World Without End (15 page)

Two doors, one leading back outside, the other the stairs. Con-way opened the second door to the gray-painted stairwell and ran up the stairs, the squeak and thud of his boots echoing loudly up the stairwell. He opened the door and moved onto the second floor, easing the door back into its frame so it wouldn't make a sound. High above him a door slammed open against a wall, followed by the rush of footsteps, all of it real now, no longer imaginary scenarios.

The door shut, Conway turned and ran down stretches of blue-gray painted hallways ending and beginning, beginning and ending, a maze crafted from a nightmare, until the last hallway disappeared and gave way to an open area of cubicles, private offices, and meeting rooms.

The place was strangely empty and quiet. The desktops glowed with the sunlight pouring in from the windows. Conway moved down the final corridor and when it split to the right, he turned and now faced the security-room door. A key-card scanning device was mounted on the wall, located next to the door handle. Conway fished his key card from his front pocket, found it and slid the card through the scanner. The light turned red.

"They've shut off my access to the security room," Conway said. He tried the doorknob; the door shook inside the frame.

"I can't get in."

"You got a key?"

"No." The company's office and security manager, Joe Langdon, was the only person who had the keys.

From far down the maze of corridors, Conway heard the second-floor door burst open against the wall and then slam shut.

Harring: "Target two is running in your direction."

The security room was located at the corner of the building in a suite of private offices. The only way out of here was to go back the way he came the same corridors through which one of Angel Eyes's men was now running.

"I want you to turn the corner and wait," Harring said, his seasoned voice clear and calm.

"Target one is in the mailroom looking around, and the one coming in your direction is alone. They probably think you bolted back outside.

Get your Palm ready. If you do exactly what I say, we can level the playing field until I get there."

Conway moved past the door, turned the corner, and pressed his back against the wall. To his left and several feet away was an opened door leading into a private office; to his right, the hallway continued for maybe thirty feet, and then the walls disappeared into the wide sea of cubicles he had just passed. Conway looked down at the carpet. Good.

The overhead lights didn't throw off his shadow. Palm Pilot in hand, he called up the program that turned the PDA into an Air Taser.

"Our boy just turned the corner and is walking down the final hallway,"

Harring said.

"Stay where you are, regulate your breathing. You don't want him to hear you."

He won't have to see or hear me, all he'll have to do is take a whiff of the air, and he'll know I'm right here. An odor of sweat and grime and dry blood rose from his skin.

Hung on the wall and facing the hallway that contained the security room door was a framed poster of an American Cup racing boat diving deep into a towering wave. In the glass's reflection, Conway saw the small, blurred shadow of a man grow larger as he walked up the hallway toward him.

Harring whispered over Conway's earphone: "When I tell you, you're going to turn around and hit him with your Taser. Just remember to stay low."

Conway took slow, deep breaths through his nose and regulated his breathing. He placed his thumb on the Palm's button. The problem with the Palm's Air Taser System was that you only had one shot. Once he pressed the button, he would drain the entire battery. The Palm Pilot became useless until it was recharged. He had only one shot to bring this guy down.

"Twenty feet and closing," Harring whispered, barely audible.

"He's moving slowly, looking for you. Stay sharp."

The hum of the fluorescent lighting was maddening. Over the earphone, Conway heard the screech of tires, car horns blaring. His throat was so dry it hurt to swallow.

Harring whispered, "Get ready."

Down to the wire now, Conway could feel it, like an electric current moving through his veins. His fate was about to be decided, everything hinged on him and (go ahead and say it) luck. Conway's muscles tensed.

Ready.

"Now!" Harring said.

Conway turned the corner, staying low.

The man dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a baseball cap had just removed his latex-covered hand away from the doorknob, his right hand fastened around the grip of a submachine gun when he saw Steve Conway on the floor with one hand on the ground, the other hand holding in the air a Palm Pilot organizer. Startled, the man tried to turn his body and brought the weapon around just as two barbs shot out of the Palm and pierced his leg and chest. The man crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

The Palm was dead. Conway yanked out the barbs, wrapped the wire around the Palm and then shoved the unit into his back pocket.

He stood up, grabbed the man's baseball hat and then dragged him into one of the offices. The guy had greasy black hair and pale skin young, early twenties, too young to be doing this. He knelt down and first removed the weapon, a Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun the preferred weapon for close quarters combat and used by the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team and terrorist groups. A suppresser was threaded over the barrel and a tactical light was mounted under the forward handguard. The HK, he noticed, had been set to semiautomatic mode.

One shot and this guy would have turned you into hamburger.

"He's down," Conway said. He fastened the machine gun's strap over his shoulder and then started going through the guy's front pockets.

Nothing. Conway rolled him over and tried the back pockets. The words "Bomb Squad" were printed on the back of the T-shirt. Conway checked the guy's waistband and ankles for a hidden weapon and came up empty.

The radio clipped to the man's belt crackled and came to life. The voice spoke in Russian. Conway had studied the language and knew exactly what the Russian man had said: Demetri, did you find Comuay?

"They know I'm in here," Conway said to Harring.

"Where's target one?"

"Still in the mailroom no, wait, he just ran outside. He's heading toward the van."

They're getting ready to move.

An alarm sounded. Not the fire alarm, no, this one was steady and very distinct: ding-ding, ding-ding.

"What's going on?" Harring's voice was barely audible.

"They've activated the lab's security system," Conway said.

"They're locking me inside the building."

Right now metal gates similar to the ones city store owners pulled down across their small shops at night to prevent burglaries and vandalism were descending all over the lobby and the delivery entrance. Any window or area on the first floor that could provide an exit would now be gated. Running was useless. Conway was trapped.

