David Golemon - Ripper

“First, to be accurate, we discovered approximately fifteen barrels of dried flowers. We assume these flowers were grown somewhere other than Mexico. After a brief and not very knowledgeable examination of the contents of these stored flowers, it was suggested that they were poppies of some variety. The barrels were marked 2370 . Lined up next to these barrels were several hundred jars of a substance consisting of an amber fluid. These jars were sealed with not only rubber stoppers, but also had been waxed over to secure the contents.”

“Excuse me, Captain; my name is Dr. Gloria Bannister. Were these jars marked with any form of identification?”

Mendenhall allowed his eyes to move across the table for the first time and was shocked when Dr. Bannister met eye contact with him after asking Carl the question. Everett saw the exchange and wondered what Will was up to.

“Yes, they were all marked with what I assumed was a batch number as they were all different, with one exception. They all had a number in bold print — batch number 2370.”

“Please continue, Captain,” Colonel Bannister said as he looked from Will and then slightly turned to see his daughter lower her eyes.

“Well, Juan Guzman and his men assaulted our team before we could get clear of the laboratory spaces below the hacienda. They had us cornered and we were taking fire from a covered position. Lieutenant Mendenhall here held them at bay until heavier ordnance was introduced into the fight from the Guzman faction. A grenade exploded in their covered position, breaking open several of the barrels containing the dried vegetation, and unfortunately this brought down the shelving where the liquid material was stored. Our young lieutenant here was the first to notice something was wrong. Will, what happened after the smoke cleared?”

Mendenhall wasn’t expecting to speak to the group of doctors. He shifted in his chair and then with a great deal of concentration tried to recall and account for what happened that night without everyone thinking him an idiot.

“Several of Guzman’s men were killed in the initial detonation of the grenade.” His eyes moved from the tabletop and locked with Gloria’s. He felt a little better when she lightly smiled. “Several others were just injured. As one of these men rose to continue his assault, he was hit by several rounds, from not only me but another part of our team. The man took hits from at least ten different bullets. He went down.”

“Perhaps we can write that off to injuries, causing shock to the system, and also a rush of adrenalin?” asked Dr. Lewis, a balding man from the CDC who was looking at Mendenhall with the slightest bit of skepticism written in his face and laced into his words.

“Perhaps,” Will said, not liking the condescending tone in the doctor’s words. “But I quickly eliminated any speculation as to the man’s condition when he once more rose up and continued his attack.”

Several eyes of the visiting CDC doctors rose and they started paying far better attention to the young army officer’s account.

“Perhaps your defense did not hit any vital organs. Maybe his being alive was just a fluke?” Gloria said, hoping to point out something Mendenhall had maybe missed in his eyewitness account.

“Well, yes ma’am, while my initial thoughts may have leaned that way, my second thoughts included the sight of half the man’s head missing. After at least fifteen more rounds to the body and finally the front of the man’s head, he went down. This attack was repeated by others who had been inundated with the material stored in the jars.”

“Sounds like the effects produced by the PCP studies of 1975,” Gloria said softly to her father.

“Can you tell us of any odors you may have caught during this time?” Colonel Bannister asked.

Mendenhall looked over at Carl who only shrugged his shoulders. “Uh, no, sir. The vapors from the liquid seemed to be confined to the floor area near the impact zone where the men had taken cover.”

“Confined to the floor you say?” another of the doctors asked.

“Yes, sir. It was like a shroud of fog.”

Gloria leaned forward so her statement could be heard by the rest of the CDC team from Atlanta. “Obviously heavier than air and a possible chemical breakdown that produces a gas when exposed to the air?”

“Possibly,” Colonel Bannister said. “Lieutenant, can we have your description of the major changes that occurred in this Juan Guzman as you witnessed that night?”

Mendenhall slightly shook his head and then looked into the colonel’s eyes. “I don’t think you could describe it as a change. It was more of a transformation. As far as I could see, Guzman took the brunt of the spill. He had been right under the fall of specimen jars from their shelves. But as I said, it was more of a transformation right before our eyes. His body resembled that of Guzman, but that’s where it all ended. His height even changed. I could venture a guess, but I would have to say by at least a good foot. His musculature had tripled, enough so that his clothing couldn’t contain his body any longer. The teeth were different, larger somehow. But all of that wasn’t the strangest part.”

“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Bannister said when he saw Will hesitate.

“The material he ingested, breathed in, seemed not to have affected his higher brain functions at all. He was able to articulate his words, and … and…” Mendenhall looked into the eyes of Gloria Bannister. The return look told him to go ahead, that he was doing fine. “I could actually see intelligence behind those larger-than-normal eyes.”

The visiting team of viral, germ warfare, and toxicology specialists looked at one another. They were clearly stumped for the time being.

“And each one of these affected men was hard to kill in the extreme?” Gloria asked.

“Ma’am, I have been in more than just a few firefights. Been though what a lot of people would call harrowing situations, but after seeing what happened in Mexico, I can honestly say I have never been that scared. I guess it was the fear of the unknown. What we saw there wasn’t natural. And one last thing doctors…”

“Go on Will,” Virginia encouraged from the head of the table.

“Guzman actually killed several of his men for simply being in his way when he started to come after us. He went through them with his bare hands and tore them to pieces. He was enraged but still able to function. He not only escaped, but stalked us all the way back across the border. He hit us at differing ambush points in the underground culvert. Yes, he was a monster, but a calculating one that was relentless.”

At that moment one of Compton’s four assistants came through the conference room doors and then nodded at Niles. He then went to where Sarah was sitting and handed her a folded piece of paper. She thanked the assistant and then read the note as the CDC personnel talked amongst themselves. She refolded the note and then looked at Niles.

“Dr. Compton, our other guest is causing a little problem down in the clinic, uh, may I—”

“Do you need Captain Everett to accompany you?” Niles asked as his worries about keeping Henri Farbeaux a prisoner inside of his complex came to the surface with his stern look.

“No sir, I think I can handle our friend.”

Carl leaned over and whispered. “If you think it necessary, shoot the bastard in the head and call it a day.”

Sarah looked down at Carl as she stood. “We need to talk later about that very subject, Captain,” Sarah said, causing Carl to raise his eyebrows when the venom in her words hit him like a slap in the face. She placed her sunglasses back on and then nodded at the doctors across the table before she left the conference room.