Luther, never taking his eyes off the creature in front of him, slowly straightened up. He removed the Magnum from its holster, c.o.c.ked the weapon. The animal seemed to be familiar with the gun, and perhaps even had some idea of what it could do; it reacted to the loud click of metal on metal by stepping back a pace and baring its fangs. The enormous saber canines glistened with saliva.
"All right," Luther said loudly over his shoulder, still never looking away from the creature in front of him, "bring her in."
The backside of the heavyset man with the potbelly and bulbous nose who had been following Harper and me on the midway suddenly emerged from the tunnel leading to the penning area. The rest of him-clad from head to toe in a heavily padded uniform and wearing a baseball catcher"s mask- emerged, and then I could see that he was dragging a heavy, wheeled cage identical to the one already in the ring that had held the first creature. This cage contained a smaller version of the animal standing in the ring-grayer in color, more like a wolf, lacking the heavy ruff, sharply delineated black stripes, and with less p.r.o.nounced canines. It was a b.i.t.c.h of the species, and she was in heat. Draped over the end of the cage was the soiled khaki safari jacket Nate b.u.t.ton had been wearing.
The huge buff-colored male stiffened at the sight of the b.i.t.c.h, and a tremor ran through its body, but it did not move from its position. The man with the potbelly glanced nervously in the direction of the male, then quickly stepped around behind the cage holding the female.
I felt a hand touch my shoulder, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I jumped, but somehow managed to stifle a shout. I wheeled around to find that the hand belonged to Harper, who was standing just behind me.
She leaned very close to me, whispered, "That"s a lobox, isn"t it? And that"s the jacket that professor was wearing."
It was not the time or place for a conversation, whispered or not. I put my finger to my lips and shook my head, then pushed her back and under the bleachers before turning my attention back to the tableau in the dirt ring.
The creature certainly was a lobox, or something very close to it-as close as Arlen Zelezian was likely to get after a decade or more of teasing and leaching past horrors from present genes, breeding wolves and dogs, matching for tiny retrograde genetic factors, bringing this creature back from extinction by mining the shadowy genetic repositories of its closest modern ancestors. Despite my revulsion at what I was certain Zelezian had opted to do with the creature, I could not help but be impressed. The lobox, this beast with a taste for human flesh that had terrorized early man and perhaps contributed to the Neanderthal"s extinction, was absolutely magnificent.
The presence of the lobox b.i.t.c.h in estrus continued to have a galvanizing effect on the male; it stood very stiffly, ruff slightly raised, its hide quivering-but it remained where it was. A powerful tribute, I thought, to Luther Zelezian. The trainer, still keeping his eyes fastened on the creature, sidled backward toward the closed cage, ignoring the sudden growling and thrashing of the animal inside it. He took the safari jacket off the top of the cage, dipped a corner of it in the b.l.o.o.d.y estral fluids at the bottom of the cage, then nodded to the potbellied man, who quickly wheeled the lobox b.i.t.c.h back into the recesses of the tunnel.
"Kill," Luther said in an even tone as he casually tossed the soiled jacket off to his left.
The lobox sprang forward like something shot from a rocket launcher, then leaped high in the air in a stiff-legged manner that reminded me of a fox pouncing. In the brief moments that it arched through the air, I could see long, curved claws-including one at the rear of the footpad-unsheathed, claws that were more like a tiger"s than a wolfs or dog"s.
The rear, opposable, claw was exactly where Nate b.u.t.ton had said it would be.
And then the creature was at the jacket, using its claws to pin the material to the ground while it tore at it with its long, gleaming fangs. Within moments the jacket had been ripped to shreds-just as its owner, the man whose body odor permeated the fabric, would be if and when this animal was released to track him down. Luther had found a most effective technique for priming the killer beast to track and kill a selected victim by using elemental forces-the pleasure, the promise, of s.e.x, combined with a fear of whatever punishment the animal understood to be represented by the gun, probably the ear-shattering report that would result if the Magnum was fired.