Conway thought of the man who had just run outside and wondered, Why are they deploying the security system now? They're locking themselves inside the building.

Because they know you're here. They've got you trapped, and now they're coming to take care of you. You walked right into it.

Unless those gates came back up, the Hazard Team would have no way of entering the building and Conway would have no way of escaping. He stood up and shut the door, quieting the sound of the alarm.

Harring said, "We've got movement."

Conway brought the HK up and pointed it at the door, a new, wired energy surging through his body.

"Six people running out the lab doors and they're all brandishing weapons," Harring said.

"Where's Randy?"

A click over his receiver as Harring swallowed and then said, "Shit.

One of them is dragging Randy back inside the lab."

To kill him, Conway thought. Angel Eyes is going to kill Randy and Dixon. Right. The man didn't leave witnesses.

The lab was on the fourth floor, max five minutes away.

You have time, you can still save them.

"I'm going to the lab," Conway said.

"What's the best route?"

"The stairwells are clear. Secure the lab, and we'll take the outside perimeter. I'll watch your back. Steve?"

"Yeah."

"Once we arrive, I'll need to redirect my focus to the Hazard Team. I won't be able to watch them and you simultaneously."

"I'll take care of Dixon and Randy."

"Good luck."

Conway opened the door and sprinted through the maze of corridors, the alarm blaring everywhere, the sound like something ripped from a disaster movie, a sinking ship about to go down along with Dixon and Randy, two minutes and counting.

Conway shut the fourth door behind him and crouched against the wall on his right, the alarm drilling inside his head. The hallway continued straight for maybe fifteen feet, broke for the fourth-floor lobby elevators and then continued beyond that to the final corridor that would lead him straight to the lab. Facing him was a railing. Beyond it and far below was the main lobby. A towering wall of mirrored blue glass stretched all the way to the roof.

The alarm stopped. Conway's ears were ringing.

"He's not on the first floor," someone said in a thick Russian accent, the booming voice rising from the lobby. Conway wanted to peek over the railing and see the faces of the men and commit them to memory. He took a step forward and then stopped. No. Too risky.

"You check the security room?" a second voice asked.

Paul, it's the cameraman, Paul.

"He wasn't in there," the Russian said.

"He's got to be inside the building."

"Find Conway, he's here, hiding."

"The alarm probably scared him off, and he ran back outside," Paul said.

"What do you think he's going to do, come charging in here and try to take us down? Relax, Niki, our job is done. Dana's getting the scene set up in the lab. And I got word on Delburn."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it's been liquidated."

Conway felt his body sag with defeat. Outside the window and floating in the hard blue sky, he could see the UT watchtower leering at him.

The security gates started to rise, clank-clank-clank. Beyond it, Conway heard the faint, screech of tires. They were getting ready to run.

Which meant Randy and possibly Dixon had only a few minutes, maybe even a few seconds, to live.

"Harrison should be here," Niki the Russian said.

"He's probably inside the security room pulling the tapes inside as we speak," Paul said.

"Our ride's here. Time to boogie."

Over the headset, Harring said, "We're setting up. Secure the lab.

Once we've secured the perimeter, I'll call you back."

Conway skulked across the carpet, and when he was in the clear, he stood up and ran down the final hallway of twists and turns, his sweaty finger sliding across the trigger, ready to shoot. A minute later he stood outside the first door that would lead him into the lab's offices and, then, finally, the lab itself. He brought the weapon up, turned the corner, and moved inside the lab's office of cubicles.

Darkness. No windows existed inside these rooms, and the overhead lights were turned off. Where was the switch? He felt the wall.

Nothing. He had moved through these rooms hundreds of times, and he knew the layout by heart but couldn't remember seeing light switches.

The HK had a tactical light mounted under the stock. Too risky. One of Angel Eyes's men might see the beam of light. Conway stumbled toward the lab, making progress… he turned the corner.

The hallway was a tube, long and dark and filled with a steady hum, and at the far end were the pair of steel doors, both open.

The doors should have been shut and locked. It confirmed Con-way's suspicion: Angel Eyes had modified the lab's security system.

An inside job, Steve, be careful. Who the fuck knows what else they've done in there.

A dull amber glow from the lab's overhead lighting washed into the corridor. Conway moved down the corridor and saw the ramp of cream-colored tile that led to a staging area. This contained three workstations packed with several desktop computers used for testing various software before it was installed on the company's LAN, Praxis's central nervous system of networked computers. Conway moved past the doors and then placed one foot on the tile ramp, testing his weight.

The tiles were removable, the floor underneath hollow to allow the nerd herd easy access to the sprawling nest of wires that hooked up all the servers and telecommunications equipment. Walking across the tiles even in sneakers would echo your footsteps. With his hand on the railing for support, Conway kept low and moved carefully up the ramp.

The refrigerated air between the cream-colored walls felt bone-numb, the gray-shadowed world of the lab filled with the mixed beep and hum of the large telecommunications systems. Conway moved past the railing, about to make his way down into the heart of the lab, when he saw the cut and bloodied hand peeking out from behind the chair wheels.

Conway moved closer to the hand, the man's face buried in the shadows coming into a sharper focus.

Randy.

Randy's face was cut up and swollen, both eyes completely shut, his lips a wet, torn mess that dripped blood onto the floor. Three of his front teeth were missing.

Conway reached out and touched Randy's neck. The skin was warm, the pulse strong. Conway shook him. No movement, not even a groan.

He must be drugged.

"Please."

Dixon's voice, very soft and choked with tears, drifted up from deep inside the lab, from the staging area where they worked on the combat suit.

"Please," Dixon begged.