Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (26 page)

Xiang walked swiftly to the doorway with Wu at his side as the guard stepped back to allow them passage. On the parking lot monitors were Subject 374 and the strange woman.

“They are outside the front door!” Xiang said. “He got this close without me being alerted?”

The attendant bowed. “Sir, with the security alert and our forces stretched, I am doing the job of what would normally take five technicians. I alerted you as soon as I saw them.”

“You saw no one with them? Nothing else?”

“No, Doctor.”

Wu frowned at the guard as he reached for the microphone and pushed the Security button. “I’ll have them killed immediately.”

Xiang grabbed his hand. “No. This could be interesting. Ensure your men are in the proper gear and have them bring our guests to me.”

Wu smiled. “I hoped you would let me finish him.”

“Not so fast,” Xiang said. “I do not wish for this to turn into some sort of competition between you two. You are much too valuable. I will get Dr. Yumi and we will meet your men in the interrogation room. I want you to take care of this security breach. You must contain the intruders and ensure they do not interfere with our departure.”

Chapter 24

Sunny turned to me with tears in her eyes, but we kept walking. “Yes,” she said, “yes, I’m nuts. You already said there was no way in. The thing is, we’ve got to get in. I don’t care about anything else right now. You said your son’s in there. I know you’re not going to walk away and leave him there. And there’re a whole bunch of other innocent people. You’ve seen what these bastards do. They’ve been trying to kill us for the past five hours.”

I shook my head. We were fifty feet from the door. “I think they wiped out an Air Force Special Ops unit,” I added.

Sunny’s eyes widened. “Jax — Major Jackson?”

“Yeah, Major Jackson and at least nine others.”

“They’re dead?”

“I’m afraid so. I’d hoped the major made it, but when we were at the house, I didn’t see any sign of him.”

“After the first rescue attempt, Jax was the only one on my side.”

“First attempt?” I asked.

“Yeah, we knocked on the wrong door several days ago, looking for Dan — this place, Gold Rush. But Jax threw away his career for this rescue mission, even with the slim chance of it working. It’s likely we’ll all end up in a Federal Prison — or worse — if we survive. There would be no way his superiors and the President, would have gone along with it. They don’t even know where we are — yet. He was sure, from the current administration’s record, they’d want to bomb everything first — destroy it all — and ask questions second. He put this rescue mission together with Gunny Sampson’s financial and logistical backing. And he launched the operation without clearing it — on his own. I know he might not appear like it, but Gunny Sampson is a self-made multimillionaire. He’s one-hundred-percent hands on in his business and in his own way, a genius.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Bomb everything? Gold Rush? Biotronics?”

Sunny nodded. “But the thing is, they shouldn’t worry. Your Dr. Xiang has already started a countdown to do it himself. One way or another, this whole place won’t be here past sunrise.”

I put my arm across her shoulders and we stopped, ten feet from the three long, concrete steps before the door. Several people walked past us. “I think the guards have orders to shoot us on sight, too,” I told her. “Looks like we’re dead no matter what happens.”

Sunny’s eyes glistened in the lights. Dirt smudged her face or maybe it was the nitrates from the gunfire. Still, her beauty hadn’t dimmed. I touched her hair. Wild from the abuse, but even now it was soft and florescent.

Sunny said, “Maybe they won’t kill us if we make ourselves easy to catch. Once inside, maybe we can make a break for it.” I heard a slight sob in her voice. “I don’t know.”

“If we merely stand here and let them catch us?”

She nodded.

I shrugged. Our situation appeared hopeless. Maybe the guards would show mercy if we offered no resistance. “The major told me not to give myself up.” I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the red pill the young Lieutenant had handed me. “He told me to bite into this and put it under my tongue if it came down to it. Why am I so important?”

“There’s not enough time, Robert.”

I put the pill in my mouth, still in the bubble pack and moved it to my cheek with my tongue. Sunny’s eyes widened, and she grabbed a hold of my jaw.

I backed away. “No,” I said. “Tell me now. The pill is still in the plastic. But tell me what’s going on now, or I’m going to bite down.”

