As he rounded a final corner he found the research wing blocked by a security door that required a pass card. He looked at his watch, head down, and plowed into a pair of talking scientists. He apologized three times, never meeting their eyes like a frightened dog, then continued toward the door, a freshly pilfered security card in his hand. He swiped the card and entered the secure wing.
The hallway on the other side was devoid of people, but he could hear voices farther on. He continued down the hallway, once again doing his best to look like he knew where he was going. He turned twice, following the voices, then realized they were fading. Rather than backtrack he took two rights and then a left, getting back on track. As the voices grew louder, he slowed, then, upon reaching a windowed lab, stopped. He knew it would look suspicious to anyone watching, but it might look equally suspicious to anyone inside the room. Especially with the hallways so empty.
He peered into a large lab, full of computer terminals, large pieces of equipment he didn’t recognize, and a dozen people sharing champagne. He took note of the people in the room. He didn’t recognize several of them, but he could see Richard Ridley pouring the champagne. The Gen-Y guy, Reinhart, abstaining from the drink. And Todd Maddox, imbibing greedily.
Ridley held up his glass. “To our success!”
Cheers rang out. Knight made mental notes of the others in the room. A few scientist types. Harmless. In addition to Reinhart there were four more Gen-Y security men. Too many to charge in with a lone weapon. He’d take a few with him, maybe even Ridley, but he’d be killed in the end and would tip off Gen-Y to the team’s presence. He was about to head back the way he came when Ridley took Maddox by the shoulder and led him away from the others. Knight reached into his pocket, pulled out a personal sound amplifier. He plugged in a set of earbuds and placed a small suction cup against the glass. The device worked like placing a cup against a wall, but with crystal clarity. With its invisible laser pointer directed towards Ridley and Maddox, the digital processor inside the device blocked out any signal outside its scope, essentially silencing the other voices in the room.
Ridley’s voice filled his ears, pushing the small earbuds base to the limits. “How long before we can be sure?”
“We’re testing the second couple now. They’re responding well to physical injuries.”
“Skip ahead to intense testing. I want to know if it’s safe by the end of the day.”
Maddox nodded.
“And when you’re done, cut off one of their heads. The Hydra was said to replace a single decapitated head with two new ones. I need to know if that is a concern.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Maddox said. “Different genes would direct the number of heads grown and we’ve isolated the regeneration gene. I don’t foresee—”
“If you happen to lose a head during your very long lifetime, do you want to spend the rest of your days with polycephaly? We should also know if the body can regenerate from the severed head...or if a new head will grow from the body. Or both. If not, we’ll have to do our best to avoid guillotines.”
“Mmm.” Maddox looked at the floor. “Listen, Richard, I know what we’ve done is amazing. It will save lives. Countless lives. But I can’t help but feel bad for the lives that were lost.”
Ridley sniffed and rubbed his nose. “You’ve heard the expression about broken eggs and omelets, I’m sure. It applies here as well. Except that we’ve done much more than create an egg and cheese patty. I would have willingly sacrificed a thousand lives. Two thousand. More. With billions to benefit, my conscience is clear. Always will be.” He laughed at Maddox’s wrinkled forehead. “Relax, Todd. You have accomplished the impossible. By dawn we’ll be immortal.”
Maddox smiled. Ridley made a good point. His feelings of guilt over the deaths he helped cause had already faded some. In two hundred years they would be a vague memory. He sipped his champagne. In the meantime, work and alcohol would dull his conscience.
Knight had heard enough. He had to risk getting word to the others. Manifold had to be brought down, and now. By the next day they’d be facing an immortal security force. He headed back the way he’d come and found an elevator. He entered the elevator, pushed the button for the top floor and took out his PDA. He turned it on, took a deep breath, and attempted to make a connection. A status bar on the screen glowed blue, then flashed red. A message appeared on the military modified device.
Signal blocked...
Digital device detection network found... Shutting down...