I hoped Nate b.u.t.ton was a long way from the area, but I strongly suspected he was not. The fact that Luther had his jacket, and was using it to prime the lobox, had to mean that the scientist was a captive, or was somewhere within the lobox"s scent range-which b.u.t.ton had indicated might be as much as ten miles, or even more. It meant b.u.t.ton, despite my discouraging remarks, hadn"t given up on his lobox theory. What he had undoubtedly done was to get a map and compare the killing sites with the location of the circus on each date, and then speculated correctly just where a large predator could hide out between killing onslaughts. It was why he had been in the audience earlier in the evening. After the performance he had decided to look around for a "werewolf" and been caught at it. An article of his clothing had been taken from him.
Just as articles of clothing had been taken from Harper and me. The Zelezians, father and son, were taking no chances.
"Back," Luther commanded, and again c.o.c.ked the hammer of his weapon.
The lobox hesitated, caught between the frenzy whipped up by his natural instincts, the smell of the estral fluids, and Luther"s training.
Luther reached around with his left hand to put his index finger in his right ear, aimed the revolver into the dirt, and pulled the trigger. The explosion of the gun reverberated throughout the tent. The animal jumped back, stood for a few moments with its hide quivering, then slowly walked back to the position where it had previously been standing.
"Sit," Luther said evenly.
The animal sat down on its haunches-and once again turned its head to look in our direction. Then it bared its fangs and growled.
Luther, who had started across the ring to retrieve the shreds of Nate b.u.t.ton"s safari jacket, suddenly stopped, tensed, looked up in the direction of where we were shrouded in darkness.
The lobox growled again, louder.
It seemed like an excellent time to beat a hasty retreat; but it was, of course, too late.
"Here," Luther commanded. When the lobox"s head turned in his direction, he first pointed out in the darkness, then squatted down and slowly drew a line in the dirt with his finger. "Track! Now!"
The lobox rose from its haunches, ambled across the ring, jumped over the six-inch-high wooden ap.r.o.n defining the dirt ring, then loped lazily down the sawdust track, heading directly toward us. It definitely did not bode well, I thought.
"Oh, G.o.d," Harper said in a strangled, thoroughly frightened voice as she grabbed my right arm with both her hands and tried to pull me back down the aisle.
"No," I said in as normal a voice as I could manage under the circ.u.mstances. I grabbed her wrist, pulled her up beside me. "We can"t outrun it. Don"t move at all, Harper-unless it comes at me. If it does, then get back out under the tent, run like h.e.l.l, and climb the first tall thing you come to. Otherwise, stay very still."
"Robby, I"m-"
"Don"t move," I repeated, and then stepped out from the darkness between the bleacher sections into the twilight aura at the edge of the pool of light cast by the arc lamp above the ring. I stood in the center of the sawdust track, hands at my sides, and faced the beast coming at me. "All right, Luther," I continued evenly, "you"ve got me. Call Fido off."
"Actually, Frederickson," Luther said casually, "I"m almost as curious as you are to see what"s going to happen." He walked across the ring, put one foot up on the ap.r.o.n, rested his left hand on his hip. The hand with the gun was hanging at his side. "We haven"t spent much time at all practicing this particular procedure. It will be interesting to see what the animal does."
The lobox kept coming at me at a steady pace, its mouth open. With its gaping nostrils and saber teeth, its facial expression reminded me of something like a loony grin; I would almost have found it amusing if I hadn"t known that this was death"s smile.
When the animal was about ten paces away, Luther c.o.c.ked the gun. "Stay!" he commanded.
The lobox kept coming until it was only five paces away, then abruptly stopped, sat on its haunches, and stared at me with golden eyes with black irises that were bright with intelligence and seemed almost human. Its mouth opened even wider in a kind of yawn, and its pink tongue lolled from its black leather lips. Its huge nostrils quivered slightly, as if it wanted to get a new, improved, sniff of me. Its head was at about a level with mine, and again it struck me how the d.a.m.n thing almost looked as if it was smiling.
