Altar of Eden

by James Rollins

  A snap of a branch to the right. A heavy footfall. Someone turning.

  Jack set his back against a tree and pinpointed the location in his mind’s eye. He let out the soft whistle-chirp of a Carolina wren, one of the region’s most common and vocal birds. Burt knew the signal and went silent. Jack pictured the hound dropping flat to the ground as trained.

  He waited for a full minute, long enough for the guard to turn his attention back to the facility. Satisfied he’d held back long enough, Jack slipped around the tree, and with even more caution than before, he crept toward the location Burt had exposed.

  The edge of the woods appeared ahead.

  Starlight bathed the open grounds beyond, brighter than the dark bower of the woods. Silhouetted against that backdrop stood a darker shadow. A guard had taken a position at the edge of the forest, a sniper rifle at his shoulder. The weapon looked like an M21, a semiautomatic rifle. If anyone had come out that rear door or dared approach it, this lone gunman would’ve dropped them in a heartbeat.

  Pistol in hand, Jack moved like a ghost through the woods, glad to have the wind in his face. The river breeze would help mask any scent and muffle any telltale noises.

  Still, when Jack was two yards away, something must have prickled the hairs on the other’s neck. The guard turned.

  Jack moved fast. He dared not shoot. The crack of his pistol through the open air would be like a cannon blast out here. He lunged before the other could react. Jack twisted the weapon out of his startled grasp while sweeping the man’s leg and dropping him to the ground. Jack followed him down, landing both knees square on his rib cage, squashing air out, preventing a scream.

  Jack jammed the pistol under his chin and fired.

  Like with a pillow, the skull and helmet muffled the blast to a harsh pop. Still too loud.

  Fearing any response, he leaped up, whistled for Burt, and sprinted toward the building. He ran across the open ground and hit the ramp at full clip. He flew down it, half tumbling. He came close to running headlong into the steel roll-up door but caught himself at the last moment.

  He twisted to the side entry. He tested the knob.

  Locked.

  He had expected no different—only hoped for at least a small break. It wasn’t to be. He holstered his pistol and shrugged off the other weapon from his shoulder. The AA-12 assault shotgun was not a subtle weapon.

  Then again maybe it was high time for subtlety to end.

  He backed three steps and pointed the barrel at the door’s dead bolt.

  Before he could pull the trigger, a spat of distant gunfire erupted. Off to the west. From the clear ring of the blasts, the shots had come from outside. Jack glanced that way.

  What was going on? What were they shooting at?

  He turned farther and realized someone was missing.

  Burt.

  Jack went cold. The hound seldom broke his field training, not unless something really irresistible struck his nose: a dead fish, a rotting squirrel. To make matters worse, Burt loved to roll in those rich stinks.

  As he listened the spat of gunfire died off.

  The night went quiet again.

  Jack turned back to the door. Unlike Burt, he didn’t have the luxury of curiosity. Or subtlety.

  He lifted the shotgun and fired.

  LORNA HEARD SOMETHING loud blast beneath her. She couldn’t tell if it came from inside or outside. She’d been hearing periodic gunfire as she fled across the neighboring labs toward the veterinary clinic. Listening to the blasts, she was glad she had opted to stay inside versus taking her chances outside. She never would have survived.

  A part of her heart went out to the animals she had let loose.

  Were they the targets of all this gunplay?

  Knowing she’d done all she could, she continued until she reached the veterinary wing. The clinic was currently under renovation, with the surgical suite undergoing a much-needed update. Because of the construction, there were no animals housed here.

  Lucky for that.

  With rifle in hand, she pushed carefully into the main treatment room of the clinic. She stayed low, her senses stretching outward for any hidden dangers in the dark. The smell of fresh paint and wood dust struck her. Through her night-vision goggles, she made out the central exam station with an attached wet table and overhanging surgical lights. To the left, a bank of empty stainless-steel cages covered one wall, while the other side opened into a scrub area and the half-renovated operating room.

  All seemed quiet.

  She crept only a couple of steps into the room and turned to a smaller door on her immediate left, marked with posted hazard symbols.

