David Golemon - Legend

Jack looked at his watch. "I'm afraid we're out of time. Mr. Ryan, would you escort Ms. Serrate to the flight deck, please, and get her outfitted?" He faced the director of the French variation, albeit a far weaker version, of his very own organization. "May I assume we can count on cooperation with your agency instead of harmful competition in the future?"

Danielle stood and pushed her chair in. "That is not up to me, or you, I'm afraid. Times are dangerous and people aren't very trusting in these very violent days. But I will promise you this: where I can, I will forward as much information as possible if it affects your government where Colonel Farbeaux is concerned. I will start there."

"You do that," Carl said, as he held her eyes. "But we won't hold our breath."

"Before you go, can you let us in now on just what it was that was in those containers?" Jack asked. He looked at her sharply.

Danielle returned the stare. Obviously this man was good at his job. He knew she was aware of what they had been dealing with all along.

"The most virulent form of anthrax that has ever been produced, enough to kill most of a continent if unleashed."

"I think you could have informed us earlier," Carl said angrily as he glared at the Frenchwoman.

Danielle returned the hateful look and then turned away to follow Ryan out of the cabin. Carl watched her go without further comment, pushing his full cup of coffee away from him in disgust.

"I told you she liked you," Sarah half-joked.

"Have you seen the professor?" Robby shouted.

Kennedy looked past Robby and saw that two of his men were missing. The animal's assault had caught them in the middle of changing positions inside the mazelike tunnels and shafts.

"No, the last time I saw her she was…she was injured — that's all I know, kid. I just hope my two men are with her," he said loudly above the din of rushing water. He moved his flashlight from Robby to the shaft they had dove into at the last moment before the creature had brought the tunnel's ceiling down upon the survivors. A split second afterward he had heard automatic weapon fire coming from the other side of the rock fall.

Robby, Kelly, and three others had come from somewhere down the opposite direction where another small group had run to.

"Kid, is there a way out back there?" Kennedy asked, his flashlight revealing the scratches and filth that covered Robby's face.

"Yeah, but it leads right back into another tunnel, and you know what's waiting for us out there, right?" He looked at the man for a moment, noticing for the first time the deep gouges that crisscrossed his black wetsuit. A few were ringed with Kennedy's blood. "Hey, you know what's there, right?" he repeated. "You guys did something to piss it off, didn't you? Just who in the hell are you guys? Because of you, we're dead!" the boy screamed.

"Not unless it can be in two places at once," Kennedy answered. "It's not in the lagoon, because I'm pretty sure that big bastard is in here with us somewhere."

Robby was about to say something to the effect that he suspected there was more than one of the beasts, when they heard the primal roar of the animal. The sound was seeping through the rock slide the beast had created in its attempt to kill Kennedy and his people. The hoarse cry was bone chilling.

"Let's get the hell out of here, it could be anywhere. It must know this shaft as well as it knows that damned lagoon." Robby turned and waved the two women and one man forward. "Come on, guys, we'll go with Dr. Kennedy, he has a plan," he lied. Then as he counted heads he saw he was one short. "Where's Kelly?" he shouted.

"Who's Kelly?" one of the girls asked as she whimpered in pain from a possible broken arm.

"I mean Leanne, Leanne Cox!" Robby remembered her alias.

"We lost her somewhere back there," the girl answered. "She was angry because she wanted to go back and find Helen. She went back, I think." The frightened girl kept looking from Rob to her rear, terrified something was back in the darkness waiting to spring.

"Oh God, no," he said as he turned and fixed the man in the wetsuit with a withering glare. "Look, Kennedy, get us out of here any way you can; I have to find that girl!"

Kennedy didn't like having any extra baggage, but what could he do? Shoot them? No, they needed one another if they were to escape this valley. As Robby pushed angrily by, Kennedy saw that the other surviving girl was breaking out in a rash. He could tell she was feverish as she brushed against him. God , he thought, another one? The girl wore a faraway look as she reached out for Robby. Her once blue eyes were half covered in semitransparent pus. Kennedy closed his eyes to shut out the sight. This girl, Casey, he thought her name was, would mark the seventh member of the expedition to come down with the poisoning. For all he knew, they all had it. He knew he did; it had started this morning with vomiting, just as the others' had. As the three survivors from the lagoon pressed ahead of him, Kennedy pulled back the charging handle on his MP-5 machine gun and followed, stepping ahead and taking the lead.

Half the expedition, including three of his men, had been caught on the shore at the base camp. He had assigned the men to watch the sick kids that had started coming down with what looked like a bad rash. It was soon followed by fever and the shakes. Diarrhea and severe vomiting was a stage that most of the sick had stabilized at when the professor announced it was time to leave. He realized his responsibility for the people in his party after they had fielded ridicule from not only himself, but Robby also. He was reminded that they were up against not only the animals of this godforsaken valley, but also an invisible disease that struck anyone who had ventured to the lower levels of the ancient mine.

The camp was hit before they could get off a call to the mine teams inside the endless catacombs of shafts where they were gathering the last of the specimens Helen had arranged to take back with them. Then, not ten minutes after the slaughter onshore, the animal, or animals, had struck them in the mine. It had attacked the party as a whole and then hunted each splintered group down one at a time. Upon separation of the larger group, they were taken down piecemeal. Now, as far as Kennedy was concerned, this was the last group. It was a terrible assumption, but one that had to be made. He was on his own and he had collateral baggage he knew couldn't make it out of here alive. He had to move, and move as fast as possible, because he had the distinct feeling that the creatures who watched over this place weren't just killing them for being there. They were being tracked and hunted for breaching some kind of ancient rule. And he figured the hunters would be merciless in their pursuit to make sure no one left the valley.

It was close to two hours later that they saw daylight ahead. All four of them froze, almost afraid to hope that it was real. None of them had expected to ever see sunlight again.

"Okay, we can't go running out of here attracting attention to ourselves. Kid, what about the barge and ship — did either one run aground?"

"No, the ship went down like a rock. The barge stayed afloat for about an hour, but it eventually went down, too," Robby whispered. "A few things came to the surface and we gathered what we could and beached them near the base camp on shore, but then…then the creature hit us. Most didn't stand a chance. The sick were caught right in their beds and killed quickly. Some ran to the water where something else attacked them, a larger animal, long necked. I don't know what happened to them after the screaming started. I tried to radio the professor and you, but there was no answer."