I tensed as I felt, rather than heard, Harper come up behind me, and a moment later I felt her hands on both my shoulders.
I appreciated her courage, her willingness to stand with me in the face of a totally unpredictable creature that could tear us both apart in seconds, but her action wasn"t the thing to do; now, if one of us died, the other was certain to die also. Once, just once, I wished she would do something I asked her to. There was no longer any possibility of escape for her-if there ever had been.
Luther stepped over the wooden ap.r.o.n, strolled down the sawdust track toward us. I followed his progress with my peripheral vision, never taking my eyes off the animal squatting on its haunches in front of me; one lunge, and it would have my face in its jaws.
"I"m sorry I can"t offer you and Miss Rhys-Whitney a drink this time, Frederickson," Luther continued, a hint of what almost sounded like genuine regret in his voice. "You"ve created an impossible situation."
"What"s the problem, Luther? I don"t care what hours you keep, and I"ve seen trainers work with, uh . . . dogs before."
Luther slowly shook his head. He knew, of course, that I knew the creature with the golden eyes, gaping nostrils, and saber teeth was no dog. I"d wanted to at least try to give him an out, but he obviously felt he couldn"t afford to take it. "You should have minded your own business, Frederickson. And you should have been more patient. I wasn"t entirely truthful with you earlier this evening."
"You don"t say?"
"We"re almost finished with the circus. It will be up for sale. You could have had it. But then, you haven"t been entirely truthful with us either, have you? I can"t help but wonder if you were ever truly interested in buying this circus."
"If you"re all getting ready to move out, does that mean you think you"ve killed enough people?" I nodded in the direction of the magnificent, bright-eyed animal in front of me. "How many of these little cuties do you have?"
"A sufficient breeding stock."
"All as well trained as this one?"
Luther shrugged, pursed his lips, ran his free hand over his shaved skull. "I"m not sure "trained" is an appropriate word to use with this animal. It"s controlled."
"By the promise of s.e.x, the c.o.c.king sound and report of your gun."
"Yes," Luther said easily.
His response seemed to indicate that he didn"t at all mind talking about what he had done and how he had done it, and I thought that was probably a bad omen. Still, I was curious, and I couldn"t see how we could get into any deeper trouble than we already had. "Interesting," I said.
"More interesting than you understand, Frederickson. It"s not just the sounds of the gun that control the animal. It understands that the gun kills."
"What have you killed with it?"
"Chickens. Killing a chicken with a Magnum makes for a most effective demonstration."
"I"ll bet. You"re saying that you think it understands death, that it can make a connection between the thing that was blown apart and itself?"
"Yes. It"s very intelligent; it"s probably the most intelligent creature on the face of the earth today, with the exception of humans-although I"m often led to question just how intelligent, as opposed to instinctual, humans really are."
"Intelligent is one thing, true self-awareness is another. To understand death is to have self-awareness. You think this animal has that?"
Again, Luther shrugged his broad shoulders. "I suspect so. Indeed, I"m quite certain whales and dolphins have a strong sense of self. I suspect all of the large mammals have more self-awareness than we give them credit for. Also language."
"Well, we"ve seen the results of your successful training methods, Luther; they"ve been splattered all over the countryside. Innocent people."
The trainer smiled thinly. "Not so innocent, Frederickson. NRA members, super-macho types to a man, hunters who have slaughtered innocent animals, driving many of them to the edge of extinction, using high-powered weapons. Didn"t you notice our discount sign outside the ticket window? I don"t care, or have any sympathy, for people who kill other sentient creatures and call it sport. Human beings are the most arrogant and destructive species that has ever lived, and the idiots in the NRA are the worst of the lot. I consider it simple poetic justice that these men who"ve derived satisfaction from blowing out the lives of deer, elk, bears, or whatever, many using automatic weapons, should have a taste of what it feels like to be stalked and killed by a creature that is, in many ways, their equal as a predator."
