Biowar (25 page)

The first two screws were easy, but the next one seemed frozen in place. She pushed against it and almost lost the driver. Reluctantly, she moved to the next. This, too, was jammed.

“Going into the other trailer,” said Rockman. “You can use the driver.”

Lia got on her knees and switched the driver on. But its torque couldn’t budge the two screws that had stuck. She got the rest off and then went back to them without any luck. Nor would the vent lift off completely with them in place.

“Going to have to drill them,” she said.

“Do it,” said Rockman.

By the time she had the new bit in, the guard was coming out of the other trailer. She waited, expecting him to come over to this one. But instead he went back to the post at the back of the building. He couldn’t see the top of the trailer from where he was, but she couldn’t get inside, either. All Lia could do was wait.

And wait.

Finally, the other guard came around the back to share a cigarette. The two men began talking.

“What are they saying?” Lia whispered.

“You don’t want to know,” said Rockman.

“What is it?”

“Uh, basically about porking girls. Except cruder than that.”

“Cruder?”

“Lia, don’t do anything rash,” warned Rubens.

“What’s your definition of
rash?”

“Heads up,” warned Rockman.

The two guards were walking toward the trailer. They continued to the back, right below where Lia was lying, and unzipped to relieve themselves.

The temptation to whack them now was almost too much to resist. But Lia managed, and eventually the two men began laughing and zipped up.

“They’re going up front to check the perimeter,” said Rockman as they walked away. “All right, go with the drill.”

“What were they laughing about?”

“Uh, you really wouldn’t want to know,” said Rockman.

Lia once more regretted not taking them out. She drilled through one of the screws, then found she could wing the vent cover around. She slid in through the opening, standing on a large freezer-type machine as she pulled the vent back in place.

The interior was pitch-black. Lia pulled on her night-vision glasses, adjusting to the limited perspective. She was in a room about eight feet square. Most of the space was taken up by freezers, which had combination locks on them. Lia left them for later, going into the next room. This was set up as a lab, with three large microscopes attached to a set of computers. She found a USB port and plugged in a dongle.

“Don’t fire them up just yet,” said Telach. “Let’s decide first what we have here.”

“Looks like a college bio lab to me,” said Lia. She went ahead to the next room, which was a small lounge area. Beyond it was another lab, this one with a variety of equipment, ranging from microscopes to refrigerator units.

“Is there a DNA sequencer?” asked Telach.

“You tell me.”

She put a cam on the handheld and set it on top of the bench, feeding the video back home. While the Art Room was sorting out the gear, Lia bent to one of the refrigerators, looking to open it.

“No, let’s not get inside that,” said Rubens. “You’re not adequately prepared yet.”

“It’s about time you started worrying about my health,” said Lia.

She moved over to a set of workstations. Both were on and attached to uninterruptible power supplies. Neither had outside drives or cable hookups, though there were ports in the back. The Art Room debated briefly on how to proceed, then directed Lia to the USB ports. A few seconds after she connected the first dongle, she heard Rockman cursing in her ear.

“This part of the operation is sophisticated at least,” said Rockman. “Wiped itself clean. Leave the other workstation.”

“You can’t figure out a way to get around it?” Lia asked.

“We’re going to rethink this. Get out of the trailer,” said Telach. “Go over to the next trailer and let’s get into their computers.”

“So this was all a waste?”

“Call it a gamble that has not yet paid off,” said Rubens.

“Whatever,” said Lia, wishing she had trusted herself earlier and saved Charlie when she had the chance.

40

Rubens stood back from the console, contemplating his options. Seizing the lab would naturally give them a lot of information, but it would also tell whoever was running the operation that they were on to them. Until he actually knew what was going on—and until he was confident he could take down all of the operation in one swoop—Rubens was reluctant to move.

On the other hand, the Austrians would surely catch on soon, and delay risked their moving without him. That would provide additional obstacles, even in the best-case scenario.

If there was an engineered bacteria in the lab, he had an obligation to shut it down as soon as possible. Every hour of delay—there was no way of knowing how long it would take to gather these various strands together—increased the risk that the bacteria would be used or escape his grasp.

