Spittle flew out of my clenched teeth as I clubbed him. I was on an adrenaline high like I’d never experienced. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but killing Neville was the greatest feeling I’d ever known.
The Calm was gone. There was only rage.
Panting, sweat pouring down my face, I rose over Neville’s lifeless form. Across the room, behind her desk, Dr. Silvers was pressed up against the wall. Her eyes were wide, a look of horror covered her face. I’d never seen her afraid before, and it made me so happy I laughed out loud. She’d mashed the alarm button and a loud warbling noise began to sound. It probably alerted the entire facility. I laughed at that, too. My hope of escape was extinguished, but I wasn’t done just yet.
LORENZO
Greg Spanner, clad in black and covered in blood, blubbered on the floor of the control room after I’d beaten the hell out of him and threatened his life. Not too surprisingly, he felt talkative.
“Next question, Greg,” I said. “That weapons locker over there. What’s the combination?”
“One, twenty-five, thirteen!” he gasped, struggling to fight back tears. I had broken this guy, and he couldn’t maintain his dignity. He was scared, he was confused, and all he knew was that he didn’t want to die.
I’m good at this sort of thing. Once you push someone over the threshold, where they become more worried about living than anyone’s opinion of them, they can be very useful. It doesn’t work so well on the strong-willed, the true believers, fanatics, or people who’ve undergone intense training, but for low-level, wannabe jack-booted thugs like Spanner this technique was perfect.
“Now look at me, Greg. I’m going to go over there and see what’s in that locker. You stay right there. If you get up, I’ll shoot you. If you try to crawl away, I’ll shoot you. Are we clear?”
“Who are you?”
That was the wrong answer. I kicked Greg in the stomach. He folded onto himself like wet origami. “Am I making myself clear?” I pulled his Glock.
“Yes!” Greg cried. “I swear!”
“Good. Stay put.” I made my way across the control room and punched the numbers into the gun locker. Inside were several M4 carbines, a couple of shotguns, and ammunition for both. I took one of the carbines, turned on its EOTech sight, slammed a magazine into it, and worked the charging handle.
That’s when the alarm went off. It was an obnoxiously loud klaxon, something originally intended to alert the residents of North Gap that Soviet missiles were inbound. My first thought was that the gun safe was alarmed somehow, but I didn’t think Spanner was brave enough to try and trick me. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know!”
Stepping over Frost’s body, I checked the bank of monitors. The screen for Valentine’s cell was still dead. There was movement on another screen. Holy shit. Valentine was out of his cell, viciously beating someone with a nightstick. Even in the gritty black and white I could tell he was painting the walls down there.
The son of a bitch picked a hell of a day to escape.
“Come in Ling,” I said, keying the radio.
“I hear a siren. We just cleared the checkpoint,” Ling replied. “Status?”
“We’ve got a problem. Our boy is out of his room.”
“Say again?”
“He’s out of his cell! He’s escaping! He just beat the shit out of some skinny guy and somebody tripped the alarm.” There was motion on many of the monitors now. They were coming out of the nearby housing and running through the snow and there was movement on the level below me. “Every guard in this place is on the move.”
“You have to slow them. You have to get to Valentine before they do.”
“Then you better go loud. Greg!” I snapped as I dropped the mic. “How do I kill the power in—” He was gone. Son of a bitch. The door to the stairwell was swinging closed. He’d run for it.
Chapter 6: Pushed Too Far
VALENTINE
North Gap, Montana
Dr. Silvers stared at me, wide-eyed, as the alarm sounded. Guards would be here in seconds and this time they’d probably kill me. I didn’t have much time, but I didn’t need much time.
I lunged toward her. She gasped and made for her desk, yanking open a drawer. A gun was in her hand. I was on top of her before she could bring it to bear. I brought the baton down, smashing her wrist. The pistol clattered to the floor as the doctor shrieked in pain. I scrambled over the desk, powered by desperation and a euphoric surge of adrenaline, and came down on the other side. My free hand clamped around Dr. Silvers’ throat, and I shoved her back against the wall. I dropped the baton, wrapped my other hand around her neck, and squeezed.
The normally ice-cold scientist writhed and squirmed as color flushed her pale face. She tried to scratch at me with her uninjured hand, but it did her no good. A puddle formed at her feet as her bladder let go. Her eyes began to roll back in her head. Darkness clouded my vision. A vicious grin split my face as I throttled this woman, a dark joy that I’d never felt. I was excited to watch her die.
I hesitated. My grip relaxed a little. Something was holding me back. I thought of Sarah, the last woman I’d seen die. Was that it? I tried to focus, to finish Silvers, but I just couldn’t. The adrenaline rush receded. My hands hurt from choking her. The alarm was still screaming, but no one had come yet.
I let go of Dr. Silvers. Gasping and coughing, she slumped to the floor. I stepped back. My hands were shaking. My knees were weak. I felt dizzy and sick. I sat on her desk to avoid falling over.
Then the lights went out, shrouding us in complete darkness. Thankfully that silenced that annoying alarm. Dr. Silvers was too busy coughing to speak. The emergency lights kicked on a moment later, dimly illuminating the room with an eerie glow.
