The Honorable Knight

by Patrick John Donahoe

  The path was well trodden and led to a large building hidden under giant acacia trees. The building had no windows, and there was only a small light shining over the only door in the front of the building. The thick metal door had an electronic keypad and looked too solid for Ian to break down with brute force.

  Ian considered shooting out the keypad and or shooting out the door handle and lock assembly with his pistol when Serena said, “Move aside.”

  Ian moved aside, and Serena shot out the door handle, lock, and keypad in three quick successive firings of her pistol. So much for figuring out what to do, Ian thought.

  Ian kicked the door and it didn’t budge. Ian and Jacques both slammed their bodies against the door and it sprung open, causing Ian and Jacques to fall inside. Ian gained his balance, grasped Jacques’ arm, preventing him from hitting the floor, and charged into the room, cowboy style, with pistol ready to shoot whoever might be inside.

  The small entryway had one doorway to the left, one to the right, and one at the back of the room. Laboratory jackets, smocks, and pullover pants hung on the right wall. Slipover shoe covers had been carelessly piled up on the floor below the laboratory clothing.

  Serena said, “Ian, go right; Jacques, go left.”

  Ian strode to the doorway on the right and checked the room, pistol ready. He saw shelves full of laboratory equipment, and boxes on the floor that he assumed contained lab equipment still unopened. Backing out of the room he asked Jacques, “What did you find?”

  “Lab equipment.”

  Jacques and Ian followed Serena into the room at the back of the entry foyer. The room was a working laboratory with shelves of equipment, what looked like an examination table, a desk with a computer, a banker’s box full of papers laying on top of the desk, and a shelf full of books and notebooks. There was another door at the back of this room with a glass window and a key pad to the right of the door. Someone had installed a metal hook on each side of the door, and a crossbar stood against the wall. Apparently, Brandt had imprisoned people, or animals, in that room, since the room probably had a crash bar for emergency exit on the other side.

  Serena approached the windowed door and peeked through the clear glass window in the door. She saw Karl and Heinrich facing her dressed in bio-hazard suits. Desiree sat on a table behind them in the clothes she wore to the restaurant. Heinrich had a pistol aimed at the window daring Serena to barge in.

  Ian walked over next to Serena and peeked through the glass window, then stood on the opposite side of the window from her. “Heinrich’s pistol might be able to shatter the window glass, but I don’t think it can penetrate this metal door, so stand aside,” Ian volunteered.

  Jacques sidled up to Ian and asked, “Are all three of them in there?”

  “Yes. Heinrich and Brandt have on bio-hazard suits, but Desiree doesn’t.”

  “What are they up to?” Jacques asked.

  “No good,” Ian replied.

  “How do we get those two out of there without breaking in?” Serena questioned more to herself than Ian and Jacques.

  “They wouldn’t still be locked inside that room if there was another way out,” Ian replied.

  “They may have worse weapons than a pistol in there, and neither Desiree nor we are wearing bio-hazard suits.”

  “I didn’t see Desiree, but I couldn’t see the full extent of the room in the short time I looked in. I thought Heinrich might shoot the glass out while I was looking.”

  “You and I are on the same wavelength. I considered the same thing,” added Ian.

  “We could wait them out if there’s no other exit,” suggested Jacques.

  ‘Tap, tap, tap,’ came from the locked room. Serena carefully peeked into the window and read a handwritten note held against the glass. ‘Let us leave now, or we will release a deadly virus on your friend and she will die within hours. There is no cure.’

  Jacques, standing behind Ian, asked, “What did the note say?”

  Serena replied, “They’re threatening to infect Desiree with a deadly virus if we don’t let them escape.”

  “If we let them go, we can capture them again later. At least maybe Desiree will be safe,” suggested Ian.

  “Do you have a pencil and paper?” asked Serena.

  Ian handed Serena a stubby pencil and his used airplane ticket from his breast pocket.

  “What’s the plan?” Jacques asked Serena. “Do we let them go?”