"You"re crazy, Luther. You"re right out of your f.u.c.king gourd."
"Perhaps I am," Luther said in a flat voice. "It"s certainly true that I don"t have a high regard for human life; at least I don"t have the regard for the lives of those men that you do. All of those victims, in all likelihood, have butchered dozens of magnificent creatures that had as much right to live on this earth as the hunters, and all so that they could hang a trophy in their den or feel s.e.xual excitement. They"re no loss, Frederickson."
"But why?" Harper asked in a voice that quavered with horror. "What"s the point of training an animal to do that?"
"a.s.sa.s.sination," I said, watching Luther"s face-and knowing I was right. "This animal is a pitiless killing machine, virtually impossible to defend against under the right conditions. It"s more accurate than a missile, or even a whole flotilla of bombers, and it"s presumably cheaper. It can be fired-released-by a handler who"s ten miles or more away from the site where a president, king, dictator, senator, or whoever else you want to kill may be living, speaking, or even simply pa.s.sing by in a motorcade. And all you need to load up this a.s.sa.s.sination weapon is an object, preferably an article of clothing, that"s been permeated by the victim"s scent. Then you find out where the intended victim is going to be, just the general area, and you"re in business. This thing tracks better than a bloodhound, and its natural instinct is to kill people. It"s been trained to kill specific human beings through the manipulation of its s.e.xual urges, fear of loud noises, and the possible knowledge that it can cease to exist. But this thing won"t worry about the presence of Secret Service agents or bodyguards; it will just relentlessly go at its target. If it survives and returns, that"s fine; if not, only the investment it represents is lost. Even if it should be shot or captured, and even recognized for what it is, there would be no way to determine what individual-or government agency- ordered its use. It"s just a great a.s.sa.s.sin"s weapon with brains. Right, Luther?"
He wasn"t going to bother denying it. He was staring very intently at the lobox, which was staring very intently at me. I wondered if Luther was considering giving the lobox an order to kill-an order I had no doubt the creature would respond to immediately. Instead, Luther said in a soft voice, "What you can"t appreciate, Frederickson, because you"ve never seen it, is its tenacity in tracking a given subject. That tenacity seems to be a genetic trait that couldn"t have been predicted. It seems that once this creature has taken it into its head to kill a particular subject, it won"t be stopped by anything but its own death; it will eat and drink only sparingly while tracking spoor, refuse to return, and continue to stalk indefinitely until it has found its target. They are elusive, and far more intelligent than any other animal I"ve ever worked with. I"m not sure how much you knew before you came here, or what you"ve guessed, but I will tell you that the lobox is a creature from the past, in a manner of speaking. Before my father went to work on the problem, using a variety of reverse breeding techniques, this animal did not exist any longer anywhere on earth."
"Do tell. The families of the men you targeted to train and test these animals might not agree that the deaths of their fathers and husbands was no great loss. Why did you have to kill so many, Luther? Why string the whole thing out for almost two years? You knew just what you had after the first killing."
He dismissed my suggestion and questions with an impatient wave of his hand. "I think you already knew what I just told you, Frederickson. I think you know a lot of things."
"Some things aren"t all that difficult to figure out. You chose the Great Plains of the United States as an area in which to field-test that thing because of the wide-open s.p.a.ces, and you bought a midsize circus because it seemed a perfect cover-it gave you an excuse to move around, and you could keep the lobox breeding stock with all the other animals. You were probably telling the truth about the performers" countries of origin. Eastern bloc countries provided you with serious circus artists who wouldn"t ask any questions because their families were being held hostage; in return, those governments would get the chance to purchase your new weapon. They want a piece of the action. I also have to wonder if people in our own government might not be involved somehow, maybe by making sure n.o.body inspects this circus too closely, in exchange for the right to bid on the finished product."
"You"re a fool, Frederickson," Luther said softly. "You"re a fool for even allowing yourself to think such thoughts, much less to utter them aloud."
