Event

pulling out of the tunnels in anticipation of another strategy,' the bearded radioman said.

Farbeaux held his gaze on the three Americans a moment longer. 'I believe we can learn no more from this excursion,' he said, lowering his eyes. 'Either way, Hendrix would have killed me.' He looked at his men. 'Come, I see no profit in dying here. We shall choose our own time and place, and we'll make it for money, not this dark death.'

Julie was having difficulty taking a deep breath in the enclosed and claustrophobic tunnel. She wished they would just let them go.

Farbeaux was just starting to move away when he saw one of the dead animals. He held his light on what looked to be small, round grapes. The light caught a shadow inside that suddenly jittered. His eyes widened in amazement as he realized what he was looking at. Eggs! They were purplish in color and half the size of a wine grape. He looked around quickly, then removed his combat knife. He quickly emptied his canteen and stuck the knife into the membrane that held the hundreds of eggs. He gathered twenty or so on the edge of his knife and scraped them off into his plastic canteen. With his gloved hand he scooped up a few ounces of the clear viscous membrane and also deposited that in the canteen. He replaced it on his belt.

They were just getting ready to start out when the animals attacked again. Farbeaux was just missed as the first animal grabbed one of his men and pulled him into the earth. The colonel yelled and dropped his knife, then quickly fired at the retreating animal. He turned and started pushing his way to the front. Suddenly the whole side of the wall caved in as four of the beasts struck. It was all close-in fighting after that.

Julie pushed Billy and Tony ahead. 'Run!' she shouted as she felt more than saw one of the animals turn and start coming their way, screeching and shaking its ugly head.

The screams coming from behind them in the tunnel intensified as they fled as fest as the darkness would allow. Suddenly Julie felt searing pain slice across her back as one of the animals leaped. Her blouse was torn in two down the middle of her back as she yelled for the others to run. She stopped and turned, facing the nightmare in front of her. The animal rose to its full height and roared, but no sooner had the sound emerged from its mouth than it staggered under an onslaught of bullets. Pieces flew from its body as the tracer rounds struck nonarmored areas of its torso. A few of the bullets whizzed by her head, missing her by mere inches. She then noticed a dozen thin red beams of light dotted all over the animal's chest and torso. Amazingly, they were coming from the direction the three had been heading. Everywhere a beam of red light hit, a bullet soon followed, either bouncing away harmlessly or digging into the purplish flesh. She slammed herself into the dirt and covered her head. Then suddenly the animal dove into the wall, cascading dirt and sand over her.

At the same time, the screams and gunfire in the section of tunnel they had just fled subsided to nothing.

Julie was shaking uncontrollably as she felt movement around her but was afraid to look up.

'Miss Dawes, you alright?' a familiar voice called out, barely audible to her through the dirt.

'Mom, hey, Mom, it's the major and Lieutenant Ryan,' Billy shouted.

Julie slowly turned over, rocks and dirt sliding away as she winced in pain. She brought up a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh glare of the flashlights.

'That was pretty close,' Ryan said, bending over and helping her to her feet.

With a trembling voice she hissed, 'A little too close.'

Collins stepped forward along with Mendenhall and Everett. Their weapons were still smoking and held at the ready.

'Who else is back there, ma'am?' Collins asked.

'Probably no one now,' she answered, hugging Billy and Tony. Ryan pulled the two pieces of her blouse together from behind. 'But there were soldiers or mercenaries, French-speaking.' She gingerly turned and faced them. 'The leader was a man that passed himself off as an Interior Department person in the Broken Cactus. A colonel I think he had been called by one of his men.'

'Farbeaux, Mom, his name was Farbeaux.'

'Son of a bitch!' Everett exclaimed as he pushed by the others and made his way farther down the tunnel, squatting and holding his weapon high.

As Collins turned and followed, shining his powerful light after Everett's retreating form, he saw the carnage of what remained of the group of kidnappers. Most of them were, he assumed, missing. He looked down and saw a set of tracks leading the other way, away from where they stood and heading back into the tunnel.

Everett returned with a foul look on his face and looked the major in the eye. 'It looks like one or two got away. And you can bet your ass on which one was among the two. Permission to give chase to that bastard,' Everett asked.

Collins looked around, then at his watch. 'Negative, let's get the hell out of here.'

They both looked down the tunnel, knowing that the Frenchman was in there somewhere and there was nothing to do but hope he met a fate he deserved.

Thomas Tahchako was helping to unload what remained of his herd. The government boys had offered a good price for the lives of his now depleted number of cows, but he was secretly willing to sacrifice them all if he could just be a part of killing the horrible creature out there. He watched as the other ranchers in the valley unloaded their herds from trucks of every size.

As he turned his attention from the gathering cattle herd, he looked to the bright sky and prayed that this beast could be lured to this spot. He lowered his gaze toward the strange-looking drilling device and the heavy equipment that was busy smoothing the ground. He didn't really care to know what they were drilling for.

The army engineers that had been brought in from Fort Carson, using heavy drilling equipment they had confiscated from several construction companies in Flagstaff, had completed drilling the quarter-mile-deep pilot hole, between the two eastern edges of the Superstitions that slacked away to mere foothills and then nothing, as the mountain edges created a natural doorway out of the valley, or as Jack had earlier thought of it, a funnel.

With the hole drilled and all the sensors in place, the Special Ordnance Division of the U.S. Army out of Fort Carson, Colorado, started lowering the one device nothing could escape from, a fifteen-megaton tactical neutron warhead.

Operation Orion was about to be put into play with Jack's added plan of the funnel, if the animals could be lured to the open back door of the valley.

Collins was called forward by the Delta sergeant who had point. Jack left Ryan with the rescued civilians and patted Carl on the shoulder as he went by him.

'Everyone take some water and air,' Jack ordered as he gave his canteen to Everett to pass back to Julie and the others.

The point man was kneeling and had his night-vision goggles raised as he peered into the shaft. He kept his eyes forward as he was joined by the major.

'What've you got, Sergeant?' Collins asked.

'We have another tunnel merging with this one. Looks like one of the town's buildings from above has fallen in, must have been a lot of animal activity. See how the two converging tunnels have been widened, like they were foraging for food or something?'

Collins saw that the two tunnels made up a good-sized cavern. He thought he saw trash cans, bright and shiny new, racks of hand tools, and other racked and shelved items.

'Looks like the hardware store fell in here,' Jack said as he waved forward two of the Rangers. 'You take some water too, sergeant, we'll check it out,' he said as he lowered his ambient-light goggles and started forward.

The hollowed-out space was riddled with items of every description. He easily stepped around a rack of lawn rakes and hoes. He held his hand up and pointed to the-right for the two Rangers behind him to take that area. He continued forward as easily as he could. The expanded tunnel had a heavier than normal musky smell. As he looked up, he could see into the darkened recesses of the first floor of the hardware store. This must have been its basement as he saw large blocks of concrete that had once made up its foundation. From underneath one of the large blocks he saw an arm protruding. As he leaned over and felt for a pulse, he heard the shouts of the two Rangers as the far wall exploded in toward them. As Jack straightened, he felt the first shower of dirt as the roof of the tunnel fell in on him. He heard the screams and shouts as those men still in the tunnel rushed forward, but as quickly as it had started it was cut off like a radio being shut down. The tunnel behind had caved in, effectively sealing him and the two Rangers from the others.