“All right, Frank. This is how we’ve got to do it. I’m going to try and put this thing down. To finish it. But if it makes it past me, then it’s coming for this cavern and the lake. And if that happens you’re going to have to ignite the fail-safe.” He searched the scientist. “Can you do that?”
Frank nodded without expression. “Yeah. GEO will set off the fail-safe at my word. Whenever I say.”
“Good. Because we can’t let Leviathan get past us.” Connor pointed grimly at a tunnel on the far side of the power plant. “That’s the tunnel that leads to Crystal Lake. The only tunnel. So Leviathan has got to get past us before it can be free.” He stared at them, grim. “This is where we hold the line, people. Or die trying. Because if Leviathan gets past us, then it gets to the lake. And if it gets into the lake, then it’s loose in the world.”
Silence and stares.
“Do all of you understand what I’m saying?” Connor asked quietly. “If we have to sacrifice ourselves to take this thing out, then we do it. But Leviathan can never escape this cavern. Are we all in agreement?”
Connor looked at Beth, and she didn’t even blink as she nodded, slow and certain. Then he looked across at Barley, and the big man was the epic image of a professional soldier. Bruised and bloody and burned, he stood with the stock of his rifle set on his hip, barrel pointing at the ceiling. He nodded without remorse. Connor returned the gesture.
“All right,” he said slowly. “Then I’m going out.”
Barley called out. “Put it in the dirt, Connor!”
“Yeah, good luck,” Frank repeated.
Without words Connor nodded and lifted the M-79, walking out. He approached the wide, darkened exit of the power plant, moving toward the ultimate shadows and fear. But at the door he paused, turning almost against his will to gaze back.
He saw that Jordan had risen to stand lonely and alone on the walkway. The boy had shed his blanket and fearfully held both hands tightly in front of his chest, staring.
A low moan escaped Connor. He didn’t know what to do or say. Then Jordan raised his small hand in the air, holding it high with fingers spread strong.
I’ll always be with you …
Connor’s teeth came together, tears in his eyes.
He raised his hand to the air.
Chapter 38
Merciless and warlike, Connor crouched in the center of the long black walkway that led to the power plant. His face was a mask of coldhearted will.
His eyes glinted, red.
An M-79, the grenade launcher, was slung across his back. And he had other grenades in a small bag on his waist. A semiautomatic Beretta pistol was shoved in his belt, and he held another pistol in his hand. Four extra clips were in his back pocket.
Frowning in pain, Connor shifted, tried to ignore it. He had taken three more painkillers but they only took the faintest edge off his uncountable torn muscles, cuts, and bruises.
His legs were aching, threatening to collapse whenever he moved and his shoulders and chest were raw and bleeding from wound after wound that he couldn’t even remember receiving. His upper arm, where he had taken the steel spike, was completely numb and swollen, and he had been forced to remove Frank’s bandage to allow more blood flow.
Connor was thankful Barley had given him the last of the high-strength codeine capsules. Now, he knew, he could push his body far past the point of normal endurance. He could push himself past injury, past everything. He could sustain a life-threatening wound and still keep fighting until blood loss or shock took him to the ground.
And this would be the worst, he knew. A battle to the finish between man and beast. No pity, no mercy and absolutely to the death.
In the breathless anxiety of the moment Connor felt himself moving into something vividly pure, everything within him fading, fading until he was completely one with what he was doing. Even his fear faded, faded until everything within, his son and wife and his own life became one with his stand. It was all in him, with him.
There was no fear here.
Only purpose.
Connor concentrated, focusing whatever strength was left inside him for the imminent conflict. He knew that he had chosen his location well. He had positioned himself a full mile from the power plant with four traps to his back, each trap set to take the beast apart the same way it had taken them apart.
Piece by piece.
And Connor knew he would do it. He would take it apart piece by piece until there was nothing left of it.
“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s just you and me now … Show me what it really takes to break you.”
Silence for a moment, and Connor spoke quietly into the headset, grateful that Frank had taken a moment to put his voice identity on-line with GEO. Now Connor, too, could talk to the computer through the headset.