She was watching the sentries. “They’re perfect targets,” she murmured.
“Lazy idiots. They think because Tremont is gone they can do what they want.”
“If it comes to shooting,” Randi whispered, “I’ll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left. With luck, they’ll surrender.”
“That’s what we want.” Smith nodded in agreement. He was getting used to working with her. In fact, he was enjoying it. Now, if they could just do it well enough to survive… “Let’s go.”
They eased the doors open and padded out onto the porch as the two men talked and smoked in their chairs. The sun was hard and flinty as Jon’s gaze locked onto the guards sitting directly below, unknowing.
The taller guard flicked his cigarette onto the grassy lawn and stood. “Time to do another turn around the property.” Before Jon or Randi could move, he saw them. “Bob!” he called in alarm.
“Lay down your weapons,” Jon commanded.
Randi’s voice was tense. “Do it slowly. So no one makes any mistakes.”
Both men froze. One was completely on his feet but only half-turned to face them, while the other was merely halfway out of his chair. Neither’s weapon was pointed at Jon and Randi, while Jon and Randi had the guards completely covered. It was a surprise ambush that had worked, and there was no doubt in anyone’s minds that unless the sentries wanted to commit suicide, they would do exactly as told.
“Shit,” one muttered.
__________
The timbered grounds were quiet as Smith locked the three tied-up sentries in an outbuilding behind the garage. Marty stood in the shadows next to it, while Randi was out of sight, monitoring the lodge for any activity. Marty’s round face was worried, and his green eyes had a dark look, as if he were in a world he had never wanted to know anything about. His plump body seemed desolate in his baggy pants and jacket.
He looked up at Jon. “You want me to stay here?” he asked, as if he knew the answer.
“It’s safer, Mart, and we need someone to be sentry. I don’t know what we’re going to find in the lab. If something happens to us, you’ve got a chance to make it by escaping into the woods.”
Marty nodded soberly. His fingers twitched on the bullpup as if he longed for a keyboard instead. “It’s okay, Jon. I know you’ll be back for me. Good luck. And if I see anything”— he gave a brave smile— “I’ll be sure to fire once.”
Smith clamped a hand on his shoulder in encouragement.
Marty patted Jon’s hand. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me. You’d better go.”
__________
Weapons in hand, Jon and Randi met at the side door of the lodge they had used before. They exchanged a long look, and some kind of recognition passed between them. Jon moved his eyes away, and Randi found herself wondering nervously what was happening to her.
Inside the lodge, they paused at the foot of the staircase in the long hall. There had been no gunshots fired outdoors, and they hoped that whoever was at work upstairs had no idea the sentries had been taken and the lodge invaded. The whole point of this stealthy attack was to accomplish what they needed as quickly and efficiently as possible— and to emerge alive and intact.
Warily, they padded up the stairs, rounded the landing, and continued on up. As they neared the top, there was still silence.
And then they saw why. A thick glass door with heavy glass panels on either side was set back from a small foyer area. Beyond the glass was a vast, gleaming laboratory with offices and rooms around its perimeter. Off to the side was what looked like a “clean room” devoted to experiments that had to be conducted in an atmosphere free of contaminants. Another room held an electron microscope. All labs had the same sense about them— orderliness touched with an aura of controlled chaos that came from papers, test tubes, Bunsen burners, glass beakers, flasks, microscopes, file cabinets, computers, refrigerators, and all the other paraphernalia that was so vital to scientists in their pursuit of codifying the unknown. This one also had what looked like a next-century spectrometer.
But what riveted Jon’s gaze, what gave him both a sinking sensation and a jolt of triumph, was a heavy door in the center of one wall marked by the glaring red trefoil symbol of a biohazard. It was the door to a Level Four Hot Zone laboratory installation. A secret Level Four.
“I see four people,” Randi whispered.
Jon kept his voice even. “Time to introduce ourselves.”
They pushed in through the door, their weapons in front of them.
___________________
CHAPTER
FORTY FOUR
___________________
Two of the technicians looked up. As soon as they saw the guns, fear shot into their faces. One of them moaned. At the sound, the other two looked up. They blanched. Without saying a word, Jon and Randi had all four’s attention.
“Don’t shoot!” begged the oldest of the two men.
“Please. I have children!” said the younger of the two women.
“No one’s going to be hurt if you just answer a few questions,” Smith assured them.
“He’s right.” Randi pointed her Uzi at what looked like a small conference room off the lab. “Let’s go in there and have a warm and friendly chat.”
In their white uniforms, the four technicians filed into the room and, when told, took chairs at the Formica-topped conference table. They ranged in age from mid-forties to mid-twenties, and they had the look of people who put in regular days. These were no wild-eyed, pasty-faced scientists who lived in their labs weeks at a time when wrapping up a project. They were ordinary people with wedding rings and photos of extended families on their workbenches. Technicians, not scientists.
Except the older of the two women. She had short gray hair and wore a long white lab coat over street clothes. She had been silent and watchful since they had entered. Some kind of scientist or supervisor.
Sweat bathed the high forehead of the older, balding man. His gaze had been on the guns, but now he looked up at Randi. “What do you want?” His voice was shaky.
“Glad you asked,” she told him. “Tell us about the monkey virus.”
“And the serum that happens to cure a human virus, too,” Jon said.
“We know it was brought from Peru twelve years ago by Victor Tremont.”
“We also know about the experiments on the twelve soldiers in Desert Storm.”
Randi asked, “How long have you had the serum?”
“And how did the epidemic start?”
Hearing the rapid-fire questions, the older woman’s gray features pinched. Her faded eyes grew defiant. “We don’t know what you mean. We have nothing to do with any monkey virus or serum.”
“Then what do you work on here?” Randi demanded.
“Antibiotics and vitamins mostly,” the supervisor told her.
Smith said, “So why the secrecy? The remoteness? This lab doesn’t show up in any of Blanchard’s documents.”
“We don’t belong to Blanchard.”
“Then whose antibiotics and vitamins are you working on?”
The supervisor flushed, and the others looked terrified again. She had said more than she had wanted to. “I can’t tell you that,” she snapped.
Randi said, “Okay. Then we’ll look at your files.”
“They’re computerized. We don’t have access. Only the director and Dr. Tremont do. When they get back, they’ll put an end to you and all this—”
Jon’s anger was rising. Whether they knew it or not, they had helped murder Sophia. “No one’s going to come back anytime soon. They’re too busy getting medals, and your three guards are dead outside,” he lied. “You want to join the guards?”
The supervisor glared at him, stubbornly silent.
Randi tried to control her rage. “Maybe you think because we’ve been polite so far that we won’t kill you. You’re right, we probably won’t. We’re the good guys. But,” she added cheerfully, “I have no problem with causing considerable pain. Mistakes do get made. You hear me clearly?”
That got their attention. At least the attention of the other three. They hurriedly nodded.
“Good. Now, which of you is going to tell us the name of the company you work for and the computer passwords?”
“And,” Smith added, staring at the supervisor, “why you need a Level Four lab for vitamins and antibiotics?”
The supervisor’s face paled, and her hands trembled, but she intensified her glare of intimidation at the other three.
But the smallest and oldest man ignored her. “Don’t try that, Emma.” His voice was weak but determined. “You’re not in charge here anymore. They are.” He looked at Jon. “How do we know you won’t kill us anyway?”
“You don’t. But you can be sure the odds are far better that if anyone’s going to be hurt, it’s going to be now. Later, we’re going to be too busy bringing down Victor Tremont.”