“M . . . Michael,” the doctor managed. She always used my first name when she was trying to get into my head. It wasn’t going to work this time. “Listen to me. You’re not yourself. It’s the drugs.” She coughed again.
I cast a dark shadow across her face as I stood back up. “What did you do to me?”
“What did I do?” she wheezed. “My God, look at you! You escaped! You killed Neville without even blinking! I assume you killed Reilly as well?”
Why is she so excited about this? “I did.”
She grasped her broken arm, obviously in pain, but she’d regained some composure. “Listen to me. You’ve been subjected to several experimental drugs as part of the procedure. They’re still in your system. The rage, the aggression, the anger . . . you’re having a reaction. You have to let me sedate you. I can help you, Michael. If you don’t let me help you you’ll die.”
Shouts echoed throughout the building. Somebody started laughing. It took me a moment to realize it was me. They were coming and I didn’t know why they hadn’t gotten here already. Something else was going on. I had to make a decision before I ran out of time and squandered the only chance I was going to get.
Without taking my eyes off of Dr. Silvers, I reached down and found her pistol, a compact Glock. I racked the slide. No unfired cartridge was ejected, meaning she hadn’t had a round chambered. If she’d gotten the gun on me before I broke her arm it wouldn’t have done her any good. It figured, she didn’t allow the guards to have guns down here but she had no problem violating her own rules. The little pistol had luminescent night sights, three green dots glowed above the slide. The dots made me think of fireflies, which told me I was still very high.
“Get up,” I told her.
“Michael, please,” she pleaded. “You can’t—”
I cut her off. “Get up or I’ll kill you where you sit.” The Calm was returning. The rage subsided as my heart rate steadied. I was in control again.
Dr. Silvers still hesitated. I didn’t. Reaching downward, I grabbed her by the collar of her white lab coat. She cried out as I yanked her to her feet. I pushed her ahead of me and wrapped my right arm around her neck. I leveled the Glock over her left shoulder and pushed her
forward.
“Shut your mouth and walk.”
LORENZO
The main fuse-box killed the power and that annoying siren, but then dim emergency lights had kicked in. I didn’t have time to figure out how to shut those off so it would have to do. Most of the exterior lights were on another circuit and stayed on, but the relative darkness inside the building would help me. Last I’d seen on the monitors, several guards had come from the barracks and were standing outside the main building, pounding on the door. I had to get downstairs before Spanner or somebody else let them in.
Just then, the courtyard was illuminated with headlights as a beat-up station wagon came tearing up to the chain link fence. It did a tight one-eighty turn, skidding in the snow, and slid to a stop. Ling, Shen, and Antoine rolled out of the vehicle and immediately opened fire on the Majestic guards stuck outside. Perfect timing.
I made my way down the stairs, carbine shouldered, carefully checking the corners. Nothing. The stairwell was dark, illuminated only by one weak red light. I could hear shouts below me. I knew from the cameras there were more guards in the building. Carefully I leaned around the edge, trying to cover every possible angle, by myself. Stairwells are dangerous as hell to clear. A shadow moved below and I lunged back.
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM
I struck the wall hard, bullets whizzing through the space I’d been standing in. Puffs of dust and fragments kicked up as they struck the wall. I couldn’t let him pin me down so I stuck the M4 over the side and fired several wild rounds at where the flashes had come from. The noise of the short-barreled carbine was brutal in the enclosed concrete space. Great. More hearing damage.
Then there was light below as someone opened the door to the second floor. I fired again as his shadow moved through and was rewarded with a startled cry. The door slammed shut behind, plunging me again into darkness.
I took the stairs two at a time, flying blind, and only hesitated a split second before jerking open the door to the second floor. Light flooded past, and there was blood splatter on the door. I ducked back as the holes appeared in the metal door, .40 caliber bullets flying through. He kept shooting, and I could hear the bullets impacting the wall behind my back. More beams of light shot into the darkness as they poked more holes in the door.
Then it was quiet, save for the muffled echoes of gunfire outside. It sounded like Ling was in a full-on gun battle with the rest of North Gap’s personnel.
Doorways are fatal funnels. You don’t ever want to get stuck in a doorway. There wasn’t enough light in the stairwell for him to see my shadow, so I risked a peek through the crack, and caught a glimpse of a man running down the hall. I jerked the door open, and went through fast, crouched low, moving as swiftly as I could, but he was gone.
I was on the office level, lit only by emergency lights. Where are they? There was a trail of blood across the floor, leading into an open doorway. I approached silently. I could hear them speaking over the ringing in my ears and the blood thundering in my head.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man.” He sounded like he was in a lot of pain, and it wasn’t Spanner. “He shot me. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” That was Spanner. “No one is answering on the radio. Who’s shooting outside? We’re under attack!”
WHUMP!
A concussion rang out from outside. Ling was using hand grenades. The lady wasn’t messing around.
“Holy shit!” the injured guard said. “We’re gonna die! Oh my God, we’re gonna die!”
