Hulk Page 13

  Throughout the rest of the day, Bruce Krenzler, pushing the matter of the Banner name out of his head, worked on studying the blood sample. There was most definitely something there, but the problem was he wasn’t entirely sure what that something was. He felt as if he were an Aborigine staring at a model of a DNA strand, having some vague idea that there was something of importance here but knowing that he didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to begin to comprehend it. Computer analysis was of little help to him, because row after row of questions and tests came back with one of two responses:

  Insufficient data.

  Unknown.

  The “insufficient data” didn’t bother him as much as the “unknown,” for some reason. Perhaps it was because “insufficient data” left room for the possibility that more data would be forthcoming, along with answers. But “unknown” was vast, and could very possibly remain unknowable.

  He leaned back from the electron microscope at one point, rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers, and cursed to himself. Then he suddenly looked over his shoulder. But there was no one there.

  Or perhaps someone had been there but no longer was.

  “Unknown” indeed.

  The Joint Tactical Force West was a sprawling base situated about thirty miles outside of Berkeley. Betty remembered it all too well. When she had been very small, she’d seen news broadcasts showing Berkeley students demonstrating outside the base, complaining or protesting about some military engagement somewhere. She remembered her father loudly cursing out the kids on TV, and she had promptly joined her father in a rigorous session of off-color language. Ross had first been startled by his daughter’s word choice, but then realized she’d picked it up from him and instead let out a hearty laugh. It was one of those rare instances when she had actually pleased him, and even now—as she showed her ID to the guard at the gate before driving on—it was one of her more pleasant memories of growing up. Possibly because it was one of the few instances when she knew she had genuinely entertained her father.

  She reminded herself that she was her own person, and she wasn’t required to provide entertainment for her father. Yes, she certainly had the knee-jerk feminist line good to go, which didn’t help her at all in terms of dealing with her dad.

  Having parked the car near the building that housed the officer’s club, Betty got out, smoothed her blouse and skirt, then breathed into her open palm to check her breath. Just to play it safe, she popped in a breath mint, and then headed toward the club’s main entrance.

  She was stopped at the door, of course, and made to show her ID all over again. Even then they wouldn’t let her enter until they found her name, and even that took longer than it should have because they had her reservation misfiled as “Ross Elizabeth” instead of “Elizabeth Ross.”

  Upon seeing the name, and knowing the other individual with whom it was associated, the maître d’ immediately snapped to. Without a word, he pointed in the direction of her father, Thunderbolt Ross, seated at a table with his back ramrod straight and a drink in his hand. He was staring into the drink thoughtfully, but some inner “old soldier” sense made him realize that Betty was there. He looked in her direction and simply nodded in greeting. Effusive as ever.

  She strode toward him and, when she got in range, he stood to greet her.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said.

  “Betty,” said Ross. He looked her up and down. She resisted the temptation to salute him. “You’ve changed your hair color,” he announced.

  No, she hadn’t. “I appreciate your noticing. Thank you,” she said as she sat. “It was nice of you to come out all this way.”

  He shrugged. “Half-hour chopper ride. Not a vast inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.”

  They made minimal small talk as the waiter brought them menus and, a short time later, bread and butter in a wire basket. Betty didn’t push her father on what it was he wanted to speak with her about. She knew him well enough to know she didn’t have to push. He was going to tell her before too long, because Thaddeus Ross wasn’t one for beating around the bush if one could stomp the bush flat or level it with a bulldozer.

  He didn’t let her down as, in short order, he announced to her, “All right, I’ll get right to it.”

  Betty had been considering all the possible things her father might want to speak to her about, and she blurted out what was—to her—the most obvious and most likely. “This is about Glen, isn’t it? He’s been snooping around my lab.”

  “Glen noticed some things,” Ross said guardedly. “He . . . asked me to make some inquiries.”

  Something about the way Ross said that made Betty think that he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming with her. In the end, though, did it really matter? Whichever way the information train was running, both her father and her former boyfriend were riding in the same car.

  “You’ve been spying on me. Of course.” By this point in her life, she had no idea why she was even surprised.

  “Betty, listen,” Ross said, obviously not paying the least bit of attention to Betty’s visible unhappiness about the situation. Well, that was pretty typical of him, wasn’t it? Steamroll right over her concerns. Betty put the menu down and started glancing around quite plainly, looking for the exit, and then her father reached over and put a hand on her forearm. She couldn’t tell if he was doing it out of paternal feeling, or because he wanted to make damned sure she stayed where she was.

  “We’ve turned up some surprising things,” Ross told her. “This Krenzler you work with, you know who he really is? How much do you actually know about him?”

  The question caught Betty completely off guard, but she made sure not to show it. His words were alarming, though. If there was one thing her father had, it was access to all manner of top-secret information. It wasn’t as if Ross were saying that Bruce wasn’t good enough for her, or why couldn’t Betty be dating an army man. His phrasing couldn’t have been more clear: He’d learned something about Bruce, something that concerned him to such a degree that he’d felt the need to contact Betty and talk to her directly, one-on-one. That alone was sufficient to underscore the seriousness of whatever it was.

