Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (34 page)

Chapter 33

My troop of thoughtless bodies stood silently, four wide and ten deep, like rows of corn as I carefully turned the knob of Residence B’s door. Forty people
— how could I possibly get them all out safely? And what would I find behind this door?

My M-16 leveled and ready, I shoved the thick, insulated door open. Behind it was music, soft, flowing
— and voices.

“Dr. Xiang has ordered me to take charge.” It was Yumi’s voice.

“But he did not tell me,” said a male voice as I slipped through the doorway and crouched behind a stack of file boxes on a hand truck.

Yumi was arguing with a small Oriental man only fifteen feet away.

My jaw went slack as I viewed the incredible sight behind them. Filling a room as big as two basketball courts, a formation of dozens of men and women stood in the same kind of white hospital gowns as my veggie platoon — the same vacant look on their faces.

Yumi brought her Makarov pistol out of her pocket and showed the mean end to her opposition. She told him, “Dr. Xiang said if I had any trouble, to use this.”

The man said nothing, a shocked expression on his face, and bowed as he stepped backward. He turned from her and scurried past me, opened the door and left without looking back.

Yumi pocketed her handgun and followed him to the doorway as I edged around the boxes so she wouldn’t see me. I wondered what she was up to. She looked about the large room as if checking to make sure no one else with any mental capacity was watching. She opened the door and held it while withdrawing her keys.

I stood up, my M-16 pointed at her midsection. “Where are you going?”

Her look was complete surprise. Her eyes widened. “What are you doing? You must leave. Get out, now!”

“I found my son. I realize now everyone was right
— I don’t have a son. I set loose everyone in Residence A.”

“That is good. It is what I was going to do next. But why are you pointing that gun at me?”

“What were you going to do? Lock these people in here?” I glimpsed behind me at the quiet crowd — rows and rows, I couldn’t guess how many.

“Yes. They must die.”

“What are you talking about? They’re innocent, harmless.”

“Innocent they may be. Harmless, they certainly are not.”

I glanced at them again. All had full heads of hair. Then, I noticed the numbers on the pockets of their white gowns. All the numbers I could see were lower than the one assigned to me, 374. The front row had only double digits. Still, they appeared innocuous, staring out like the others, their eyes lazy, bodies relaxed and unmoving.

Yumi said, “Do not you see? They have all had their implants and completed their programming. They have finished the practical orientation phase you started when you awoke this morning. They are now in a hypnotically induced state of unconsciousness.”

“But you said most of those who went before me died, or were killed.”

“That is true. You are looking at the numbers? What you do not understand is that once a subject died, his number was used again. There have been nearly seven thousand subjects. The failure rate was one hundred percent until four years ago. Since then, it has been closer to eighty percent. Over six thousand subjects died during our experiments or had to be destroyed. All their bodies were incinerated.”

I gaped at her. “Jesus.” Xiang’s
Brainstorm
project — the Biotronics facility truly was a giant chamber of horrors. I let down my guard and scanned over the crowd. When I turned back to Yumi, I asked, “So who can they hurt?”

“They are armed assassins, just like you,” she said, her voice desperate, pleading. “They were to be disbursed to locations throughout the world: Paris, Madrid, London, Rome, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Warsaw, Tokyo, Mexico City, Prague, Copenhagen, Ottawa, Helsinki, Athens, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Washington D.C.
— all of the major cities and capitals of the world. All have been assigned targets, primary and secondary — presidents, heads of state, kings, prime ministers, military leaders and politicians, holy leaders, the Pope. Their support teams are already in place and waiting. The bodies standing before you are no longer mere innocent people. They are psychic warriors — two hundred and eighty-eight of them.” She stared at me, her eyes still wide, and I stared back, felt my eyes bugging from the shock of what she was telling me as I lowered the muzzle of my rifle. She said, “Dr. Xiang had sent a security team to bring them to the second plane. I diverted them, said Xiang changed the plans and for them to ensure the building was evacuated from the top down. They listen to me as Xiang has used me many times to pass on orders.” She glared out at the large group of emotionless bodies. “They must die, be disintegrated with the facility. Come with me so that I can lock this door, and you can flee to safety.”

