by Kathy Reichs
Ben nodded. Had he spoken since we’d set foot on the island? Maybe not. But I was damn sure he was ready.
One last peek up the trail. All clear.
“Go!”
We shot along the path, water pluming from our sneakers.
Twenty seconds to the enclosure.
The chain-link fence was covered with green nylon sheeting and topped with razor wire. Climbing it wasn’t an option. The gate consisted of a pair of fence sections hinged and set on wheels. A stout padlock secured the segments when closed. Basic, but effective.
Shelton dropped to one knee to assess his target.
Being the smallest, yours truly was the designated lookout. Pressing one eye to the fence, I peered into the enclosure. Ben and Hi took cover behind a stand of bushes.
Shelton unwrapped his kit, purchased months earlier on eBay. He practiced with the tools daily, boasted he could pick any lock in under thirty seconds. Faced with the actual task, he looked a tad less confident.
Chewing a thumbnail, I watched Shelton insert and jiggle a small, L-shaped torsion wrench until it fit. He then pushed a half-diamond pick into the lock and gently applied pressure with the wrench.
Though the rain eased back to a sprinkle, the temperature showed no such mercy. Sweating from heat and trepidation, I promised myself a dozen showers.
I could hear a clock ticking in my head. Someone could spot Shelton or me at any moment. Or Sam/Carl, in an uncharacteristic burst of responsibility, could glance at the security monitors. We’d be dead ducks.
“Hustle!” I whispered. “You’re over one minute!”
Tongue between his teeth, eyes half-closed, Shelton focused on his task. I watched him wiggle the wrench, then push back on the lock. Wiggle. Push. Wiggle. Push.
Click.
Shelton smiled. “Got it!” He yanked downward and the lock popped free.
I eased open the gate. Hi and Ben materialized from the shrubbery and bunched behind me. I hung the padlock from the chain-linking, ready for re-locking on our way out.
Next came the dangerous part.
Deep breath.
After a thumbs-up, I raised my fingers and mouthed the words. One. Two. Three. We shot through the breach and darted left along the fence line.
For five terrifying seconds we were on wide-open grass, exposed to security cameras and to anyone in the main yard. Unavoidable. No cover. Like frightened mice, we scurried toward safety.
Adrenaline pumping, we rounded the corner of the building containing Lab Six, and squeezed behind it.
Hearts pounding, we listened for sounds to suggest that we’d been spotted.
Silence.
After counting to sixty, we bumped fists, pleased with ourselves for clearing the first hurdle. We were off the camera grid.
Taking the lead, I crept along the rear of the building until a small alcove came into view. The service door.
Phase two.
Shelton kicked into gear. Though the door lock was cake, the deadbolt was tricky. Wrench. Pick. Shelton raked the pins, coaxing them into proper alignment.
Minutes ticked by.
“Bingo.” Shelton slid back the bolt.
The door swung inward, revealing blackness beyond.
CHAPTER 12
Cool air oozed from the darkness, bringing with it the smell of disinfectant and air conditioning.
We slipped inside and closed the door behind us.
“Hit the freakin’ lights!” Shelton does not love the dark.
“Shh. Hold on,” I whispered.
I groped the wall, finally found a panel of switches. Flipping several, I activated halogens overhead.
We stood in a windowless concrete chamber, empty but for a short staircase leading to a sturdy wooden door.
I bounded up the three treads, tested. The knob turned.
“Let’s go.” I motioned Hi to lead. The others followed.
“No talking until we get to the lab.”
My warning was unnecessary. No one was feeling chatty. We’d just committed a felony.
Emerging, we found ourselves in a small tiled lobby. Directly opposite was the building’s main entrance. In the rear left corner, a narrow staircase rose to a second floor. Gray light arrowed through dusty window blinds, throwing diagonal slashes across pale green walls, plastic trees, and a row of connected metal seats. The motif was corporate drab, as inviting as a lost baggage claim office.
Hi pointed to open double doors to our right. We scuttled through them, down a short hallway, through another set of doors, and into Lab Six.
