The Last Dragon td-92 Read online

  She had let it go. There was some logic to it. If anything happened to her, there was no expedition. Simple as that.

  Then he had made a remark that made Nancy want to strangle him. He had been thumbing through guide books, and calling out facts he found interesting. "Hey, Nancy! Do you know that among the Tswana tribe, they have only one noun for women?"

  "That is not unusual among tribal cultures."

  "Their word is monad-and it means 'the one who remains behind and at home when men go to work.' You'd better hope we don't run into any Tswana, or you'll be in big trouble."

  "I can handle myself, thank you," Nancy said tightly.

  "Don't let it get to you. Remember, B'wana King is here to protect you."

  "But who is going to protect B'wana King?" Nancy said through her clenched teeth.

  Up ahead, King, flanked by the British guide, called, "Collluuumn, halt!"

  The column halted. A misty haze was rising over the Kanda Tract. Sunbirds flashed through the air.

  "Break out the videocams!" King called.

  Nancy groaned to herself. "Oh, no. Not again."

  The lead bearers unpacked the triple-wrapped videocams. Someone from the PR team lifted a light meter to the sky. Someone else took a makeup puff to Skip King's thrust-forward face.

  Then King opened his eyes and said, "Where's the little lady herpes specialist?"

  "Here," Nancy said in a voice that seemed to cool the surrounding by twelve degrees.

  King waved her on. "C'mon up here. Let's get you into this shot."

  "Coming," Nancy grumbled. She worked her way forward.

  Skip King smiled broadly at the sight of her.

  "Why don't you get in this shot?" he said. "I can't hog all the face time on this safari, now can I?"

  "Very kind of you."

  "Besides," he added as she took her place and submitted to a brief dusting of makeup powder, "we could use a little sex appeal, Nancy."

  "Why don't you just call me Dr. Derringer, Mr. King?"

  "Why don't you call me Skip? After all, how will it sound on TV? The expedition leader and his gal Friday not being chummy?"

  "It will sound professional, Mr. King."

  "Does that mean I can't chide you into unbuttoning your blouse a button or two?" King wheedled.

  "Shall we just get this over with?"

  "Okay, I'll wing it as usual."

  Skip King cleared his throat and put the dead weight of one arm around Nancy's shoulders.

  "We are standing at the edge of the fabled Kanda Tract," he began, "home of a creature not seen on this earth in a trillion years."

  Nancy winced. The man had no conception of geologic time.

  "Although incredible dangers await us, we have no fear. For we are corporate Americans, smart, savvy, and determined to fulfill our mission: to bring 'em back alive!"

  He grinned into the camera lens like a Cadillac with an ivory grille and held the smile for twelve full seconds.

  "Okay, cut! How was that?"

  The PR man shot him an A-OK sign. "Super!"

  "One-take King, that's me." He smiled down at Nancy and asked, "So-how was I?"

  Nancy threw his arm off and stormed away.

  "Must be that time of month," King muttered. And as the cameras were repacked, he turned to the expedition medic and said, "Okay. Prep me for the great adventure."

  He unrolled the sleeves of his safari jacket as a native porter took off his leopard-striped bush hat. Someone wiped the makeup off his intent face.

  They sprayed him down with insect repellent. The medic began affixing flesh-colored patches to his arms, neck, and cheeks.

  "Antinausea wristbands," the medic announced.

  "Check," said King, as they were adjusted.

  "Antimalaria patch."

  "Check."

  "Nicotine patch."

  "Roger."

  "Vitamin A patch."

  "Check."

  "Vitamin C patch."

  "Rickets and Scurvy are covered."

  "Vitamin E patch."

  "Just in case I get lucky." And King leered directly at Nancy. She turned her back.

  The medic stepped back. "You're all set."

  "Not yet. Where's the antileech shield?"

  "There hasn't been a leech sighted since we got here," Nancy exploded.

  "Take no chances, that's my motto."

  Somebody handed him a furled black cloth rod.

  And announcing to all within hearing, "Here's where we separate the men from the wusses," Skip King opened his black umbrella and walked into the Kanda Tract boldly and without fear.

