David Golemon - Primeval

Deonovich started organizing ten of his best men to start the trek into the bush, he felt they had wasted enough time in setting up a camp that they might never have used if they had gone straight to setting up Sagli's expensive equipment.

"Gregori, we must hold our place here. Our discovery has waited a very long time, so it can wait a while longer; we have instructions we must follow."

Deonovich stopped in his tracks and slowly turned to face his partner. The anger was clearly shown on his features. "It is right there; we can retrieve it and still be following orders. He can examine our find at his leisure."

"That is not following instructions, my friend, because there is a reason for waiting. Someone is coming who can verify our find; until that man arrives, she is not to be touched."

Deonovich turned away from Sagli and saw one of the pinpoints of his continuing ire — Lynn. He raised a hand and slapped her onto the ground and was about to bring his tree trunk of a leg back to kick her, when suddenly Lynn had had enough. She kicked out with her own booted foot and struck the large Russian directly to the side of the knee. Deonovich grunted in pain and went to his back, immediately reaching for his throbbing leg. Lynn pounced as if she were part cat, landing on his chest, and then brought up a stick she had found on the ground and took it straight to the side of the Russian's throat.

Sagli watched from a distance and a smile stretched across his face. He saw the men Deonovich had been organizing to go into the tree line start forward to take the angry American off their boss, but he held up a hand, indicating he wanted to see how this played out.

Lynn placed pressure on the small stick and held it in place just over the pulsing throb of the Russians jugular vein. She pressed even harder when he made a move to try and dislodge her. With black hair hanging in her face, and her cheekbone throbbing where she had been struck, Lynn Simpson was at a point where she didn't care what the outcome would be, but knew she would make sure this bastard never touched her again.

"That is the last time you'll take out your inadequacies on me. If you ever raise a hand or one of those fucking hooves to me again, I swear to God the last thing you will ever see is me punching a hole in your throat." For emphasis, Lynn pressed the dull point of the stick into the thin layers of skin at Deonovich's throat until she had a nice flow of blood.

"Someone kill this goddamn bitch!" Deonovich hissed as he froze under the onslaught of the smaller woman and her stick.

Without removing the pressure she was exerting on the stick, and without moving her face from the angry eyes of Deonovich, Lynn flicked her own green eyes over to where the smiling Sagli still held his commandos at bay with a raised hand. Sagli just tilted his head, as if he were awaiting Lynn's decision.

Lynn angrily poked the stick one more time and at the same moment removed her small amount of weight from Deonovich. The man grabbed for his neck and rose as if shot from a cannon. He started reaching for his holstered weapon.

"No. That will not do, old friend. Too noisy and far too premature. We still need her."

Deonovich still went as far as to pull the weapon. Lynn braced for the bullet that was surely coming her way, still holding the stick as if it were a magic talisman that would ward off the giant ogre. As Deonovich turned and started to raise the weapon, the sound hit them with a force of a hundred loudspeakers.

Sagli turned, forgetting all about the humorous confrontation he was witnessing. The other men bent low as if they had been ambushed for real, other than just audibly assaulted.

The roar of an animal reverberated against the tree line as far away as the southern shore of the river. The sound bounced back and sounded as if the entire camp was surrounded by a herd of whatever it was that made that horrendous sound. The animal cry was unlike any of the men from Russia had ever heard before. Some of the Spetsnaz hailed from the cold and hearty region of the Urals and it seemed to affect these men the most. Unable to think clearly with the continuing echo of the cry coming from the plateau to the north, the technicians, although armed with handguns, backed away from where they had been setting up tripods with motorized metal detectors on them. They watched the bright sunlit woods ahead of them, but still backed away nonetheless.

"What in God's name is that?" Sagli asked as he turned away from the trees. His eyes fell on Lynn, who was just standing there stiff, just watching the sun-dappled tress before them, her antagonist Deonovich no longer a concern. The small stick she used as a weapon slowly slid from her fingers. The look in her eyes told Sagli she had been taken as far off guard by the roar as they had been.

The men had gone silent with every set of eyes turned toward the tree line. Deonovich forgot all about the assault on his neck and used hand gestures to get his commando team to move. He gestured right and left and then used both hands to point straight ahead, the blood still dripping from his fingers. The Spetsnaz immediately broke into two-man teams and entered the woods at a trot. Deonovich clearly understood at that moment the reason for restraint before entering an area that they basically knew nothing about.

Sagli broke the spell by walking over and taking the American woman by the arm and pushing her toward her small tent.

"From here on out, you are to remain inside. You have now become far more important than you would ever believe."

Lynn was shoved ahead of the Russian and she decided that she had no desire to be outside with the sun falling lower and lower in the sky.

Sagli turned to Deonovich.

"I should have let that woman cut your throat. You are never to question my authority again or threaten the American. You could allow this whole operation to fail if you continue your unthinking ways. It will not be tolerated by me, or by our partner, I assure you. Is that clearly understood?"

Deonovich holstered his weapon, but made no move to voice an answer. Sagli decided not to push the larger man at this time because he had sustained enough embarrassment delivered by the very much smaller woman.

"Now, we will press into the woods a hundred yards before dark, no farther. We cannot afford to stumble upon our quest in the twilight as that could be fatal. Do you understand?"

Deonovich tuned once more to face his old friend. This time he nodded once and turned to join his men on the perimeter of the camp with the camps doctor walking beside him, trying in vain to place a bandage on his neck.

"Gregori?" Sagli said, looking down at his feet.

Deonovich stopped walking, slapping the hands of the doctor away, and then he turned to look back. Sagli finally looked up at him.

"You are originally from the Urals, as are some of the men. Have you ever heard anything like that before — that animal cry?"

Deonovich looked around him slowly. He knew Sagli was never more than three miles away from Moscow growing up as a child, so he had never before heard the sounds that emanate from the forests. The way they can play tricks on your brain, the direction could be totally opposite of where you thought the roar came from, or the sound itself could have been any number of animals. Instead of saying this, he decided to let Sagli stew in his own confidence of being master of his domain and a slave to his false bravery.

"No, comrade, I have never heard such an animal cry before. It was if a thousand lions roared at the same moment."

As Sagli watched Deonovich turn and walk away, hiding his knowing smile, he turned and watched the sway at the top of the large pine trees as the wind sprang up. The blow was coming from the north and it brought a sour, primitive smell with it; but of the horrific sound, they heard no more.