The screen went black, just as the lights in the elevator flashed red and an alarm sounded. The doors opened as Knight pocketed the PDA. In his peripheral vision he caught movement. Someone drawing a weapon. He drew his handgun and swung it around, aiming the silenced muzzle at the face of a beautiful woman, whose three-barreled Metal Storm handgun was aimed at his forehead.
51
New Hampshire
Using the soft layer of pine needles coating the forest floor to quiet his approach, King sidestepped down the mountainside using trees for cover along the way. Bishop descended the incline on the other side of the helipad. The two guards stood chatting, oblivious to their presence. King stopped behind a tree trunk and peeked around the edge. He took in every detail of the guards. Their boots were polished and their black uniforms free of wrinkles. Military discipline. They bobbed from one foot to the other as they talked. Disciplined, but bored. He listened to their voices. One was nasal. The other cracked occasionally. Disciplined, bored, and young. King took note of the Metal Storm weapons strapped to their waists. And deadly.
He was about to signal Bishop, who was hiding on the opposite side of the helipad now, to attack, but noticed a wire rising out of one of the men’s collars. It merged with the man’s earpiece behind his ear. Damn, King thought. The two sentries wore health monitors. Checking in by radio was often time consuming and could give away positions. Using a heart monitor was a newer method of knowing guards were still alive and kicking. They were no doubt being monitored by cameras as well. King looked for cameras and found two. One was scanning back and forth, the other, up and down. Not only would the guards have to be subdued alive, the job would have to be completed in a very short amount of time.
King relayed the information using a series of hand signals. The message was crude, but the team knew how one another thought and Bishop came to the same tactical conclusion that King had. At least King hoped so. He wasn’t sure how Bishop would handle himself in combat now, with every injury threatening to make him a raving psychotic. It was only the man’s long time practice of rage control that kept him in check.
He watched the cameras move back and forth, up and down, their timing just slightly off like windshield wiper blades matching a musical beat for a few seconds, then fading away. The cameras would only match the required angles for two passes every twenty minutes or so. King watched, as the horizontal camera swung toward Bishop at the same time as the vertical pointed down. As they reversed direction, he signaled Bishop. This was his chance.
The vertical camera reached its highest point just as the horizontal pointed fully in King’s direction, making those watching the feed temporarily blind to what was happening on the helipad. Amazingly silent for his size, Bishop launched over the fallen tree he’d taken cover behind, covered the distance to the helipad, and struck out with one of his big fists just as the guard facing him noticed. The man’s face had barely registered surprise when Bishop’s blow connected with the side of his head. The guard crumpled to the cement helipad. The second reached for his weapon, but Bishop’s hulking arm, which had flashed past the second guard’s head in order to strike the first, wrapped around his neck. Bishop spun, picking the man off his feet, and smashed his head into the stone wall. The man fell limp in his arms.
Fighting the urge to continue pummeling the men, he took the first by the collar, kept the second in a head lock and dragged them both behind the fallen tree. He ducked down just as the horizontal camera fa
ced his position. The whole attack had taken just under fifteen seconds. To the camera, it would look like the men either vanished or simply stepped within the door frame where the cameras couldn’t see. Bishop checked their pulses. Strong and regular.
The waiting began again as the cameras began their dance, but within three minutes, both King and Bishop were standing beneath the cameras, out of view and ready to storm the castle. The metal door looked like it could take a direct hit from an RPG, but its weakness lay in the technology that kept it locked. Gen-Y might be high tech, but when it comes to breaking and entering, the CIA had all the best tools, and thanks to Deep Blue, so did the Chess Team.