  “They haven’t seen you,” Serena said to Jacques. “You two go back outside and wait for Karl and Heinrich. I’ll let them escape and take care of Desiree.”

  “Let’s go,” said Ian.

  “Take Brandt alive if you can,” Serena added. She waited for Jacques and Ian to clear the room, and she wrote a note, saying, ‘You are free to go, but leave Desiree unharmed,’ and held the note up to the glass window. She then backed away from the door and moved her pistol from the front to the back of her pantsuit pants.

  The door opened part way. Heinrich, dressed in street clothes rather than the biohazard suit, poked his head out and said, “Your friend is unharmed. Let us go.” He still had his pistol in his hand.

  Serena held up her hands. “I have no weapons. Leave before I change my mind.”

  Heinrich emerged from the bio-laboratory followed by Karl, who had Desiree by the arm and held his pistol to her back. “She goes free when we’re away.”

  Serena backed up and let them pass unimpeded, not taking any chances with Desiree’s safety. She hoped that Jacques and Ian would be as cautious outside. Serena followed them at a distance to where the cars were parked. She heard Heinrich shout a curse when he and Karl arrived at his SUV and found the flat tire.

  Heinrich fired the pistol into the air and shouted, “We want the keys to your car, now, or the girl is dead.”

  The lights from another car shone up the driveway, and Karl’s Porsche slid to a stop in front of Heinrich’s black SUV. Kurt scrambled out of the Porsche and asked, “Father, what’s going on here? What are you doing to that woman?”

  Heinrich aimed his pistol at Kurt, and Karl shouted, “Don’t shoot my son!”

  Ian leaped out from his hiding place behind Heinrich’s car and tackled Heinrich. Heinrich fired a shot into the air when he hit the ground. Ian flipped Heinrich over onto his belly and slammed Heinrich’s gun hand to the ground, knocking the pistol out of his grip. Ian picked up the pistol, tossed it away, knelt down on Heinrich’s back, and zip-tied his wrists together.

  Karl watched the ruckus as though he was an observer at a prize fight.

  Desiree, seeing her opportunity to retaliate, karate chopped Karl’s gun hand. As the pistol fell to the ground, she kneed him in the genitals.

  Karl bent over and gasped for air.

  Desiree picked up the pistol and aimed it at Karl’s face while he regained his breath.

  Serena took the pistol from Desiree and kept it pointed at Karl. “I don’t want you to accidentally shoot our prime suspect,” Serena said with a wry grin.

  Jacques approached Desiree and gave her a comforting hug. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “A little shaken, but when you lock up those two monsters, I’ll be fine.”

  Kurt strode over to his father, stood in front of him, and demanded, “Father, what’s going on?”

  Serena stepped behind Karl and zip-tied his wrists while Kurt watched. “We have to turn your father and Heinrich into Interpol for terrorist acts against England and the United States for starters. We may uncover more criminal acts as we delve into their activities over the past several years.”

  “I understand, but I regret having to agree with you. I knew my father and grandfather were involved in unusual and probably illegal activities, but I didn’t know exactly what,” Kurt said apologetically.

  Kurt turned back to his father. “Did you actually believe I would want to lead a group of Neo-Nazis in eliminating the rest of the world?”

  Leora, who had gotten out of Karl’s Po
rsche, approached Kurt.

  Kurt turned to face her and said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” she replied and kissed him on the lips. “Do you still want to marry me?”

  “More than ever.”

  Serena shoved Karl toward her rental car and Kurt said, “Wait, please. I need to tell my father something.”

  Serena held Karl in place and Kurt said, “Leora is going to be my wife. She’s pregnant with my child. I don’t know what the future holds for you, but I know what my future holds for me.”

  Karl stared at the ground and replied, “I did all this for you.”

  “I don’t know who you did horrible things for, but it was not for me.” Kurt turned to Leora and said, “There’s no more we can do here, and I can’t stand to watch these officers do their duty. Let’s go.” Kurt led Leora back to the Porsche and assisted her into the passenger side.