Sunny blinked at me and then began spilling out like a broken water pipe. “You and Dan have a gift. It’s incredibly strong in both of you. We all met at Stanford fifteen years ago. I was a psych student, and you and Dan were right out of the Marines going for physics degrees. We’d volunteered for some ESP experiments the psychology department was doing in cooperation with the Army. We jumped at the chance. And why not? They gave us three psych credits and three-hundred dollars for it. I didn’t do so well, but you and Dan — you both exceeded all their expectations. You said you didn’t know anything about it, like reading minds or anything, except you always did well at poker — you know, could tell if someone was bluffing.” She smiled. “You told me you knew I wanted to go out with you. And I did.”

“You’re feeding me BS again. I was never at Stanford.”

“You were, Robert. I swear.”

Several people walked by us and up the steps toward the door.

“Why don’t I remember?”

“Biotronics. They hypnotized you, gave you drugs, hydroquanaline or something like it. It erases memories. Then they planted new memories in your head.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? What do you remember of your past, Robert? How do those memories appear in your mind? Your first kiss?”

I tried to recall it, and I did. It was with Michelle. But as I reminisced, I thought the memory odd. I remembered it — the view — rectangular, dark around the edges, as if it were being shown to me on a movie screen. I looked at her blankly.

“Did you have a pet when you were a kid? What was his name?”

I couldn’t remember that one.

“Come on, Robert,” Sunny said. “Every little boy has a pet of some kind. If not a puppy or a cat, they have a lizard or a turtle, or a hamster named Winky or something.”

There was nothing.

“What about games you played?”

“I got you on this one,” I said. “High school football — and baseball. I remember little league baseball.”

“How do those memories come to mind? Are they like remembering what happened this morning or this afternoon?”

“Of course not,” I said. “That was a long time ago.”

“That’s not what I mean. How do they appear in your mind?”

I considered what she was saying. In my thoughts, I could see a bunch of boys, one hitting the ball and running bases. I could see another catching it on the ground and throwing it to second. However, again, it all appeared as if it happened from some sort of window or something — a rectangle in the dark, a movie screen.

“How about your wife and son? How do you remember them before today?”

At first, it made me angry for her even to suggest there was something wrong with the memories I had of my family. Nevertheless, I thought about them. The same memories I recalled earlier in the day came to mind. Playing catch with William, somehow in that rectangle again. Michelle walking down the aisle in her wedding dress, in a rectangle surrounded by darkness.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Robert, it all boils down to this. The Biotronics people kidnapped you. The Army Captain who was in charge sold out to them after doing the telepathy experiments at SRI — Stanford Research Institute.”

I asked, “Vanzandtz?”

Sunny looked at me surprised.

“She must have gotten a promotion,” I said. “When I remember her, she was still a lieutenant.”

“That’s right,” Sunny said. “You remember!”

I curbed her enthusiasm. “But that’s all I know. It came to me in a dream.”

“The CIA, DIA and the U.S. Army, had been researching psychic powers for twenty years, probably a lot longer. At the same time, the Biotronics people, led by Dr. Xiang, were experimenting with enhancing the telepathic powers of the subjects who exhibit the strongest abilities. Four years ago, Xiang came to some sort of a milestone, an implantable enhancement device. They started gathering up all of the most, let’s say, talented subjects discovered over the years. At least three-dozen people who had been involved in those college experiments alone have disappeared. Those are only the ones I could find out about. They’ve been snatching people. Some, they take away from their families, erase their memories and give them not only new memories but new families. Others are scientists and their families, brought here under the guise of witness protection or some such nonsense, like your little Raja fella.”

“Why?”

“I think they’re making the people who demonstrated the greatest psychic abilities into some sort of assassins. To use their minds as tactical weapons. To access the minds of others — infiltrate thoughts. To make them psychic warriors.”

“That really is nuts.”

“You think so? What about all these people who have been dropping dead around you?”

I became short of breath. “Jesus,” I said. “How? I mean, why would I?”

“Why did you kill those people? Because your subconscious mind sensed they were there to do you harm. That’s a part of your gift. You don’t read minds, so to speak. Not like some kind of a swami or something. But you can sense auras or electric fields emitted by other people’s brains. You know, brainwaves. How? You also have an incredible ability to project thoughts, also in brainwaves. They implanted an electronic device inside your head — attached it to your brain stem — that enhances your brain’s power to do that. The thing on your neck and the one on your shirt collar — they were not only tracking devices but antennae to send and receive signals so your enhancement implant could be turned on and off from an outside source.”

