Callsign: King - Blackout

32

Suvorov slipped over the railing and dropped into a ready stance on the riverboat’s forward deck. Two more Spetsnaz commandos-all that remained of his original team-clambered over right behind him, their weapons at the ready. The boat was now eerily quiet; although the spacious deck at the aft end was crowded with passengers, the noise of the party that had masked the team’s previous entry was gone. Still, no one seemed to notice their arrival.

He had followed King’s journey back to the riverboat from a distance. At first, this was due to his inability to take any action, stranded as he was in a boat with a shattered outboard. He had managed to contact the members of the team in the lead boat-thank goodness they had bought waterproof two-way radios-and arranged for them to come and get him. One of the men from the trailing boat had also radioed for help, his need slightly more urgent since he had a broken arm and treading water with only one good hand was rapidly wearing him out. That man’s teammate had not made contact, and Suvorov feared the worst.

Two men dead-Ian, dead-and another man badly injured. And we don’t even have the man we came for.

Later, when he had rendezvoused with the surviving members of the team-the injured man had been left in the damaged boat-he held back because he was curious about his opponent’s movements. Brown’s rescuer had inexplicably turned back to the riverboat. That abrupt change of course had occurred right after the earthquake that had not only plunged the city into darkness, but also blanketed all the radio frequencies with impenetrable static. Suvorov didn’t know how the events were connected, but at least now his prey was in a fixed location and was evidently not going anywhere.

Suvorov signaled for his men to advance. He knew that this time, things were going to get ugly. With only the three of them, the mere threat of violence would not suffice to control the situation. They would have to take decisive action. They had removed the sound suppressors from the Uzis; there would be shooting, and this time, noise and chaos-not stealth-would be their greatest ally. Suvorov had made it clear that they weren’t to waste any ammunition on warning shots.

But before the team could make their presence known, all hell broke loose on the party deck. Suvorov halted the team as the silence was broken by a chorus of frantic screams, followed by noise of a rushing mob. An instant later, the deck leading along the side of the superstructure was filled with dozens of passengers, men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns, all running headlong from whatever had triggered the stampede. Suvorov’s team was completely exposed but none of the passengers seemed to give them even a second glance as they pushed past, seeking the forward section of the riverboat. Off to the side, splashes in the river’s surface indicated that some at the rear of the pack had chosen to simply jump overboard. Behind the frantic crowd, about fifty feet from where the Spetsnaz team stood frozen in place, the source of the panic came into view.

The thing defied description. It seemed at once both insubstantial, like a cloud of black smoke, and as solid as granite. Towering above the fleeing horde, at least ten feet high, its mass filled the narrow gap between the bulkheads of the superstructure and the deck railing. Long black tendrils squirmed out ahead of it, grasping the deck to draw it forward, yet the whole thing moved as smoothly as a bead of quicksilver.

What happened next left Suvorov almost paralyzed with disbelief. One of the tentacles abruptly shot forward, stretching out like a frog’s tongue snatching a fly out the air, and speared into the fleeing crowd. Several of the passengers-everyone in the path of the snaking protrusion-simply evaporated, vanishing from existence. Nothing remained; no shreds of clothing, no blood, not even ashes. It was as if every molecule of each person touched by the tentacle, had come apart in an instant.

But not all of them.

One man, who had almost reached the Spetsnaz team’s position, was caught by the tendril and instantly snatched back-alive and evidently unharmed-into the main body of the thing.

Then it happened a second time.

“Down!” Suvorov shouted, throwing himself flat.

A tentacle shot past, missing him by scant inches though he neither heard nor felt any disturbance. Two men and a woman, all of whom had already pushed past the commandos, vanished in a puff, and then the snake-thing reached through the space those victims had occupied, gripped another man who was climbing the railing in preparation to leap overboard, and yanked him back. Suvorov felt something brush his back, the unlucky man’s thrashing feet, and then he was gone, enveloped completely by the dark mass.

The thing continued to move forward. Thirty feet away… Twenty… It towered above them like a tornado. The advancing tendrils that drew it onward, each one as thick as a tree trunk, were only inches away.

A crescendo of gunfire erupted beside Suvorov. One of his men was firing his Uzi into the thing.

There was no sign of damage. The bullets vanished into it without any visible effect, but remarkably, the shape halted.

The gun fell silent as the magazine ran out.

And the monster moved again.