Hybrid (52 page)

Now all three of them had come to a stop. Reisch looked at a puzzled Pushkin. “It’s a trap,” Klaus said. “They want me to turn towards Amanda and Rucker will sneak up behind me.”

“Kill Rucker and get the hell out of here.” Pushkin’s voice was decisive, but Reisch caught the undercurrent of fear.

“I think you’re right. This is getting out of hand.” Reisch was losing control of the situation; the behavior of Amanda and Phil was strange and unpredictable. He scanned the area as he hit the gas, but there were still only the three of them.

Amanda started to follow again, but maintained her distance, which only confused Reisch even more. They drove quietly for fifteen more minutes until Reisch reached the point where he could direct Phil. He reached for the pathologist, but all he grabbed was metaphysical air. Rucker had deflected him.

“Turnabout is fair play,” Reisch said as Phil reached for him, and was repulsed.

The two fenced back and forth; each effort becoming stronger as the distance between them dwindled. Amanda had chosen to be a spectator and maintained her distance.

Maybe she does want me to rid her of Rucker
, Klaus thought as he crested a small hill and finally saw him with his human eyes. He was sitting alone in an unmarked police car. Klaus put on the brakes of the pickup one hundred feet from the cruiser and stared at Phil. They had stopped their futile sparring and silently regarded each other.

Reisch could feel the anger and conflicted emotions radiating from Phil. Maybe he did have time to turn him. Reisch got out of the truck and walked towards the police car. The air began to thicken and buzz. Rucker climbed out as well, confidence and fear enveloped him.

“So you thought you could kill me,” Reisch taunted.

“A speed bump?” Phil said with mock indignation. They both did their best at closing their minds to the other, but the proximity limited their success.

Reisch felt the skin on the back of his neck begin to tingle, a reminder that Amanda was closing in on him. Facing both Amanda and a speed bump like Phil could prove to be challenging. “I’m going to give you a single opportunity to join me, but I’m afraid I’m going to need an answer immediately.” It wasn’t often that Klaus felt or acted mercifully.

A laughably weak wave of mental energy was his answer.

“They sent you to kill me, and that’s the best you can do?” Klaus laughed. Phil backed away as the German began to advance. “Go ahead, run; it will make this so much sweeter.”

Phil walked backwards down the road trying to keep his distance from Reisch.

“Do you think you can entertain me until Amanda gets here? You see, Phil, you have to concentrate your power if you want to hurt someone. Let me show you.” Reisch blasted Phil off his feet. He landed in a clump of sage weeds twenty feet from where he was standing. His left arm had crumpled beneath him and snapped on impact.

Phil’s pain filled Klaus’s mind, and he began to wonder if he could wait for Amanda. “You know a couple of weeks ago, I would have been satisfied in just driving you insane, but I think your arrogance needs to be punished.” Reisch tried to surround Phil’s mind, but he resisted. “So you do have some talent,” a straining Reisch said.

Slowly Phil began to push the German out of his mind. “I’m stronger than you, Klaus,” Phil said, panting into the weeds as the two took a break from their mental wrestling match.

“I suppose I’ll just have to kill you then, “Reisch said, disappointed his fun had to end so soon. He compressed the air around him and sent a shock wave moving faster than the speed of sound at the prostrate Rucker.

Once again, Phil was lifted off his feet and thrown high into the air; he struck the barbed-wire border fence and slumped into the dirt, his broken left arm impaled on a post.

“Still with me, Phil?” Reisch walked to the top of the embankment and stared down at Phil. He was conscious, but all his mental resistance had crumbled. The tingling in Reisch’s skin began to take on a burning quality, so he stepped away from Phil, but not so far that he couldn’t watch the pathologist die.

“Still here,” Rucker whispered. “She’s coming for you, do you know that?”

“I’ll be long gone, and you’ll be long dead by the time she gets here.” Reisch turned to his left in response to something unseen. “That’s plenty of time,” he said to the air.

Phil looked at Reisch with confusion written across his bloodied face.

“Before you die, can I ask if you can see my friend here?” Reisch turned and pointed at empty space. His expression changed to surprise an instant before his head exploded.

Phil blinked several times; his brain not processing what had just happened. For more than a minute he stared at the German’s mutilated corpse, waiting for it to reassemble itself, and then heard approaching footsteps.

“You forgot your pouch,” Amanda Flynn said, dropping a small black bag at the feet of what was once Klaus Reisch.

Phil stared speechless at Amanda, a faint glow of light framing her.

“I told you not to try and be a hero. I should just let you hang there awhile.”

It was the second time he had ever been in a helicopter, and once again, he couldn’t speak properly. His arm, along with a piece of fence post, was wrapped in a large bandage. Several of his ribs were broken, and by the way he was breathing, he was fairly certain that his left lung had been punctured. There was no doubt that he had also sustained internal organ damage, but on the whole, felt reasonably good with morphine circulating in his veins. Amanda sat next to him as the rotors began to turn. “How?” he whispered, but it was lost in the whine of the turbines.