The room had no windows, so we risked the lights. Ceiling fluorescents revealed a chamber the size of a large classroom. In the center were six workstations floor-bolted in two rows. Each station overflowed with equipment.
A stainless steel counter jutted from three walls of the room. Above it hung glass-fronted cabinets filled with beakers and other scientific apparatuses. Microscopes. Circular lenses. Gadgets whose functions were a mystery to me.
A Plexiglas enclosure occupied the right quarter of the room. Housing the more expensive technology, that section was locked and alarmed. Luckily, we needed nothing from there.
“Okay, hit it.” Shelton nudged Hi into action. “Find the sonicator.”
Moving to the third workstation in the second row, Hi removed a plastic cover from a small machine. “My precious,” he rasped in his best Gollum impression.
The contraption consisted of a small white sink backed by an LCD control panel. About the size of a microwave, it resembled a tiny top-loading washer with the cover removed.
“Sweet, eh?”
Hi’s father, Linus Stolowitski, was the mechanical engineer in charge of all LIRI scientific equipment. A technophile, he’d transmitted his love of gadgets to Hi.
“Sonicator is actually shorthand for ultrasonic cleaner.” Hi spoke in his very best church voice. Temple voice?
“What’s it do?” Shelton asked.
“The device uses ultrasound to clean objects.” Hi worked as he talked, filling the basin with fluid. “We’ll clamp the specimen an inch underwater.”
Shelton’s nose curled. “Whoa. That stuff smells like mega-strength Windex.”
“It’s cleaning solution,” Hi said. “I’ve set the machine’s frequency for the type of object we’re trying to clean, and for the type of substance we’re trying to remove. In this case, metal and dirt.”
Shelton looked lost. Ben looked bored.
“It’s like a sonar washing machine,” Hi explained. “The ultrasound enhances the cleaning solution’s effect.” He paused. “Do you guys know what ‘cavitation bubbles’ are?”
Nope.
“A sonicator has a transducer that produces ultrasonic waves in the fluid. That creates compression waves, which rip the fluid apart, leaving behind millions of microscopic ‘voids’ or ‘vacuum bubbles.’ That’s called cavitation.”
Okay. That was pretty cool.
“In our case, the cavitation bubbles will penetrate microscopic holes, cracks, and recesses in the dog tag. Then they’ll collapse, creating energy pockets. The reaction should remove even deeply embedded particles.”
“So when the mini-bubbles burst they blast away the gunk?” I summarized.
“Exacto.” Hi was enjoying his lecture. “Like tiny scrubbing dynamite.”
“Why’s the thing here?” Shelton asked.
“Sonicators are used for cleaning glasses, jewelry, and metal stuff like coins and watches. Even cell phone parts. Dentists, doctors, and hospitals use the gizmos to clean instruments.”
“And scientists.” Shelton had his answer.
Satisfied with the settings, Hi extended a hand in my direction. “The ring, Frodo?”
I pulled a plastic baggie from my pocket and removed the dog tag. Seeing the cement-like crust, my confidence faltered.
“This thing better work,” Shelton said. “We’re risking our butts to use it.”
“How long?” Ben asked, al
ready restless.
“Fifteen minutes. Get out of my hair and it might go faster.”
Ben checked his watch, then wandered off the way we’d come in.
Shelton settled into a chair to wait.
Knowing we’d need something to view the tag once it was cleaned, I scanned the lab for optical equipment.
One counter had a Luxo lamp clamped to its top. The movable-arm magnifier lens was surrounded by a circular fluorescent bulb. Perfect. In a drawer I found several hand lenses and a penlight and placed them beside it. Viewing station complete.
“Five more minutes,” Hi chirped. His love of experiments had overridden his fear of capture.
“I’ll get Ben,” I volunteered.
I checked the hallway and lobby, but found both empty.
“Ben?” I hissed, as loudly as I dared.
No answer.
I considered yelling up the stairs, decided against it. Not wanting to stumble around in the dark, I returned to Lab Six.
A series of beeps was announcing the end of the cleaning cycle.
