Runaway Heart

FIFTY

Jack Wirta was running as fast as he could, his tortured back sending shots of electric pain up his spinal column and down his leg. He still had the smell of Robert Horsekiller's burning flesh in his nose.

They were all following Izzy, who was running across the desert in a wide right turn. Carlos had dropped the 30.06 somewhere and Digby was galloping in the rear, favoring his strong leg and grimacing as his dislocated arm flapped uselessly at his side.

Jack didn't know if Izzy had any specific destination or was just running in a huge semicircle, but followed him anyway. After all, he used to sneak off the res to get laid, so he had to know where he was going, didn't he?

He didn't.

They stopped in front of the old Airstream trailer that had belonged to the late Robert Horsekiller. Izzy had his hands on his knees and was sucking in great gasps of air as Jack and Susan pulled up.

"What's here?" Jack managed between gulps of air.

"Nothing," Izzy wheezed back.

"Then why did you lead us here?" Jack asked.

"Dunno," Izzy said.

"You're relieved. Some fucking chief."

Digby finally arrived at the trailer groaning and holding his limp arm, looking like a coronary case. Three-hundred-fifty-pound guys weren't designed to run in the sand.

"I don't see any more of them," Susan said.

Jack didn't either. "I counted five. We got two. That means the first squad is down to three. We're down to four, if you're still with us, Digby."

"I'll try," the big Indian groaned.

Jack paused. "I'm really sorry about Horsekiller. That wasn't supposed to happen." They all nodded and Izzy crossed himself.

"So let's go get some payback," Jack said. "Let's try to take the stables. Keep your weapons cocked and try not to shoot the guy out front… who's gonna be me." Jack crept around the Airstream in the general direction of the barn, then took off running, staying low, hugging the terrain.

As they approached the stables he dropped on his stomach, and led the others toward the structure executing the painful Academy elbow crawl. In the moonlight he felt open and exposed. Slowly, they all worked their way up next to the structure. Miraculously, nobody fired a ray-gun at them.

They stood and flattened out against the wood walls of the weathered stable. Jack reached around and tried the door. Unlocked. He pushed it open a crack, took a deep breath, and ducked quickly inside.

At first the barn appeared empty. They quickly fanned out inside checking for Chimeras or DARPA commandos. Then Susan tripped over something, looked down and shrieked. "Oh my God!"

At her feet was a human arm ripped from its socket and still encased in a black suit sleeve. The hay near where it lay was sticky with blood.

"Son of a bitch," Izzy said softly.

"Look for the body," Jack instructed.

They found the corpse of Dave Silver in one of the stalls. He had bled to death but still had both his arms.

"Nobody else," Izzy said, looking around. "Except for the arm and this one dead guy, it's empty."

"Can't be empty," Susan countered.

"But it is," Izzy argued, sounding like he wanted to get back to Bel Air.

Susan persisted. "We saw them all come out of here.

There's gotta be a way down to the lab from inside this barn."

"She's right," Jack agreed. He looked at the front windows facing west. "Digby, can you keep a lookout? Cover us?"

"Left-handed… can't shoot," the huge man said.

"You could prop your pistol on that windowsill, and if any of those furry bastards come back this way, light 'em up," Jack suggested.

"I'll try," Digby said, but he didn't look too sure of himself.

Susan was prowling around the stable checking the floor and the walls, but she couldn't find a hidden opening.

"What's that doing here?" Izzy asked, pointing at an Indian blanket hanging on the stable wall.

"It's a horse blanket, you moron," his cousin Carlos sneered.

"It's a Navaho blanket. We're Ten-Eyck," Izzy said, moving closer.

"It is?" Jack said. "How can you tell?" They all stood looking at the blanket until Susan finally took the initiative and removed it from the wall. Underneath was a large electrical box and a big, red button.

"Don't touch it," Jack said quickly. "What if it's an alarm or an entrance bell?"

"It's not an alarm or a bell," Susan said and pushed it.

Immediately they heard solenoids clicking, then a hydraulic engine whirred and the floor they were standing on started to rise. They yelped and jumped aside as five square feet of floorboards, hay, and horseshit rose up revealing a lighted staircase and a ten-foot-wide conveyor belt. They were looking down into harsh xenon lights.

"I think I saw this movie," Izzy said.

"Let's go down," Susan ordered, proving, Jack thought, that she had the most guts.

They followed a blood trail down the staircase until they reached the bottom of the first flight, where a door stood slightly ajar. Jack decided that as a certified alpha-male and former Playboy Club member he should probably suck it up and go in first. Reluctantly, he stepped around Susan and pushed the door open.

They entered a large room dominated by ten television monitors, a sophisticated audio mixing panel, and the dead, bloodless, one-armed body of Vincent Valdez.

"Vinnie. You came apart on me," Jack said softly.

The monitor screens showed surveillance views of the reservation barely visible in the moonlight. They could also see the drainage pipe and two intense orange dots. None of them understood that the larger glowing dot was the heat-resonance image of the burning pile of ashes that had once been Robert Horsekiller.

Susan pulled a small digital camera out of her bag and photographed the room along with Vincent Valdez's corpse before they moved on.

The top floor was labeled B-l and contained the command center and a garage with three vehicles-two Jeeps and a small truck that apparently could be driven onto the conveyor belt and up into the barn. Jack located the elevator and brought it up.

"Carlos, stay here. Cover this exit," Jack said.

"Good deal," Carlos said, glad to stay behind.

They found the sleeping quarters on B-2. The bedding on the cots was dime-tight. Personal equipment was packed in spotless footlockers-but no soldiers and no chimeras. The floor was deserted.

B-3 was also empty and housed some storage rooms and the mess hall.

They found the empty chimera nests on B-4. It was a little less pristine down here. Jack saw some animal dung on the floor.

Since B-4 was also empty, they got back on the elevator and continued down.

All hell broke loose on B-5.