Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (33 page)

Yumi told Rajiv to meet Robert and Sunny at the morgue quickly, that a clean-up team of guards had been assigned the grisly task of burning their bodies, double insurance that no sign of them ever being there would be found. Rajiv’s job seemed impossible, even to Yumi
— to somehow stop the guards, get them away from Robert and Sunny long enough for his companions to escape. Then, he was to take them to the ambulance parked in the emergency room ambulance garage on the basement level. But if Robert wasn’t there, he was to take Sunny to the ambulance and wait there for him.

Rajiv obeyed, but reminded Yumi of the need to get his family out with him. She assured him Chief Dailey was working on the evacuation of the town and there was nothing more Rajiv could do that wouldn’t cause delays. The last thing she told him was to avoid the stairwell and take the elevator.

*  *  *

Rajiv arrived at the morgue to find the detail of five very untidy guards. He understood why they would be covered in garbage and why they all seemed teary eyed. He’d found the elevator not working and had to take the stairway
— and slid down the last flight of steps through an incredible amount of sticky trash. After cleaning himself thoroughly, picking off all the messy garbage, he then encountered a terrible odor as he stepped into the hallway — and proceeded to fall on his butt three times on some kind of a slick spill before making it to the morgue. The janitors must have gone on strike.

Two of the guards were at the incinerator, the furnace door open, loading it one by one with the cadavers. An occasional flame licked from the opening causing them to yield to it, stepping back. Two of the other three guards were pushing the emptied tables away and pulling new occupied ones closer to the fiery finale. The last guard, who Rajiv guessed was the leader since he seemed to be doing none of the work, watched from the door.

He gazed at the men, fragments of garbage clinging to their uniforms. “You have not heard?” he asked them.

The guard turned, his rifle pointed at the floor, not seeming threatened by Rajiv. “We have our orders. Dr. Xiang has promised he’d get us out before the bomb goes off. Now, get out of the way.” The other four guards continued their task.

“Bomb?” Rajiv asked. “Kindly tell me what bomb, please?”

The guards glanced at each other. “Just get out of here.”

“But Dr. Xiang has instructed me to . . . ,” Rajiv scanned the tables, looking for his companions, unsure of what he would tell the guards. He feared he was too late, as they seemed nearly finished with their job. He blurted out, “I need a brain.”

Again, they glanced at each other. The leader frowned at Rajiv.

“Dr. Xiang has instructed me to come and get two brains for experimentation.”

“Only one left,” the leader said and pointed to the covered table next to Rajiv. “We’re fresh out.”

“That is obvious,” Rajiv said scanning the guards.

The leader glared at him.

“Come on, Top,” one of the other guards told the leader. “Let him have his brain. Let’s get out of here. We still have another assignment to do.”

“I’m for that
— everything and everybody here will soon be vaporized, anyway,” the guy called Top said, and the others nodded.

They hustled by Rajiv and out the door.

Rajiv waved at their backs as they sprinted toward the stairwell. They slowed coming up on the liquid detergent on the floor, one slipping as he stepped on an old footprint of the stuff. They moved cautiously to the stair doorway while cupping one hand over their noses and mouths, opened the door and paused, looking up.

The leader said, “It’s going to be easier the second time
— knowing what we’re up against.” And they hesitantly went in.

Rajiv searched about the room one more time, his eyes wide and mouth open. Only one table had been left with a body.

“My friend, Robert Weller,” he whispered, gaping at the covering. “I hope this is you.”

He pulled back the sheet to find Sunny unconscious.

“Oh my,” he complained. “It is not my friend.” He shook his head. “Lady,” he said softly, “Sunny, you must wake up, please.” He pushed on her shoulder but nothing happened. He shook her and spoke louder. “Sunny, it is me, the geek. Kindly wake up now, please!” Still, she did not respond.

Rajiv went to the sink and drew half of a small paper cup of water. He returned to Sunny’s side. “I am sorry, but you have left me with no other choice,” he said.

As Sunny’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked to Rajiv, he seemed unable to stop the forward motion of his arm. The water splashed in Sunny’s face.

They looked at each other, both shocked.

Sunny blew water from her lips. “What the — ”

“I am not your knight in luminous steel, like you may believe,” Rajiv said. “I am known to you as the geek Raja. Do you remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sunny said, her eyes narrowed as she shook her head, “I remember.”

“That is good. It is also good you are not cremated.”

“At first thought, yeah, that sounds good, too.”

“Well, now that the niceties are over, we must run for our lives to the ambulance parked down the hall.”

“Where is he?”

Rajiv blinked at her. “If you mean our friend Robert, he is not here. I am hoping he stepped out on important business and did not become ashes. Dr. Yumi said if he was not here, we should wait for him at the ambulance.”

