Hulk by Peter David

Author:Peter David [David, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: Davi_0345466500
Publisher: The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group
Published: 2003-04-03T18:30:00+00:00

He could see Betty in Thunderbolt Ross’s face.

Bruce thought that was amusing. After all the times that Betty had spoken so angrily about her father, had expressed again and again the belief that they were nothing alike, Bruce could nevertheless instantly see the family resemblance. Oh, granted, Betty was far prettier. But around the nose, the general shape of the face, and the eyes—lord, they had the same eyes, including that inner conviction that they were absolutely right about, well, everything. In Betty, he chose to find it a charmingly endearing feature. In her father, he found it . . . less so.

Ross had something in his hand behind his back. For a heartbeat, Bruce wondered if it was a gun. Was Ross so far gone that he was prepared to shoot Bruce right then and there, that he was just waiting for Betty to leave the room so he could do the deed?

“Bruce Krenzler?” asked Ross.

It seemed an odd thing to ask. Obviously Ross had to know who he was. He wanted to play some little game with Bruce. A sort of cat-and-mouse thing. Mentally, Bruce shrugged. The man’s capacity for showing off his strength in a situation seemed boundless, but if that’s what he wanted to do, Bruce wasn’t going to prolong it.

“Yes,” he said flatly.

“My, my. So this is Bruce Ba—” Ross paused deliberately, apparently looking for some sort of reaction from Bruce as he “caught” himself saying a different surname. Bruce’s poker face remained immobile. “Krenzler,” finished Ross, and there was a fleeting look of disappointment on his face. Bruce hadn’t given him what he wanted, and that failure didn’t bother the scientist one whit.

But Ross wasn’t finished. Indeed, he’d barely begun. “I think you left something at your lab last night.” He held up the torn seat of Bruce’s jeans; from the ripped back pocket, Ross produced Bruce’s wallet. Then he said nothing, just looked at Bruce and waited.

Bruce simply stared at it, inscrutable. He could see what Ross was up to. Some people, when faced with an awkward situation accompanied by silence, would blather out explanations and, in doing so, make things worse for themselves. Ross clearly was hoping that Bruce would try to come up with some way of explaining why parts of his clothing had been found back in the laboratory. Three or four explanations immediately occurred to Bruce that would seem nice, reasonable, “normal” rationalizations of this odd happenstance, but none of them would be the truth, since he wasn’t entirely certain what the truth was. Furthermore, it would just give Ross an excuse to start hammering away at everything Bruce was saying, and that would be of no benefit to Bruce at all. So, instead, he kept his silence.

Several long moments passed, and then annoyance flickered over Ross’s face. “Keep him under observation,” he snapped at the MPs. “I’ll be back.”

Ross turned and walked out of the room. Banner looked mildly at the MPs, whose faces were so serious that they could have been etched out of marble.

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