  "I don't believe this," Nancy muttered, falling in behind him.

  The rain forest was like another world. The sky was a thing glimpsed from time to time through the cathedrallike canopy of overhanging branches and leaves. Sunlight, filtering through the green plant life, was a watery green hue. It was almost like walking through an underwater world of heavy, breathable air in which insects tweedled and cheeped and monkeys watched from branches with orbs wiser than human eyes.

  Ralph Thorpe dropped back to walk beside her. He toted a big-game rifle on his muscular shoulder. His pith helmet was decorated front and sides with the big golden Burger Triumph corporate crown logo. He had scraped off the legend "Sponsored by Burger Triumph" and had made inroads on the crown itself.

  "His back makes a tempting target, what?" Thorpe undertoned.

  "Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind," Nancy said aridly.

  "If we get what we're after, it'll all be worth it. Don't you forget that."

  "Keep telling me that. I need it."

  Three hours later, they broke into a clearing and Skip King immediately fell down.

  "Quicksand!" he screamed.

  They rushed to his aid.

  "It's just a hole!" the PR chief said reassuringly.

  "No, it's not," Nancy said in a squeezed-dry voice.

  "Of course it's a hole," King was saying as they helped him to his feet. His sharp face hung slack and his dark eyes seemed on the verge of tears. He had smashed his antileech umbrella against a tulip tree. It was ruined.

  "Everybody get away from the hole," Nancy said. The excitement in her voice made them all look at her.

  "Get away from it!" she repeated. They jumped. Her voice was that loud.

  Nancy paced around the deep depression in the earth, her features holding on to composure with twitching tentativeness.

  "It's a hind foot," she decided aloud.

  Skip King canted his head from side to side as if trying to get a crick out of his neck.

  "It is?"

  "The track of one."

  King came closer. "Are you sure?"

  "Rear tracks have five digits with claws on three. That's according to the fossil record. These are exactly the same."

  She expected him to shout something macho. Instead, he gulped, "It's bigger than I thought."

  She looked up. "Afraid?"

  King squared his padded shoulders. "Honey, I'm fueled by testosterone. Fear isn't in me."

  "Then you won't cry over your broken umbrella, will you?" And she pushed ahead.

  Skip King went pale and started after her calling, "Hey! What are you doing taking the point? That's a man's job!"

  The earthquake had felled trees all over the Kanda Tract.

  Mighty kapok trees had toppled, so thick around that they flattened smaller saplings to juicy splinters. Here and there, thin-boled bamboo had splintered at their bases, their fall interrupted by the creeper-festooned forest canopy.

  There were splits and fissures in the earth, great red-brown wounds that had already-two months after the quakebecome green again with new plant life.

  In some places the ground was as soft as peat moss poured from a plastic sack. The smell was about the same-heady, almost sweet.

  The trail had petered out to a narrow path the rain forest was swiftly reclaiming. The hot air grew heavy in their lungs. The rain forest see
med to press in on them like a green, leafy stomach.

  The first unusual event was the dragonflies.

  Flying in arrow formation, they zipped across a break in the trees, their doubled wings flashing like iridescent vanes.

  "Those can't be dragonflies," Skip muttered, freezing in his tracks.

  Nancy had her Leica up and clicking.

  "Fabulous."

  King looked at her. "Dragonflies? Fabulous?"

  "Modern dragonflies are not known to grow that big."

  "Do African dragonflies behave like American dragonflies?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Do they-do they sew up people's mouths?" King gulped.

  "You must be joking!"

  "This is my first time in Africa. You can't expect me to know every little thing."

  "American dragonflies don't sew mouths. That's an old wives' tale."

  "You sure?"

  "Positive."

  "Can't be too careful." He called over his shoulder. "Who's got the Black Flag?"

  "Don't you dare!"

  "What's the problem? We're not here for dragonflies."

  "If we can catch one, it will be just as important as capturing the beast."

  "Not to Burger Triumph, Incorporated."

  "Need I remind you that I'm the scientific leader on this mission?"

  "Yeah, but I'm the bankroll. What I say goes. We push on."