“I’ve done enough waiting,” Sunny said and slipped from the table. She stretched her shoulders and arms while holding on to the side. “I need to find Dan.” She released the table and found her legs and her balance.

“Please,” Rajiv said, “my plan first. Then we can discuss this missing husband of yours.”

They went to the door and Rajiv opened it cautiously before passing through with Sunny behind him. “This way,” he said and trotted about fifty feet to a set of windowed doors that said
Emergency Room/Ambulance Parking
on it.

After pushing through the wide doors, he looked back.

Sunny was gone.

Chapter 32

“William,” I called out to the running boy. “Will, I’m here. It’s your dad, son.” The emotions brimmed my soul and spilled out from my eyes in hot tears. I became overwhelmed with the joy of seeing William not only on his feet, not only walking, but running. “My God, Will! You can walk again!”

Several yards away, Will found a young Oriental woman and latched onto her arm with both hands. I moved toward him, but the crowd swelled and got in the way. I tried to be respectful to these slight, malnourished people, but it was difficult knowing I need only push through fifteen feet in order to hold my son. They all had lied about William. They all had deceived me, and this was a whole other matter, now. Why would they, my supposed friends and rescuers, trick me in such a way?

By the time I reached William and the woman, we were already through the doors of Residence A. Those leading the crowd of at least five hundred people were now sprinting through the vacant children’s ward and to the stairwell midway in the main hall.

I dropped my helmet and grabbed William around his middle as he fled. After pulling him loose from the woman, I lifted him into my arms. He returned a look of horror and panic and began screaming.

“Will, it’s me, your daddy,” I pled with him. “Buddy, it’s me.” I looked at his legs and arms flailing about him as he cried. “My God,” I said. “Look at you. You can walk and run. My God. It’s a miracle.” The tears streamed from my cheeks. I didn’t understand Will’s behavior, but the shock of seeing him as a whole child again, one that could run and play games, ice skate, snow ski, and play baseball, was overpowering.

The next thing I knew, people were slapping and striking me, and tugging at William. I glanced back at them through the tears in my eyes. The Oriental woman William had clung to was one of my assailants, as was an older Oriental woman and man. They were all speaking gibberish to my ears. I was glad when the man who understood English came to my rescue.

“What is happening here?” he asked me. “What do you want with this boy?”

“He’s my son,” I said. “I’m taking him with me.” I pulled him away, which caused the old woman to fall, and I began pushing through the crowd, even though William and the others protested violently in an Far Eastern tongue.

“You are making a terrible mistake,” the English speaking man yelled out. “He is not your son.”

The old man who had been with the two women stepped in my way, and I glared at him, the pressure building in the back of my head.

“It’s you who’re making the terrible mistake if you don’t get out of my way.”

He didn’t budge. My temples ached but no shooting pain came, and I watched as this slight man whom I could easily throw against a wall, or strike with such force as to kill him where he stood, remained in my path. He grabbed his chest as the pressure in my head increased. He fell to his knees in agony and gasped for breath.

“Please, you must not hurt these people,” the English speaker shouted and made his way through the crowd to grasp my arm.

The pressure in my temple reduced. The old man before me was able to catch his breath.

The English speaker said, “Why do you take this boy, Li, from his mother?”

“His name’s William, and I told you. He’s my son.”

“That is impossible. I saw Li on the day he was born. I know Li’s parents. His mother is there,” he said and pointed to the woman William had held onto. “And his father was an Australian man named Jason Godfrey. He is dead, now. Dr. Xiang and his men killed him before Li was a month old. You are not the boy’s father.”

William kept screaming and hitting me. I shook him gently. “William, stop. It’s me, Will, your daddy.”

The boy quit struggling and stared at me as the tears streamed from his eyes.

“Say something, Will. Speak to me. Say anything.”

The English speaker said, “He understands none of your language. He only knows a few of your words that he has been trained to speak like a parrot. They forced him to learn to say these things or to starve.”

“Speak to me, then,” I insisted. “Speak to me like a parrot.”

The English speaker told the boy more gibberish and the boy said, “I want to play catch again, Daddy. And ride my bike.” His voice was full of stress and fear, now, but it was what I’d known as Will’s voice. He spoke in perfect English. Nevertheless, it was not this young boy’s natural tongue, that was obvious from the awkward movement of his lips and jaw. Had they somehow tricked William into thinking he was a Chinese boy?

“Say more,” I said. “Tell me your name. Tell me anything.”

The boy began crying again.

The English speaker said, “That is all he knows. Please. Let him go back to his mother and grandparents.” He pulled the boy from my arms as I gave in to what he was saying as the truth and no longer found the heart to resist. I watched dumbfounded as he helped the old man to his feet, and they went back to the boy’s mother and grandmother, all of them in tears.