I’d never imagined the scope of this thing. I couldn’t fully grasp what I was hearing. Still, I knew it was wrong
— wrong to leave these innocent people. They had been kidnapped, taken away from their families, their lives stolen from them. They had been brainwashed as I had. Even without the vaguest idea how I could save them, I had to try — couldn’t just let them die.

I brought the assault rifle’s barrel up and aimed it at Yumi. “You go. I’m getting these people out.” I shook my head. “If I can’t get them out, I’ll die with them.”

Yumi said, “Then, it is surely what will happen.” And she left.

*  *  *

On the way to his plane, Xiang had a premonition of doom. That, he was not ready for. Setbacks happened, no way around it when dealing with typical human beings. But failure was unacceptable. What he feared most was that somehow Yumi or Wu might have gotten into trouble. He did not want to lose either of his trusted supporters. With that on his mind, he had his driver turn his limousine around. As he entered Biotronics’ sub level two from the tunnel, he did not care when the group of Orientals ran panicky past him. Without a plane, they would not escape. Let them run, let them scream, let them pray to their gods — they would die without hope.

As he stepped out of the limo at the tunnel entrance, the last of a large group of the Oriental workers ran by. Xiang was both surprised and relieved to discover Yumi sprinting from around the corner behind them. He smiled broadly, knowing it was quite uncharacteristic of himself. That was why Yumi looked so astonished
— even frightened, he decided. He took her by the arm and stared into her eyes. But what he saw, he didn’t like. He saw lies and incredible deceit. She had been his right hand, like a daughter to him, yet he saw fear in her eyes. She had no reason to fear him . . . unless she had betrayed him. He must find out the truth.

Yumi immediately became limp and submissive from Xiang’s entrancing gaze, as he took a moment to orient himself. He scanned about and saw the nearby shipping and receiving room. After dragging her briskly inside the room, his gaze returned to her, still intense.

“What have you done?” Xiang insisted.

Yumi did not answer, not even under his forceful stare.

Xiang sensed she had deceived him incredibly, that perhaps Subject 374 was still alive and so was the woman — that perhaps they were attempting to escape. He smiled. Impossible. Them attempting to escape didn’t matter. It was too late. And now he would teach Yumi a lesson. She was no longer like a daughter to him.

Xiang slammed the door closed. With a mighty swing of his forearm, he cleared off the top of the nearest desk and threw Yumi onto it. When her body slammed against the desktop, it seemed to bring her out of the trance in which he’d placed her, but he was on top of her in a second. She did not speak, but struggled violently, yet feebly against his strong hands as he made his way to her undergarments, and he discarded them to the side. He could take her easily, control her with his mind and without a struggle. But if she succumbed to his psychic influence, she would not have the same delightful fear in her eyes, the great anticipation of what was to come, as she did now.

He struck her open-handed and put his mouth to hers to taste her blood. It was not enough. He raised up and slapped her again, only to taste her blood once more. Still, she struggled ineffectively. He considered striking her with his fist, his bare knuckles would do considerably more damage. But he realized why she was such an attraction to him. It was that struggle, that defiance he knew he would find when he pressed himself against her. He would give her that — the knowledge that she had resisted. Perhaps it would help her restore her dignity after their first encounter, for he was sure there would be many more — if he decided to keep her alive. If it weren’t for her betrayal, he would have thought this to be only a game she played — a little girl’s game that all spirited women played. What woman would not wish to be his sexual partner — a man such as him, large, masculine, dominant, brilliant, a leader of peoples?

And now, he suspended his violent foreplay and celebrated victory
— Yumi’s body relenting as he forced himself inside. And it was good, what Xiang had anticipated it would be . . . until the gun appeared in Yumi’s hand and slammed into the side of his temple.

It was all he could do to pry the pistol from her hand before she had a chance to shoot.

*  *  *

It took a full five minutes to get my new entourage completely out of the huge Residence B room and into the main corridor. I now had a small army of vegetative followers. I was lucky the new regiment took commands and were as easy to direct as the smaller group.