“All rriiighty then!” Hi removed the tag and ran it under cold water. I watched over his shoulder.
Much of the grime was gone. For the first time, I could make out indentations on the tag’s surface.
Hi wiped the tag with a paper towel and handed it to me. Excited, I placed it on the counter, thumbed the light switch, and positioned the Luxo.
“I can read something!” I confess. It was almost a squeal.
“What do you see?” Shelton crowded so close I could smell his deodorant.
“The bottom lettering is clearest. Hold on.” I adjusted the lens. Characters swam, then crystallized into focus. “C-A-T-H. Then an O, I think. I can’t get the rest.”
“Catholic,” Shelton guessed. “A soldier’s religion was stamped on the last line. What else?”
I squinted through the lens again. “Above that, more letters: O P-O-S.” Aha! “His blood type, right? O positive?”
“Gotta be.” Shelton thought for a moment. “Can you make out any numbers?”
“I think so. On the next two lines. But they’re really hard to see. Looks like the first string is nine digits long. Above that is a second sequence, looks like both letters and numbers.” Quick count. “Ten characters. Why?”
Shelton grinned and raised both hands to the sky. “Good morning, Vietnam!” he whisper-screamed, elongating the final word by a dozen syllables.
“How can you tell?” Hi asked. “You haven’t even looked.”
“Now it’s my turn to teach, sucker!” Beaming, Shelton threw an arm around Hi’s shoulders. He started to arm-wrap me but stopped short, self-conscious about my gender. The spontaneous move morphed into a head scratch.
Boys.
“We’ve got a nine-digit social security number and a ten-digit military service number. That’s rare.” Releasing Hi, Shelton pointed at the tag. “In the late sixties the armed forces switched from military ID numbers to social security numbers. But for several years they printed both, just to be safe.” Dramatic pause. “That occurred only during the Vietnam War.”
“Incredible,” I said. “We caught a big break there.”
“True,” Hi agreed. “Call me crazy, but couldn’t we solve this in an easier way?” He adopted a pensive look. “How about . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe just reading the guy’s name?”
Good point. Back to the magnifier.
As much as I raised and lowered the arm, I couldn’t bring the letters into focus. “There’s too much damage,” I said. “The lettering is obliterated.”
I flipped the tag indented side up. Vague symbols wavered under the lens.
“The reverse side’s a little easier to see. But the letters are backward. I can only make out an F on the next line up.”
“Focus on the top row,” Shelton urged. “That’s the soldier’s last name. Get that, we could investigate online.”
Using the penlight, I angled a beam across the tag. Letters appeared as shadows in the metal. “This is working. I see an N. Then a C. No, it’s an O.” I increased the angle of the penlight. “Then a T-A-E. The last is an H.”
I reversed the string in my mind. “Heaton.”
“Well, that’s a start.” Hi flicked a salute. “Nice to meet you, F. Heaton.”
I summarized aloud. “F. Heaton. Catholic. O positive blood. Served during the Vietnam War era.”
“Not bad,” Shelton said.
Not bad? I was psyched. We’d accomplished our goal. But our discovery only led to more questions.
Who was F. Heaton? Why was his dog tag buried on an uninhabited island? Where was he now?
I didn’t know. But I was determined to find out.
And it was time to go. Our luck couldn’t last forever.
We were repacking the sonicator when Ben burst through the double doors.
“Ben, the name was—”
He waved me off. “I found another lab upstairs. Locked, but I think it’s in use.” Ben was speaking to everyone, but looking at me. “You’ll want to see.”
“We got what we came for. We should leave before we’re nabbed.”
“Something’s in there. Something alive.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I heard barking.”
CHAPTER 13
A windowless steel door barred our path. Thwarted us. If thoughts could destroy, it would have become a smoldering ruin. I wanted past that door in the worst way.
The thing looked shiny-new and had a ten-digit electronic keypad entry system. Billions of combinations. Unbreakable.
This was not a door that made friends. Its sole purpose was to make you go away. I could feel it sneering. Aggressive. Cocky. Intending to stay closed.
