Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(97)

He checks behind the mess hall, thinking the cooks might have hooked him up with space and supplies. He checks the storage rooms at the rear of the MWR. He checks the maintenance bay, the hangar, the armory.

Outside the latrine, he turns a corner and spots Sergeant Decker marching along with that half-stooped posture of his. Patrick ducks back the way he came and knobs down the volume on his radio and waits for the footsteps to fade, and then his eyes settle on the middle distance, past the melted ruins of Lieutenant Colonel Bennington’s snow diagram, where he spots an old toolshed near the east guard tower.

He has glanced at it dozens of times without really seeing it. And now there it is, like an old book on a crowded shelf that suddenly announces itself when your fingers trail across its leather spine. The wood is dark, weathered. Vines have overtaken it, gray with winter, like dead veins. There is a padlock on the door. None of his keys work—but a rock does. He splinters it away from the rotten wood.

The lightbulb sputters to life, and its dim orange glow seems to bring more shadows than light. He drags the door closed behind him. He can smell the yeast coming off the twenty-five-gallon drums stacked in the corner for propagation. A waist-level bench is built into the wall. On it, Patrick sees a close cousin to the mess of his father’s workspace at home. Beakers, vials, droppers, jugs, and jars. Petri dishes. A rusted microscope. The lightbulb sizzles and then dies. He has only the winter light streaming through the window.

On an overhead shelf, black binders, notebooks full of his small, square handwriting, the penciling faded and smeared. He flips through page after page and reads meaningless entries about yeast cells and blue cells and regions and dilution factors and slurry. He discovers among them a printed email correspondence. He only glances at them, their contents impersonal, a garble of chemical terminology. He folds them up and shoves them in his pocket to study later.

He spots a moth perched on a table and touches it, and it crumbles to dust. He picks up a glass container next to it, filled with a powder that has long ago hardened. A strip of masking tape reaches across it on which is written “Metallo” in black pen. He sets it down and picks up another bottle, this one plastic with a childproof cap, and whatever is inside it jangles. He spins it in his hand until he can read the label, Volpexx.

Something snaps drily beneath his boot. He steps back from the workbench and peers into the shadowy space beneath it and there observes the desiccated corpse of a wolf or a dog—it’s difficult to tell—the body sunken, the fur falling away in patches, the bone of its hind leg split by his weight. Around its snout is a muzzle and around its neck a chain leash bolted to the wall behind it.

One thing is certain: his father wasn’t just making beer.

He hears something then. A chewing, spitting sound. He looks down and his eyes settle on the radio. In a panic he knobs the volume to high and a static-filtered version of Decker’s voice assaults him. “All QRF squads report, all QRF squads report for immediate departure!”



He has no time to think further about his father. He can only run. As he does—mazing his way through the barracks, every step sending up a splash—he joins other soldiers who pour from alleyways and doorways and pound toward the four-truck convoy waiting for them.

It is Ukko, as expected. The gunfire and RPGs started at dawn and haven’t let up. They need backup.

Patrick throws on his gear. He checks the crew-served weapon systems: the medium and heavy machine guns, the rockets and TOW guns. Checks the head space and timing on the .50 caliber to make sure the weather hasn’t made it swell or shrink and thrown it off by a few clicks.

They line up next to their vehicles—four fire squads, two Humvees, two armored trucks—and Decker walks the length of them and knocks them each on the helmet. “Death on a pale horse, gentlemen. Let’s roll.”



*



Today the Tall Man leans into Jeremy until his face is the only thing. It is an expressionless face, a dead face, the skin glossy and colored different shades of red and pink and yellow and tan. “You’re wondering. But you’re afraid to ask. You’re wondering why I look this way?”

The Tall Man asks questions and Jeremy answers them—that is their routine—but in this case he does not know how to respond. Will he be punished for a wrong answer?

The Tall Man exhales through his slit-like nostrils, a long, deflating hiss. “It happened a long time ago. You weren’t even born yet. At the time I was a police officer in Chicago. My first year on the job and I was assigned foot patrol during the Days of Rage. You know all about the Days of Rage, don’t you, Mr. Saber? I’ve read your book. I found it a very interesting piece of propaganda. I am the other side of that propaganda. I am an asterisk in one of your chapters. I am what happens when an animal tries to play human games and gets itself into mischief. As you know, on October 9, 1969, a bomb went off in front of the capitol building. It injured and killed many people and drew many more police and spectators to the scene. I give the lycans credit for that. It was a clever bit of bait. I was there, dragging an injured woman from her car, when the second bomb went off. We were standing in a lake of gasoline.” He opens his mouth and blows into Jeremy’s face. “Poof!”

He leans back and crosses his legs. His knees appear sharp enough to pierce the black fabric of his slacks. He might be smiling, though it is hard to tell. His tone is conversational. They might be old friends fondly remembering a moment from years before. “You might not believe it,” he says, “but I was once a handsome man. And you’ll like this. You’ll like this a lot. Your estranged and deceased brother-in-law is responsible for my condition. It was him. He was responsible for the bombs. Yes. That’s right. He was. He was never prosecuted for it, but he came to justice all the same. I made sure of that.”