Once we made the stairway, I gave the command to go single file, and we cautiously stepped past the trash on the steps by staying close to the outside wall. In preparing my tactical delaying measures, I’d been careful to leave the outside twelve inches of each step clean of honey and garbage. At the first floor landing, I instructed my silent group to stop by yelling up the stairwell so that all three hundred or so could hear. They did well, halting immediately, and they remained still. I diligently passed through the doorway, closing the door quickly behind me. I didn’t want what fumes remained from the cleaning concoction I’d prepared to irritate my quiet mob on the stairway. After skirting the slick dish soap and thumb tacks, I ran the remaining twenty-five feet to the morgue doorway to gather up Sunny and leave this place of hell.

When I shoved open the door, I found all of the stainless-steel tables empty. Sunny and all of the dead bodies were gone. The door to the furnace room was blocked open, and inside, through the inspection window on the incinerator door, all I could see were flames.

Chapter 34

They had come into the morgue while I was gone and cremated all of the bodies on the tables. Before I had left Sunny, I had covered her face as if she were dead. Had they cremated her, also?

I began shaking uncontrollably. I should have left her face exposed, they would have seen she was alive and left her out. If it had been some poor hospital slug’s job, an assistant to the assistant of the department, he wouldn’t have known Dr. Xiang wanted her and me dead. Then, she might have been taken care of.

Through bleary eyes, I frantically counted the tables to see if one had been removed from the room in hopes my suspicion was incorrect. There were ten tables. There had been ten tables there when I left. None of the tables had been carted out, a living, breathing Sunny as its beautiful payload. I had killed Sunny as surely as I had killed my wife. As surely as I had killed Vanzandtz. As surely as I had been killing all day long. I fell to my knees as nausea came over me, and I vomited straight away onto the crematorium floor. The emotions overwhelmed me, and for the first time that I could remember, I knew they were genuine. I sobbed hard, deep gasps
— being responsible for the death of a dear lover striking me hard.

Now, I was completely alone. I had no son. Everyone I knew, or thought I knew, was either dead, had left, or was trying to kill me. I felt the M-16 in my hands and briefly considered ending it all, right there and then.

I stared into the furnace and cried out, “Sunny! Sunny, I’m so sorry!”

Harvey said,
They
need you.

I remembered the
veggies
waiting out in the stairwell and probably lined up halfway down the second floor hallway. They still had a chance, although a slim one. And I knew Sunny would have wanted me to help them, especially if one of them might be her husband. If I could get them to the chopper, we could load as many as would fit, and the rest surely wouldn’t protest if they stayed behind to die with me. That was the logical plan, to evacuate as many of these living, breathing, even if non-thinking, human beings as we could.

But when I returned to the hallway, I was suddenly surrounded by five, very unkempt guards, their guns all pointing at me. I suspected they had been some of the security team Yumi diverted from escorting my brainwashed herd. By the trash hanging off each of them and their bloodshot eyes, I was sure they’d been through my little tactical delay measures.

“Hold on, fellas,” I said. I dropped my weapon and raised my hands above my head. My only hope was to convince them that they’d been double-crossed by Xiang and Wu and were perhaps unknowingly waiting for their end from a nuclear fireball. “You guys have been duped, you know that, don’t you?”

They stood, not saying a word, but glanced at one another through their goggles. I wondered then if they’d already suspected as much.

“Honestly, guys. Dr. Xiang is gone. He left you behind to die, like he did several thousand other folks. You don’t have anything to fear from me. You probably passed my little group in the stairwell. We just want to get out of here, just like you.”

Again they eyed each other. This time one of them said, “I told you. I told you they were going to blow this place.”

“Shut up,” said one of the guards in the middle. I figured he must be in charge.

“Come on, Top,” the first guy said. “We don’t have much time.”

“All right,” the leader said. “But we’re going to kill this asshole, first.” He raised his gun, and I felt like I’d run out of options. They all wore the copper-lined helmets — my psychic gift would be useless.

I yelled out to my zombies in a bottom-of-the-barrel attempt, “Get them.”