"Why? What difference does it make? Some of the nastier power players in this country and I have been dancing with each other for a long time. What bothers me the most is that right now it looks like you"re getting ready to sic this lobox on the man who was wearing that safari jacket, wherever he might be. You"re the monster, Luther, not the lobox. The lobox is just doing what comes naturally-and what you"ve taught it to do in order to survive."
"You consider me a monster because you have a romantic, overblown notion of the value of human life, Frederickson," Luther said in the same soft tone. "Politicians and professional soldiers certainly don"t; people in charge of developing and manufacturing weapons don"t. Governments, including the United States, have been testing the effects of weapons systems on their own civilian populations for some time; the politicians and the Army sent soldiers into radioactive areas of the Nevada Proving Grounds to test the effect of radiation on human tissue; the CIA once tested a bacteria-laden aerosol spray in the New York City subway. Of course, you wouldn"t consider the wholesale slaughter of whales, porpoises, rhinos, and elephants as outrageous, would you?"
"Hey, Luther, I"ll match my contributions to the Audubon Society and Save the Whales against yours anytime. We"re talking something different here."
"It"s only different in your mind. I have been forced to use human test subjects-but I, at least, have chosen them discriminately. I have loosed loboxes to hunt men who are themselves hunters and pride themselves on it. I chose my subjects carefully and haven"t inflicted harm on a whole population. You know, there"s a school of thought that says the real reason atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not to win the war, which was already won, but simply to see what would happen. The scientists who"d built the weapon, and the politicians who"d approved the vast sums to finance it, couldn"t bear the thought of not seeing, in the real situation for which it was intended, just what they had wrought. Not only did the CIA test sprays in New York City, but they secretly financed so-called researchers who doped up unsuspecting psychological patients with LSD and other mind-altering drugs. The list goes on and on. Hundreds of weapons research programs are going on at any given moment, all over the world, and any number of civilians will die as a result of that testing. So spare me your naivete and outrage."
"You seem to be implying that you"re working under the auspices of the United States government, or think you are, maybe under the wing of the CIA. Is that the story, Luther?"
"I"m saying that you"re a fool if you think this is some rogue operation run by mad scientists. There are very powerful interests, in this country and around the world, which have always been keenly interested in research projects like this one."
"Luther, just how much are you and your daddy going to charge your killer customers for one of these d.a.m.n things?"
Luther stiffened. "What do you know about my father? How do you know?"
"It"s not enough to own one, though, is it? Somebody"s going to have to handle the d.a.m.n thing and then carefully prime it for a specific a.s.sa.s.sination victim. Are your services part of the sales package with each lobox?"
There was the loud click of a gun being c.o.c.ked somewhere in the darkness behind me. The lobox reacted, getting up off its haunches, backing away a step. Growling.
"Don"t say any more, Luther." It was the elder Zelezian"s deep, rich baritone. "You"ve already said quite enough. I do believe you"re looking for Dr. Frederickson"s respect. You"re wasting your time. It was you who mentioned my reverse breeding program. Stop giving him information."
Luther flushed slightly, stepped back a pace. Arlen Zelezian moved forward into the dim light, a few feet off to my left. He was still wearing his suit, and still looked like an actor ready to step on some stage as Abraham Lincoln, always on call. He too held a c.o.c.ked Magnum aimed in the general direction of the lobox, but he seemed less attentive to the animal than Luther- probably because he knew his son was on guard for him.
"You"ve somehow gained a great deal of information about me and my operations, Frederickson," he said, staring at me intently with his coal-black eyes. His deep voice echoed slightly in the empty tent. I stared back into the eyes, which I now noticed were curiously blank, with less life in them than in the golden eyes of the creature he had conjured up from the past. "Considering your reputation, I suppose that shouldn"t surprise me. In your tenaciousness, there is much of the lobox in you. How did you discover that Luther and I are father and son? Who are you working for?"