“Shut up and watch the door, you idiot!”
No hesitation. I came around the corner and put two rounds into the wounded guard’s back, shifted my sight picture, and put two rounds into Greg’s chest. They went right down. I turned back into the darkness. “Ling, what’s your status?”
Back in the stairwell, the radio crackled to life. It was Ling. “There are a lot of them out here. We had to retreat to cover. They got the door open. At least five more personnel entered the building, all armed, and they have a dog. The rest are coming after us. We may not be able to assist you right away.”
“On it,” I acknowledged. My plan would’ve been working perfectly had that asshole not decided to escape.
VALENTINE
One floor above us was the ground level. I forced Dr. Silvers up both flights of stairs, using her as a human shield. There was a landing here, a small room with two doors. One led to the rear courtyard. The other led to the main level, where everything else was. On a row of hooks on the wall hung several bulky winter coats. Next to the door was a well-used metal snow shovel. Gunfire had been echoing throughout the building and from outside. I was pretty sure I’d heard a detonation, too, like a grenade or something. I didn’t know what the hell was going on and I didn’t want to find out.
I peered out the small, square window into the courtyard. It was surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire. It was lit by overhead lights. A small whirlwind of powdery snow blew across the open area.
“You’ll never make it, you know,” Dr. Silvers said. Her voice was raspy. “Where the hell do you think you’re going to go?”
I let go of her, stepped back, and leveled the Glock 27 at her face. She didn’t flinch. She just clutched her broken arm and stared me down.
“I ought to kill you.” My grip tightened on the little pistol. My finger made contact with the trigger.
“Then do it,” she said calmly. “I’m in no position to stop you.”
I really and truly did want to kill Dr. Silvers. I hated her. I didn’t know what had stopped me from strangling her to death before, and I didn’t know what was stopping me from shooting her in the face now. Whatever it was, I just didn’t have it in me.
There was another loud noise nearby, like a door being kicked in. Now was not the time for a moral quandary. Stepping forward, I raised the gun and cracked Dr. Silvers upside the head with it. She cried out in pain. Before she could fall I shoved her backward. She tumbled down the stairs and landed in a heap on the landing below.
Without pausing, I threw on one of the heavy coats, opened the door to the courtyard, and dashed into the cold night air. Being out of shape and exhausted, my dash was really more of a slow jog. The fence seemed farther away than I’d thought.
I didn’t even come close to making it. Before I knew what was happening I was on the ground in the snow. Someone had tackled me from behind, slamming me down and knocking the wind out of me. I nearly lost my grip on the pistol.
Furious, I kicked and struggled. The man that had tackled me swore aloud and his grip loosened enough for me to roll over. He had a baton in his hand but couldn’t bring it to bear. I twisted onto my side as he tried to reestablish his grip on me. It was Davis. His eyes went wide as he realized I had a gun. He blocked it and my first shot went into the air. He was right on top of me. The next shot was close and hot and loud, right above my face, but it hit him in the chest, which gave me time to lever the pistol up beneath his chin. I was splattered with blood and brains the instant I pulled the trigger. I kicked Davis’ limp body off of me and staggered to my feet.
The door I had just come through popped open. There were black-clad men inside.
Sticking the pistol outward, I popped off several shots. The guards trying to funnel through the doorway were forced back. The slide locked back empty, so I dropped the Glock in the snow, scooped up Davis’ baton, and turned and ran for the fence again.
It was a strange feeling, like when you’re still dreaming, but you’re almost awake. It didn’t seem real. I ran and ran, but the gate didn’t get any closer. Darkness crept into my peripheral vision. My breathing was labored, and I could still feel my heart pounding in my ears. Then I smacked into the fence, shaking the thin layer of snow off of the top and causing it to fall on me. Confused, I dropped the baton and began to climb.
A terrible electric pain shot through me, and I lost my grip on the fence. I fell to the ground, and the pain stopped almost immediately. Loo
king behind me, I saw another man in black fatigues holding an air taser in his hand. One of the wires had fallen out of my back, probably because of the puffy coat I wore. I started climbing again.
Something clamped onto my right leg, and I screamed out loud as teeth broke the skin. A dog, that fucking German Shepherd, latched onto my calf. My grip gave out and I fell to the ground once again.
I found the baton. Twisting around, I struck the dog hard, smashing into the side of its neck. It yelped and let go. Everything slowed down once again, except my heart, which was beating so fast it felt like it was going to explode. Dr. Silvers had been right. The drugs were doing weird things to me. I felt my lips curl back in a snarl and my fingers grasped the baton so hard it hurt. Sweat was pouring down my face, stinging my eyes. My leg was bleeding, but the pain seemed distant somehow. A red haze clouded my vision as I focused on the snarling German Shepherd. That dog. That goddamn fucking dog.
It was named Gonzo.
I don’t remember anything after that.
LORENZO
I ran for the stairs, leapt down most of them, and entered a darkened room on the first floor. Men in various states of dress, all armed, were moving through the building.
“Smoot! What’s going on?”
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