The crowd pushed through and soon was in the main hallway. I moved in a daze behind them, taking slow, unsteady steps.

To my side, I noticed another set of doors not far from the Residence A entrance. These doors said Residence C and were locked as the others had been. I did my best to overcome the emotional trauma I had just experienced, and I broke these locks the same way, with the bullets of my M-16.

After forcing the doors open I proceeded, finding four rooms. This time, all of the rooms were full of beds, as in a cramped hospital ward. Lying in those beds were men and women of all races. They wore plain white hospital gowns. Some had shaved heads, others bandaged craniums, yet others with normal haircuts. All of them had eyes that were lazy and half-open.

I went to the closest man, a Caucasian of about thirty-five or forty. His blond hair was neatly trimmed. His hands were clean, and his face looked freshly shaven. Yet as the others, he’d been recently abandoned by his caretakers, more accurately his prison guards. I noticed the #386 on the front pocket of his gown. I remembered myself in the film wearing a similar gown with #374 on the pocket. I shook his shoulder to try to get him to look at me, but he lay with his face directed to the ceiling, and his gaze was unflinching.

“Hey,” I said. “Look at me.”

He slowly rolled his head in my direction. Briefly, as I looked into his eyes, I wondered if I’d seen this man before. Had he been abducted when I had? Had we shared the same cell? Did I know him from before? I raised my eyebrows. This man, whose eyes were empty of emotion or thought, could even be Sunny’s husband. I could not find a shred of memory of him.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He didn’t respond, his eyes distant, and I wondered if behind them any thought whatsoever went on. I realized then, that these were probably the “vegetables” that Rajiv had spoken of, the Mr. Potato Heads. They were the blanks, the empty memory chips waiting for their programming, exactly like I had been. But what was I to do with so many? There were at least forty. I couldn’t carry each one away, somehow transport them out of range of the bombs that would decimate everything within two miles of their epicenters
— not even considering what the radiation would do for many miles after that.

I had to try.

I moved back out to the middle of the hallway and yelled, “Get up!”

It worked. They all sat up slowly in their beds, their eyes slightly wider than before, but still droopy enough for someone to think they had gone a couple days without sleep.

“Stand up,” I commanded, and they did.

“Come to me,” I said, and they began moving slowly toward the doorways.

I walked backward. “Follow me.”

They did, their steps short and slow, like mindless zombies.

My platoon of turnips and I proceeded from the C residence out into the children’s ward.

Then I saw it. I didn’t understand how I’d missed it before. The door opposite
Residence C
that we just exited. This door was labeled
Residence B
and was not padlocked.

*  *  *

In the DPV, Gunny Sampson raced into Mount Rainy Biotronics’ vacant parking lot as the last of the cars left. The tail end of an incredibly long line of vehicles snaked down the mountain highway to Gold Rush.

As he pulled up to the front entryway of the facility, a large man in a police uniform came running through the doors.

Sampson yanked an M-16 from between the seats and leveled it at the man.

Dailey held his hands up but continued hustling toward Sampson’s DPV. He stopped shy of the passenger’s side. “You with the rescue team?”

“The question is, who are you with?”

“I’m on your side, damn it! My name’s Eldon Dailey, sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps.”

“Kinda old for a buck sergeant, aren’t you?”

“I made time-in-grade thirty years ago. They call me Chief Dailey here. What’s important is now. Your boy is inside with a whole mess of people who need to get the hell outa here.”

A helicopter came speeding along the roadway toward Biotronics. Dailey and Sampson watched as it neared. Only seconds passed before the big MH-53M was hovering and then set down. The Gunny and Chief squinted into the rotor wash as Major Jax hustled to them.

Sampson’s smile was big, as he shook the major’s hand. “Damn, sir, I thought you bought it.”

“Not yet, Gunny,” Jax said. He studied the man with Sampson. “Who’s your friend?”

“Says he’s on our side
— a Marine buck sergeant, thirty years’ time-in-grade.”

“Humph,” Jax said with a nod. He told the two, “Get in the chopper.”

As they obeyed, Sergeant Chambers called to the major from his seat in the cargo bay. He held the SatCom unit, taking over for the fallen Lieutenant Carpenter.

“What is it, Sergeant?” Jax answered.

“Our remote viewer says we’ve got trouble inside the facility, sir,” Chambers said. “The recommendation she gives is drastic.”

“All right,” Jax said as he climbed aboard, and the helicopter lifted off. He went to the sergeant and looked at the communiqué on the laptop’s screen. “Good lord.” Jax shook his head and took a deep breath. “Send a message to the President, Sergeant Chambers. It’s time we let him in the game. Let’s just hope he’s on our side.”