by Aimée
She crouched on the ground and studied the now-familiar boot tracks she could make out. The evidence told her that her brother had only fought one man, and knowing her own brother’s capabilities, she knew that his opponent must have been highly trained in hand-to-hand. Clifford had always been able to take care of himself.
Landreth wouldn’t have been able to take him, not in a million years. But Morgan was another matter altogether. He’d been trained with weapons somewhere, and if not in the military, possibly with a terrorist group. Morgan was linked to murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping—but only by an unproven boot-print.
Somehow, she had to get inside LabKote and search for her brother, and for evidence that would help her identify the other men responsible for the crimes that had been committed. Morgan was only one person, and he couldn’t have done everything on his own. All the answers she needed were at LabKote and that was where she had to go.
Ella went home and changed into her darkest jeans and a black wool sweater. Since her mother was at a Plant Watchers meeting tonight, no explanations would be needed.
Patting Two on the head, Ella started to go out the front door, but then stopped. Two’s growls told her she was being watched, but this time it was not by somebody’s grandmother. No one was in sight, but the dog’s senses matched her own instinct for danger, and Ella knew she’d have to use a little trickery.
Sticking her cell phone in her pocket, Ella slipped out of a window at the back of the house and jogged over to her brother’s place. It took her twenty minutes, but she was still in good shape even though she hadn’t kept up her daily morning runs.
As soon as she cleared the canyon, Ella saw Clifford’s truck parked outside the hogan. Loretta’s vehicle was gone, which meant she’d already left with Julian. Thank goodness Clifford had finally taught his wife to drive.
Slipping inside her brother’s truck, and reaching for the spare keys she knew he always kept beneath the floor mat, she got underway.
Ella drove to LabKote without a clear plan in mind. There was the electric fence, the guards, and the dog to contend with, but to get in successfully she would have to remain unnoticed. She parked the truck behind one of the fairgrounds buildings and moved to a clear vantage point beside a car in the parking lot.
Even though it was close to eight in the evening, the vehicle traffic seemed to be at an all-time high. In the space of forty minutes, several large, delivery-type vans pulled into the covered dock, picked up cargo, and left.
Ella wrote down the times, truck numbers, and company names each time. Whatever was being shipped out at this odd time had aroused her curiosity.
The open garage-type doors allowed her to see into the building’s shipping warehouse which extended outward onto the loading platforms. Observing a large truck approaching from the direction of the highway, Ella made her way carefully toward the gate, staying in the shadows.
Thankful that the moon was not out, she drew even closer. If she stayed on the other side of the truck, maybe she’d be able to slip in. Suddenly the dog, chained to a large stake, began barking furiously. As the guard turned his head, Ella froze and ducked back into the shadows. After what seemed like an eternity, the guard shifted his focus back to the driver. “Blasted dog. He probably saw another cottontail.”
Ella stayed still, scarcely breathing. Hearing a soft rustle in the brush, she turned her head and saw a Navajo man come out of the shadows, crouching low. “You timed this really wrong,” he whispered. “Come with me, and I can help you get inside.”
Even in the darkness, Ella recognized Jimmy Herder. “You’re the one who keeps an eye on things for the Fierce Ones, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Something’s happening tonight. They’ve never shipped out anything after four P.M. What made me suspicious was when they gave me the night off with pay. They’ve always made a great big show out of hiring a Navajo guard, but the fact is they’ve kept me on a real short leash. Tonight, I plan to do a little digging of my own. If anyone asks, I’ll say I came back to get my jacket.”
“How are we getting in?”
“There’s a new personnel gate that was just installed to allow the guards access to the parking lot from both ends. It’s kept locked with an electronic monitoring system. If you try to force it, you alert the guards with an alarm, but I know the security code, and can get us in. After we’re inside, though, things are bound to get tougher. If we get caught, I’ll get fired, or worse.”
“Worse is right. You’re more likely to lose your life. Instinct tells me that this is a very dangerous place to be tonight.”
Jimmy led her to the small gate, equipped with a large electronic lock, slipped his ID card into the slot, then punched in a number. The gate opened.
“Don’t touch the fence on either side, or above the gate. It’s still hot,” Jimmie said, cautioning her about the high-voltage charge.
They went in, and Jimmie closed the gate behind them.
“That was a lot easier than what I’d expected,” Ella whispered. “Do you have any idea how many people are working here tonight?”
“The regular evening crew isn’t in. I’ve seen Morgan, two techs from quality control, the guard at the gate, and another one who conducts random patrols all over the facility. I’m assuming Landreth is here, mostly because where Morgan is, Landreth is, but I haven’t seen him. There could be one or two more working in the quality control labs too.”
They slipped inside the building through a utility room, using Jimmie’s electronic key card to open the locks. He then led her down a hall, showing her how to time her passage to avoid the constant sweep of video cameras that monitored the interior.
“What is it you’re after?” Jimmy whispered.
“I believe they’ve kidnapped my brother, and brought him here. Morgan probably has him locked up somewhere.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?” he whispered back. “We need to get into the security room. The monitors will show us practically every office and room in the building.”
