"Hurry up," he yammered and then glanced at his watch. "Tell Waters I need the results of the blocking agent, too. Now open this damn door."
Thom found a button marked microphone and pushed it.
"Hello, Terrance."
Monroe's face turned red and he seemed poised to shout something about disrespect at the camera, but he stopped himself short of an outburst.
"Identify yourself. Who is this?"
"You know, I have been thinking about the last thing you said to me yesterday, before you left the island."
Monroe cocked his head, shifted his feet nervously, and guessed, "Major Gant?"
"I admit that I am starting to think that you made a good point."
"You are in the security room? Listen, Major, surrender and I promise you will not be subjected to any more tests. You will have to remain here for a while, but you will be well treated. I apologize for Dr. Waters. He can get a little overzealous."
"Sometimes you do have to make the hard choices … for the greater good," Gant continued.
"Major Gant, listen. I understand how you must feel. But what we're doing here, it's for the sake of all of humanity. Come down here, and we’ll talk. If you aren't convinced, I promise you safe passage off the island."
Dr. Stacy said from behind, "Thom, don't do it. We need him. I found artifacts in one of the storage areas that seem to be the blueprints for this parasite. I'm talking about treasures from the ancient world. There's a lot more here than just zombies and a couple of crazy extremists. There’s some kind of connection with the Minoans. I'm talking about stuff that is thousands of years old."
He turned to her and said, "I heard you say something to Waters about that. That is very interesting, Doctor." His wide eyes and distant tone, however, suggested that he found it anything but interesting.
"What do you say, Major?" Monroe's voice came over the speaker. "Let me in and we can talk."
Thom turned back to the camera, considered for a moment, and then told Monroe, "Okay, Terrance, come on in. …"
Terrance Monroe stood in the garage with beads of sweat rolling down his back, and not all of the perspiration could be attributed to the heat.
How had Major Gant gotten loose and invaded the security booth? Did the garrison know he was at large?
He started to think that Waters might be right; that the men their sponsors had provided were not adequate in numbers, training, or intelligence. As much as he despised guns and soldiers, he understood that a project such as this needed security on a variety of levels.
Regardless, the project was ready to proceed. The organism had spread faster than their original forecasts, meaning that it could do more damage — or rather, repair to Mother Earth — than originally anticipated, while the PX ensured that they could quell the outbreaks once they reached desired levels. If the blocking agent proved successful they would have all the elements required to implement the plan.
Of course, that plan would be implemented on his schedule, not the sponsors'.
Major Gant's temporary escape was only a bump in the road. They would get him back and this time they would shoot him dead on the spot. To hell with more testing; Gant was far too dangerous, as this incident proved.
The interior door rose, just as Gant had promised. Several soldiers stood there waiting for Monroe, along with Dr. Waters, who looked strangely disheveled.
Then Terrance Monroe saw that the group of soldiers and technicians who greeted him stood in shredded, bloody clothes and stared at him through pasty white eyes.
The mob moved into the garage, and Terrance Monroe had nowhere to go.
Major Gant watched the swarm chase down and rip the man to pieces, stopping their pursuit only when he lay on the ground in pool of gore, waiting for his turn to become a walking corpse.
When the show had ended, he stood up from the console and turned to face Dr. Stacy, who gaped at him through teary eyes while holding the AKM in shaking hands.
"So is that it, then? Is that it?"
As his blood rage faded with that final act of revenge, Gant held his hand up to try and calm her.
"Listen, Doctor—"
"So there it is. There's no difference between you and Waters or Monroe. What he said to us on the plane … he could have been talking about you."
Gant thought back to their flight from Tioga to this chamber of horrors. For some reason, he knew to what she referred.
He mumbled Waters's words: "Sometimes in order to defeat the monsters, you must become a monster."
A cluster of beeps from the radar display broke off their conversation.
25
Captain Campion rode inside a big Sea Knight dual-rotor helicopter, one of six such choppers flying toward an island that did not appear on any charts. Below them, a few miles behind, came the small naval task force he essentially commanded, sailing across calm waters with as much speed as they could muster.
He spoke into a transmitter that coded and sent his voice thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, back to the Darwin Research Facility on the grounds of Fort Irwin, California.
"We think the intelligence is good. Sergeant Franco seemed convinced of the guy's sincerity, plus aerial recon confirmed the presence of a land mass."
Lieutenant Colonel Thunder answered, "We've checked and rechecked the maps. As far as we can tell, this place could belong to a whole bunch of nations, including New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, or even the Federated States of Micronesia, which would mean the United States could — theoretically — be responsible for the defense of this island."
"Ma'am, if I hear you correctly I'm leading a military task force to recon and possibly attack someone's sovereign territory, but we don't know who that might be, and we — that is the U.S. military — might be the defending force?"
"General Friez said you should not worry about that. He's called the State Department three times since we received the info. If this island ends up being the source of the outbreak on Tioga, you won't find any government who will be willing to take responsibility. You are cleared to use whatever force is necessary to combat the threat. No one will ask any questions."
While it was in Campion's nature to worry about everything, he answered with a basic, "Roger that, Colonel."
"What about the freighter you pulled the prisoner from?"
He assured, "It's being taken care of …"
From the depths of the ocean came one of the sea's most effective yet silent killers as the obsidian hull of the USS La Jolla broke the surface surrounded by foaming saltwater. Its profile presented the trademark fin-like conning tower as well as a rather awkward tank affixed to its spine that was the boat's dry dock shelter.
Inside the sleek body of the Los Angeles-class attack submarine, orders were issued and alarms sounded.
Ahead of the predator listed the unmarked freighter, now devoid of any human life despite the illusion of a crowd congregating on the deck among a few drifting streams of black smoke.
The man-made hunter of the depths seemed to regard the broken ship for a long second before striking with its sharp teeth.
A storm of bubbles off the bow announced the action, and a moment later a white capsule broke the surface of the water in front of the sub. In the blink of an eye the top of the capsule blew off, releasing a Harpoon anti-ship missile that rode a plume of vapor and smoke at sea-skimming altitude.
Seconds later the deadly ordnance slammed into the infested freighter right at the waterline and turned into an arrow of golden fire, punching through the ship, splitting the aging freighter into halves and coating both ends in a sheet of flame. The creatures roaming the deck were torn apart piece by piece and set alight.