To the right of the door was a fingerprint analyzer, card swipe, and numerical keypad. Bishop swiped the card he’d taken from one of the guards. The fingerprint pad glowed blue. Bishop place a fingerprint mold made from the same unconscious guard’s finger against the pad. The phony finger was scanned. The light turned green. Just then, King popped the front panel off the wall mounted device, revealing three wires—yellow, red, and black. Power cables. He pushed them aside and found the maintenance port where new key codes could be input. King plugged his PDA in, activated a program created by Lewis Aleman, and let it run. The program snuck past the firewall, inserted a new key code, then displayed the number on the screen. King smiled when he saw the simple number. “One through five,” he said to Bishop, who keyed in the code. The door unlocked and slid silently open. King unplugged the device and slipped inside the door behind Bishop. The door closed and relocked behind them.
King led, sound-suppressed assault rifle at the ready. From here on, it was shoot to kill. He doubted Gen-Y monitored the life signs of the interior guards, and the silenced weapons would keep things quiet, to a point, but their luck could only hold out so long.
The short hallway ended in a stairwell. They took it down one flight and entered the first floor they came to. The stairwell exited into a long hallway. Brown metal doors lined both sides of the hallway. King knelt and took aim. Bishop took up position behind him.
“Looks like a college dorm,” Bishop said.
As a man exited a room and walked away from them, towel around his waist, King realized that wasn’t far from the truth. It was a barracks. Hopefully for the scientists, not Gen-Y. The man walked into a room at the end of the hall, this one had no door. A bathroom. Voices came from the room as two men inside greeted the newcomer. The words couldn’t be discerned, but it was clear the two men were exiting. King and Bishop maintained their aim.
Two Gen-Y guards, dressed in uniform, exited the bathroom. They headed in the opposite direction, but one looked back over his shoulder. His reflexes were quick. One hand took hold of his partner while the other began drawing his Metal Storm pistol. He got out a partial word, “Hosti—” Then two large holes burst in his forehead, splattering blood, bone, and brain matter on the hall wall. The other guard didn’t have a chance to reach for his pistol. He fell on top of his partner, gagging on his own blood as it drained from a gaping wound in his neck. Five seconds later, he was dead.
“Oh my God!” the man in the bathroom yelled.
King and Bishop ran down the hall and greeted the toweled man in the doorway, pointing their weapons at him. His hands shot up. His towel fell down. He made no motion to pick it up or hide himself. He was terrified. A scientist. “I’m not armed!”
Bishop looked the man over. “We can see that.”
“We’re not going to hurt you,” King said. “What’s your name?”
“Christopher Graham. Assistant geneticist.” His hands shook. “Who...who are you?”
“The good guys.”
“Who are the, ah...the bad guys?”
King rose a single eyebrow and glanced at the Gen-Y security guards, then back to Graham. The message was clear. Manifold.
“Oh...” His hands lowered as his face fell flat. “Oh. Oh, dear. I didn’t know anything. I swear. I just—”
King held up a silencing hand. “Listen, Chris. I need you to return to your quarters and stay there. Tell anyone you see to do the same. If you tell anyone we’re here...”
“I won’t. I swear! I won’t—”
The lights dimmed. The halls filled with bright white strobes and flashing red lights. An obnoxious alarm sounded loudly. Too late. The jig was up. Bishop moved to cover the hallway exit. King looked Graham in the eyes, his gaze intense. “Where can I find Richard Ridley?”
52
Rock of Gibraltar
“This is nuts.” Rook sat on a bench pretending to read a newspaper, looking relaxed despite his drenched and itchy feet. They had followed, on foot, the sometimes submerged shoreline around the rock of Gibraltar in order to reach the city. Queen sat next to him. Together they eyed the security situation at the civilian Gibraltar airport. The six-thousand-foot-long airstrip stretched from one side of Gibraltar to the other, marking the border between the United Kingdom territory and Spain. The airport had been built and expanded by the U.K. for military use during World War Two, but in 1987 the airport was reduced in status to a civilian-run facility. Which suited Rook just fine. Security, from what he could see, had been reduced to one checkpoint, perhaps with an armed guard, and barbed wire on top of a chain-link fence. Some people even strode back and forth across the landing strip to reach Gibraltar from Spain, which made what they were attempting that much more insane.