The few of my night-shirted morons that I could see standing on the other side of the stairwell doorway window stood motionless, but it bought me a second as “Top” glanced back toward my group of blanks.

His head cocked and he grinned. He turned back to me, his rifle barrel aimed at my chest.

*  *  *

Fast forward,
Harvey says.

And I go into
future mode
.

The world is in slow motion. Although my tho
ughts shift to high gear, I cannot move faster than my adversaries. But I see their movements in advance and know when they will make them.

As the gunman squeezes the trigger, I lurch to one side. Two bullets exit the muzzle of his gun, spinning out with smoke and nitrate debris. My body edges to the side, feeling as cumbersome as a huge aircraft carrier, and the tiny missiles, like torpedoes in the water, come at me. The first will clearly miss. The second bullet becomes a tremendous concern, for I see its green tip and know that the leader’s weapon is loaded with armor-piercing rounds. Guessing what I now wore was likely the latest generation of armor, it still wouldn’t guarantee against penetration from a zippy little 5.56 X 45 mm round at close range, let alone armor piercing. Ten feet away, I twist my torso, a fast jerk in real time, a snail’s crawl in my
fast-forward
vision. And the projectile zips to me, my side twisting back mere centimeters to avoid it, and it strikes me. The bullet enters the body armor, and although the blood is yet to flow, the blazing pain yet to be felt, I know that it has found flesh.

Hoping it has not ruptured a vital organ, I continue the twisting into a spin, getting out of my assailant’s aim, then leaping toward the initial gunman.

The entire group begins to bring their guns to bear on me.

I reach the leader’s gun barrel and push it away, just as he lets fly a volley of three rounds.

His back foot leaves the floor. I know it will be directed at my groin. I bring my leading foot up to block it, at the same time I wrench the assault rifle out of his hands. He is off balance, and I shove him into his nearest two accomplices before they can fire at me. I duck and throw my body sideways into the two remaining guards on the other side of him, bowling them over in surprise.

Getting to my feet quickly, I use the first gunman’s rifle like a pugil stick, knocking the weapons out of each of the guards’ hands. I have to wrestle the last gun from the guard farthest away as he fires, the heat from the muzzle flash burning the side of my face but the bullets passing harmlessly.

Sharp pain from my side finally reaches the receptors in my brain, but I continue my battle. With their weapons knocked from reach, I face the five guards
mano-a-manos
and they rush me. Seeing each fist coming, each arm reaching, each foot rising — each flinch — from my five adversaries, in my mind I have time to prioritize their individual attacks as they surround me. I deal with them coolly: my knuckles into the nose of the first; blocking a kick from the second, then swinging him by the leg into the man beside him; my forearm, avoiding a roundhouse punch, grabbing the arm and pulling the attacker past and into the wall; a punch and a toe to the groin of another.

The leader steps up to me after being blocked away. Anger and frustration fills his face. His words come from his mouth slower than audible, but I can understand. “Let me have him.”

The others obey and watch, and I think I’m going to enjoy this.

My adversary throws a right. I block. A left. I block. A right again. I block and slap his cheek. He pauses, face reddening, eyes glaring. He launches a kick. I grab his foot and spin him around. He finds his balance and jabs. I redirect and spin him the opposite direction.

He cuts loose, his fists flailing. Six punches. I block each one. Take him by the back of the helmet and pull his face within inches of mine.

I smile and wink. “Boo-Boo, have we had a ba-ad da-ay?”

Enough being nice — I kick my knee as high and hard as I can against his protected groin. His face is furious until contact — then blank and dumb as my knee raises him from the floor and he falls back. Even with the body armor, it has to hurt.

Now, all the others’ eyes are on me, and they have regained their weapons.

The leader raises up, still in intense pain, and one of his men throws his assault rifle to him.

“Son of a bitch!” he says in anger and embarrassment, and takes aim.

No more showing off. Now, it’s serious. “Don’t try it,” I bluff, “or I’ll have to kill you.” It will take a miracle for me to escape death, now.

And the miracle comes. Before he can squeeze the trigger, a tremor shakes through the entire structure, and it brings me back to real time.