“Practically?”
“I’ve never counted the monitors and compared that to the number of offices. Some monitors share cameras, too.”
Jimmie led the way down a narrow hallway. Although she half expected to run into someone, and then have to try to neutralize them silently, it never happened.
“Everyone’s at the warehouse adjoining the loading dock, near as I can tell,” Jimmie said.
“Where’s the security room?” Ella said looking around.
“Right up there. But let me look inside first.”
He sauntered into the room, greeted someone, then came out half a minute later. “We’re going to have to work fast. There was a guard there, but I cold-cocked him with his nightstick and stomped on his radio. I’ll handcuff him to a table and gag him, but there’s no telling how long it’ll be before someone notices what happened.”
Ella stepped inside the security room, and as Jimmy took care of the guard, she studied the monitors across the tables. Ella could see Morgan as he spoke to two other men in the open warehouse adjoining the loading dock. Then she saw Landreth in a workroom attaching shipping labels to cardboard boxes. Two security guards were outside by the main gate, patrolling with the dog, now leashed.
Ella pushed the buttons on a monitor attached to several cameras, and as the device switched images, she saw two men sitting on the floor of a small storeroom, clearly prisoners. The first face she saw was, without a doubt, that of her brother’s, and he had a makeshift bandage on his left arm. As the other man shifted, leaning against the wall, she saw it was Ernest Ben. Senator Yellowhair, however, was not in the room. He was either being held elsewhere, or he was already dead.
“How do I get to that room?” she asked Jimmie.
He was standing right behind her. “I think I know which storeroom that is, but it’ll be tricky, maybe impossible to get there. We have to go right through the shipping warehouse that opens up onto the loading d
ock and, as you can see from the monitors, Morgan’s there with half a dozen men.”
“Is there another way?”
“No, at least not one that’s any less risky. What we have to do is go across silently and hope that there are enough boxes around to use as cover.”
“What are they shipping out in such a rush?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know for sure. I had heard that LabKote was going to ship out complimentary samples to hospitals and labs across the country. Maybe those are it.”
Ella looked around for a phone, and saw one on the wall. “I need to call in the troops.”
“Not with that phone. All outgoing and incoming calls are monitored, and go through a relay station in Morgan’s office. Everything is recorded, and, at night, his beeper goes off whenever a call is made. It’s unofficial, probably illegal, but it’s real. I was called on the carpet for making a personal call one time. That’s when I found out about the system.”
Ella pulled out her cell phone, but couldn’t get through.
“There’s too much shielding in these walls,” Jimmie explained. “Can’t let radiation out, remember?”
She was outgunned and outnumbered. If she made a move now, chances were she’d get both Jimmie and the kidnap victims killed. But all her options were high risk.
“We can’t leave the prisoners here without making an attempt to free them,” Ella said. “We have to try our best to get past Morgan and the others. If it turns out it’s impossible to do that, then we’ll see about getting out of here and going for help.”
“We’ll need actual keys to that room though, and I don’t have them. There are no electronic locks around the loading dock area, just the old-fashioned kind.”
“Who has what we need?”
“Morgan, Landreth, and some of the guards.”
“Like the one in the closet?”
“Doubtful. If he had the keys, he’d be one of those assigned to that area of the building. Very few people here have access to the entire facility.”
“Then we’ll have to find the right guard and take his keys. After we free the prisoners, we’ll leave the same way we came in.”
Jimmie led her down the hallways, but as they peeked through the glass in the door leading to the warehouse and loading dock facility, Ella realized that so much had been loaded, the room was virtually empty. Cover of any type was practically nonexistent.
As two men approached, she ducked back into another hallway, Jimmie at her side. Ella listened carefully, scarcely moving. At first, she couldn’t make out even one word of what they were saying. The language they were using wasn’t Navajo and it sure wasn’t English, Spanish, or one of the Pueblo languages. Suddenly she heard a harsh voice interrupt the two who were speaking.
“You are forbidden from speaking in Farsi. Always use English. Is that clear?”
“There isn’t anyone around,” the man protested.
She heard a scuffle and a loud thump.
“Don’t ever ask me to repeat an order. Clear? I can break your neck with my bare hands.”
“Yeah, sure, Mr. Morgan. English from now on,” the man said in a choked voice.
“Now go into the clean room, pick up the shipping boxes, and take them to get their shipping labels. Do it quickly. We’re running out of time.”
Ella heard the sound of a semi backing up to the loading dock, then approaching footsteps.
Morgan swore loudly. “What do you think you’re doing coming back here? You were told to keep an eye on Clah.”
“She’s at home, sound asleep, Sir. There’s no activity there.”
“Did you see her in bed asleep? Clearly?”
“Well, no, Sir, but I saw her go in and the lights are out now, and her vehicle is still parked there.”
“Underestimating her is a mistake. We can’t just break her neck, like with that horsewoman. Clah has escaped us at least three times already. Remember what happened to LaPoint? That woman is extremely dangerous, and not one to ever give up.”
“You want me to go back and make sure she’s still at home?”