  She tugged it open. Inside stood a bank of green oxygen tanks. Five in total. The set of tanks supplied the clinic and other labs with its piped oxygen. She knew by memory which tank fed the surgical suite and unhooked its regulator from the wall—then twisted the valve to on.

  A fierce hissing flowed from the open tank.

  She left the others untouched.

  Trembling with fear, she closed the door and retreated toward the operating room on the other side of the room—but not before first stopping to raid the veterinary lab in the corner.

  She only had one last preparation to make.

  But did she have enough time?

  WITH THE SHOTGUN blast still ringing in his ears, Jack kicked open the outer door. The small office beyond barely had enough room for a work desk and filing cabinet. He moved quickly. To his right, a closed door led to the pathology lab. Directly ahead stretched an office window that looked out onto the open floor.

  Jack noted a few wobbling glows out there.

  Flashlights.

  They speared toward the office, drawn by the shotgun blast.

  Never stopping, Jack grabbed the desk chair with one hand and flung it through the window. Glass shattered. At the same time he dove to the door, shouldered it open, and rolled out into the cavernous room beyond.

  He spotted two men standing ten yards away.

  They were in full camo, with flashlights in one hand, pistols in the other. Drawn by the exploding office window, they were a fraction too slow in turning toward Jack.

  Sweeping around with his shotgun, Jack pulled the trigger and held it. A barrage of shells sprayed out like a machine gun. The rounds blasted the two men across their midsections, ripping them nearly in half.

  Flashlights went flying.

  Not knowing how many more men were down here, Jack leaped for the cover of a steel equipment locker. He stared across the room toward the hall that led toward the walk-in cooler.

  A glow came from that hallway.

  As he watched, the light clicked off.

  Damn it.

  At least one more man was still down here.

  Before he could even calculate a strategy, two shots fired. The pair of discarded flashlights went dark. The last man was a crack shot, taking out the last lights.

  Not good.

  Jack was now blind. He pulled back undercover.

  As he did so he heard boots pounding across the cement floor, the ring of a heel hitting one of the steel drains. He blindly pointed his weapon and strafed in the general direction. The muzzle flash would give away his position, but he had no choice. He kept firing until the drum magazine emptied.

  A sharp cry of surprise cut through the barrage.

  Jack’s ears strained as the echoes died away.

  Was the man down?

  Even as he thought it the steps resumed out of the dark, more stumbling, erratic—but they were heading away.

  Jack dropped the shotgun and grabbed his pistol.

  Across the room, a door opened and slammed closed. The man had fled out of here.

  Suspicion rang through Jack. These were trained killers, not cowards. What would make the man flee like that?

  He stepped out of hiding and kept his pistol pointed toward the door—when the world exploded.

  Chapter 34

  Duncan liste
ned to the muffled blast fade away. It came from a floor below. He had tried to raise Korey’s team down there, but he’d gotten no answer.

  Worrisome, but not his primary concern.

  The place was surrounded. No one was getting in or out.

  Duncan stood over Fielding’s dead body. His face was a bloody ruin, his eyes gone, his lips blackened as if flash-frozen. Duncan had already noted the liquid nitrogen tanks in the room and could surmise what had taken place. Fielding must have underestimated the woman and let his guard down.

  Stupid.

  Duncan felt no sympathy for the man’s agonizing death.

  Another of Duncan’s unit, an Asian-American named Takeo, came up behind him. “Second floor is swept. No sign of the woman.”

  Duncan didn’t acknowledge him. He wasn’t surprised.

  Another teammate spoke by the lab door. “Do you want me to go check on the others down in the morgue?”

  That could wait.

  “You’re both with me,” he ordered.

  With the place surrounded, nothing else mattered. He’d be out of here in two minutes. With at least one prize in hand. Then he’d burn this fucking place to the ground and be done with it.

  “Where to, sir?” Takeo asked.

  Duncan didn’t answer. He had noted a stack of cards by the lab’s computer. Dr. Lorna Polk. From his intel on this place, he knew she was the staff veterinarian. She ran this cryogenic lab and the veterinary facility. From the schematics, the veterinary wing lay toward the rear of this level, farthest away from the fires.

