pistol might not be enough to discourage an assault. Then, even with Danny jamming the enemy’s weapons, she and Elliot would be able to escape only if they slaughtered their way out, and she knew that neither of them had the stomach for that much murder, perhaps not even in self-defense.
Laughter pealed from the nearby room again, and Elliot said softly, “Where now?”
“I don’t know.”
This level was the same size as the one on which they entered the complex: more than four hundred feet on one side, and more than one hundred feet on the other. Forty thousand or fifty thousand square feet to search. How many rooms? Forty? Fifty? Sixty? A hundred, counting closets?
Just as she was beginning to despair, the air began to turn cold again. She looked around, waiting for some sign from her child, and she and Elliot twitched in surprise when the overhead fluorescent tube winked off, then came on again. The tube to the left of the first one also flickered. Then a third tube sputtered, still farther to the left.
They followed the blinking lights to the end of the short wing in which the elevators were situated. The corridor terminated in an airtight steel door similar to those found on submarines; the burnished metal glowed softly, and light gleamed off the big round-headed rivets.
As Tina and Elliot reached that barrier, the wheel-like handle in the center spun around. The door cycled open. Because he had the pistol, Elliot went through first, but Tina was close behind him.
They were in a rectangular room approximately forty feet by twenty. At the far end a window filled the center of the other short wall and apparently offered a view of a cold-storage vault; it was white with frost. To the right of the window was another airtight door like the one through which they’d just entered. On the left, computers and other equipment extended the length of the chamber. There were more video displays than Tina could count at a glance; most were switched on, and data flowed in the form of graphs, charts, and numbers. Tables were arranged along the fourth wall, covered with books, file folders, and numerous instruments that Tina could not identify.
A curly-haired man with a bushy mustache sat at one of the tables. He was tall, broad-shouldered, in his fifties, and he was wearing medical whites. He was paging through a book when they burst in. Another man, younger than the first, clean-shaven, also dressed in white, was sitting at a computer, reading the information that flashed onto the display screen. Both men looked up, speechless with amazement.
Covering the strangers with the menacing, silencer-equipped pistol, Elliot said, “Tina, close the door behind us. Lock it if you can. If security discovers we’re here, at least they won’t be able to get their hands on us for a while.”
She swung the steel door shut. In spite of its tremendous weight, it moved more smoothly and easily than an average door in an average house. She spun the wheel and located a pin that, when pushed, prevented anyone from turning the handle back to the unlocked position.
“Done,” she said.
The man at the computer suddenly turned to the keyboard and started typing.
“Stop that,” Elliot advised.
But the guy wasn’t going to stop until he had instructed the computer to trigger the alarms.
Maybe Danny could prevent the alarms from sounding, and maybe he could not, so Elliot fired once, and the display screen dissolved into thousands of splinters of glass.
The man cried out, pushed his wheeled chair away from the keyboard, and thrust to his feet. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one who has the gun,” Elliot said sharply. “If that’s not good enough for you, I can shut you down the same way I did that damn machine. Now park your ass in that chair before I blow your fuckin’ head off.”
Tina had never heard Elliot speak in this tone of voice, and his furious expression was sufficient to chill even her. He seemed to be utterly vicious and capable of anything.
The young man in white was impressed too. He sat down, pale.
“All right,” Elliot said, addressing the two men. “If you cooperate, you won’t get hurt.” He waved the barrel of the gun at the older man. “What’s your name?”
“Carl Dombey.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“I work here,” Dombey said, puzzled by the question.
“I mean, what’s your job?”
“I’m a research scientist.”
“What science?”
“My degrees are in biology and biochemistry.”
Elliot pointed at the younger man. “What about you?”
“What about me?” the younger one said sullenly.
Elliot extended his arm, lining up the muzzle of the pistol with the bridge of the guy’s nose.
“I’m Dr. Zachariah,” the younger man said.
“Biology?”
“Yes. Specializing in bacteriology and virology.”
Elliot lowered the gun but still kept it pointed in their general direction. “We have some questions, and you two better have the answers.”
Dombey, who clearly did not share his associate’s compulsion to play hero, remained docile in his chair. “Questions about what?”
Tina moved to Elliot’s side. To Dombey, she said, “We want to know what you’ve done to him, where he is.”
“Who?”
“My boy. Danny Evans.”
She could not have said anything else that would have had a fraction as much impact on them as the words she’d spoken. Dombey’s eyes bulged. Zachariah regarded her as he might have done if she had been dead on the floor and then miraculously risen.
“My God,” Dombey said.
“How can you be here?” Zachariah asked. “You can’t. You can’t possibly be here.”
“It seems possible to me,” Dombey said. “In fact, all of a sudden, it seems inevitable. I knew this whole business was too dirty to end any way but disaster.” He sighed, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. “I’ll answer all of your questions, Mrs. Evans.”
Zachariah swung toward him. “You can’t do that!”
“Oh, no?” Dombey said. “Well, if you don’t think I can, just sit back and listen. You’re in for a surprise.”
“You took a loyalty oath,” Zachariah said. “A secrecy oath. If you tell them anything about this… the scandal… the public outrage… the release of military secrets…” He was sputtering. “You’ll be a traitor to your country.”
“No,” Dombey said. “I’ll be a traitor to this installation. I’ll be a traitor to my colleagues, maybe. But not to my country. My country’s far from perfect, but what’s been done to Danny Evans isn’t something that
“Dr. Tamaguchi isn’t a megalomaniac,” Dr. Zachariah said, as if genuinely offended.
“Of course he is,” Dombey said. “He thinks he’s a great man of science, destined for immortality, a man of great works. And a lot of people around him, a lot of people protecting him, people in research and people in charge of project security — they’re also megalomaniacs. The things done to Danny Evans don’t constitute ‘great work.’ They won’t earn anyone immortality. It’s sick, and I’m washing my hands of it.” He looked at Tina again. “Ask your questions.”
“No,” Zachariah said. “You damn fool.”
Elliot took the remaining rope from Tina, and he gave her the pistol. “I’ll have to tie and gag Dr. Zachariah, so we can listen to Dr. Dombey’s story in peace. If either one of them makes a wrong move, blow him away.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t hesitate.”
“You’re not going to tie me,” Zachariah said.
Smiling, Elliot advanced on him with the rope.
