“You kill us and you’ll never find the vial,” said Richard. His bowels felt like they might let go.
“Seven. Oh, you’ll be the last to die,” said Martin. “You’ll watch the others die before you. Maybe then you’ll cooperate.”
Richard found it hard to focus. His attention was drawn again and again to the gun. He forced his mind back to those that would die. All those men, women, children…
“Just a minute!” said Alex. “Let’s negotiate.” He licked his lips.
“You harm any one of us and I’ll never tell you where it is,” said Richard. He felt should not steel into will not, then harden into cannot. Under no circumstances could he reveal where the vial was.
“Eight, said Martin.
“Well, if you won’t give it up,” said Todd, “we’ll lose some time – valuable time. It would hurt a lot, but we can still make a difference.”
“Okay, Richard,” said Alex. “We’ve lost. You have to tell them where it is.”
No. I cannot. He tried his best to make his mind go blank. Just breathe.
“Nine.”
“Alex, shut up!” said Emily. “Richard, don’t you let them do this genocide on my account. I’d rather die.” She stared Martin in the eye. Martin grinned back at her.
Richard could almost hear the tendons on Martin’s trigger finger tense.
“Richard! Tell them!” shouted Alex.
Richard felt his heart stop. He couldn’t breathe.
Martin’s mouth opened and his lips started to form around the word “Ten.”
Alex stood up and faced Richard. “Damn it, Richard, he’s going to fire!”
Emily glared at Martin.
Martin took a breath in preparation to speak and raised his gun closer to Emily‘s head.
“Martin, stop!” said Todd.
For a moment, there was silence. Martin relaxed his grip on the gun and let the barrel drop a little. The smile faded from his face.
Emily stared at Martin, as if defying him to go ahead.
Alex dropped back into his chair, sweat running down his temples.
Doug and Oscar let out held draughts of air.
Todd leaned up against the desk. “Martin,” he said, “resume your post.”
Martin and Buddy went back behind the desk. He holstered the pistol as he went.
Todd stood and crossed his arms across his chest. “You see what your options are. If you cooperate, you will survive. As long as you don’t take action to interfere with what we must do, you may have the opportunity to try to preserve what you think is important. I’m sure you’ll try to help those that survive as much as you can. You all have skills that will prove to be very useful.”
Todd began pacing in front of them again. “On the other hand, if you don’t cooperate, you will die. You then will have no options to preserve anything, to help anyone.” He paused and looked at each of them. “I would hate to see that happen. We can use you. But, the choice is yours. I’m sure you know we will do whatever we must to accomplish our goal. You cannot stop us.” Todd went back behind his desk and sat down. “I think you need a little time to think things over, discuss it among yourselves. I’m sure you will come to see reason.” He stared down at papers on his desk. Richard felt dismissed. “Martin, see that they get back to their rooms safely.” He looked up at Richard. “Talk it over and see if you can’t find a way to give us the vial. Remember, if you join us, even insincerely, you will still be alive and you will still have options open to you. You may even find some other way out of our eminent extinction that we haven’t thought of, though I don’t see how. If you’re dead, you have no options, no more chances to do the right thing.”
Todd looked back at his papers, Martin moved around the desk, Buddy at his side, waving them toward the door.
Richard stood with the others. His legs felt rubbery. Somehow, I’m not sure exactly how, I got past that. What’s next?
. . .
No one spoke as they were herded back to their subterranean floor, where they congregated in the cafeteria. Martin and Buddy left. Alex moved over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. His hand shook uncontrollably as he picked up the cup. He had to steady it with his other hand to keep from spilling. He was having difficulty focusing on more than simple tasks.
Richard sat down at the table, staring at his fingers. He slumped in the chair as if totally exhausted. Emily moved up behind him and gave his shoulder a squeeze. She bent down close to his face and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “You did good,” she said softly. “You absolutely cannot give them the vial under any circumstances.” She looked up at Alex and frowned.
“What?” Alex asked. “I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. That asshole was about to shoot you!”
Emily opened her mouth, about to speak. Richard stopped her by putting a hand on top of the one she’d placed on his shoulder. He let out a long breath. “Alex,” he said, “it’s natural to respond as you did. But you have to remember we’re dealing with elitists who are willing to go to irrational extremes to achieve their ends. There’s no guarantee that if I told them where the vial is, they’d let us live. They have the power of life and death over us and there’s nothing we can do to change that. They want us to believe all we have to do is cooperate and we’ll be safe. But whether we’re safe or not is totally up to their whim. And neither Todd, nor certainly Martin, strike me as people who can be trusted. They are, after all, eager to kill billions.”
“I know,” said Alex. “I just had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and let Martin kill Emily. Giving them the vial was the only thing I could think of that might stop him.”
Richard looked up at Alex and stared directly into his eyes. “I know how you feel,” he said. “Remember, once before I was where you are now.”
Alex nodded. He did understand Richard a little better now.
