 1946. It didn’t hold any interest for me. Then everything changed one night in Hong Kong. Garrison and I were…”

Collins listened to Alice tell her tale of the yacht
Golden Child
, and how the disaster came about that long-ago night in the cold waters of the Pacific. She ended her talk by showing around the small chip of block with the animal bone inside the petrified specimen.

“And it was that night which sparked your interest in this supposed hoax?” Collins asked.

“Yes.”

“Doctors Ellenshaw and Golding, as men of science I know you both are not believers in this animal. But I see doubt in your reactions … why?”

Pete and Charlie exchanged a look and then Pete turned and spoke. “Because Alice believes it.” He looked at her again and nodded. “And because I believe she is the most intelligent woman I have ever met. That’s why we are now doubting the fossil record. We may not fully believe in the animal, but we do this lady.”

Jack turned to Ellenshaw again. “Professor, you believe in some wild things. You have even gone as far as proving the existence of some these animals we discovered on varying missions around the world. Charlie, I will ask you point-blank if you believe in werewolves?”

The question took everyone in the vault off guard. Sarah for her part looked furious that Jack could be so cavalier about the subject that he had turned this into a joke just to show how foolish Alice has been. Virginia Pollock went so far as to stand up in protest, but Alice laughed and then waved Virginia back into her seat.

“No. I believe in many things,” Ellenshaw answered, “but an animal that has the ability to change appearance into something it is not, not just in camouflage or the changing of skin colors, it is impossible.”

“And yet because it is Mrs. Hamilton you believe?”

“Yes, as Pete said, I believe in her.”

“Thank you, Charlie.” Jack looked at Alice and pointed to the file. “Alice, what you did when you placed our agent in jeopardy is open a closet that should have remained closed. To take a chance on exposing our man at the Vatican over something that is not a national security issue for which reason we, including yourself, placed him at the Vatican in the first place, is an act that could end this department for now and all time. The president would shut us down in a moment if he knew we may have sacrificed an agent in the field for what, werewolves?”

With a glance at Sarah he could see that she and everyone else was growing a little furious at the attack on Alice. He continued.

“But then again it’s not just werewolves you’re after here, is it?” He moved to his left and looked up at the darkened gallery above, and then at Alice. “There is something pushing you, Mrs. Hamilton, something you’re covering up by this wolf aspect. There’s more to this fairy tale, am I correct? There
is
a legitimate reason that would send this immediately into an Event declaration, but because you have even less evidence of this particular aspect of your case you chose to go the animal route to that declaration. But now you see that’s not enough.” He looked at the older woman and locked his eyes with her own.

Alice finally realized what it was the colonel was attempting. She smiled so only Jack could see and he returned the gesture with a wink. Alice momentarily glanced into the darkness of the upper gallery. She raised her left eyebrow and shook her head, and then nodded at Jack.

“Yes, much more to the fairy tale.”

“Let’s start in the middle of this thing. What is in that report filed by agent Goliath at the Vatican?” Jack asked as he reached into his pocket for the message sent by Captain Everett less than an hour before this meeting started.

Alice opened her extensive file and then pulled out a three-page report.

“This was found in Greece. It is an account by a Roman soldier who later became a powerful senator. This account gives credence to the beast that lies under this glass. Europa will read the account as listed by this soldier. You will have to suspend your belief while you piece this together in your minds. This account was uncovered in the ruins of the senator’s house in Macedonia sealed in jars and stored as if the senator wanted the tale told, but was ashamed to have it publicly recorded in his lifetime. The original report was later criticized by the Papal See and the Holy Roman Empire and done away with, until our agent found it among the list of items we wanted searched for. This keyword ‘wolf’ was inserted by me. Goliath searched and found this from the eyewitness account of Centurion Marcus Paleternus Tapio, future senator of Rome.”

Jack leaned against the wall and watched as the report came up on the circular monitors that ringed the vault along with a Renaissance rendering of the famous Senator Tapio.

“This is factual history, as Roman officers never fudged a report of resistance anywhere in the empire. So what you read is an account of that night. It started in some of the worst weather seen in that region in a hundred years and…”

THE DACIAN KINGDOM YEAR
AD
12

… The rain was unrelenting. The water refused to soak into the hard scrub of the mountains and the result was that small lakes developed from the massive runoff and all stood in the path of the eighty-eight men of what was left of the expeditionary force of the V Roman Legion. They had been ordered detached from the whole of the legion and sent north from the Danube River thirty-five days hence.

The men of the Fifth were in ill temper as the deadly attacks had continued against their ranks after moon-fall the past three nights. They would await the coming of the sun, if it chose to show itself at all to the Romans, and then they would tally the dead from the previous night’s horrors. During the darkest hours of the previous night there had been sixteen men butchered and left hanging on the scrubby small trees of the region, a reminder that the Romans, or anyone else for that matter, were trespassing on land that would be defended to the full capability of the local inhabitants of this bleak mountain range.

