The Dinosaur Hunter(106)

Then the helicopter roared overhead. It was in one big hurry, rolling over in a tight turn and settling in on the camp. It didn’t land but hovered above the jacketed bones. I guess somebody on the ground attached the net because when the chopper rose, the net was dangling beneath it. It made a circle toward the east, then began to gain altitude. That was when a bright light stabbed out of the darkness from near the hills toward the lake and lit up the helicopter. The chopper turned away but the spot of the light stayed with it. Then a red streak leapt from the source of the light, tore through the rain, and plowed into the UH-1. It jerked at the impact, then rolled over on its side and went down with a massive fireball rising from its twisted remains. The light switched off and everything was quiet but the thunder and the grumble of a burning helicopter. All I can say is I was more than a bit confused over what had happened to the chopper, but grateful.

Below, the Wolves were coming at us again, just raising hell with their automatic weapons. I doubted that they knew their helicopter had been blasted out of the sky since all the action had occurred on the other side of our hill.

Standing before the bas relief of the mama T, Pick was screaming at the Russians to stop. It was none other than Cade Morgan who managed to scramble up to the dig. He proceeded to point a pistol at Pick, then stopped to look with awe at the great headless beast squatting there.

“Yes,” Pick said, “it is another T. rex. A mother T and she is on her nest, protecting it. It is the wonder of wonders. Nothing in paleontology has ever been seen like it before.”

The rain was picking up again, heavy drops striking the dig. To Pick’s horrified eyes, the leg bones of the T began to come apart, sliding into the muck. “Help me, Cade,” Pick said. “We need to lay a tarp over it.”

Cade was over his initial shock. “I’ve got two sets of bones. I don’t need another. No, I guess I need to kill you.”

Pick backed up against the side of the hill. The mud was flowing around him in a small river, coating his head, his shoulders, and his back. It was as if he was melting into the wall of mud. Above him, something was forming out of the mud. Cade saw it and laughed. Pick looked up and saw the muzzle of the mama T coming out of the mud. “Damn,” Cade said, “that’s an ugly thing.”

Then there was a roar behind Cade and he turned to see what had made it. Pick took the opportunity to reach up, grasp a foot-long steak knife of a tooth, and pull it free before launching himself to plunge the tooth into Cade’s back. Cade screamed and threw his head back as a huge light switched on, flooding the entire side of the hill with a blue-white fluorescence.

Jeanette and I slid down the hill, reaching the cave. “We’re OK,” Ray said and I kept going to the lip of the dig. Pick was standing there over Cade who wasn’t moving, mainly because there was a big brown tooth in his back. Then I noticed the snout, the teeth, and the bony brows of a giant skull protruding from the muck. “Hello, Mama,” I said. “You took care of your child, didn’t you?” She didn’t reply but I thought she looked happy for a sixty-five-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex.

I shaded my eyes from the glaring light, which suddenly switched off. I turned away, trying to get my night vision back, and then I heard the shriek of metal on metal and a thumping noise. It sounded like a steel hatch being thrown open. A huge reddish-purple dot was hanging in my eyes but as it faded, I slipped and slid my way around the dig and down the hill. On the way, I fell across a body. By its Hawaiian shirt, I saw it was one of the Russians lying on his back. There was an additional color to his shirt, a florid, bloody spot at the chest where there was also a big hole. Whatever kind of bullet had struck him was armor piercing.

I heard a voice I recognized but did not belong to the scene. “Mike, you OK?”

A big hand reached down and grasped mine and drew me up. It was Sam Haxby. I looked past him to what I now recognized was an armored car. Its engine noise was very familiar. I had been hearing it at night for weeks. The face painted on its front had reptilian eyes and a great, grinning mouth of teeth. Then I noticed Sam was carrying a huge rifle with what looked like a night scope and a big silencer on its barrel. He kicked the dead Wolf. “I think this is the last of them. Sorry it took so long for us to plug ’em. We wanted to make sure of our shots.”

“Sam,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

He looked at me as if I was daft. “Why, on regular patrol, Mike. Since them Green Monkey Wrench ecoterrorists hit us, we’ve been keeping an eye on our ranch and the BLM, don’t you know? We’ve been watching your tent city for more than a while. You looked like you weren’t doing nothing but digging in the dirt so we left you alone. But then Cade Morgan and these fellows arrived and we couldn’t figure it out. Heard your radio calls, too, but we thought we’d just sit tight to see what was what. But when that damn black helicopter arrived, we knew it was time to stand up to these bastards. What are they, FBI, CIA, or some government agency we don’t know about?”