Richard looked past Alex. “We seem to have this magical ability to choose. Maybe it isn’t real; maybe everything is predetermined, I don’t know. But whether or not it’s real, it’s our choices that define who and what we are. And we’re responsible for the choices we make - no one else is and no one else can share in that responsibility. I have the power to choose whether or not to tell Todd where the vial is. Todd has the power, through Martin, to take our lives. And Martin must choose whether or not to do what Todd wants. Each of us owns the consequences of our choices. No one can force us to choose one way or another; our choices are our own.”
“I’m sorry,” said Doug. “I don’t see how this is helpful.”
Richard leaned back in his chair. “I’m just trying to explain that I can’t tell them where the vial is because by doing so, I would enable them to murder billions, and that is wrong. It is my responsibility to make sure I do what I think is right. If they decide to kill any or all of us, they, at least for the present, have the power to do it and we can’t stop them.”
Alex inhaled and looked at Emily. “You’re right. Neither Emily’s life, nor anyone else’s is worth letting them have the vial and murdering all those people.” He paused. “I just don’t know if I have the moral strength to do nothing when our lives are threatened. I’m just thankful I don’t know where the vial is and I don’t have to make that choice.” He paused. “So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” said Richard. “But whatever we do, we can’t talk about it here. The place is bugged, you know.”
“Of course it is,” said Doug.
Alex looked around the room. Emily was still standing behind Richard. She shrugged. Oscar was slumped over in his wheelchair, either falling asleep or close to it. His pain medication must be kicking in. Doug stood next to the coffee pot, getting a cup of coffee. He added a little cream and sugar to his cup and stirred it with a blank look on his face. “I guess we wait, keep our eyes open and hope for an opportunity to present itself,” he said.
“I can’t do that,” said Alex. “We have to do something. There has to be somet
hing we can do. There has to be.”
“Okay,” said Doug. “Let’s take some time, come up with as many ideas as we can, no matter how silly or unworkable they may seem, and see what we can generate. We’ll find some way to discuss it safely. Who knows, maybe we can even come up with something Todd and the others would find acceptable. Any ideas now?”
No one said a word.
Oscar snored in his wheelchair.
Alex felt drained and unable to think about much at all.
Chapter Thirty
Another day passed and they heard nothing from Todd or Martin. It made Richard uneasy - they had to be doing something. Richard, Alex, Emily, Doug and Oscar were together except when sleeping. Occasionally, they saw the beefy suits, who never appeared alone, but by and large, they were left to themselves. Richard waited for the other shoe to drop.
The five of them spent the day quietly in the cafeteria. They were restricted to the floor where they slept, so there wasn‘t much of anywhere else to go. Each was lost in his own thoughts; not much was said.
“Damn it!” said Alex, breaking the silence. “We have to do something.”
“Okay,” said Emily. “Like what?”
“Hang on a second,” said Oscar. Oscar shifted his weight in his wheelchair with a wince.
Emily turned and looked at him. “Are you okay? You look like you’re in pain.”
“I am,” said Oscar. “But I’d rather be in some pain than be out of it. I’m cutting back on the pain meds so I can stay awake.” He rolled his wheelchair over to Alex. “Do you have another shirt?” he asked.
Alex gave him a quizzical look. “Sure. They gave each of us extra clothing. Not very stylish, but it’s clean.”
“Would you go grab me one?” asked Oscar.
Alex shrugged and left the room. He returned a moment later and handed Oscar a shirt. Oscar stuffed it in the microwave and hit the on switch. Immediately, sparks and smoke filled the small compartment. Lifting it out of the microwave, Oscar held the shirt up and spread it out so the others could see. There were three black smoking spots. “It seems these guys have access to some sophisticated listening devices. Devices that can hear us whisper.” Oscar held an index finger up to his lips.
“Should we try to find all the bugs and destroy them?” asked Emily. “We could microwave all our clothes.”
“No point,” said Doug. “They’d just replace them.”
There was a pause as each of them tried to grasp the implications of what they had to deal with. “Well, we could storm the citadel,” said Alex.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Emily. “What would we use for weapons?”
“Maybe we could isolate and overpower some of the suits and get their weapons.” Alex’s tone belied a lack of enthusiasm with the idea. Richard understood. Alex was painting a picture of despair for listening ears. Todd would expect them to realize their desperate circumstances and, who knew, maybe he’d let down his guard a bit, if that’s what they showed him. “Yeah, I can see that working well. Me, a poodle, versus the mastiffs.”
“Yeah, well, a poodle with teeth,” said Emily. “But it does seem hopeless.”
Alex grunted.
Doug wrote on a piece of paper and held it up for the others to see. “Escape?” was the message.
Oscar grabbed the note and mouthed, “Cameras.”
Doug nodded. After a moment, he looked at Richard and asked, “Richard, you’ve been here awhile. You told us some about this place. Tell us again with as much detail as you can remember.”
Richard thought for a moment. “Let’s see,” he replied. “You must have seen the garage on the ground floor. The floor below that, the ‘A’ floor, I haven’t been to and I don’t know what’s there. This is the ‘B’ floor. The ‘C’ floor is where Todd’s office is - you’ve been there. The only other floor I know of is the ‘D’ floor. That’s where the labs are.”
“What can you tell us about the labs?” asked Doug.