  King shoved past Nancy Derringer and took the lead. He walked with one hand rubbing his jaw absently, but Nancy knew that was a precaution. If the dragonflies got close, he was going to cover his big mouth. Nancy prayed for dragonflies in the thousands.

  But the dragonflies flashed away in three different directions, like prehistoric helicopters.

  The giant frogs were the next surprise.

  They had been squatting, sides throbbing, in the rank grass of a small pond of standing water.

  As one approached, it hopped once, landing in the middle of the road. It rotated nervously until it faced them with its unblinking bulgy eyes. Its throat pulsed like a great green heart torn out of a monster's chest.

  "What the fuck is that!" King said hoarsely.

  Ralph Thorpe came up, rifle in hand.

  "Hah! It's an effing Goliath bullfrog!"

  "It looks like the effing mother of all toads," King groaned.

  "Aw, don't get your knickers tangled up, Mr. King. It's only a bleedin' frog."

  "I don't like the way it's staring at me. Shoot it."

  "No need to go to all that bother." Thorpe hefted a smooth flat stone in the frog's direction and it bounded away with a spastic kicking of its hind legs.

  "See? There. Nothing to it, what?"

  "I hope you'll be able to hold yourself together when we locate our quarry," Nancy said pointedly.

  King said through his uplifted hand. "Hey, I had a bad experience with frogs when I was little."

  "Oh? Did one eat your fly collection?"

  King frowned. "The girls on my staff don't talk to me like that."

  "Hire women next time."

  King's frown deepened. They trudged on. Further along, he snapped his fingers and said, "PMS! Am I right?"

  And it was all Nancy Derringer could do to keep from wheeling and slapping him silly.

  The hurrunk cannonading through the green trees dispelled her anger like a breaking fever.

  "What was that?" King muttered.

  Nancy closed her eyes and seemed to be beseeching lurking jungle gods. "Oh, God! Could it be? Oh, please let it be what I think it is."

  King's dark eyes went wide. "You think that's the sound it would make?"

  "No one knows. There is no fossil record of natural sounds."

  "Thorpe! Fetch that native guide."

  The Bantu guide came padding up. He was tall and lean with a narrow wise face that looked ageless. Except for his Burger Triumph T-shirt, he might have been the genus loci of the rain forest.

  "Ask Slim if that's the sound N'yamala makes," King demanded. Thorpe addressed the native in his own tongue. The man gesticulated and ended up pointing at King, while spitting out a sparse sentence.

  "What'd he say?" King asked excitedly.

  "He asked that you not call him Slim," Thorpe translated.

  "Why not? It's only a nickname."

  "Slim is what the city blacks call in English, AIDS. Tyrone doesn't savvy American-style English very well, but he recognizes the word. He doesn't like it."

  "Is everybody having a bad day?" King muttered darkly. "Okay, tell him I'm sorry. Then get me my answer. "

  Thorpe and the native fell into a low exchange. At the end, the British guide said, "He says the sound we heard is the cry of N'yamala."

  King cupped hands to his mouth. "Okay, look sharp everybody. This is it. We're going to make history. Somebody hand me a trank gun."

  "I don't think that's wise, Mr. King," Thorpe warned. "These rifles are not toys."

  King pulled the rifle out of Thorpe's hand and said, "You're in charge of policing this ragtag group of natives. I suggest you set the proper example for instant obedience."

  And King turned on his heel, rifle at the ready.

  Watching him tramp forward, Nancy told Thorpe, "Everything he knows about Africa, he learned from watching Jungle Jim reruns."

  Thorpe scowled. "A wanker what would call a fine rifle a gun should be shot with an elephant gun."

  The column resumed its march.

  The undergrowth became thicker. There was no trail and no way to hack one out. They had to squeeze between boles and hand packs across the narrow passages by hand.

  The smell of standing water came into the air and it was rank as dishwater in a heat wave.

  "Watch him fall into the bleedin' water," Thorpe muttered for Nancy's benefit.

  Then the cry went up. This time it seemed to shake the impossibly green leaves, and frightened monkeys flashed from treetops.