She looked down at him, earphones tucked inside a ski cap. “Don’t try to speak,” she yelled.

Phil looked back up at her and the helicopter lifted off. He thought that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
An hour ago I hated you
, he thought.

You didn’t really hate me then, and you’re not really in love
with me now
, she thought in return.
Can you sleep
?

No, I want to know what happened back there
.

You didn’t listen to me and nearly got yourself killed
.

I know that part, where did you come from. You were fifty
miles away, how did get to me?

My Jeep was fifty miles away; I was only a few miles away
,
and if you had done what I asked, you would have driven right
past me.
Phil suddenly saw through Amanda’s eyes as she sat alone in the dark desert, waiting first for him and then for Reisch. Frustration, concern, and anger filling her mind as he turned the police cruiser around and closed on Reisch.
I al-
most didn’t make it. If you hadn’t shorted out your engine you’d
be dead now.

God watches out for fools and idiots
, he thought, trying to fight the narcotic fog.
What did you do to him
? The memory of Reisch’s head exploding replayed in Phil’s mind.

Very dramatic
, she said, sharing the memory.

Phil was suddenly Amanda again and they were running up a dark and wet highway. From the top of a small hill, he watched as his body flipped through the air crashing into the fence, and then the memory froze and dissipated.
Hey, we
were just getting to the interesting part.

You don’t see the rest until you’re ready, Phil.

Emil St. Clair closed the first edition volume of Dickinson and waited for the intruder to come into the light. “I guess I won’t be finishing this tonight,” he said as the man dressed in black stepped between him and the fireplace.

“You failed, Monsieur St. Clair. More than that, you were exposed.” The accent was European, but the language was English.

“Yes, I agree with you on both accounts. Did you find the vials?”

“I have them. Perhaps you should have hidden them a little better.”

“I doubt that it would have made any difference. Still, I have appreciated the extra time.”

“We are not barbarian, just businessmen, ” the dark man said and fired two silenced rounds.

“So they just dropped him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the name David Moncrief pinned to his jacket?” the president asked Kyle Stanley.

“Yes,” Stanley answered. It was a rather ignominious end to the life of the former French ambassador to Spain.

“I met St. Clair once. He was short and pompous.” The president didn’t add the word rich; it was an uncomfortable fact that St. Clair had been a financial supporter of his first presidential race. “Do we know any more about him and his seven friends?”

The Cabinet members only stared back at the president, and it was the director of the FBI who answered. “If I may, sir?” Stanley asked the attorney general. “Very little. We have made a formal request to the Russians to interview Igor Nachesha, but it seems that he has disappeared.”

“So this Group of Eight may be recruiting more than one new member,” the president said. “What do a French diplomat and a Russian oil baron stand to gain by attacking the United States?” He silently polled the room, but no one had an answer they wanted to share. “I’m guessing we will continue to try and answer that question?” All the heads in the room began to nod.

“Well, for now it’s over. This Reisch fellow is a red spot on a New Mexican road, and we have the virus and vaccine. There are no more new chapters or twists that are going to keep me awake at night, are there? ” He asked his advisors.

Once again the Cabinet remained quiet, and it was left to General McDaniels to answer, “Yes, it’s over.”

“Eight dead in L.A., 636 in Seattle, and God save us, more than nineteen thousand in Colorado.” The president dropped the report on his desk. “Christ, we’ve had shooting wars with fewer casualties.”

“It could have been a lot worse,” the secretary of health added.

“A lot worse,” Kyle Stanley whispered to himself.

“So how does this cure cancer?” the president asked the secretary.

“Not all cancers, and not even in everyone. Most leukemia, maybe lymphoma and a few others, but not all. Its biggest impact is going to be on stroke and spinal cord injury. If we can eliminate the lethal aspects of the Colorado Springs virus, we probably will be able to treat, maybe even cure them.”

“That is really good news; I’ll bet Dr. Avanti never dreamed that he would be extending human life instead of extinguishing it.” For a moment, he smiled. ”We still have an issue, though, don’t we?” The president’s Cabinet allowed him to take the lead; it was usually the vice president who led the weekly meeting. “A security risk that no one, not even the framers of the Constitution, could have anticipated.”

The attorney general and the president’s national security advisor exchanged a glance

“Any idea how many of . . . I don’t even know what to call them?” The president panned the room for suggestions.

“Dr. Rucker said that the German called them the ‘Evolved’ and the ‘Chosen,’” Kyle Stanley answered.

“So by extension, we are not evolved and have been excluded. I think we should find another term.” Everyone in the room nodded their heads. ”I guess we can figure that one out later. Any estimate on their total number?”