Joe Ledger 1.20 - Story to the Dragon Factory - Deep, Dark (a joe ledger novel) Read online

  Joe Ledger 1.20 - Story to the Dragon Factory - Deep, Dark

  ( A Joe Ledger Novel )

  Jonathan Maberry

  DEEP, DARK

  Jonathan Maberry

  -An Exclusive Short Story-

  (1)

  The Vault

  Ultra High Security Biological Research Facility

  The Poconos, Pennsylvania

  Twenty Minutes Ago

  It was the dirty end of a dirty job.

  Three of us— Bunny, Top and I— were hunting horrors in the dark, seven thousand feet below Camelback Mountain. Even with night vision, body armor and weapons, we were lost in an infinity of shadows. If we blew this, if we couldn’t wrap this up before the clock ticked down then the whole place would go into hard lockdown. Steel doors would drop and explosive bolts would fire, triggering thermite charges that would seal the doors permanently in place. Federal and international biohazard protocols forbade anyone from digging us up if the fail-safes went active.

  The Vault would become our tomb.

  The government would disown us, our own people would have to write us off.

  But the things we hunted wouldn’t care. When our lights and weapons and food ran out, they’d hunt us.

  And, very likely, they would get us…and then get out.

  (2)

  Camelback Mountain

  Pocono Plateau, Elevation 2,133 Feet

  Two Hours Ago

  We touched down on a State Forestry helipad at the top of Camelback. Morning mist still clung to the off-season ski slopes. The sun was a weak promise behind a ceiling of white clouds that stretched off into the dim forever. A bookish-looking man in a white anorak and thick glasses met us as we ducked out through the rotor wash. He was flanked by a State Cop who looked confused and a security officer from the Vault who looked bug-eyed scared. Nobody shook hands.

  We piled into his Expedition. The state cop looked at the equipment bags we carried and it was clear he wanted to ask, but he’d been told that questions were off limits. All he knew was they were “specialists” on the Federal dime who came here to help solve a security problem. Which is another way of telling him to shut the hell up and just drive the car.

  The geek with the glasses turned to me and started to speak, but I shook my head.

  We drove in silence down the zigzag road that should have been packed with tourists who were here for the water-park and other summer sports. We passed three police roadblocks and turned onto an access road before a fourth. A phalanx of troopers were bellowing at the families and tour buses, waving them into U-turns and turning deaf ears to the abuse heaped on them by people who had driven since before dawn to get here. Top caught my eye and shook his head. I nodded. Inconvenience was a hell of a lot better than dying out here in the cold.

  A smaller road split off from the access road and led into a big equipment barn, but the barn was just a cover for the entrance to the Vault. Four nervous-looking guards manned the entrance, and their supervisor came over to us in an electric golf cart. He cut a look at the bookworm.

  “These the pros from Dover?” He tried for the joke, but his voice cracked, spoiling it. I gave him a hard grin anyway. It was a nice try.

  I turned to our driver as we climbed out. “Thanks, Troop…we’re good from here.”

  He gave me a gruff nod, backed up, turned and left, throwing suspicious looks at us through the side-view mirror. The three of us unzipped the light windbreakers we’d worn on the flight and checked our weapons. We all wore Heckler & Koch Mark 23 .45 ACP pistols in nylon shoulder rigs. We each carried six magazines and we had other toys in the equipment bags. Bookworm stared at the guns and flicked his tongue over his lips like a nervous iguana.

  “Okay, run it down for us,” I said to him.

  “We’ll talk on the way down,” he said and we piled into the golf cart. The security guy drove that into an elevator that began a descent of over a mile.

  “I’m Dr. Goldman,” said the guy with glasses. “I’m the deputy director of this facility. This is Lars Halverson, our head of security.”

  I shook hands with Halverson. His hand was firm but clammy, and his face and throat glistened with nervous sweat.

  “You’re Captain Ledger?” Goldman asked.

  I nodded and jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “The old man behind me is Top Sims and the kid in diapers is Bunny.” In my peripheral vision I saw Top scratch his cheek with a middle finger.

  First Sergeant Bradley Sims was hardly old, but at forty-one he was the oldest field operative in the DMS. He was nearly as tall as I was, a little heavier in the shoulders and though he was a calm man by nature, he could turn mean as a snake when it mattered.

  The big kid next to him was Staff Sergeant Harvey Rabbit. Real name, so no surprise that everyone called him Bunny. He was just a smidge smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes, and somehow through everything we’ve been through together while running black ops for the Department of Military Sciences, Bunny still managed to keep his idealism bolted in place. My own was wearing pretty damn thin, and my optimism for rational behavior in people who should know better was taking one hell of a beating.

  “What were you told?” asked Goldman.

  “Not enough,” I said. “You believe there’s one or more infiltrators operating in your facility. You have one casualty, is that right?”

  I caught the quick look that passed between Goldman and Halverson. It was furtive as all get-out and at that moment I wouldn’t have bought water from either of them if my ass was on fire.

  “Actually,” Goldman said slowly, “we have four casualties.”

  The engine of the elevator car was the only sound for a while. I heard Top clear his throat ever so slightly behind me.

