“C and C, go,” he snapped.
“C and C, UH-60 on the tarmac,” said a voice on the radio.
“Portland, roger,” said Ross, “Break, break. Boulder, heading topside, hold fire, we’ll rendezvous at six six nine.”
“Boulder, roger, Portland. Say the word, we’ll drop the RC on him,” said the voice.
. . . free . . . free . . . heart pumping, strength pounding, can’t be stopped, can’t be stopped . . .
Like a force of nature, the Hulk tore through the desert, leaping high, landing, the earth trembling beneath his gargantuan bare feet, and then leaping again. His strength was unfettered, and for once his boundless rage was mixed with pure, primal joy as he reveled in his strength and the lack of restraints.
He didn’t even notice the Black Hawk helicopter that was pacing him. It didn’t, however, pace him for long. Unknowing of any attempts to rein him in and, likewise, uncaring, the Hulk built up speed, faster and faster, until he was a virtual blur to the human eye. The Black Hawk tried to keep up, but even though it was able to cruise at 150 miles per hour, it started to fall behind.
And then it became clear that the Hulk’s short leaps up to that point had simply been a means of building up speed. With one graceful movement that would have been envied—and feared—by any Olympic long-distance jumper, the Hulk vaulted two miles in one thrust of his impossibly powerful legs. And another two, and another, without slowing. Within moments he was gone over the horizon.
And Ross, aboard the Black Hawk, watched him go. “My God,” he whispered under his breath.
For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But even as the Angry Man vanished from view, he was already searching the radio bands, seeking to pick up some radio track of four Comanche helicopters that he knew were supposed to be en route. Within moments he heard cross talk between the choppers and their local airbase.
“Goodman departure, Banshee 0-1, flight of four, airborne, requesting vector and contact.”
“Banshee flight, vector 2-6-0. Climb and maintain five thousand. Traffic no factor. Contact is T-bolt on Fox Mike 3-5-6-4. He’s an Army Oscar 8 in a Black Hawk at about two to five miles on that heading.”
“Goodman. Banshee 0-1 rogers all. 2-6-0 at five grand. Contact T-bolt on Fox Mike 3-5-6-4.”
From long practice, Ross was able to make out what they were saying, but the transmission was filled with the crackle and static. The Comanches weren’t quite within range yet. The Black Hawk angled toward them on an intercept vector, and Ross wondered just how much damage the Angry Man was inflicting as he waited to hook up with the choppers that he prayed would be able to stop the creature.
. . . leap . . . leap . . . fly . . . so strong . . . strongest there is . . .
The Hulk threw his arms wide, the wind blowing past him as he hurtled through the air, his eyes closed, the vast plains of the desert calling to him. Thoughts of the house were already long gone. Here, exulting in his power, the vistas of the Southwest landscape calling to him, he felt truly at home.
The desert flew past Ross as he snapped into the radio, the transmission having cleared up as he converged with the Comanches, “DBC, be advised subject is moving very fast out there. Terrain doesn’t appear to be an obstacle. Launch fixed wing.”
“Roger that, T-bolt.”
“T-bolt, this is Banshee 0-1, flight of four, coming up on your five o’clock. We are rolling with rockets. Say your target and intentions.”
Ross took in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Banshee 0-1, T-bolt. Tracking on key 4-4-3. Mission is to stop this guy. Period.”
“T-bolt, Banshee 0-1 understands you want us to attack the, uh, target,” said Banshee 0-1. He sounded dubious, even amused. This was a trained combat pilot who was accustomed to assaulting convoys or military targets that were prepared to fire back at him. All he was being told was that he was taking on one exceedingly strong individual. Obviously he couldn’t quite comprehend the challenge that awaited him. He might not even be taking it seriously. Ross could only hope the guy got with the program before it was too late.
“Roger, Banshee,” Ross said, literally keeping his fingers crossed. “You are cleared hot. Good hunting.”
. . . peace . . . peace . . . heart . . . slowing . . . calm . . .