  Panicked, she would’ve fled to a place of security, a place she knew.

  Duncan stepped over Fielding’s corpse and headed in that direction. He moved cautiously. The body was a good lesson. He would not underestimate Dr. Polk.

  “Follow me.”

  JACK PICKED HIMSELF up. The blast had knocked him off his feet. Across the dark lab, a fire glowed. It raged down the hall that led to the walk-in cooler. Smoke poured into the main room.

  He gave the open pathology lab a quick scan and saw no sign of the assault team. But the man who had fled would alert others. Jack didn’t have much time. He ran toward the fires.

  As he rounded into the hall smoke choked the passageway ahead. Flames danced up the walls to either side. At the far end, the steel door to the meat locker had been blown off.

  He heard a woman crying through the smoke. The assault team must have learned the scientists were holed up in here and had tried to blow their way inside. But someone had been heavy-handed with the C-4.

  Jack rushed forward, heedless of the spreading flames.

  As he sidestepped the blackened door an arm thrust through the smoke and stabbed at his face. Jack leaned back, catching a flash of silver as a blade passed in front of his nose.

  “It’s me,” he hissed out. “Agent Menard!”

  Through the pall of smoke, Lorna’s brother appeared, holding a scalpel in one hand. His other arm was cradled to his waist. From the angle of his hand, he’d broken his wrist.

  Kyle pushed forward, unapologetic about nearly blinding him. He had only one thought. “Where’s Lorna?”

  Jack shook his head, and his heart sank. He had hoped she would’ve made it down here somehow and joined the others.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Kyle looked like he was ready to lash out again with the scalpel.

  “I left her upstairs, locked in her office.”

  Jack moved past Kyle, drawn by a woman’s sobbing. He had to get these people moving. Inside the cooler, he found the neurobiologist, Zoë Trent, kneeling over her husband. He lay on his side in a pool of spreading blood. A thick steel pipe pierced his chest, impaled through by the force of the blast.

  The man wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing.

  The pathologist, Greer, knelt on the other side, a finger to the man’s throat. He glanced to Jack and shook his head.

  A cold fury flashed through him.

  Kyle spoke at his shoulder. Guilt rang in his voice. “If I hadn’t locked this place up so tightly . . . if they didn’t have to blow it . . .”

  “Then you’d all be dead,” Jack said and knew it to be true.

  Carlton Metoyer stood over Zoë, his face sunken and much older. He tried to get her moving. “He’s gone, my dear,” he said softly. “We must go.”

  “Noooo,” the woman moaned and clutched her husband’s hand.

  Jack had no time for niceties. He stepped forward and bodily picked her up. She struggled against him. He carried her away from her husband and down the fiery hall. The woman’s thrashing died down to a limp-limbed moaning. She hung on to him as if drowning—and maybe she was. But Jack was in no position to pull her back.

  Reaching the main floor, he passed her to Greer and Carlton. “Get her out of here. Out the back. The way should still be clear for a few more minutes. Make for the woods and keep moving.”

  They didn’t argue, too shell-shocked and scared.

  Kyle hung back as they headed away. “My sister . . .”

  Jack pointed after the others. “Go. I’ll find her.”

  Still, he hesitated.

  Jack shoved him after the others. “Trust me. I’ll get her,” he promised. Or die trying.

  LORNA KNELT AT the entrance to the surgical suite. Wearing her night-vision goggles, she had a clear view across the treatment room to the entryway. She had been staring for so long her eyes felt dry and sandy. But she dared not even blink.

  And it proved fortunate.

  Without warning—not a footstep, not a whisper—the door swung open. Two shapes burst inside, staying low and splitting to either side, weapons at their shoulders.

  A third followed, standing taller.

  Something about his posture set her heart to pounding harder.

  Lorna leaned out of direct sight and picked up the flint striker from the floor. She normally used the tool to ignite the Bunsen burner in her veterinary lab. Minutes ago, she had picked it up from the lab bench—along with the portable propane tank that fueled the burner. This far out, they had no natural-gas lines.