  “Who’s dead,” I said sharply.

  “Two of my people,” said Halverson. “And another of the research staff.”

  “How and when?”

  “We found the second guard half an hour ago,” Goldman said. “The others were killed sometime last night. They didn’t report for the breakfast meeting and when the security teams did a search they found them dead in their rooms.”

  “How were they killed?”

  Goldman chewed his lip. “The same as the first one.”

  “That’s not an answer. I asked ‘how.’”

  He turned to Halverson, but I snapped my fingers. Loud as a firecracker in the confines of the elevator car. “Hey! Don’t look at him. I asked you a question. Look at me and give me a straight answer.”

  He blinked in surprise, obviously unused to being ordered about. Probably thought his rank here at the facility put him above such things. Life’s full of disappointments.

  “They were…bitten.”

  “Bitten? By what? An animal? An insect?”

  Halverson snorted and then hid it with a cough.

  Goldman shook his head. “No…they were bitten to death by the…um…terrorists.”

  I stared at him, mouth open to snap at him to make a little more sense, but then the elevator reached the bottom with a clang, and Halverson drove us out into the complex. We passed through a massive airlock that would have put a dent in NASA’s budget. None of us said anything because all around us klaxons screamed and red emergency lights pulsed.

  Halverson stamped on the brakes.

  “Christ!” Goldman yelled.

  “OUT!” I growled, but Top and Bunny were already out of the cart, their guns appearing in their hands as if by magic. I was right with them.

  The floor, t
he walls, even the ceiling of the steel tunnel were splashed with bright red blood. Five bodies lay sprawled in ragdoll heaps. Arms and legs twisted into grotesque shapes, eyes wide with profound shock and everlasting terror.

  The corridor ran a hundred yards straight forward, angling down deeper into the bowels of the mountain. Behind us the hall ran twenty yards and jagged left into a side hall. Bunny put his laser sight on the far wall near the turn. Top had his pointed ahead. I swept in a full circle.

  “Clear!” Bunny said.

  “Clear,” said Top.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Goldman.

  Halverson was saying something to himself. Maybe a prayer, but we couldn’t hear it beneath the noise of the klaxons.

  Then the alarms died. Just like that.

  So did the lights.

  The silence was immediate and dreadful.

  The darkness was absolute.

  But it was not an empty darkness. There were sounds in it, and I knew that we were far from alone down there.

  “Night vision,” I barked.

  “On it,” Bunny said. He was the closest to the golf cart and I heard him rummaging in the bags. A moment later he said, “Green and go. Coming to you on your six.”

  He moved through the darkness behind me and touched my shoulder, then pressed a helmet into my hands. I put on the tin pot, flipped down the night vision and flicked it on. The world went from absolute darkness to a surreal landscape of green, white and black.

  “Top,” Bunny said, “coming to you.”

  I held my ground and studied the hall. Nothing moved. Goldman cowered beside me. He folded himself into the smallest possible package and was tucked against the right front fender of the cart. Halverson was still behind the wheel. He had a Glock in his hand and the barrel was pointed at Top.

  “Halverson,” I said evenly, not wanting to startle him. “Raise your barrel. Do it now.”

  He did it, but there was a long moment of nervous indecision before he complied, so I swarmed up and took the gun away from him.

  “Hey!” he complained. “Don’t—I need that!”

  "You don't have night vision. Just sit tight and let us handle it."

  “I have a flashlight.” He began fumbling at his belt, but I batted his hand aside. “No. Stay here and be still. I’m going to place your weapon on the seat next to you. Do not pick it up until the lights come on.”

  “But—”

  “You’re a danger to me and mine,” I said, bending close. “Point a gun in the dark around me again and I’ll put a bullet in you. Do you believe me?”

  “Y-yes.”

  I patted his shoulder—to which he flinched—and moved away.

  “What are you seeing, Top?”

  He knelt by the wall, his pistol aimed wherever he looked. “Nothing seeing nothing, Cap’n.”

  “Bunny?”

  He was guarding our backs. “Dead people and shadows, boss. Look at the walls. Someone busted out the emergency lights.”

  “Captain Ledger,” began Goldman, “what—?”

  “Be quiet and be still,” I said.

  We squatted in the dark and listened.

  A sound.

  Thin and scratchy, like fingernails on cardboard. Then a grunt of effort.

  Top and I looked up at the same time, putting the red dots of our laser sights on the same part of the upper wall. There was a metal grille over an access port. The grille hung by a single screw and one corner of it was twisted and bent out of shape, the spikes of two screws hanging from the edges. The grille hadn’t been opened with a screwdriver, it had been torn out.

  No. Pushed.

  The scratching sound was coming from there, but as we listened it faded and was gone.

  “It’s gone,” whispered Goldman.

  I noticed that he said “it,” not “him” or “them.” I could tell from the way he stiffened that Top caught it, too.

  But Bunny asked, “What’s gone? I mean…what the hell was that?”

  The scientist turned toward Bunny’s voice. His green-hued face was a study in inner conflict. His eyes were wide and blind, but they were windows into his soul. I doubt I’ve ever seen anyone as genuinely or deeply terrified.