The landscape was that of steep cliffs and rock formations. Hulk leaped to the top of a formation and looked out over the rocky expanse. There was a moment of eerie silence. His breathing grew regular, his heartbeat slowed. Had he been left to his own devices, there was every possibility that Bruce Banner would have reemerged in short order. There was, after all, no threat.
Conditions didn’t remain that way.
. . . not leave alone . . . smash . . . SMASH . . .
The Hulk was daunted by the vehicles’ arrival for perhaps all of a second, and then he swiftly reached out and grabbed one of the rotors of the closest chopper. The metal slammed into his hand, bent and twisted, and the chopper swung in toward him, its tail whipping around right at him. It collided with him and the Hulk and the chopper tumbled down the side of the cliff. The pilot inside the chopper had no choice but to hang on for the tumble down, shouting a desperate status report all the way.
They continued to roll down the cliff, the metal shrieking and bending in the Hulk’s savage grip. They hit bottom together, and it was nothing short of miraculous that the chopper didn’t explode. The pilot was still breathing but otherwise unmoving, blood covering his face as he simply hung there in the cockpit, suspended by his seat straps.
The Hulk, meantime, forgot about the chopper as soon as it was stilled, since it no longer presented a threat. The other choppers dashed about, regrouped, as the Hulk picked himself up and began climbing.
He didn’t make himself an easy target. The Hulk dashed around various embankments, cliffs, and ravines, moving like a gamma-irradiated Tarzan, practically daring the choppers to keep up.
“Banshee 0-1, rog. Break, break. Banshees, this is 01. Combat stack. Follow me. Watch my run. Upping the ante. Next pass will be Zuni’s ripple fire combat spread,” said Banshee 0-1.
Ross was desperate to get to the scene. He felt as if his chopper were moving with the speed of molten lead, despite its miles-devouring pace. It was also obvious to Ross that, having actually seen the target involved, the chopper pilots were suddenly aware of the challenge awaiting them. They even seemed anxious to take it on. That attitude concerned him; they had enough problems to worry about without someone deciding to hotdog it.
“Cleared for rockets,” Ross told him. “I do not want him any further west.” His concern was understandable. Right now they were playing touch and go with a rampaging monster in the middle of nowhere. A battle in a populated area such as Los Angeles or San Francisco could cost hundreds, even thousands of lives. And that would be from direct combat scenarios alone and did not count the deaths caused by panicked citizens fleeing for their lives.
“—ding him with the Hellfires!” came Banshee 0-1’s voice.
“DBC, T-bolt,” said Ross. “Give me an ETA on that fixed wing.”
“T-bolt, Cheyenne control has comms with Fast Eagle and High Bird, wait one, over,” said DBC.
“DBC, request you patch us to T-bolt, over,” said Cheyenne control.
But Ross had heard them. All the channels from immediate airbases were already crosslinked. “Cheyenne control, this is T-bolt. What do you got?” asked Ross.
“T-Bolt, Cheyenne control, roger. Our C-130 has visuals now, and three fast movers are turning on the ramp. Estimate your position in two minutes, over,” said Cheyenne control.
. . . leave alone . . . smash if not . . . leave ME ALONE . . .
The Hulk clambered up a canyon wall as the Comanches blasted away on his tail. The Hulk got to the top of the ledge, stood atop a large outcropping, and turned to face the nearest Comanche just as it fired off a missile. It struck beside the Hulk, blowing off the entire outcropping, and sen
ding the Hulk and the ledge tumbling down the canyon wall, a drop that ought to have been enough to dispose of any living thing.
The Hulk hit bottom, brushed himself off, and started back up the cliffside, looking extremely put out.
“T-bolt, sorry,” said Banshee 0-1, and the pilot sounded absolutely stunned. It came as a sharp contrast to the jovial confidence he’d displayed when first entering the fray. “No joy here. We are bingo fuel at this point.”
Ross sagged in his seat, but kept his voice steady. “Banshee 0-1, understood. Clear for home and I’d make it on the double. We’re going to remove some air from the vicinity. Break, break. Fifty-two, proceed with the drop. I’m moving back.”