However, if it already had escaped his grasp, if it wasn’t here—and the low security argued strongly that was the case—then moving now would lessen the odds it could be tracked down.

Rubens’ watch buzzed. He glanced at it, momentarily unsure what he had set the alarm for.

The Homeland Security working group on the Internet. There was a meeting in two hours.

Eminently missable.

“Mr. Rubens?”

“Marie?”

“Johnny Bib wants to speak to you.”

“Now?”

“He claims it’s urgent. He was speaking to Dr. Chaucer but insisted on talking to you.”

“If this is another theory on Fermat’s Equation, Marie, I am going to be less than overjoyed.”

She held up her hands in a helpless gesture.

“Go ahead, Johnny,” said Rubens as the circuit clicked in.

“Fungus.”

Rubens sighed. “I’m afraid we must have a problem with the connection here,” said Rubens. “I thought you said ‘fungus.’”

“Fungus,” repeated Johnny Bib.

Rubens finally realized what he was trying to say.

“Johnny, you’re on an open line, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“The computers are still hooked in?”

“Affirmative.”

“Type up the data. I’ll have Ms. Telach—” He turned and saw the Art Room supervisor waving at him. “I will have Marie set up something on this end so we can see what you’re typing.”

“I need time to compose it.”

“Take your time,” said Rubens. He pressed the button on the headset control to kill the connection, then turned to Telach. “What?”

“We’ve lost Charlie Dean.”

“What?” Rubens turned and looked at the screen where the op’s position was supposed to be marked.

“They went into a tunnel and didn’t come out.”

“That’s impossible,” said Rubens.

“I know,” said Telach. “That’s why I’m worried.”

41

While the guard pulled another inspection in the other trailer, Lia used her small digital camera to send pictures of the interior of her trailer back to the Art Room. There were no papers, no reports, not even any doodles in the lab that she could find.

The guards repeated their earlier routine, grabbing a cigarette and then going together into the building as they swept through the rooms there. Lia climbed up and out, slid the top vent back in place, then ran to the other trailer. The lock and alarm were easily defeated; she put her dongle on a computer in the first room and immediately the Art Room infiltrated and began copying the contents of the drive. This time, the security precautions were rudimentary and the computer was networked with the others in the trailer; as each computer booted, it gave itself over to the Art Room’s probe without a whimper.

Lia moved into the back of the trailer. Unlike the other one, this facility looked as if it was used for administrative tasks or even as a classroom. There were no papers or anything else lying about.

“All right,” said Rockman. “We’ve got it. You can get out.”

“What’s up?” asked Lia as she walked back to retrieve the dongle.

“What do you mean?”

“Something’s wrong. I can tell from your voice. Where’s Charlie?”

“Heading back to the city somewhere.”

“Somewhere?”

“Lia, concentrate on your job, please. We want you to make the scene ready for a seizure operation. We need some flies planted. I have a list of locations.”

“Screw off, Marie. What happened to Charlie?”

“We’re having trouble tracking him.”

Lia cursed. She couldn’t get the dongle to disengage and had to push at the computer, leaning back awkwardly.

“Hide,” said Rockman. “The guards are coming.”

“Where should I go?”

“He didn’t go into the back room on his last sweep,” said Telach. “It’s a rest room.”

Lia pulled up her Mac 11 but retreated as Telach had suggested. The rest room was bare—a tiny sink and some sort of chemical toilet. It also stank. She folded against the corner behind where the door would open. She could feel the guard’s footsteps shaking the trailer floor as he approached.

Belatedly, she realized that she hadn’t had a chance to shut off all the computers.

The door to the rest room opened. Lia slid down the Mac 11, the silencer just over the doorknob.

The guard said something, then let the door go.

Lia started to exhale. Then something made her throw herself down. As she hit the floor, the doorway exploded with a spray of automatic rifle fire.