I said nothing, desperately trying to think, to calculate whether it was to my advantage or disadvantage for Arlen Zelezian to think I had been tracking him, or for him to know how much I actually knew or was merely guessing at. I couldn"t come up with an answer, and I found it depressing to think that it probably didn"t make a difference anyway. Harper and I had some serious trouble, and I couldn"t see how any amount of fast talking was going to get us out of it. Still, I knew I was going to have to try; I figured I had about as much chance of surviving hand-to-claw combat with a lobox as I did of catching a bullet between my teeth.
Arlen Zelezian continued, "Why did you tip your hand by showing up here earlier, Frederickson? Who else knows, or suspects, what we"re doing?"
Plan A.
"Look, Zelezian, your boy here said you"d just about finished your field tests and are ready to close up shop and go home with your pets. This "werewolf killings" thing has to be wearing a bit thin. No matter whose auspices you"re working under, sooner or later somebody else besides Nate b.u.t.ton and me is going to tumble to the fact that the reason the werewolf can"t be found is that it"s sleeping and traveling with your circus. Kill us, and you"re likely to find there"s more heat coming down on you than you can handle. Maybe you should close up shop right now- tonight-and get back home to Switzerland while you can. Let Harper go, and keep me as a hostage to ensure her silence while you"re packing and en route. Then I"ll tell you what you want to know."
"Don"t be silly, Frederickson. We can"t do that."
"Try this one, Mr. Zelezian," Harper said tersely. "Keep me as a hostage to ensure Robby"s silence until you"re away."
Zelezian ignored her. "Who are you working for, Frederick-son? Who is it that seeks to interfere with my business?"
Plan B.
"Let"s negotiate."
"But you have nothing with which to negotiate."
"Wrong. You want to know what I"m doing here, where I got my information, who I may have been reporting to, and why my hypothetical employer should want to know your business. You may think nothing of using human beings as test victims in your experiments, but somehow I don"t think you"re into killing for the sake of killing-especially if it could be bad for business. I guarantee you that killing us will be bad for business. Miss Rhys-Whitney is a member of a very wealthy and influential family, and I"m not exactly your average midwestern farmer. You and I both find ourselves in what might be described as an uncomfortable situation, but I say we can make an arrangement."
"What kind of an . . . arrangement?"
"First, you"ve already determined that a lobox can be trained, with deadly consistency, to do what you want it to do. There"s no need for any more testing-and I still can"t understand why you"ve kept at it so long. So pa.s.s on Nate b.u.t.ton-the man who was wearing that safari jacket."
"That may not be possible," Arlen Zelezian said carefully.
"Because he made the link between the lobox and the circus and came snooping around? So what? He"s been touting the case for a lobox from day one, and n.o.body"s taken him seriously. How much more evidence could he have had than the hair and saliva samples? Did he actually see something here? The man is considered a crackpot, even in academic circles. n.o.body will pay the slightest attention to anything he has to say. I don"t know whether you"ve already got him on ice somewhere, or simply know where to find him, but there"s no need to kill him. There"s no reason now to kill Harper and me. We have no proof of anything, and we"ll keep silent about what we know-as long as you take yourself and this whole insane operation out of the country."
The elder Zelezian"s thin lips curled back in a sneer of contempt. "You"ll say nothing?"
"You have my word on it."
"I agree," Harper said evenly, squeezing my arm in what I took to be a gesture of encouragement.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Why not? If you know so much about me, then you know that I keep my word. It may p.i.s.s me off to see you murderers get away, but I have to live with a lot of things that p.i.s.s me off, and it"s a bargain I"m forced into in order to save our lives. Bear in mind also that the value of this particular bioweapon decreases radically in proportion to the amount of information that leaks out about it. Kill us, and I guarantee that lots of people are going to be on your a.s.s, trying to find out things. You really have no choice but to take my word that no leaks will come from us. You"ll be other people"s problem."
Zelezian thought about it, finally shook his head. "No. Afterward, you might decide that breaking your word is something you can live with also."