And that was when he saw the Angry Man, the target he and the others had been pursuing so fruitlessly for what seemed like forever. The green behemoth didn’t even deign to notice him. He just continued his leaps, higher and higher, farther and farther, bouncing over Ross’s Black Hawk without so much as slowing down.
“What’s his course? No, don’t tell me. I know,” Ross said, his voice cold and controlled and not showing his frustration. Ross was a veteran combat man. He didn’t like to lose under any circumstance, and with the stakes as high as these were, he simply couldn’t afford to. But even he had to acknowledge the devastating truth: “He’s headed straight for San Francisco.”
The mood was somber at the base at Joint Tactical Force West. Somber, that is, for everyone who wasn’t the father of a monster. David Banner, on the other hand, seemed in a rather jovial mood, all things considered.
MPs were leading him into the base as Betty stood at the main entrance, watching him being taken away. He stopped for a moment and turned, ignoring his escorts who were tugging at him, urging him to move. He held up his manacled hands as if he were a boxer raising his arms in triumph. Apparently it was supposed to be a gesture of farewell, but she couldn’t help but think that there was an element of disdain in it.
As he was led away, Betty’s cell phone went off. She pulled it out and said, “Yes?”
“Betty,” came her father’s voice, and she instantly knew something was wrong. Not only that, somehow she knew what it was even before her father voiced it. “He . . . it . . . got out.”
The world seemed to sway around her. Her father’s use of the pronoun “it” spoke volumes. This wasn’t a case of Bruce Banner having cannily mounted an escape. Something had caused him to transform into the Hulk. She could take a guess: Talbot. When I get my hands on him, he’s a dead man, she thought grimly, oblivious to the irony.
“He’s making his way, probably, to you,” Ross informed her. “Get to base—”
“I’m already there. And his father—he’s turned himself in,” said Betty.
“His father! Jesus!” The news seemed to catch Ross off guard but he adapted quickly to the situation. “Just . . . I’ll order up a security detail. Just stay there.” He broke the connection without further niceties.
And Betty looked at the sky over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was cloudless, peaceful. She had the sick feeling things weren’t going to stay that way.
his anger unbound
As Thunderbolt Ross tracked the Hulk’s progress, the hunted moved quickly over the Sierra Nevada, uncaring of the three hunters—specifically three Raptor F-22 jets—that were hard on his tail. The planes were having a hell of a time trying to target him. They were used to aiming at much larger things, such as other planes. A single moving individual, even one who was twelve feet tall, wasn’t exactly in their comfort zone.
“Dash two rolling in hot lock and Fox Three. Breaking off left,” said the F-22 pilot.
“Check fire, check fire,” said Ross. “The area’s too populated now. At this point we’ve got to try to get him out to sea, and terminate him there, over.”
Moments later, he was on the line with the mayor of San Francisco. Ross could hear emergency vehicles being deployed in the background, and the distinctive “Hut! Hut! Hut!” of SWAT teams barreling toward transport trucks. The mayor’s voice was calm, but in that forced way that indicated his equanimity wasn’t being maintained without effort. “General, I’m bringing out the welcome committee for whatever it is you’re sending me,” he said.
“Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I’m hoping our stay will be a brief one,” said Ross.
“We’re a tolerant city, General, but I have to say I’m hoping your stay will be even shorter than brief. But if you need us, we’re here for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Ross.
. . . Betty . . . planes . . . stupid planes . . .
The Hulk was getting tired. The constant pursuit was starting to wear him down, not physically, but mentally. The longer Bruce Banner was incarnated as the rampaging green monster, the more his primitive brain was required to dwell on the situation to try to make sense of it. He felt as if he should be moving toward something, but didn’t know what that might be aside from Betty on the most primitive level. He knew he had to keep moving away from something, as well, that something being those who would hurt him, destroy him. He wanted to stop, to tear them apart, to punish them for harassing him and hurting him and not leaving him alone. But all of it involved far too much thinking. Above all else, the Hulk was a creature of rage, and rage was a very difficult emotion to sustain, even for him.