*  *  *

The guards were stunned when the doorways cracked and the floor buckled, and I realized they thought I was responsible for the earthquake.

“Forget it, Top,” the first guy said. “Let’s get out of here!” With that, his comrades sprinted through the stair doorway. With the door swung wide, I could see them diving and tumbling as they passed my group, rolling down the steps in the gooey trash. It was obviously easier for them going down than up.

My bluff seemed to work. The leader paused, seeming to have second thoughts, as he sat aiming at me. I was sure in his mind’s eye, he was imagining the next bullets he fired somehow redirected and returned to him, me making his gun explode, or causing the floor to open up and swallow him.

As a steel beam broke through the ceiling and landed a few yards beside us, I waved my finger at him.

The anger on his face transformed to terror, and he swiftly got to his feet and dashed away.

The guards’ threat banished, nevertheless, I knew we were about to go through hell, as the world around me shook tumultuously.

*  *  *

“Follow me,” I said to my silent army, and I raced by them along the outside of the stairs. When I reached the basement, I trotted through the large double doors of the emergency room/ambulance garage. My group followed slowly, and I was glad of no more stairs to descend.

Try high gear,
Harvey said.

“Step quickly,” I told them, and to my amazement, they did, yet still not as fast as I would have liked. I was afraid of what might happen if I said run. Would I have a group of dominoes falling all over the place, taking too long to recover? I didn’t chance it.

Pieces of the ceiling tile fell as we went. A sign that pointed to our left and said
Ambulance Garage
on it tumbled from the ceiling as we came to a narrower corridor branching off from the main one we were in. Finally, we passed through a last set of double doors and into the parking garage. Before us waited an ambulance loaded with boxes, its front end pointed at a twelve-foot-wide overhead door.

“Stop, here,” I told my group and went to the palm pad beside the doorway. However, after placing my hand upon it, the door wouldn’t raise.

The earthquake continued. The floor shook. The walls cracked and buckled. I sprinted to the ambulance, got in and found the keys in the ignition. It seemed years since I’d driven a car as the engine started with a roar.

Abruptly, someone sat up in the back like on a springboard.

The person had a familiar accent. “My goodness! We are on the road once more!”

In the rearview mirror, I saw one of the boxes shift to one side and Rajiv’s smiling face shown from where it had been.

“But where is the
femme fatale
, Sunny?”

The words are difficult to speak. “She’s dead.”

Neither of us spoke further for a moment. Then Rajiv said, “I am truly sorry, my friend.”

I nodded. “Hold on, Rajiv,” I told him, relieved to have found at least one true
friend
.

I slammed the shift lever to drive and stomped the accelerator. The ambulance’s tires squealed on the sealed concrete floor, and we busted through the fiberglass doorway and stopped. Ahead of us, a long lighted tunnel lay like a mysterious pathway. Would it lead us to salvation or more hell?

“We are running out of time, my good friend,” Rajiv said. “It is now four-forty. We have less than an hour to get our donkeys out of here.”

I stuck my head through the window and looked back at my passive mob.

“Follow me!” I yelled out. “Hurry. Run!”

Again, I was surprised when the group of automatons began hurriedly, yet clumsily, into the tunnel entrance and over the smashed door. They tumbled and tripped over one another, but recovered quickly and kept moving.

After driving down a slight incline, a second tunnel met the one we were in, and I guessed it led from the basement. Less than an eighth of a mile farther, we came to the other end of the passageway and saw before us the last of the Orientals who had been held captive inside the facility. The whites of their striped pajamas shone bright in the ambulance headlights. They ran to the left once they got out into the open. I stopped at the tunnel’s opening and watched them as they trotted, the five hundred poorly clothed men, women and children in an all-out bid to save themselves, down a snowy, narrow pathway.

Then, I remembered the jumbo jets, and I looked to the brightly lit airfield below us. An eight-foot-wide blacktop lined with boulders, scrub brush and half a foot of snow meandered the quarter of a mile to the airstrip. The big Boeing 747s were being loaded with cargo and personnel, as in my premonition. However, Xiang’s jet had yet to take off. And there were three snowplows clearing the field of snow.