“Security’s on the line,” Duncan said. In his hand was the wireless phone servicing the room. “They’re reporting an intruder who has possibly placed some explosives near the main elevators.”
Sims whipped around. “Give me that.”
Duncan handed him the phone.
“Who is this?” Sims asked.
“Eames in security, sir.”
“What’s this about explosives?”
Eames gave him a quick rundown, ending with a request for assistance.
“Keep your people away from there,” Sims said. “We’ll take care of it.” He hung up and looked at Duncan. “Get the men, now!”
__________
PRINCIPAL DIRECTOR PEREZ looked up from his desk as the door opened, and was surprised to see Claudia returning so soon after having left.
“Have they found her?” he asked.
“Uh, no, sir,” she said, her face gravely serious. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
__________
MATT REMOVED THE final item from the duffel bag, pulled on the straps, but left the apparatus sitting on top of his head.
He removed the remote control and unlocked the screen.
__________
WICKS HAD DISTRIBUTED nearly half the devices by the time the principal director made his announcement over the intercom. After Perez finished, Wicks—like Matt—knew everything had changed. All he wanted to do at that point was get rid of the remaining devices and get out of there, so he was considerably less cautious in his placements. As soon as the last one was gone from his briefcase, he headed for the elevator, but was stopped before he could get there by security.
“Sorry, this area’s off limits at the moment,” the guard said.
“What’s going on?” Wicks asked.
“Security matter, sir.”
Wicks knew it had something to do with Matt, but what? Had they caught him? If so, even more reason for Wicks to get out of there right away.
The only available exit now, though, was the emergency stairwell. He took a second to remember where the entrance was and then headed off, hoping he wasn’t already too late.
__________
SIMS SPLIT HIS team into two groups. The first went to determine the nature of the explosive and whether it could be easily defused. The second—the group he took personal charge of—headed to section 23 to apprehend the intruder.
When they reached the correct hallway, they proceeded until they were four doors down from Room 3C.
Sims signaled one of his men to approach the door of 3C to determine if the intruder was still inside. The man moved down the corridor in a crouch and knelt by the door. After a moment, he held up his thumb and nodded.
__________
MATT HEARD A noise just outside the office. It was faint, nothing more than a brush of cloth, but he knew what it meant.
It was okay. He was ready.
__________
SIMS AND THE third man with him joined the scout at the door. Sims motioned for the others to get ready, then he grabbed the knob and threw the door open.
“Down on the floor! Down on the floor!” he yelled as he and his men rushed in.
The intruder was there, but not on the floor. He was sitting on the desk, a gas mask covering his face.
In a distorted voice, he said, “Sorry to disappoint, but you’re a little late.”
Sims took another step forward. “On the fl—”
__________
“SORRY TO DISAPPOINT,” Matt said, “but you’re a little late.”
The one in charge took an angry step toward the desk. “On the fl—”
Matt pushed remote button number one.
The floor rocked as the explosives ripped apart the elevator shaft. The armed men staggered and looked back at the doorway as if they could see what had happened.
As they were turning back, Matt tossed the final plastic device on the floor at their feet, and pushed remote button number two.
There was no blast this time, no rocking floor, only the hiss of sarin gas releasing from the device. Throughout the facility, the other plastic boxes would be doing the same thing.
“On the floor, now!” the leader commanded.
Matt didn’t move.
“I said…on…the floor.”
All three men began to blink as the odorless gas reached them. One started coughing, and then another, and then the last. Guns were quickly forgotten as the men dropped to their knees.
Matt rose and stepped over to the leader.
“How does it feel? Dying?”
“Go to…” The man coughed. “Hell.”
“Maybe. You never know. You all, on the other hand, I think your tickets are punched.”
He waited until the leader fell all the way to the floor before searching the guy’s pockets and finding his ID badge.
“Let’s see, Mr.…” He looked at the badge. “Sims, Special Operations. Very nice. I’ll bet that gives you all kinds of interesting clearance.”
Matt picked up the man’s rifle and rose to his feet.
“Thank you, Mr. Sims. You’ve been a big help.”
He headed for the door.
__________
ASH TILTED THE sat phone so he could look at the displayed map without snow falling on the screen.
“Should be right in front of us about a quarter mile,” he said.
If Project Eden’s base was anything like the one he and Chloe had broken into in Oregon, there would be a large, warehouse-type building at ground level. But the only thing in front of them at the moment was flat farmland covered in a light layer of snow.
“She didn’t guarantee it was accurate,” Chloe reminded him.
He huffed out a cloud of vapor and frowned. “We’ll drive on another mile or two. Maybe we can spot it.”
As he turned toward the car, Chloe said, “Uh, Ash. You think that might be it?”
He looked back around. About a quarter mile past the coordinates’ location, the red glow of flames illuminated the clouds.