  Or perhaps there was something else at work here. Ross was, after all, still working closely with Talbot. As ludicrous as it sounded, this might be some sort of team effort to kill whatever interest she might have in Bruce and steer her back to someone of whom her father approved.

  Cautiously, she said, “I think the question is: What is it that you know about him?”

  Ross leaned back and cleared his throat. “Well, right now, I’m not at liberty to—”

  She should have known. She really should have known. Tossing out some all-purpose, vague aspersions—just how stupid did her father think she was? Overlapping his words, she said, “Not at liberty to disclose that to me. Right.” She was filled with disgust for him and anger for herself, because she had been sucker enough to let herself be pulled in. How easily duped had they believed her to be? And how dumb had she been to go along with it this far? “You know, I was really hoping, hoping that this time you honestly wanted to see me again to—”

  Ross started to respond, but Betty didn’t wait. Instead she pushed her chair back. “Why do I bother?”

  “You’ve got this all wrong, Betty,” Ross said.

  She had to give him credit. He was maintaining the facade of the concerned father for far longer than she’d thought he would. With one eyebrow cocked, she asked, “Do I?”

  “Yes. I did want to see you. I’m genuinely concerned for you,” said Ross.

  For a heartbeat, she hesitated. There was something in his voice, something in the way he was looking at her . . .

  Then the medals on his jacket flashed at her, as if going out of their way to remind her who he was, and who she was. Science and the military had been at odds with each other for ages, and this was simply the latest skirmish in that ongoing battle. It was the oldest strategy in the world: divide and
conquer. Either Talbot had been feeding her father lies about Bruce to serve his own purposes—and she could just guess what those were—or her father had some other priorities in mind involving her, or Bruce, or the project, or . . . or who knew what?

  It bothered the hell out of her that she couldn’t trust her own father, but that was the simple, hard truth of it. And whose fault was that? No. No, she wasn’t going to feel guilty about it. She simply wasn’t.

  She got up to leave just as the waiter returned to take their order.

  “I wish I could believe you,” said Betty, trying to mask the sadness in her eyes, and then she turned on her heel and left without looking back.

  She retrieved her car, drove as fast as she could until she was clear of the base, and then pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the headlights, and started to sob. She hated feeling the way she did. Here she’d dared to hope that her encounter with her father would lead to something positive. Perhaps the start of a whole second life to their relationship. Instead all that had been stirred up, like flakes in a snow globe, was paranoia and resentment.

  And yet . . .

  And yet . . .

  Her father’s words nagged at her. What if—what if he hadn’t just been trying to drive a wedge of distrust between her and Bruce, for whatever reason? What if he was actually trying to help her, and her own suspiciousness was precluding his attempt?

  She stared at her own cell phone, as if it were something that was out to catch her or trick her somehow. Then, ever so reluctantly, she picked it up and dialed Bruce’s phone number at the lab. It never occurred to her that he would be anywhere else. She could envision him there, working until all hours. After all, he had something brand-new to explore: himself.

  The phone rang several times and then his machine kicked in. “Please leave a message” was all it said in Bruce’s clipped tone.

  For a heartbeat she considered just hanging up without leaving a message, but her father’s words preyed on her mind.

  “Bruce, you there?” she asked, hoping that perhaps he was monitoring the call. No response. His answering machine was voice responsive, and if she stopped talking, it would shut off, so she took a deep breath and continued.

  “I saw my father. It’s like—” She hesitated, and then pushed on. “—it’s like he suspects you of something.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished that she could retrieve them, or pull them off the recording somehow. Quickly, to make certain that Bruce knew she didn’t believe him capable of any wrongdoing, she said dismissively, “Oh, I don’t know. I was so impatient, as always. I should have heard him out.”

  Well, enough self-flagellation for one phone call. Trying to issue Bruce a warning, she said, “I just think they’re planning something, with the lab, with you. Just call me, okay?”

  She terminated the call, and then the headlights of a vehicle appeared behind her. A car pulled up, and she was certain that her father had chased her down to tell her more lies about Bruce, to mess with her mind.

  A red light was lit on top. It was a police car. Through a loudspeaker, she heard, “Are you in need of assistance?”

  She rolled down her window, leaned out, and gave a high sign. Then she started up the engine and eased herself back onto the main road. The cop watched her go. It was very reassuring . . . and it was depressing to realize just how few reassuring sights there were left in the world anymore.

  It was some hours later that she returned to her home. It hadn’t been an easy trip. There had been ambulances hurtling around, some sort of accident. And not just in one place; had affected different spots throughout the Berkeley area. Betty, with her supernaturally lousy luck, encountered at least three of them. She kept looking for signs of overturned cars or the similar sights that one routinely espied where disaster vehicles congregated, but there didn’t seem to be any.

  Instead she saw trees knocked over, a fire hydrant smashed to one side that was spraying water skyward, stop signs bent in half, and busted up pavement. It was as if some sort of major storm had swept through in isolated areas and disappeared. She’d never heard of Berkeley being prone to tornadoes, but that certainly seemed the only reasonable explanation.