It was too incredible. My memory told me I had lived in Gold Rush, Colorado all of my life. I had rarely traveled away, and then only for a week or two. I was a hardware storeowner. I was a simple man. I had a son, a wife
— until I killed her tonight.

A commotion came from inside the Biotronics entrance. People ran toward the door. Several men in the now common SWAT gear came out other windowless doors along the side of the building from both directions. They had their helmets on and goggles down.

Sunny saw them, too. “If things go wrong,” she said, “give me one last kiss, okay?”

I felt the plastic-wrapped pill with my tongue and thought of what she meant. “Let’s meet them halfway,” I told her and took the first step in front of the entrance. I didn’t care what happened now. William was inside. Planted in my head or not, he was the only one left I cared about. There was too much going on here, much more than Sunny had told me or even knew
— more than I could ever imagine.

Sunny came up to my side and took my hand again. We smiled at each other. Not a happy smile, but a thin-lipped, this-might-be-it smile. We raised our hands together, and the guards surrounded us.

Chapter 25

We didn’t look at the eight guards who encircled us. Instead, we watched each other’s faces.

The guards said nothing, and luckily, their rifles didn’t speak either. They searched us, not finding anything on me but the map in my front pocket. The guy who found the map passed it to one of the men standing off to the side. I guessed he might be in charge.

After a brief inspection of the map, he handed it to a tall man at his side, who placed it in one of his many pockets. In Sunny’s pocket, they found something that looked like a ring of thin keys. Then I realized it was a set of lock picks. In addition, they found Sunny’s little .32 caliber pistol. That guard also gave his find to their leader, and in turn, he passed the gun on to the taller man. Then they found the necklace Sunny wore. I guessed it was the “panic button” Gunny Sampson had mentioned. The guard yanked it from around her neck. After being scrutinized briefly, it ended up in the same tall man’s pocket.

Still without speaking, they made it clear with their guns that we were to enter the building. This was what we had hoped, but they took us through an unmarked door twenty feet to the side.

Once inside, we descended a flight of steps down an echoing stairwell. We stopped in front of a door with a sign on it reading
Restricted Area, Authorized Personnel Only
in large, red letters. One of the guards placed his hand on what looked like a red Plexiglas pad angled out from the wall with a backlit palm print on it. The pad turned to green. The lock buzzed and the door opened with a click. They forced us inside, shoving and prodding us like cattle.

They coaxed us down a long, plain-white corridor, until we finally came to an unmarked door. Once again, the leader placed his hand on the red palm-print pad to enter and they forced us inside. After pulling out two metal chairs and placing them in the center of the room, they pushed us into them. A couple of the guards moved behind us, pulled our arms back and restrained us with nylon cable ties.

We waited there with the eight rifles trained on us for what must have been at least twenty minutes. The guards hardly moved, and they kept their helmets and goggles on. I asked one for a cigarette even though I didn’t smoke. He didn’t budge. Sunny asked for a Margarita with salt on the rim but got no response. When she looked at me and said, “Must be tea-drinkers,” the one who appeared in charge showed her the butt of his rifle, making it clear if she said another word, she would regret it.

I was almost thankful to see Dr. Xiang. He came through the door, his blue lab coat flying behind him. The white motorcycle helmet he wore didn’t come close to passing for a matching part of his ensemble, and I found myself wanting to chuckle nervously, wondering if he’d just stepped from the movie set of
Space Balls
. In addition, he wore the same copper-tinted goggles their SWAT people wore. An Oriental woman dressed in the same manner followed him in. The whole bunch of them reminded me of some sort of new age, punk-rock group.

“Doctor Xiang,” I said, knowing well he had been the one who ordered our deaths, yet hoping acting innocent might buy us time. “Thank God it’s you.”

I didn’t see the rifle butt coming, but I was sure that’s what hit me across the side of the face.

Doctor Xiang smiled. “This is where the bad guy tells the good guy all he wants to know,” he said. “Then at the last minute, the good guy escapes and saves the day, is that not correct, Mr. Weller?”

It was as if it was too late for the truth to hurt their plan now. I didn’t dare answer verbally. I licked the blood from my lip and gave him a narrow-eyed nod.