  “They…they’re soldiers,” he said.

  “Whose soldiers? We were told this was a potential terrorist infiltration.”

  “God,” he said hollowly. “There are a dozen of them.”

  I moved up to him and grabbed a fistful of his shirt.

  “Stop screwing around, Doc, or so help me God—”

  “Please,” he begged. “Please… We were trying to help. We were doing good work, important work. We were just trying to help the men in the field. But…but…”

  And he began to cry.

  We were screwed. Deeply, comprehensively and perhaps terminally screwed.

  Something moved in the green gloom down the hall. It was big and it kept to the shadows behind a stack of packing crates. It made a weird chittering sound.

  “Is that a radio?” Bunny whispered.

  I shook my head, but I really didn’t know what it was.

  “It’s them!” Goldman said and he loaded those two words with so much dread that I felt my flesh crawl.

  “I got nothing down here,” said Bunny, who was still guarding behind us. “What are you seeing, boss?”

  “Unknown. Top, watch the ceilings. I don’t like this worth a damn.”

  The chittering sound came again, but this time it was behind us.

  “What’ve you got, Bunny?” I called.

  “I don’t know, boss, but it’s weird and it’s big. Staying out of range, just around the bend.”

  I turned.

  “This is the U.S. Army. Lay down your weapons and step out into the hall with your hands raised.”

  My voice echoed back to me through the darkness, but whoever was around the bend did not step out.

  The chittering sound was constant.

  I repeated the challenge.

  The sound changed, fading as the figure retreated. It was gone in seconds. I turned again, and the one ahead of us was gone as well.

  “Cover me,” I said and Top shifted to keep his laser sight next to me as I crept over to the wall below the grille. I stood on tiptoes and strained to hear.

  The chittering sound was there, but it was very faint and as I listened it faded to silence. Whatever was making that sound was too far away to be heard, but I knew that didn’t mean it was gone.

  I turned to the others. Doctor Goldman sat with his face in his hands, weeping.

  “We’re all going to hell for this,” he sobbed. “Oh, God…I’m going to hell.”

  (3)

  The Vault

  Forty-six Minutes Ago

  When I finally got Goldman to stop blubbering and tell me what the hell was happening I was almost sorry he did.

  Halverson was able to lead us to the breakers and we got the main lights back on. The rest of the research team huddled in the staff lounge, a few of them with improvised weapons —a fire axe, hammers, that sort of thing. The lounge had a single door and the filtration system vent in that room was the size of a baseball. We locked ourselves in and had a powwow.

  Goldman said: “This facility was originally built as a secure bunker to house the Governor and other officials during a nuclear war. After the Cold War it was repurposed for genetics and biological research.”

  “What kind of research?” I asked.

  “That’s classified.”

  I put my pistol barrel against his forehead. “Declassify it,” I suggested.

  “Listen to the man,” murmured Top in a fatherly voice—if your father was Hannibal Lecter.

  Everyone gasped and Halverson’s hand almost strayed toward his sidearm. Goldman licked his lips. “We…we’ve been tasked with exploring the feasibility of using gene therapy for military asset enhancement.”

  “What kind of gene therapy?”

  “Various.”

  I tapped
him with the barrel. “You’re stalling and I’m disliking you more and more each second, Doc.”

  He winced. “Please…I can’t think with that—” He gestured vaguely toward the gun, and I moved it six inches away.

  “Talk.”

  “We…I mean the government, the military, see the way things are going. The biosphere is critically wounded. Global warming is only the beginning. That’s the pop culture talking point, but it’s a lot worse than that. Seas are dying because pollution has interrupted or eliminated key links in the food chain. Plankton and krill are dying off while sea-borne bacteria proliferate. Coral reefs are dying, the sea floor is a garbage pit, and even third world countries are building centrifuges by the score to refine uranium.”

  “Yeah, I watch CNN. Life sucks. Get to the point.”

  “Some key people in government want to ensure that no matter what happens we’ll still be able to maintain an effective military presence capable of response under all conditions.”

  “What kinds of conditions?”

  “Extreme. Deep pollution, blight, even post-conflict radiation environments.”

  “Meaning?”

  Goldman’s face was bleak. “Meaning, that if you can’t fix the world, then alter the inhabitants to adapt to the ambient circumstances.”

  I sat back and laid the pistol on my lap, my finger outside of the trigger guard.

  “How?” asked Bunny. “How do you make people adapt?”

  “Transgenics. Gene therapy. And some other methods. We explored some surgical options, but that’s problematic. There’s recovery time, tissue rejection issues, and other problems. Genetic modification is less traumatic.”

  “Let me see if I get this,” I said. “You and your bunch of mad scientists down here alter the genes of test subjects to see if you can make them more adaptable to polluted and devastated environments.”

  “Yes.”

  “What kinds of genes?”

  “Insect, as I said. Insects are among the most successful life forms. Not as durable as viruses or as hardy as some forms of bacteria, of course, but otherwise, they’re remarkable. Many can live on very little food, they can endure great injury, and there are some who are highly resistant to radiation.”