“But no one knows about creatures like these,” Rashid pleaded, his open lab coat spread around him. “There are no books, no papers to read.” His eyes suddenly took in Carter and Greer. “But here is Dr. Cox!” he said exultantly. “Perhaps he can help! Yes, Dr. Cox may know!”
Al-Kalli turned around, and the look of absolute contempt on his face barely changed. He wasn’t wearing his customary suit today — just a pair of perfectly tailored dark trousers and a crisp white shirt with billowing sleeves; ruby links gleamed like flame at the cuffs. His bald head shone in the bright overhead lights. “Dr. Cox, you’ve come at an opportune time,” he said, sounding like an English aristocrat welcoming the family physician to the manor house. “The animals are restless and agitated today.”
“I thought they might be,” Carter said. “Their sense of smell is highly developed, and even the hint of smoke from the wildfires might have alarmed them.”
“I thought we had an air filtration system for that.”
“We do. But it’s even possible that they’re picking up some sort of vibrations through the earth. Some animals can sense earthquakes coming — perhaps these can sense the fires.”
Al-Kalli shook his head derisively. “‘Perhaps’ they can do this, ‘it’s possible’ they can do that. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re starting to sound as bad as this worthless scum Rashid.”
Carter couldn’t stand it a second longer, and he started to move toward Rashid with his hand extended to help him up.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” al-Kalli said in a low but menacing tone. “We have an old saying, ‘Let the dead lie where they fall.’”
Jakob stepped between them and unfolded his arms.
“I told you, when I hired you,” al-Kalli went on, “that I would give anything at all to the one who could restore my creatures to health.”
“We’ve made progress already,” Carter said, though he did not try to circumvent Jakob.
“What I did not tell you,” al-Kalli went on, completely ignoring what Carter had just said, “was that I would show little patience with those who failed. That’s only fair, don’t you think?”
While Carter debated how to reply, he saw al-Kalli look with amazement toward the open doors of the bestiary. Jakob reached into the waistband of his black trousers, but before he could pull out the gun that presumably rested there, Carter heard a voice call out, “Don’t even think about it, raghead!”
Carter turned around, as did Greer, and what he saw was a man in army fatigues, a big man with close-cropped hair and a knapsack slung over one shoulder, striding into the arena with a gun hanging loosely from one hand. Even worse, fanning out behind him were two more men, also in army gear, each one holding, incongruously, an aluminum baseball bat.
Only Greer seemed to know instantly what was going on.
“Sadowski,” he said, shaking his head, “this time you’ve really fucked up.”
“That so? Sure doesn’t look that way to me.” Sadowski looked around at the vast facility. “This that zoo you were talking about? ’Cause I don’t see any critters.”
Al-Kalli leveled a glare at Captain Greer. “You know this man?” he said. “You told him about this place?”
At that moment, Carter recognized him — this was the guy he and Del had run into on the hiking trail in Temescal, the guy who’d attacked the girl and her boyfriend. He also knew there was a strong possibility that if everyone wasn’t very, very careful over the next few minutes, somebody could wind up hurt, or worse.
“He served under me in Iraq,” Greer said.
“Whatever your name is — was it Sadowski?” al-Kalli said, addressing the intruder, “you’re trespassing, and I would be within my rights to kill you on the spot.”
Sadowski raised the gun a few inches and, in answer, fired a round into the dirt in front of al-Kalli’s feet. But al-Kalli, to Carter’s astonishment, didn’t so much as flinch; he behaved as if he were invulnerable.
The animals heard the shot, though, and suddenly there was a howl from the griffin’s cage, a rumbling snort from one of the basilisks. The phoenix, from its perch high above them, let out a piercing scream, a thousand times worse than the cry of the peacocks, and even Sadowski looked up, rattled.
“What the fuck is that?” he said. The monstrous bird was still concealed in its straw-filled nest.
“You don’t want to know,” Greer said. “You and your boys just want to get out of here… while you still can.”
Carter didn’t know what he feared more — harm coming to one of the people present, or harm to the animals, surely the last of their kind, that had by some miracle survived for millennia.
“What is your plan, soldier?” al-Kalli taunted him. “Or are you as stupid as most Americans — blundering in where you have no business, and with no idea of how to get out again?”
“Oh, I’ve got a plan,” Sadowski said. He glanced at a massive black and chrome wristwatch. “And trust me — you’re going to find out all about it.”
“And what do we do until then?”
Carter heard a metallic screech, and saw Rashid, who had quietly gotten to his feet, yanking a lever in the concrete wall.
Sadowski shouted, “What are you doing?” at him, but Rashid simply turned and ran toward the glassed-in office at the far end of the bestiary, zigging and zagging with his cupped hands attempting to protect the back of his head. Sadowski cursed, and fired another round, the wild shot sparking off the bars of the griffin’s cage.
The phoenix screamed again, and this time Carter knew it would emerge from its aerie. He looked up just as its massive hooked beak poked over the edge of its nest and its claws, in preparation for flight, wrapped themselves around the rim of the platform. Sadowski and his two accomplices stared upward, slack-jawed.
With a sudden, even ungainly, lurch, the phoenix plummeted from its nest, then spread its wings, the width of a school bus, and soared above their heads. The two soldiers behind Sadowski fell back a few steps, and as the bird came lower, heading, Carter suddenly realized, for the open doors behind them, one of the two — the one with a bell tattooed on his bare forearm — took a furious swing at it with the aluminum bat. The end of the bat caught the claws with a loud crack, and the bird, squawking in pain, wheeled in the air and beat a retreat toward the other end of the bestiary.
“I got it!” the tattooed man cried, his voice filled with as much terror as exultation. “I got the bastard!”
But the phoenix wasn’t done — it simply coasted in a great slow circle, then with one more beat of its red-feathered wings, a beat that sent a shivering wind through the whole facility, it shot back toward the open doors. Sadowski fired, missed, but the bird had its prehensile claws extended; there was a look of fire in its eyes and its vulture-like head was tucked into its body. It went straight for its attacker, and before he could even think to swing the bat again, the phoenix had snatched him up in its claws — one of the talons appeared to tear completely through the man’s body — and then, with its wings folded back like a missile, it flashed through the open doors and out of sight.
Dust from its exit filled the air. And all that was left of the tattooed man was an aluminum bat lying in the dirt.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sadowski said in a tone of mechanical disbelief, and Greer said, “Didn’t I tell you you’d fucked up?”
The other man with a bat stood stunned, looking at the spot where his accomplice had been just seconds ago. Then, throwing his own bat on the ground, he turned without a word and ran out the doors… leaving Sadowski to fend for himself.
It was only then that Carter thought to look at the row of cages — and saw that the lever Rashid had pulled had opened all of their gates at once. The animals had not yet realized their freedom, but they would, soon. Greer must have reached the same conclusion because he suddenly made for the lever.