After Ben’s bombshell, I’d flown up the stairs, the others trailing behind. At the top, a dingy hallway cut across the building, leading to this monstrosity. Stopping me cold.
“Ben, are you sure, absolutely sure, you heard a dog?” My nerves were firing like automatic weapons.
A firm nod. “I know what I heard.”
“Okay,” I said. “Shelton, do your magic.”
Shelton worried his right ear. “Sorry, Tor, but this one’s out of my league. I can’t crack a keyless system.”
Think! Find another way.
“We need the code.” My mind raced for a solution. “Who put this thing here, anyway? I’ve never seen a door like this in the other buildings.”
Hi pointed at the keypad. “That monster is waaay more advanced than the keyless systems in the main building. The others aren’t even electronic, just old push-button jobs.” He shrugged. “I could probably get past one of those, they all have the same . . .”
Hi trailed off. His eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, closed it. He scratched his head. Shifting his weight, he started to speak, shut down once more. Shifted again.
“Quit dancing,” Ben commanded. “If you’ve got something, out with it.”
Hi shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but try 3-3-3-3.”
I punched the numbers and pressed enter.
Green light. Beep. Pass Go. Collect two hundred.
“Hi, you’re a genius!” My second near-shriek.
“How in the world?” Shelton looked perplexed.
“It’s the default.” Hi grinned. “When a person moves to a new office, that’s the original code. They’re supposed to change the settings, but half the time they don’t bother.”
Hi rubbed the doorframe. “This baby is new. I figured, maybe the same workers install all the new doors and use the same default code. So then I thought, whoever ordered the fancy lock might have forgotten to adjust the sequence.” A wink. “I was right!”
“Great work,” Shelton said. “You get the fruit cup.”
“I’m going in,” I said. “Still with me?”
Ben snorted. “Sure. What’s one more B and E?”
Not exactly reassuring. Using the palm of my hand, I pushed the door wide.
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Colored lights blinked in the darkness. Screensavers danced across monitors. Machines hummed. The room possessed an energy that spoke of recent use.
Ben flipped the light switch.
Racket erupted across the room. Everyone jumped. The noise separated into recognizable parts. Barks. Whines. The scratching of paws.
A dog! I rushed forward to locate the source.
A far corner of the lab contained a sealed glass chamber resembling a phone booth. Inside sat a medium-sized cage.
Crouching, I scrutinized the miniature prison, trying to spot its inmate.
“Careful!” Shelton cautioned. “Don’t open the glass—it looks like a quarantine.”
I heard nothing. My eyes had locked onto a pair of blue eyes I’d seen before. The world receded. Thunderstruck, I stared, unable to comprehend the terrible scene.
“Coop,” I whispered.
Then I shouted. “Coop! It’s Cooper in this cage!”
The others crowded close, disbelieving. But there was no doubt. Speechless, we stared at the inconceivable. Coop was the subject of some twisted medical experiment.
Through the bars I could see tubes protruding from Coop’s right leg. He wore a bell collar to prevent him from pulling out the needles. His side was shaved and bandaged.
Emotions tumbled inside me. Anger. Fear. Horror.
Forcing myself calm, I examined the contents of the glass compartment. Beside the cage was an IV stand with hanging fluid bags, their tubes running downward into the enclosure. The pen itself was constructed of closely spaced metal bars, and was latched, not locked. It contained a soiled mat and scuffed water dish.
And Coop. Captive.
Fury won out. Fighting tears of rage, I scanned the bright orange tag affixed to the cage. In bold, black letters the label read: SUBJECT A—PARVOVIRUS XPB-19.
Oh no.
Parvovirus. Deadly, especially for a puppy.
Coop now lay quiet on the enclosure floor. My heart broke. I laid a hand on the glass.
Seeing me, Coop tried to raise his head. Exhausted by his initial outburst, he could no longer muster the energy. He whimpered softly. My heart broke again.
How did you get there? Who did this to you?
In a flash, I understood why the pack hounded the complex each night. Some monster had stolen their baby.