Leviathan(56)

Chesterton was running full-out with the M-16 in one hand, teeth clenched in rage. Then they were at the Observation Room door to hear the fantastic sounds of conflict raging over the computer monitor.

Three Army Rangers stationed at the black doorway leaped and spun at their frantic approach, expertly leveling M-16s.

“Move aside!” yelled Chesterton. “Stand fast or move aside just get out of the way!”

Leaping this way and then that to obey the contradictory commands, the soldiers staggered into each other. Chesterton barreled through with Connor at his back and Frank following, all of them almost falling through the door.

Connor went through the open portal to see Chesterton take two staggering steps toward one of Blake's shocked MPs. Wildly Chesterton's lean arm lashed out, his fist connecting solidly to knock the MP flat back to the ground. Then Chesterton spun to hit Adler, connecting with a hard blow that put the old man over a computer panel.

Then Blake's second MP whirled, and Connor was instantly on top of him, his right fist striking the man's jaw just as he raised his rifle at Chesterton. Connor caught the barrel of the rifle as the MP swung his aim and Connor connected with three hard blows— a hook, a cross and then another hard right that caught the man clean across the neck. The MP dropped to the floor at the blow, his rifle clattering across the tiles.

Livid from the conflict, fists clenched, Connor strode boldly into the Observation Room. He didn't like violence, had never liked violence. But he'd been forced hard into this one, his love for his wife and son compelling him, and now that he was in the thick of it he was in a quick mood to hurt anybody who got in his way.

Then a monitor loomed in front of him and Connor saw it: a terrifying, demonic Dragon of titanic size that whipped around in a rage, striking the demolished turret of a tank with a long, muscular tail that ended in a wicked, bone-bladed wedge as wide as a horse's head.

The diamond-hard wedge bit deep into a destroyed tank cannon and Leviathan screamed again through gaping fangs, spinning once more to drag the torrent thirty feet before the tail-wedge tore loose from the steel. Roaring, the Dragon shook, trembling in rage. And glaring through glowing green eyes, it stood atop white fire, shattered steel. But the flames were vanishing. It had won the battle.

Frank was instantly at the control panel, snatching his headset from Tolvanos waist. The scientist shouted, “They've turned on the nitrogen pheromones! That was stupid! It learns! It's not going to let itself be put to sleep again!” He began hitting computer controls, hands flying over the blinking orange lights, commanding, commanding ...

“Do something!” Chesterton shouted, running up. He pointed toward the fire wall, raising his voice over Leviathan's shriek. “Do something before it rips that fire wall off its hinges!”

“Look out!” Connor yelled, leaping to the control panel. “It's going to attack!”

Bellowing, Leviathan spun and glared insanely at the cavern's observation camera. Then it launched an attack that hit the monitoring screen almost as it began, a blinding-fast eruption of speed that covered more than a hundred yards in the blink of an eye.

A distant earthquake like a cannon blast shook the cavern wall west of the Observation Room. The cell's remote viewing camera suddenly went blank, the image of a charging Leviathan instantly replaced with a waving orange haze passing up and off the top of the monitoring screen.

Electronic hissing.

Drenched in cold sweat, Connor stared at the fire wall in front of them, breathless, trying to listen over his own pounding blood to hear ...

Silence ...

No …

Not silence …

Faintly, Connor thought he could hear ...

Scratching.

A distinctive, sinister scratching on the titanium before them.

Sweat dropped from Chesterton's face as he backed away from the fire wall, raising the barrel of the M-16.

“Oh, no,” he whispered.

* * *





Chapter 13



“Everybody get out!” Chesterton yelled, leveling the M-16 at the fire wall. “Get out of here now!”

Staggering in fear, scientific personnel began for the door-way. And suddenly, with a deafening collision, the titanium fire wall was half-shattered, violently displacing the computer panel that was rent inward by a terrific force that struck again and again, pounding. A reptilian roar liquefied the air; guttural, bellowing.

Chaos and screams.

Connor heard continuous rifle fire and turned to see Chesterton firing, firing, kneeling low on the ground to continue firing at a black-green nightmare shape that tore fiendishly at the titanium with black claws as long as butcher knives.

“Get out of here!” Chesterton bellowed.

Submerged in the shrilling scream of the beast, Connor staggered to the wall and saw Frank rolling on the floor, dazed. Chesterton's bullets were ricocheting off the rent titanium, glancing over the top of the plate to strike without effect at a long foreleg that reached, grasping, sweeping through the Observation Room.