“That wasn’t there a moment ago,” he said.
“It just shot up,” she said.
“Matt.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Let’s go,” Ash said, already heading toward the car.
__________
WICKS HAD JUST passed level two when the metal staircase began to shake so violently, he had to hang on with both arms to keep from falling off.
His friend had apparently decided there was no longer any time to wait.
As soon as the shaking decreased to a gentle tremor, Wicks started up again, worried that if there were a second blast, the stairs wouldn’t hold. When he opened the door on the warehouse level, he was greeted by a wall of hot air radiating from a growing fire toward the center.
Toward the elevators.
Thank God he hadn’t been able to take them. He likely would have been dead by now.
The warehouse supplies were feeding the blaze, creating a fire too big for the overhead sprinklers to tame.
The main exit was on the other side of the flames, so his only choice was to use the auxiliary exit again. He’d have to use his own card to open it this time, which meant that if the computer databases survived, there would be a record of him leaving the building long before anyone else had a chance to escape. His only alternative would be to stay. Not an attractive option.
He swiped his card in front of the reader and rushed into the tunnel.
31
THE EXPLOSION KNOCKED Principal Director Perez to the floor. Claudia was only able to maintain her feet because she fell into his desk and held on tight.
As soon as he could, Perez shoved himself up.
“Are you okay?” Claudia asked.
“I’m fine,” he growled.
“Your head,” she said, touching a spot on her own forehead. “It’s bleeding.”
He touched his head and felt the cut that was spilling out blood. “I
t’s nothing. Get security. I want to know how the hell that happened! I thought someone was taking care of it.”
Claudia picked up the phone, but instead of punching in a number, she looked at Perez. “It’s dead.”
“Dammit. Can we get them on video?”
“Let me try.” She circled the desk to his computer. It still seemed to be working, but after several seconds, she shook her head. “They’re not answering.”
“Can we at least find out if there are any cameras out there still working so we can see how extensive the damage is?”
“Should be able to.”
It took nearly a minute before the center screen came on. The feed was from a camera in one of the hallways. No obvious damage, but several people were lying on the ground.
“Is this close to the explosion?” Perez asked.
“I don’t know. The system’s only giving me camera numbers, not locations.”
“Are there any others?”
“Hold on.”
The next feed came up thirty seconds later, an empty conference room.
“That doesn’t tell us anything.”
“I’m sorry. I told you all the labels are missing. I think the blast did something to the system.”
“Keep going.”
A new camera showed a wider hallway, lit only by two emergency lights spread far apart. More bodies on the ground.
“I recognize this,” Claudia said. “It’s one of the hallways leading to the elevator.”
The blast concussion must have been intense enough to knock everyone out.
“Is that someone?” he asked. Something was moving in the shadows at the far end.
“I can’t tell. Could be a camera glitch.”
She switched to the next feed.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
The image was of a common area. Like the corridor they’d seen first, there was no damage but there were bodies. Lots of bodies.
“This is near the barracks,” he said.
That was nowhere near the elevators, and he was sure the blast could not have done that to everyone. Were they being attacked by a whole squad?
“Is there an escape exit in here?” he asked.
While most of the Project Eden bases were the same, a few details changed from location to location—an escape exit in the director’s suite being one of them. Perez had been so busy since he’d taken over as principal director, he hadn’t had time to worry about such things.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The previous director didn’t share that information with me.”
Dammit.
“All right, you and I need to look for it. There’s got to be one here.”
She glanced at the monitor. “If we go out there, that’ll happen to us, too, won’t it?”
“Claudia! Help me find the exit!”
__________
NOT EVERYONE MATT passed in the hallways was dead, but there was no question they soon would be. He felt no compassion for any of them, no guilt for what he’d done. Every last one of them had taken an active role in the deaths of billions. They deserved their fate. Just like he would eventually deserve his.
A fire was raging at the epicenter of the explosion, its heat prickling his skin. He idly wondered if the flames would consume all the air down here. If so, those who had survived his gas attack would live only to suffocate a few hours later. Again, the thought did not trouble him.
Not surprisingly, the door to the principal director’s suite was closed. Matt waved in front of the reader the ID card he’d taken from Sims, but nothing happened, not even a beep denying him access. He pulled out the card Wicks had given him, and encountered the same result.
That was all right. He had a solution.
Switching the rifle to semiautomatic, he aimed at the area around the lock and shot an arc through the door.
__________
THE GUNFIRE DIDN’T frighten Perez. It merely focused his anger.
Claudia, on the other hand, screamed.
“Keep looking,” he ordered.
He ran his fingers under the countertop behind his desk. Three inches from the end farthest from the door, he found a switch. He pushed it, but nothing happened.
What the hell?
Out in the antechamber, the gunfire ceased.
He pushed it again, and this time heard a click under the cover. He dropped to his knees, sure he’d discovered the way out, but what he found instead was only the latch for the exit door. The escape exit itself had never been built.