42

Dean continued through the corridor, following the driver as he walked down the narrow steps. They had stopped in the middle of a tunnel under the river, gotten out of the car, and then climbed into what had looked like a manhole for a sewer. Well-lit, the hole opened into a large, tiled expanse that made Dean think of a subway station, except there were no tracks. Hercules had prompted him to keep walking; the tunnel seemed to head ever-downward as they snaked first to the left, then to the right.

The stairway ended in a concrete-walled room with steel doors at both sides.

“Now what?” asked Dean.

“You tell me,” said Hercules.

“I haven’t a clue where we are,” said Dean. “Am I supposed to know?”

“Where is the antidote?”

“I’m not going to just tell you,” said Dean.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” said Hercules. “Where is it?”

Dean shrugged. “I tell you now, you’re going to kill me.”

“If you don’t tell me now, Hans will shoot you,” said Hercules.

Hans, who’d been standing a step away, moved forward. He had a Glock in his hand.

43

Bullets spit barely over Lia’s head as she lay on the floor of the rest room. The lead chewed up the thin metal and broke large hunks of ceramic off the toilet nearby. The Steyr AUG had forty bullets in its magazine, and the guard used a little more than half before taking a breath. Then he fired another half-dozen rounds, spraying these in a wider angle. It was only when he paused that Lia raised her weapon and fired.

The guard got off two more shots Unsure whether she’d gotten him or he’d simply run out of bullets, Lia fired another burst of her own, then jumped up to pull the door back. It started to bend and fall out of her hand; she threw her momentum into the opening, firing the Mac 11 as she did.

Bullets flew by her head as she crashed into the room. Lia lifted her gun and this time, finally, hit her opponent square in the head.

“Where’s the other one?” she asked Rockman.

“Coming on a dead run. You won’t make the door.”

Lia reached to her belt and took out two tiny balls of C4 intended to blow locks off doors. She started to rig them against the wall, thinking she could blow a hole in the side of the trailer to escape from.

“Lia—the trailers are rigged to self-destruct,” warned Telach. “There’s a routine on the computer we compromised.”

“Peachy. Where are the charges?”

“We’re not sure—don’t do anything crazy to set them off.”

“I’m going to blow a hole in the side and get out.”

“No. Too risky until we understand what they’ve got. We’re analyzing it now.”

The other guard had reached the front and was shouting to his companion.

“Call him,” said Lia.

“What?”

“Use the speaker I left in the building.”

Rockman said nothing as Lia ran to the front of the trailer. The guard yelled again.

They reached the anteroom at the end of the trailer at the same time, both coming in from the other direction. Lia was the faster shot—the guard tumbled backward outside. As he did, his finger tightened on the Steyr; bullets sprayed from the rifle.

“Lia?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“Helicopter.”

“Finally.”

“Not ours.”

“Damn it.”

Lia got out of the trailer and ran to the side of the building, reloading as she did. She could hear the helicopter approaching, the heavy whomp of its rotors already starting to shake the ground.

“Have you found Charlie?” she asked.

“We’re working on it,” said Telach. “Are you all right? We’re moving backup in.”

“I’m fine.”

“The helicopter’s landing.”

“No kidding. How many people?”

“What?”

“How many in the helicopter?”

“Two, I think. Yeah—hey, Lia, no, that’s too risky. No!”

The helicopter slipped in over the fence, its tail spinning around toward the building as it settled in front of the trailers. Lia bolted as it touched down, ignoring both the dust storm and Rockman’s shouts. As the door to the helicopter opened, she pressed her finger on the trigger, running toward the cockpit at the same time, as if she were pushing the bullets into the man who was just getting out.

Something fell from the helicopter. A body appeared; she pushed more bullets in it.

The man slapped against the door, slid away. Lia threw herself forward, jumping onto the skid of the Bell 212 and. wedging upward.

“You!” she screamed at the pilot. “Take me to the others!”

The man blinked at her. He didn’t have a weapon.

“Take me to them,” said Lia in German as she pushed herself into the seat, then pulled the Mac 11 up so it was very obvious. “Schnell.”