“Well,” said Richard, “as you get off the elevator, which, by the way, seems to be quite a way below the ‘C’ floor, you go down a short hall to another door. It’s an airlock with a touchpad combination lock on it. Beyond the airlock is a long curving hallway covered with a tile surface that looks like it’s kept immaculately clean. On the right side of this hall is a solid wall with no doorways. On the left are some thick plate glass windows that open to a large room beyond. The room is filled with equipment, only some of which I recognized. Incubators, centrifuges, chromatographs, I think an electron microscope, and I don’t know, maybe a DNA sequencer. I couldn’t see too much because it was so full of equipment that blocked my view of the place. All the technicians in the lab appeared to be wearing hermetically sealed contamination suits and there were airlock entrances to that part of the lab.”
“Must be big,” said Alex.
“Big enough. Further around the curved hall was another room off to the left that Todd referred to as the control room. From there, an airlock opened onto the lab beyond. The control room has computers, keypads, gauges, LCD screens showing what was going on in the lab, graphs and data. People in the lab communicate with those outside by intercoms strategically placed along the hall and in the control room.”
“Sounds like a level four lab, for sure,” said Alex.
“Complete with a failsafe device. It’s some sort of high temperature bomb designed to vaporize everything down there in case of a catastrophe.”
“Makes sense if you’re messing with really nasty bugs,” said Alex.
Richard’s description was interrupted as two suits walked in. “Emily Clark, will you follow me please?” one said.
Emily looked up at him. “Why should I?”
“Your presence has been requested by Dr. Todd in his office. Please come with us.”
Alex stood, shook his shoulders and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
The nearest suit held out a large hand, stopping Alex. “Just Miss Clark.”
Alex opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing.
“What if I decide not to come?” asked Emily.
“That would be most unfortunate. We’ve been instructed to bring you, as gently as possible, but to bring you.”
“Look -” said Alex.
“Alex,” interrupted Richard, “it’s alright.”
Emily stood. “Okay, I’m going.”
Alex opened his mouth to complain.
“I’m going,” said Emily, staring hard at Alex.
Alex exhaled and stood his ground.
“Let’s go,” said Emily and followed the suits out the door.
The others stared at the closed door. “I wonder what that’s all about,” said Doug.
“I’m pretty sure we’ll find out soon,” said Richard.
There was a long pause. “What in the world do they want with Emily?” asked Doug. He was drumming his fingers on the table top.
“Maybe they’re going to torture her for information,” said Alex. His voice sounded tight.
“What information?” said Richard. “She doesn’t know anything. Besides, they just tried to kill her and it didn’t work. No, I think they’re gearing up to try something else. Todd is a researcher and I’m quite sure he didn’t get where he is without being flexible. In research, if one approach doesn’t work, you try another, and you keep doing it until you get an answer.” Or you run out of funds. But he didn’t want to think about that.
“My intuition tells me she’ll be okay,” said Doug. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Alex seemed edgy and uncomfortable leaving it at that, but what could he do? Richard knew exactly how he felt.
Twenty minutes passed and not much was said. Oscar was dozing again, Doug and Richard sat at the table, drinking coffee, and Alex paced. What could they say anyway? They were being closely watched and observed.
Finally, the door to the cafeteria opened and Emily returned with a couple of suits behind her. She looked straight ahead and
said nothing.
“Alex Stewart,” said one of the suits. “Please follow us.”
Alex frowned, but didn’t move. He looked over at Emily.
“It’s okay, Alex,” she said.
Alex paused, shrugged, then followed the suits out the door.
Richard turned and looked at Emily. “Well?” he asked. “What was that all about?”
“Coercion,” she said.
“And?” asked Doug.
Emily said nothing, got a cup of coffee and sat at the table, staring at the wall. “I need a few minutes to think,” she said.
“Emily,” said Doug, “we need to know what’s going on.”
Sighing, Emily looked at him. “I know. You’re right.”
Richard watched as Emily set down her coffee cup and held it with both hands. “Well, they took me into this office with a desk, a computer and a headset. I was told to put on the headset and hit the enter key. When I did, a face appeared on the computer screen. It was the Director of the Newark Police Department.” Emily paused.
“Frank Lovejoy?” asked Doug. “What did he want?”
Emily took a deep breath. “He said the Department and the City of Newark are one hundred percent behind Todd and what he’s doing. He said, since I’m a Newark police officer, I was obligated to follow the policies of the City and I’d better damn well perform my duty and help Todd in any way I could. He made it sound like an order. I felt like he thought I was violating my oath. There was a lot of talk about how the shit was about to hit the fan and loyal law enforcement personnel are going to be needed badly. Talk about how this could be an opportunity for me to advance quickly if I just work as a member of the team.”
“The Nazis are trying to suck you in,” said Oscar, who was once again awake.
“Do you think everyone in the City is in on it?” asked Doug.
Emily looked up at the ceiling. “No. Probably not many at all. But there is a lot of power there that’s involved.” Emily squirmed in her chair. “Lovejoy then got the DA on camera. The DA said I was bordering on not only insubordination, but on violating the law by harboring and abetting wanted felons. It seems I have not yet crossed the line, but if I don’t turn it around, the City will prosecute.”
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