  Serena shoved Karl, and Jacques prodded Heinrich with the barrel of his pistol toward the rental car. Jacques shoved both of them into the back seat, bumping Heinrich’s head when Heinrich wouldn’t stoop low enough to clear the door frame.

  Serena said, “I’ll drive. Shoot them if they move a muscle.” Serena rolled down the driver’s window and shouted out to Desiree, “We’re going to take these two to Sao Paulo and turn them over to our agents. You’ll have a couple of hours to examine the laboratory before they show up. We’ll be back for you when these two are secured.”

  Ian replied, “We’ll make good use of the time.” He looked Desiree in the eyes. “Are you up to examining their laboratory with me while we have sole access to everything?”

  “It’s been a trying day, but I’d like to get a firsthand look at their lab before every agency we can think of comes in and tosses the place. As a CDC Rep, I need to know what they were up to.”

  Serena pulled her rental car next to the Porsche and interrupted Kurt’s deep conversation with Leora. “You may follow us if you’d like. Later on I’ll explain what we know about your father’s activities and our investigation.”

  “Would you mind coming to my father’s office at the company tomorrow morning? We’ve endured enough for one night.”

  “We’ll be there, say ten?”

  “See you then. Thank you, Miss Havana,” Kurt replied with an ironic twist to his voice. Kurt started the Porsche’s engine and drove away with Leora riding shotgun.

  Serena drove away with Jacques riding shotgun in Serena’s rental car.

  Jacques kept his pistol aimed at Heinrich and Karl held captive in the back seat.

  Ian and Desiree went back into the laboratory and started inspecting the contents. Ian picked up the biohazard suits Heinrich and Karl had dropped onto the floor when they made their escape, and hung the suits on the pegs near the entry door.

  The shelves were covered with laboratory equipment. Each shelf was organized according to equipment type. The top shelf was covered with flasks, pipettes, test tubes and glassware organized by size and type. The lower shelves had the finest in autoclaves, incubators, and stoppered bottles with labels indicating the contents and date when the bottle was sealed.

  A shelf of notebooks annotated on the spines with dates and locations, mainly in Africa and Brazil, sat on a shelf on the back wall along with dozens of books on virology and infectious diseases.

  Desiree opened the LABREPCO medical freezer and found several stoppered bottles with labels identifying the contents as Ebola 1970, Marburg 1970, HIV 1975, Type 1 1977, Type 2 1981, Type 3 1990, H1N1 2000, Type 3 2004, Type 4 2008, and Notting Hill 2013.

  “What do you think the Types 1 through 4 means?” Ian asked when he looked over Desiree’s shoulder.

  “I’m guessing those are viruses or diseases they didn’t release to cause pandemics and so were never given official names by any public health organization. There’s no telling what evil concoctions might be in those bottles. They didn’t maintain level IV containment with dangerous diseases that require level IV containment. They’re lucky they never infected themselves.”

  “After being trapped in their working lab with those two monsters, are you ready to go back in and inspect it?”

  “Yes, but let’s put their bio-suits on before we go in. They may have released some pathogen in the lab just for pure evil.”

  Ian retrieved two biohazard suits off the pegs and he and Desiree slipped them on over their street clothes.

  “Once we’re inside, we have to immediately plug the suits into the air-line,” Desiree said.

  “You’re the boss.” Ian opened the inner lab door and they shuffled in. Ian found a light switch and turned it on. He was shocked to find a dead female body strapped onto a gurney and a tub in the back of the room. Desiree went through an even more horrible experience than I imagined, Ian thought.

  Desiree plugged the airlines into their suits. The room had negative pressure safety provisions. One corner of the room had a water shower and ultraviolet lights to wash off and sterilize the suits. Desiree inspected the large tub and recognized it as an acid bath, probably used to dispose of experimental patient’s bodies. Desiree wondered, how many people did Brandt murder in this room?

  The only consolation she could find in their discoveries was that Karl, and whoever helped him in his research, documented meticulously. She knew she would never have the time to read all their notebooks. Karl’s disregard for human life sickened her.