  With her other hand, she lifted the loose air hose that rested in her lap. Normally the hose connected the anesthetic machine to the oxygen bib on the wall. She had disconnected the anesthetic machine but left the hose running up to the wall, where plumbed pipes ran from here to the oxygen tanks in the mechanical room. Afterward, she had spent two minutes backfilling that line with propane gas.

  Lifting the hose now, she unpinched its end and raised the striker.

  With a fast squeeze, the flint scraped, spit out a spark, and ignited the leaking gas.

  Flames spat out the hose end. She pinched it closed again and watched a blue flame shoot down the propane-filled hose. The glow rushed up to the wall bib and vanished away. She pictured the fire continuing, sweeping through the pipes, a flaming arrow headed straight toward—

  THE HISSING DREW Duncan’s attention as soon as he stepped across the threshold. Snake was his first thought, jumping immediately to a bestial threat. But it came from the left, from behind a closed room plastered with a pair of hazardous-warning emblems.

  Blood rushed to his temples and pounded there.

  Across the room, a tiny flicker of flame flared in his night-vision equipment. It could mean only one thing.

  Ambush . . .

  He didn’t have time to warn the others who had flanked right and left. He lunged away from the hissing door, shouldering into Takeo. His other teammate stood directly in front of the door—

  —when it exploded.

  A blue fireball shattered the door off its hinges. It struck the unsuspecting man in the back, splitting in half. A secondary explosion followed. Duncan managed to roll Takeo’s body between him and the blast.

  Shrapnel blew, along with the tumbling clang of a green oxygen tank.

  With the din still ringing, Duncan pushed Takeo off him.

  The Asian man ro
lled to his knees, dazed, stunned. He turned toward Duncan as if looking for an explanation. Shrapnel peppered his face. Blood flowed. He was missing one ear.

  Then the man slapped a hand to his neck.

  His fingers removed a dart from under the angle of his chin.

  A tranquilizer dart . . .

  Deafened by the blast, Duncan hadn’t even heard the shot.

  Takeo’s head fell back. He garbled something, choking up a thick white froth—then went rigid and fell back to the floor.

  Before Duncan could move, something struck him square in the throat like a punch to the larynx. He scrabbled and knocked the dart off, furious at being caught off guard.

  Despite his forewarning, it seemed he had still underestimated Dr. Polk. But there was nothing he could do now except curse her.

  Fuck you, bitch . . .

  LORNA WATCHED THE second man drop. She could tell he fought against the tranquilizer. But even a pinprick of M99 could be fatal. And she’d shot them both in the throat, where blood vessels were rich, and unloaded enough drugs to drop a rhino.

  Still, she waited for thirty seconds until there was not even a twitch.

  But she dared wait no longer.

  Across the room, the flames spread, making the night-vision goggles a hindrance. She swept them off, cautiously stepped out, and headed toward the exit. She didn’t want to risk being trapped here by the fire. She also wanted another weapon. Her rifle had held only the two cartridges. She was out of ammunition.

  She crossed to the first man and scooped his rifle from the floor. It was heavy, muscular, and unfamiliar. She studied the weapon as she sidled past the second man—but as she stepped away, something snagged her ankle, jerked her leg, and flipped her face forward to the ground.

  DUNCAN ROSE AS the doctor’s face struck the floor. She cried out and tried to roll over, dazed, her chin split and bloody. With a savage grin, he climbed on top of her, swung his Sig Sauer, and cracked the pistol’s butt against the back of her skull.

  Under him, her body went slack. Out cold. Only she wasn’t playing possum like he’d been doing a moment ago.

  In the end, who underestimated who, Dr. Polk?

  Duncan rubbed his throat. It still stung from the impact of the dart. He’d likely be hoarse for days. But nothing worse. The dart had struck his throat mike, blunting the needle enough that it only lodged shallowly into a thick callus of scar tissue. Not a hard target, considering most of his neck was wrapped in leathery scars from that old attack.