  HARRUNK!

  Skip King's voice volleyed back, high and excited.

  "It's just ahead!"

  And he went plunging into the brush. They lost sight of him before anyone could react.

  "That idiot!" Nancy hissed.

  The boom of the rifle echoed back like a cannon blast.

  "Oh no!"

  King's voice seemed to be all round them in its exultant joy. "I nailed it! I nailed it!"

  "That colossal idiot!"

  They almost collided with him. King was threshing back the way he had gone. His foxy eyes were bright and wide.

  "I bagged it! I bagged it!"

  "Not bloody likely," Thorpe spat.

  "Did it go down?" Nancy demanded.

  "I didn't wait to see," King said excitedly. "Isn't this great? I'm the first man ever to bring down a dinosaur."

  They pushed past him.

  The ground became mushy. The bush grew thicker, more impenetrable, and rank as swamp grass.

  Ralph Thorpe went right up to the edge of the great lake. There was no bank or shore. The trees just stopped and there was water and open sky.

  And in the center of the pool, a vast shape loomed.

  It was orange and black and glossy as a wet seal. But no seal ever grew so big. The neck was banded in black, and along the ridged back it was dappled in orange blotches as large as fry pans.

  And as they stood looking at it, it swung its undersized serpent's head around like a crane and looked at them with goatlike eyes that were as big as their own heads.

  The eyes were dull and incurious. the mouth was moving. Some leafy greenage was in its jaws and the jaws were working, lizard fashion, up and down.

  The leafage quickly disappeared down its gullet and the black-and-orange bands of the neck began pulsing in time with the long bands of throat muscles.

  King was shouting, "I hit it! I hit it dead center! Why is it still on its feet?"

  "It doesn't even know it's hit," muttered Thorpe, the British nonchalance in his voice evaporating like the morning rain.

 
"Bring the cameras," Nancy whispered. "Hurry!"

  Skip King stumbled back, his face flushed. He paled when he saw the great beast looking back at him, unfazed.

  "What's with that thing?" he complained. "Doesn't it know enough to lie down when its been tranked."

  "Evidently not," Thorpe said dryly.

  "Well, I'll fix that!"

  And before anyone could do anything to stop him, Skip King brought the rifle up to the leather-padded shoulder of his safari jacket and began pumping out rounds, deafening everyone around him.

  "You unmitigated cretin!" Nancy screamed.

  "It isn't going down!" King shouted. "More guns! We need more firepower!"

  The beast in the jungle pool began to advance. The ground shook. Water sloshed on their boots.

  And the Bantus began lining the pool.

  Thorpe took command. "All right, lads. Make the best of a bad situation, now. Let's bag the brute!"

  Rifle stocks dug into sweaty shoulders. Fingers crooked around triggers.

  And the rifles began to spit thunder.

  Chapter 2

  His name was Remo and he was explaining to the assorted rapists, cannibals, and serial killers on Utah State Prison's death row that he was from the American Civil Liberties Union.

  "I already got me a lawyer," snorted Orvis Boggs, who had been scheduled to die of lethal injection on October 28, 1979 for eating a three-year-old girl raw because his refrigerator had broken down in a heat wave, spoiling three porterhouse steaks he had shoplifted from the local supermarket.

  "I'm not a lawyer," Remo told him.

  "You an advocate, then?" called DeWayne Tubble from the adjoining cell.

  "You might call me that," Remo agreed. Agreeing would be faster. He would tell the quartet of human refuse anything they wanted to hear.

  "Yeah? Well, advocate us out of this hellhole. My TV's been busted for a damn week. This is cruel."

  "Reason I'm here," Remo said.

  "Huh?" The huh was an explosive grunt. It exploded out of the mouth of Sonny Smoot, along with a yellowish red spittle, because when he felt uneasy Sonny liked to gnaw on the toilet bowl despite the fact that his tooth enamel always came out second best. Sonny had been educated in assorted juvenile detention centers, and somehow proper dental hygiene had not been inculcated in him.

  "I'm with the ACLU's new Dynamic Extraction Unit," explained Remo with a straight face.