  “Ian, I have to call my supervisors at the CDC and ask them to come here to help sort out this crime scene. I can’t do it alone . . . and I don’t want to. When we’re done, we’re going to need to transport all of the pathogens to the CDC.”

  “I don’t blame you. Let’s clear out so you can make your calls. I want to call Serena and Jacques and give them a heads up on what we’ve discovered and make sure they’ve put those two Neo-Nazi terrorists behind bars.”

  “Serena will want to do an in-depth analysis of Karl’s laptops. Maybe we can connect Karl to more Al Qaeda operatives through money trails or correspondence,” Desiree added.

  Ian shuffled over to the door in his hazmat suit and saw a man he didn’t recognize looking in through the small safety glass window. Ian pushed on the crash bar, but the door was blocked. The man had barred the door from the outside and locked them in. The man was an older looking version of Karl, more gray hair, more facial wrinkles, but the same Teutonic features and piercing blue eyes.

  Desiree tapped Ian’s shoulder, and he turned as best as he could with the bio-suit impediment. Desiree pointed at a vent in the right wall. A mist was seeping into the laboratory. A small red sign beneath the vent stenciled Fire Protection–Halon System told Desiree all she needed to know. The man in the window had turned on the Halon system.

  Desiree shouted, “Halon 1301 becomes toxic at a 9% concentration in the air. It will eventually suffocate us, as it would a fire.”

  “Let’s try to stop it,” Ian shouted back. Ian hustled in an awkward shuffle to the vent and looked for something to block the gas outflow. He shuffled back to the plastic curtain that surrounded the gurney with the cadaver and pulled it down from the attaching rings.

  Desiree took a skin stapler from a middle shelf and handed it to Ian. They both pressed the plastic sheet against the vent and held it in place while Ian used all the staples in the gun to fasten the sheet to the wall over the vent.

  Meanwhile outside the autopsy room, Kurt and Leora confronted Rolf.

  “What are you doing? Who’s in that room?” Kurt demanded.

  “Evil people,” Rolf replied. “They want to destroy us.”

  “I think you’re trying to destroy them,” Kurt answered.

  “You’ve locked them in with a cross bar and turned on the Halon system!” screamed Leora.

  “You’re trying to kill them. Let them out now!”

  Rolf tried to shove Kurt and Leora aside, but Kurt held him back. “Do as she says. Let them out,” Kurt ordered with a grim assertiveness in his voic
e and manner.

  “No,” Rolf shouted.

  Rolf and Kurt tussled while Leora pounded on Rolf’s back. Rolf twisted away from Kurt, shoved Leora to the floor, and ran out of the room.

  Kurt assisted Leora to her feet. “Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m fine,” she replied.

  Kurt removed the cross bar from the door, and indicated through the window for Serena to push on the crash bar. The crash bar was disabled, the door was still locked, an extreme safety violation.

  “We need to get those people out of that room before they suffocate,” Leora said in an anxious voice.

  Kurt and Leora looked for the switch to turn off the Halon system. Leora said, “Here it is,” and flipped the switch just beneath a small sign which read, ‘Halon System – Emergency Power.’

  “Now how do we get them out of there?”

  Kurt looked into the door’s observation window and saw a piece of paper with the numbers 7998, and 8997 scribbled on them in pencil. He entered 7998 into the keypad and the door clicked open.

  Desiree and Ian immediately exited the autopsy lab still wearing the bio-suits. While they peeled off the suits Desiree said, “Thank you, Kurt and Leora . . . why did you return?”

  “We came back because I wondered where my grandfather was. He’s the one who locked you in there and turned on the Halon System.”

  “We know. We have to catch him before he escapes into the wind.”

  “I should . . . but I can’t help you. I want to get a couple of personal items from the house,” Kurt paused. “I’ll probably never return here again,” Kurt continued with a deep sorrow in his voice.

  “You’ve already been a big help. Leave the rest to us. Don’t go into the back laboratory. You won’t like what you’ll find.”

  “I understand.” Kurt led Leora out of the main laboratory.