Centurion Marcus Paleternus Tapio was the commander of the expedition sent to the unmapped wilds of Dacia to punish the people of that region for their support of co-counsel Pompey Magnus against his onetime friend and brother Gaius Julius Caesar during the four-year civil war that ravaged Rome and its legions. Thus far in two months of campaign they had yet to come across a village or even one single man that had ever heard of Gaius Julius Caesar, or even of the Roman Empire that had invaded their country. The centurion’s conclusion was that the people of the Carpathian region had not been involved in their homeland’s ill-advised alliance with Pompey Magnus. The punishment campaign had been ordered by the legal heir to Caesar’s fortune and power, Octavian, or as he was now known, Augustus Caesar, emperor of the Roman Empire and thus the most powerful man in the world.

Thus far they had burned over fifty small villages on their trek northward from the Danube. It had been that way until six nights before when they entered the mountainous region known to the locals as the Patinas Pass. The area was situated high in the Carpathian Mountains and was once thought to be controlled by the traitorous Dacian king, Burebista, but they had discovered that the Patinas region in the Carpathians belonged to no one man. The peasants here paid tribute to nothing but the land, the sky, and the animal life that existed in the rough mountainous range. It was in this place that they started to hear the screams of Roman sentries being murdered in the night. No matter the size of the stockade, moat, tangle foot, or sharpened barbs of spear or arrow erected for the night’s camp security, none could keep at bay whatever nightmare was attacking and tearing his men apart.

Centurion Tapio looked at the list of men he had lost. The expedition was now down from eighty-eight to forty-nine men of the Fifth. The experienced Roman commander knew when it was time to cut and run from the region.

The centurion looked up at first spear of the cohort and his second in command, Julius Antipas Cricio. The man was well scarred from his many campaigns in support of first, Julius Caesar, and now he murdered in the name of Augustus. The large soldier stood at attention barely Bible in the shadow-inducing tallow-fueled lamp as it spit out its weak light.

“This campaign ends tomorrow. We burn the stockade at dawn. I want the fires hot enough that every man, woman, and child in the region knows that we are leaving this place of evil. They can have it and take it to hell with them.”

The first spear centurion looked at his commander. Instead of sending for at least another cohort of legionaries or cavalry detachment, this element of the Fifth would tuck its tail between its legs and run back to the south, defeated, embarrassed, and disgraced among their peers of the Fifth Legion.

“There are but three or four men in the attacking party. If we are patient we can ambush them as they come in for their nightly attacks. We need not retreat in the face of this thing. We dishonor the eagle standard of the Fifth Legion,” Cricio countered, hoping the thought of the golden eagle’s shame would change his commander’s mind.

“Then place a wheat sack over the damn eagle as we retreat, First Spear Centurion. I do not care about the honor of the eagle. I want what’s left of my men out of these mountains. There is no honor to be found here.”

“We run from peasants? The Roman Empire will be chased away by mere men that have a tendency for the dramatic in their way of killing. We can never live this down, Centurion, and I wish my protests to be placed in your report that I do not agree with your decision to retreat. We must stay and fulfill our orders from the Senate, the people of Rome, and Caesar Augustus.”

“I will not do that, old friend, but I will allow you to take the rearguard action as we leave this pass. With these duties you can try and thwart this evil that has enveloped us since entering these mountains.”

“I will heed your orders, and if I do manage to thwart these attacks in the night, may I expect a change of those orders?”

The centurion smiled for the first time in days. “You kill the evil that has befallen us and you will be in command of the expedition, not I. You will have proven your worth to Emperor Augustus.”

The first spear returned the smile. “How many men am I to have in the rear guard?”

“Take with you the four Berserkers. We’ll see if the natives of this backward land are as frightened of their legends as we. The Danube Berserkers may be better suited to fight whatever dwells in the night in this devil’s region.”

“The Berserkers it is.” Antipas Cricio replaced his red cloak against the chill of the damp evening and then before leaving he faced his old friend. “That’s all it is, you know, an old legend that only a fool would believe in. Animals that walk upright?” He laughed against the bitter feeling he was having against his own words of strength. “I think we’ll find five or six old soldiers out there that have learned what it is that frightens the mighty Roman Empire—the unknown. I will be back by dawn. Don’t move the remnants of the cohort too far down the mountainside, as I will bring you our silent enemies’ heads.”

The centurion only nodded as he turned away from the falling rain with a last look.

“I will wait until dawn and then I move out with what’s left of my men.” Again he looked his old friend in the eyes. “Bear witness to the night, First Spear Antipas Cricio, for there is something out there that is a silent and swift killer of men. Now leave me to worry this list of my dead soldiers.”