“We’re in,” Mildred reported, typing steadily.
Rubbing his cheek with the edge of a hand, Ryan grunted in reply. “The idiot wrote down the password?”
“Lots of folks used to do that,” she admitted sheepishly, having done the same thing herself at the hospital. “Corporate security always keeps changing the passwords, and so folks write them down somewhere convenient to not forget.”
Reviewing the text files, there was still nothing marked redoubt or gateway, so she shifted to the disk and brought up a large file marked “important.”
“Okay, the man who worked in this office had the National Guard haul the supplies from the armory to this building,” Mildred said, compressing the broken sentences and random words. “Then had his technicians carry it to the redoubt.”
“Where is it?” Ryan demanded.
Mildred shook her head. “He doesn’t say yet. This is very badly typed with no spelling whatsoever. I wonder if he was dying, it’s so muddled. Ah, here’s something. He also shipped all of the live ‘pilots,’ he calls them, to Mature Island. It has nothing of military importance, so his children should be safe there. Goddamn son of a bitch actually calls the poor muties his children!”
“The whitecoat is aced,” Krysty said gently. “His crimes have been paid for.”
“Not enough for me,” Mildred argued.
“Why gateway redoubt here?” Jak asked frowning. “Broken?”
“Cave in,” the physician reported hesitantly, as if unsure of the event. “Apparently six technicians died trying to dig through the rubble before the scientists decided to leave and assemble the gateway as far away from this island as possible.”
“Strange to go when they were so close,” Dean said, standing at the doorway to keep watch on the laboratory.
“Hurry it up, Millie,” J.B. warned, holding the power cord attached to the battery. “These wires are red-hot, and are gonna burn out any sec.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mildred said, turning off the comp without any preamble. “That was the lot. The rest of the disk was blank.”
“If they had the supplies relayed here by the military,” Ryan said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin, “then a bunch of whitecoats moved it to the redoubtit has to be very close. A couple of blocks at the very most.”
“And underground,” Krysty added. “I’d say the basement here is the logical place to start looking.”
“Just a second,” J.B. said and left the room. He returned in a few moments with a handful of metallic disks.
“Subway tokens,” the man said, spreading the items on the desk. “The secretary’s desk was full of them.”
“And here, too,” Doc said, lifting a similar disk from the black chair.
Going to the window, Ryan yanked away the curtains and looked at the city. An ivy-covered helicopter was parked on a rooftop, cars filled the streets, stores and restaurants abounded and only a block away was a subway station.
“Less than a hundred feet away,” Ryan stated resolutely. “Let’s go.”
As they departed, Krysty noticed a nasty smell in the air of the lab, but paid it no attention. The companions were already in the lobby and heading for the exit when the smashed equipment in the medical lab burst into flames, the electrical fire following the overheating wires into the walls like fuses on a bomb.
Chapter Twenty
“Do it,” Colonel Mitchum commanded, and placed the folded piece of leather into his mouth. He was sitting on a park bench, his pants cut off above the knee, and the wound in his leg was now only a shiny smear of cauterized flesh. The sec chief was breathing hard, trying not to think about what was coming.
Nodding assent, the sec man lifted the orange-hot poker from the crackling campfire and touched it briefly to the bullet wound in the man’s shoulder. Flesh sizzled at the contact, and Mitchum went stiff, his eyes distending as he throated a scream muffled by the thick leather filling his mouth. His big hands grasped the predark bench, tendons swelling in his arms and neck as he rode out the wave of pain.
As the branding iron was removed, a mix of shine and water was splashed on the glassy scar, and Mitchum only grunted at the minor stinging it created. Sweat was trickling off the sec chief as he pulled the leather from his mouth and gulped in fresh air.