He dove toward his desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, and fished around for the Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol he kept there. As he freed the gun, the door to his office flew open. He aimed across the room, but no one was there.
“Principal Director Perez,” a strange-sounding voice said from the other room. “It’s good to meet you.”
Perez aimed at the wall he thought the man was hiding behind, and pulled the trigger.
“Good thinking,” the intruder said. “And not bad on the aim, either. But these bases were built to last. No flimsy walls around here. Trust me, I knew the guy in charge of putting them in.”
Who the hell was this guy?
“What do you want?” Perez said.
“Already have what I want, thanks. You just aren’t aware of it yet.”
Perez moved to the other corner of his desk so that he’d have a more acute angle on the doorway He couldn’t see anything yet, so, with gun held out in front, he carefully stepped out from cover.
Across the room, Claudia coughed.
“Ah, that got back there quicker than I expected,” the voice said.
As Perez narrowed his eyes, unsure what the man meant, he had the sudden need to blink.
Another cough, but this one was his.
“Downward spiral from here, I’m afraid,” the voice said.
Perez staggered back to his desk, his chest heaving. Between blinks, he saw something move into the doorway. He lifted his hand, raising the gun, only he wasn’t holding it anymore. He looked around. It was on the ground where he’d started blinking. He took a step toward it but began coughing again.
“You won’t need that anymore,” the voice said, closer now.
The voice belonged to a man, that much Perez could tell, but what the guy looked like was hidden behind a full-face gas mask.
“How you feeling? Pretty crappy, huh?” The man looked past Perez. “I think your friend over there’s done for. Sorry about that.” He turned back to Perez. “You know what? That’s a lie. I’m not sorry.”
Perez could feel his strength draining away, but he wasn’t ready to collapse yet. “Who...are you?” he said.
“Me? I was a member of Project Eden, way before your time.” The man looked around. “I helped build this place. Yeah, but then I realized what was really going on. Been trying to stop you guys ever since. The destruction of Bluebird? That was my people. The message you were telling everyone about tonight? Mine, too.”
The gnat, Perez realized. This man was the gnat who had been bugging the Project for years.
“You aren’t…going to stop…anything,” Perez said, forcing each word out. “The Project’s too big.”
“I guess that’s a wait-and-see thing, isn’t it? Only you won’t be around to see it. But trust me, it’s going to happen.”
Perez doubled over in a coughing fit.
“Bet that hurts,” the man said. “You know, it’s amazing what you can find when you hunt around a deserted military base. I guess I could have taken a nuke, but that would have been too heavy to carry in here. The gas is a nice touch, though, don’t you think? From the poetic point of view, it would have been better if it was some kind of deadly disease you all weren’t vaccinated against, but this will work faster.”
Perez wasn’t about to give the man the satisfaction of his death. With his last ounce of will, he pushed himself up, and said as forcibly as he could, “This isn’t going to kill me.”
“Perhaps
not,” the man told him. “Could be not enough of the gas got back here to kill both of you. That’s a shame.”
He raised his rifle and shot Perez in the thigh.
Screaming, Perez fell to the ground.
“Caught the artery on the first shot. Not bad,” the man said. “Now you are going to die. You’re going to bleed out right there on that nice carpet, in this nice office.” The man plopped down on the desk. “And I’m sitting right here until you do.”
Perez rolled onto his back, knowing the man was right.
I was so close. A few more weeks, maybe a month, and I would have truly ruled the world.
Through half-closed eyes, he looked at the man and whispered, “Fucking gnat.”
__________
MATT WAITED UNTIL he was sure Perez was dead before leaving the office.
The former principal director had said his death would not stop the Project, and that was true, but it was a big step in that direction.
He wondered if Wicks had been able to get out. He hoped so. His old friend had done a lot for the Resistance from the inside, and didn’t deserve the death the others here had received.
Matt, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure about himself. There was a part of him that wanted to pull off his gas mask, and face the punishment he felt he deserved. Maybe if Wicks hadn’t come through with the information he’d passed along, Matt could have gone through with it, but now it wasn’t an option.
There was a thud somewhere in the hall behind him. Thinking it was probably the echo of something collapsing closer to the explosion, he kept walking.
Someone yelled behind him, the voice so strained and raw he couldn’t make out any words.
When he turned, he saw he was no longer the only one still breathing in the hallway. Down by the last corridor intersection, a woman was leaning against the wall. She was staring at him, her chest heaving. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, before she joined her dead colleagues.
As she pushed from the wall and took a few staggering steps toward him, he realized he’d seen her before. She was the woman who had been in the office with Perez. Matt had seen her crumble to the floor and assumed she’d died.
Yelling again, she raised her hand as if to point at him, only it wasn’t her finger she was aiming in his direction.
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