  When she got home, she checked her machine. She heard one message from Glen and two from her father, both of which she promptly deleted without listening the moment she heard their voices. There was nothing from Bruce. Why was it that she kept hearing from the men she didn’t want to hear from, and the one man who meant anything to her couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone, despite the clearly alarming nature of her previous call?

  It was ridiculously late for Bruce to still be at the lab, but she tried him anyway. When that attempt failed, she called him at home. No answer there either.

  Now she was truly starting to get worried. She went to bed, but didn’t manage to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a stretch before either worries about Bruce, her old nightmares, or the occasional ambulance siren woke her up.

  By the time the sun rose, Betty wasn’t feeling much more rested than when she’d first gone to bed. It was earlier than usual, but she reasoned there was no point to hanging around trying to sleep anymore. So she showered and dressed and drove over to the lab—and found it in a state of utter chaos.

  The entire area was choked off with emergency vehicles: ambulances, fire trucks, and more police cars than she thought existed in the entirety of Berkeley. She was only able to get within a couple of blocks before finally giving up and parking her car on a side street. She then ran as fast as her high-heeled shoes would allow before encountering some police barricades and a couple of stern officers who wouldn’t let her get any closer.

  “But I work there!” she told them.

  “Look, lady—” one of the cops began.

  “That’s doctor,” she informed him archly.

  He shrugged. “Fine. Look, Dr. Lady, until we get this sorted out, ain’t nobody working there.”

  “What’s ‘this’? What happened?”

  Then she spotted what appeared to be a gaping hole in the roof of the facility . . . and she felt a burst of alarm upon realizing that it was directly over the lab she shared with Bruce.

  Suddenly a horrific scenario played itself out for her, one in which Bruce had been up late working and had inadvertently caused some sort of explosion that had—had—

  She fought back rising panic. The cops weren’t being of any help. She could see some of the lab security guards, but they were far too distant to hear her calling to them. Even if they did hear, they probably wouldn’t be of much use. One of them was gesticulating wildly, holding his hands wide apart in the instantly recognizable gesture that indicated size. He was talking about something gargantuan, and getting clearly disbelieving looks from the police who were hearing the story. Maybe it was a huge explosion. Maybe . . .

  She was accomplishing nothing by standing there and worrying herself sick. Instead she bolted back to her car, jumped in, peeled out, and sped toward Bruce’s house.

  Betty’s mind was racing as she tried to determine just what she would do if she got there and discovered Bruce wasn’t home, because that would mean he was at the lab, and he might well be dead.

  Arriving at his house some minutes later, she saw his bicycle was chained up outside as usual, so obviously he had come home. That thought calmed her somewhat as she got out, went to the front door, and knocked, at first tentatively, then briskly when no answer was immediately forthcoming. She wondered whether she should be angry or concerned even as she fished around in her bag for her ring of keys. She thumbed through them, found the one for Bruce’s house, and inserted it in the lock. Moments later she was poking her head into the house, calling, “Bruce?” cautiously.

  No answer.

  She entered, closing the door behind her, and walked through the living room. Everything looked normal, and that in and of itself made things seem even more abnormal. She walked past one hallway, then stopped, backed up an
d stared. Down at the far end of the hall she could see the back door. It was swinging loosely on its hinges, broken.

  “What the hell?” she muttered.

  She went to the door and tried to close it, and succeeded in nearly tearing the whole thing free of its hinges. She looked around. The kitchen itself was a disaster area, canned goods and napkins and whatever else had been lying about just strewn all over the place. She continued, with slowly increasing dread, following the trail of destruction to Bruce’s bedroom.

  And there, sleeping like the proverbial baby, was Bruce Krenzler. Bare chested, possibly naked, since she couldn’t see all of him, Bruce was tangled up completely in knotted sheets. He was sleeping soundly, which was far more than she’d been able to do.

  “Bruce!” she said in a far more loud and alarmed voice than she’d intended.

  Bruce sat up abruptly in response to the bellow, looking around in confusion for a moment, unable to discern from what direction he was being hailed. Then, after a brief time, he focused on Betty standing there.

  And then, very slowly, he said, “I think . . . I’m not Bruce Krenzler. I think my name is Banner.”

  what am i?

  As Betty Ross was sitting down across from her father in what would be an abortive attempt at dinner, Bruce Krenzler was working—or at least attempting to—at his lab at Lawrence Berkeley. But his mind kept racing back to a time when he was quite young and had seen a very pregnant woman lying out on a beach. Disdaining more modest maternity wear, she’d been sporting a small two-piece bathing suit that had allowed her belly to bask in its full, stretch-marked glory under the sun. He had watched with fascination, creeping closer and closer as she lay there with her eyes lazily closed, and suddenly he had jumped back with a shriek.

  The surface of her stomach had visibly rippled, as if something was trying to tear its way out.

  The young woman had heard the boy’s yelp, opened her eyes, and smiled at his reaction. “The baby’s kicking, that’s all. You saw it kick just now.”