Beyond the fence, a family who had just strolled across the landing strip entered the small reception building and stopped briefly at the check-in desk. A guard, armed, stood and checked their passports before letting them through. He would pose a minimal threat, but neither wanted to injure a man for just doing his job. “Over the fence, then,” Queen said.
“Ayup.” Rook checked his watch. Their ride would arrive in ten minutes.
After leaving Alexander Diotrephes and his strange cave of Herculean Society secrets, they’d jogged the half hour back to the city of Gibraltar, retrieved their clothing and equipment from a lock box, and placed a call to Deep Blue. He related what King had learned from Beck and that they were in the process of infiltrating the facility, which Knight had apparently already entered. Rook grumbled about not being part of the raid, but after Queen mentioned the test tubes acquired from Alexander, and what they were meant for—one for Pierce, two for the creature—Deep Blue decided it was best to get them both to the New Hampshire Manifold facility ASAP. The Crescent scrambled ten minutes later, en route for Gibraltar. That was nearly two hours ago.
Rook checked his watch again. Almost time. He looked to the west. Bright white clouds hovered in the blue sky. Seagulls danced about. Kites flew high at the distant beaches. But nothing else.
Then he saw a black, straight-flying boomerang cut through the clouds and swoop toward the ocean. “That’s our ride.”
Queen jumped up and ran across the street. Rook followed close. She quickly scaled the chain-link fence, tossed the thick wool blanket over the barbed wire, and heaved herself over. Rook was up and over, just as quickly. As he hit the pavement on the other side, the guard inside the reception building noticed them and made for the door. But they were already in a dead sprint for the tarmac when he exited and shouted for them to stop.
Screeching tires tore up the pavement behind them. Rook looked back. Two armed jeeps roared from a garage. The lax security wasn’t as lax as they were led to believe. “Run faster!”
They ran at an angle toward the end of the runway, knowing that the Crescent would need almost all of the six thousand feet of pavement to fully stop. It was the equivalent of a mile-long sprint. Both Delta operators could achieve the task, but neither could outrun a speeding jeep...or bullets.
Shouted voices rang out from behind them. The jeeps were closing in. “Stop or we’ll be forced to shoot!”
Rook was about to split away and allow Queen, who was carrying the container of test tubes like a football, to escape, when a massive gust of wind nearly knocked him over. Tires squealed as b
rakes were applied. The massive black plane appeared silently, like an apparition. When the brakes were applied and engines reversed, the thunderous roar drowned out all else. Rook looked back. It had also stopped the guards in their tracks. The Crescent looked more like a UFO than any other kind of aircraft. It was something no civilian had seen before, and something these guards would never see again. On top of that, any airport, tourist, or surveillance camera, along with every other electronic device for a square mile, was now dead thanks to the EMP discharged by the Crescent before landing. Distant cameras would record the passage of the giant plane, but the details would be lost in the mash of pixels. No one would know what landed there that day.
The Crescent never came to a complete stop, but a staircase did descend. Rook and Queen leaped on it and climbed inside as the plane began spinning around on the tarmac. Both made it to their seats just in time to be plastered to the back of their chairs by massive G-forces. They were aloft and breaking the sound barrier thirty seconds later. New Hampshire, Manifold, and their teammates awaited them at the end of a two-hour flight. Until then, they would prep the serum for use against a mythological creature and hope they wouldn’t have to use it.
53
New Hampshire
“All I need is one shot,” Knight said. “And I won’t miss. So why don’t you put the gun down.”
Knight was shocked when the woman actually complied. Then she surprised him.
“You’re with King, aren’t you?”
Knight just stared at her, wondering if he should knock the woman unconscious and be on his way. But he wanted to find out what she knew about King, and he had issues attacking women he’d rather be asking out. She was his type—a chiseled beauty. He exited the elevator, keeping the gun leveled at her chest. “Who are you?”
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