The reason for the failure to use extreme measures stood in front of Colonel Thunder: General Harold Borman, the Pentagon’s darling when it came to unconventional enemies, and their expert on Red Rock.
Whatever lived in the bowels of the quarantine zone had not wanted a mass of troops or a cloud of nerve gas sent against it. Therefore Borman and Vsalov had opposed such measures. Their words about that menagerie of horrors were gold in the halls of Washington.
The general — his uniform perfectly pressed, his medals shining, his shoes blemish-free — repeated, "I gave a direct order to keep you out."
"Yes, to your robots. They decided not to play along anymore."
His face contorted but there was confusion there.
She added, "They decided to think for themselves this time. They weren’t quite ready to listen with blind obedience. Not when it’s obvious that their general is not in control."
Wake up, fat ass.
Huh?
Are you sleeping out there, Biggy? Looks like they're running right around you again. They must figure you can't make the stop.
Sergeant Ben Franco opened his eyes.
He was still behind the overturned desk. At some point he had found a lab coat within crawling distance and pulled it over his body for added warmth. He needed warmth; everything below his neck felt very cold, very drained. Yet his head burned like it might be on fire. What a strange sensation, shivering from a chill at the same time as he was sweating with fever.
Of course everything — from his black BDUs to the dirty old lab coat — was wet with his blood, although he had managed to slow down the streams from his shoulder and his leg enough so as to not to bleed to death. At least not yet.
The room was not as dark as before. No amount of power could make the busted bulbs in the old vestibule glow, but light from the hall drifted in and formed a beam stretching across the middle of the room.
He heard voices and movement. People walked toward the exit, passing him to the left, never noticing him, paying him no mind, no thought. Just like Gant never gave Franco his due. No, that black bastard was too busy keeping the sergeant down and spoon-feeding praise to that lapdog captain of his.
He's going to slip around you again, Biggy, unless you get your ass in gear.
Franco heard Major Thom Gant’s voice. It played like fingers on a chalkboard to his ears, touching the exposed nerves of hate, anger, frustration, and fear all heightened by that lonely dark pit of a place, sharpened by a mind pushed beyond the breaking point, and let loose by an infection that scrambled the soldier's senses, blotting out any thoughts of right or wrong.
In the bowels of Red Rock, the nastiest demons were free to dance in the dark, and the piper played Franco's tune.
Fucker is NOT getting past me this time.
Sgt. Franco peered over the desk and saw that — yes — Major Gant walked across the room, accompanied by two strangers: a short, balding guy wearing — wearing a suit? Seriously? — and a big fellow who might have been a soldier but clearly not one of the team.
More secrets they kept from me. Gant planned this shit all along. Him and Campion led us to an ambush and met up with some buddies down here.
Other than as new fuel for his anger and paranoia, Franco gave the other two little attention. His fever and delusions allowed only tunnel vision.
Biggy ignored the pain in his shoulder and the pain in his leg and slid out from behind the desk, aligning himself in the center of the room. From there, he had a clear view of the three men moving toward the closed vault door, but only Major Gant held his interest.
Time to pay the piper, you fuck.
Franco concentrated so completely on Gant that he took no notice of the ghastly white creature lumbering up the hall from behind.
"So what is all this?" Gant asked as they walked through the ruins of the old security station and approached the sealed vault door.
"This?" the entity wearing Briggs’s body answered. "Games to amuse me."
"Amuse you?"
The old vestibule lacked the bright lights of the rest of the complex. Apparently no one had replaced the bulbs in this section.
"If you have been in control since the experiment, why did you try to make people break quarantine? Why did you want to see colonels shot and soldiers gassed? Why bother breaking through this first door?"
Briggs remained silent.
"So it was all to amuse you. Like Ruthie amused you. You were playing with insects."
Still, the entity did not respond.
Gant remembered seeing the face of Dr. Briggs go blank when Twiste killed himself. He remembered a voice trapped inside that body pleading for someone to "help me." He remembered the hippie chick and the Twinkies his men brought into the bowels of the facility.
He remembered the words of Dr. McCauclass="underline" "Ronald was always telling me and Ruthie that we were putting on weight or something. Yet he was the one with the cupcakes and girlie magazines in his desk drawer."
They reached the vault door and while that bulkhead remained closed, a door leading to the truth opened to Thomas Gant.
"I am such an idiot," he chuckled, sardonically. "It was all right there, in front of me, the whole damn time."
"What? Stop laughing, you fool."
"All this time the truth was staring me in the face."
General Borman stood in front of the vault door, his face shining beet red.
"Not in control? I am in COMPLETE CONTROL!"
"No, no you’re not. You never have been."
Borman’s fingers drummed on his sidearm.
"Everything down here is mine to command! You are nothing more than a half-assed babysitter. I put together the security protocols down here. They are a model for all the military. Me. General Harold Borman!"
"Whatever is down there—" she maneuvered to the side and pointed at the intimidating portal. " — has been in charge all these years!"
"Nonsense!"
"You have been sending supply runs! Feeding it, keeping it alive. Replenishing its oxygen. All these guards …" she waved her arm around. "All to keep it safe! All to keep the outside out! You have been nothing more than a pawn. Can’t you see? Can’t you fight it?"
"I am in complete control! My word goes down here, Colonel. No one else’s. Mine! I can do as I want. This is my place. I OWN IT!"
"It wanted disciplined military minds. You had me and all the other shrinks over the years throw out anyone who could be distracted! Anyone who wasn’t completely focused! It wanted focused minds, General. Focused minds don’t question what they see!"
"I sent down the V.A.A.D. to end this stalemate!"
"It called for the V.A.A.D.! It’s been biding its time all these years, waiting for what it needs to be free. And now here you stand, ready to open the door for it! To let it out!"
"I … AM … IN … CONTROL …"
Borman pulled his pistol and leveled it at Thunder.
"… and I have had enough of you …"
Sgt. Franco placed the sight to his eye and peered downrange at his target, seeing three globs of identical yellow and red heat signatures. He knew Gant stood to the right.
Franco heard a noise from behind, but gave it no heed.
Don't let him slip by again, Biggy.
36
"I am such an idiot," Gant said, bringing his laughter under enough control to form words.
"Stop it! Stop laughing, you insect! Stop it!"
"I assumed the Briggs experiment cut a hole into another … what? Dimension?" the major explained with a smile that held little humor but a lot of scorn. "And some life force came pouring out right into the body of poor old Ronald Briggs and got stuck. Maybe the hole was not big enough."