“Yes, and stay with her. If she goes anywhere, I want to know. If we can keep her from interfering for the next few hours, there’ll be no way she can stop us. The operation will be a success, despite our change in plans, and that’s all that matters now,” Morgan said. “Even though we’ve been forced to cut our mission short, we’ll still have the last say.”
“What are we going to do about the prisoners? We can’t just let them go. They know too much.”
“We need to verify the effectiveness of our new strain of anthrax on humans. The prisoners will make excellent test subjects. Soon I’ll have them moved to a clean room and exposed to the bacteria. We’ll record how long it takes them to die, then dispose of their bodies. At least that way something will be gained from their deaths, unlike Yellowhair’s.”
“I had to shoot to keep him from escaping.” The man was almost whining, more afraid of Morgan than of a murder rap, obviously.
“And it was just a fluke that the bullet was a kill shot? Spare me the crap. Just don’t screw up again, or I may stuff your body in the incinerator, too.”
As Morgan and the men with him moved away, Jimmie stepped around her and looked into the warehouse. “It’s now or never,” he said, reaching for the door handle.
Through the window in the door, Ella could see that, for the first thirty feet, there were just enough stacked boxes and crates to give them some cover, but the last forty feet would put them right out in the open.
“I’ll go across first,” Jimmie said. “If I get caught, I’ll try to divert them long enough to give you a chance. Your brother is in the second room to the right.”
Ella shook her head. “No, I’ll go. This is my responsibility. If they catch me, you’ll have to escape and get help on your own.”
“That’s not a good idea. If you get caught, you’ll be shot, and they’ll get rid of your body. No one will ever know what happened to you and what we’ve found out. We’ll never stop them. But if I get caught, they’ll know I haven’t been to the police yet. I’ll be locked up with the others to become one of their guinea pigs, and it’ll buy you some time.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the electronic key. “Here. Just in case I don’t make it.”
Silently, he opened the door and they both slipped into the warehouse. Concealed by a water fountain, Ella watched Jimmie sprint forward, her heart at her throat, and the stone badger hot against her skin. He’d almost made it across when Morgan suddenly turned around, spotted him, then yelled. “Stop!”
Jimmie picked up speed somehow. Morgan drew his pistol and shot twice.
Jimmie went down hard, clutching his thigh. Morgan approached confidently but, as he drew near, Jimmie suddenly kicked out with his good leg, sweeping Morgan’s legs out from under him, knocking him to the floor.
Ella sprinted across during the diversion. As she reached the other side, she heard another shot, and saw Jimmie wrestling Morgan for control of the pistol while other guards ran over to intervene. Knowing she couldn’t help Jimmie by turning back now, Ella hurried down the hallway, then stopped and peered around the corner before going any farther. One man was standing in front of the room where Clifford and Ben were being held. He was looking around, restless, unwilling to abandon his post, but undeniably curious about the disturbance. Certain he was one of the select few with the keys, Ella took a quarter out of her pocket and threw it, hitting the man in the back.
“All right. Who’s the joker?” the man yelled, turning around.
Ella reached for her pistol, but remained silent and out of sight.
“You think this is funny?” he growled. “Maybe you’ll think it’s funny, too, when I haul you over to Morgan.”
He strode down the hall in her direction, but she remained around the corner with her back pressed to the wall. He was almost upon her when she jumped out and struck the guard in the side of the head with her pistol.
<
br /> He went down instantly, but she caught him before he could hit the floor. Moving quickly, she dragged him down the hall and into an unlocked janitor’s closet. Using a roll of duct tape she found there, she tied the man’s hands behind his back, stuffed rags in his mouth, and then taped his legs together. After searching for keys, and finding a half dozen on a ring clip at his belt, she shoved him into a trash chute built into the closet wall. She stood where she was a moment longer and heard him crash into a Dumpster in the basement. Satisfied, she moved on.
Her luck was holding. Peeking out to make sure it was clear, Ella hurried to where the guard had been standing and, through the small window, saw Clifford near the door.
Ella gave him a quick nod, gestured for him to be quiet, then showed him the keys. She began trying them out one by one. She’d gone through the first four when she heard loud voices coming toward her.
Ella recognized Landreth’s voice. “Once these last few shipments are delivered, the police and the CDC will be too busy trying to stop the public panic to track us down. It might take them days to discover that the anthrax came from our complimentary samples of ‘sterilized’ labware. Of course, by the time they catch on, medical personnel all over the country will be dying.”
Ella looked at Clifford, and could tell from his expression that he’d heard Morgan, too.
“Just opening the packages will start a chain of events that will paralyze this country.” Morgan answered. “Thousands will die, and the United States will finally see what its like when war is brought right into their own backyards. They’ll bury relatives and friends, and feel what they never could when the war was nothing more than a segment on the evening news.”
“The government will be blamed, and those in charge will get what they deserve. Defense department cutbacks cost me my company and destroyed my family. It’s payback time for me,” Landreth added. “And while this country falls apart, I’ll be laying on a beach in southern France.”
“Now let’s see how our prisoners are doing.” Morgan said. “Just keep your distance from Clah’s brother. He’s dangerous.”