And worst of all, he could sense Banner lurking in there. Banner, that damned hypocrite, who wanted the Hulk to just go far, far away, but at the same time secretly reveled in his power. But the secret wasn’t safe from the Hulk; he knew it, oh yes he did. He didn’t completely comprehend it, but he knew it.
The Hulk landed on the Marin headlands, cast a look over his shoulder, and the damned jets buzzed him. He raised his arms over his head, howled defiance, and leaped again. The jump carried him all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge, where he landed atop one of the arches.
The air vehicles were coming in at him like mosquitoes or gnats. Four airplanes, and a helicopter. The Hulk didn’t see them for what they were, wasn’t capable of thinking, “Oh, look, F-22s and a Black Hawk.” All he knew was that they were pursuing him and wanted to hurt him, and he wanted to hurt them back. The rage, which had been subsiding, roared fully to the fore once again, and when one of the planes came a little too close, the Hulk didn’t hesitate.
Timing the jump perfectly, he leaped toward the plane and landed atop it. The plane swooped just below the bridge, the Hulk clinging to it, and his back scraped the bottom of the bridge, creasing it, as they passed under.
Then, suddenly, the plane went vertical and flew straight up.
The strategy, developed on the fly, in every sense of the word, by Thunderbolt Ross, was devastatingly simple: Take the Hulk on a ride to the top of the world, and see what some thin air did for him.
The Hulk clung to the plane as it rose up through the clouds. Frost began to cover him, hanging from his hair, his eyebrows. The world started to fade around him. Close to losing consciousness, he stared into the eyes of the pilot through the cockpit’s windshield. The pilot flinched, concerned that the Hulk would abruptly recover and try to tear the wings off his plane. But he needn’t have worried, for the Hulk closed his eyes completely, and as the plane tilted back—having gone as high as it could safely go—the monster slid off.
He tumbled end over end, and images once again began to cascade through his mind, and Banner was in front of a mirror shaving, and he was watching himself and listening to the slow scraping of the razor, and seeing other eyes looking back at him from inside the mirror, different eyes, just as he had been the other day, except that time had just been an almost intellectual exercise, except this time the eyes watched him, narrowed, and they were green and filled with hatred, and Banner stopped and leaned closer into the mirror, studying, when suddenly the glass flew apart and the Hulk’s hand reached out and took him by the neck, smashing his face back into the mirror and Banner, bloodied but unbowed, stared back into the Hulk’s furious face now, the two of them nose-to
-nose, and they regarded each other like two old friends and two old enemies, all interconnected, and slowly Banner raised his hand, gently untwined the Hulk’s fingers from around his neck, and the Hulk was calm, so calm, and peace beckoned to him, but just as he seemed to calm, his fingers formed a fist, and with a quick blow to the face he snapped Banner’s neck back, broken it. He had triumphed, he had disposed of Banner, for he was the strongest one there was . . .
The Hulk crashed into the bay, sending up a geyser of water that could be seen for miles. He swiftly dropped to the floor of the bay and was lodged in the muddy bottom, half-conscious.
“Bring it round again!” Ross shouted as the Black Hawk flew down over the bay. He studied the huge perturbations in the water where the Hulk had gone down, and then he waited. He had to be sure that the Hulk was gone, that the strategy had worked. Although, even if it had, Ross felt no real sense of triumph. More and more, he was beginning to see Bruce Banner as the victim in all this. He had asked for none of it. He was no ruthless terrorist who had plotted and planned. If he did die, he was simply a casualty of war. God knew there had been enough of them over the course of military conflict, but one didn’t rejoice in their fate. One simply accepted it as part of man’s conflict against man. . . .
At which point the Angry Man broke the water.
“I don’t believe it,” Ross said yet again.
The Black Hawk was armed with two M60D machine guns, and the gunners used them now to open fire. Considering all the monster had survived, Ross had a feeling that it was a hollow gesture, but he had to do something. Bullets splattered in the water, and Ross was sure that a number of them had to have hit the Angry Man.
But all the Angry Man did was glance up disdainfully at the helicopter, and then he took a deep breath and went under again.