“Well, Mr. Weller, this is not Hollywood. I am not going to tell you . . . ,” he paused theatrically, “ . . . shit.” He smiled as if he’d just finished a large plateful.

Xiang turned to the woman. “Now we will see firsthand how well our product performs.” He motioned to the tallest of the guards, broader shoulders, about my size. It was the guy to whom they’d passed our possessions. “Take off your helmet,” Xiang said and I guessed he’d selected this guard at random, possibly didn’t even know him.

The young Oriental man looked at Xiang, and through the goggles I could see his eyes widen.

“I said, take it off,” Xiang repeated.

The two guards nearest the man turned their rifles on him.

He glanced at both of them and backed up to the door. He looked at the doctor and finally complied, placing his goggles up on his helmet. He leaned his rifle against the wall and then lifted the pot off, and one of the other men took it from him. His gaze raced around the room, but it was plain to see he was avoiding eye contact with me, now.

Doctor Xiang’s voice was mild. “Shoot them. Kill them both.”

The helmet-less soldier frowned and turned to me. He took his weapon from the wall and raised it. I saw his finger tighten on the trigger, and again I felt the pain shoot through the base of my head. I waited for the bullets, my pain intensifying, but they didn’t come.

Instead, the guy’s eyes suddenly bugged. He dropped the rifle, stiffened and toppled over into his comrades. They didn’t catch him but moved out of the way, and his body slammed onto the floor. My sharp headache subsided.

The doctor’s smile grew wide. The woman behind him seemed horrified, the lines around her eyes growing, her mouth dropping open.

He had used me to kill a man for the sole purpose of demonstration.

“You bastard!” I told Xiang.

Knowing I wouldn’t get far, I stood quickly, lowered my shoulder and tried to ram him. He stepped back as one of his men grabbed the restraints around my hands and another placed his foot in my gut, sharply. I fell to my knees.

“Very good,” Xiang said, staring at me. “Too bad we can no longer use you. You have become an embarrassment to this project. We cannot have that. We will renew our loyalty to the Chairman by disposing of you.” He brought out something small from his lab coat pocket and placed it briefly behind my head. I heard a snap, or more accurately felt a snap that was not painful, rather it gave me an odd sense of relief, a little like a joint adjustment from a chiropractor. But this adjustment was somewhere inside my head. He faced the woman as two men put me back in my metal seat and this time they also secured my hands to the frame of the chair. “His device is turned off, now.” He removed his helmet. “He is no longer a danger.” He smiled at his female assistant. “Dr. Yumi, if you’d please.”

The guards made room for the woman to pass. She stepped around the young soldier’s body and brought up a large syringe as she went to Sunny.

Sunny’s resistance, her toughness, had worn considerably and her skin was as pale as ivory. I knew what weighed on her the most was that now she wouldn’t find her husband. She turned to me, and I could guess what she was about to say. I moved the suicide pill, still in its bubble-wrap, from my cheek to the front of my mouth and prepared to bite into it.

“How ‘bout that kiss, now, Robert?” she said, but as soon as she did, the guard nearest her gave her a swift smack on the jaw with the butt of his gun.

Sunny’s head went back, agony twisting her face.

I tongued the pill back into my cheek and yelled, “Son-of-a-bitch.” I tried to stand again. The nylon cable ties held my arms firm against the metal chair, and although I was able to raise it from the floor, the guards shoved me back down.

The woman doctor with the syringe held her hand up to stop them from assaulting us anymore. “This won’t hurt,” she said and drove the needle into Sunny’s arm. She dispensed nearly half of the clear liquid before withdrawing.

I watched in horror as Sunny’s beautiful eyes pled with me. Her body jerked twice, then went limp, and her head fell forward.

“It is much better than a bullet,” Dr. Yumi said stepping to me. I glared at her. Through the copper visor, her eyes showed no emotion and her mouth curved into a cold smile.

The needle jabbed into my arm. A warmth rushed from my shoulder into my chest. It grew hot. My muscles contracted. My eyes rolled back. Darkness descended upon me, heavy and suffocating, like a black-velvet stage curtain. It broke away from its traversing rod and collapsed onto me, just another retiring thespian in this, his life’s final act. Darkness.