Only the guard in the Humvee remained on this side of the big lodge.
“Now,” Jon said.
They slipped through the pines to the clearing. Out of sight of his colleagues, the guard in the Humvee was dozing in the warm sunshine, slumped in the driver's seat.
“You want to work around behind the Humvee, Randi?” Jon suggested. He could feel his pulse begin to pound behind his ears. “I'll watch from here and cover you. When you get there, give me a signal, and I'll distract him from this side. If he wakes up too soon and hears you, I'll take him out.”
“I'll wave a hankie.” She gave a short smile. “Well, a Kleenex.” She was relieved to be in action again.
Her heart pumping, she melted among the trees until she was out of Smith's view. He crouched in the shadows just inside the forest. Beretta ready, he watched the dozing guard and waited. Five minutes passed. Then he saw a flash of white directly behind the parked Humvee. The guard stirred, moved in his seat, but did not open his eyes. As the man settled in once more, Jon loped straight toward the squat, open vehicle.
But just as Jon was halfway across the clearing, the guard's eyes snapped open. He grabbed his M-16. Randi materialized behind him. Her pale hair was a wreath of sunlight around her head, and her beautiful face was stony with concentration. Her body moved with the fluidity of a feral cat as she sprinted silently to the topless Humvee, ran up over the back, balanced one foot on the top of the backseat and the other on the rollover rail, and pressed her Uzi down into the back of the guard's head. It took Jon's breath away. He had never seen a woman move like that.
Her voice was cold and clear. “Release the rifle.”
The guard hesitated a second as if calculating his chances, then slowly lay the rifle on the seat beside him. He placed his hands flat on his thighs in plain sight, like someone who knew the proper procedure for being arrested.
“Good decision.”
Jon reached the Humvee and removed the M-16. He and Randi marched the guard back to where Marty waited. The three worked quickly together. Marty ripped the man's shirt into strips. Jon and Randi used the guard's belt and the strips of cloth to gag and tie him hand and foot. Trussed up, unable to speak, he lay on a bed of pine needles, shooting angry looks.
Smith took the guard's ring of keys. “The two others out front won't expect us from inside the lodge.”
“I like that.” Randi nodded, approving the plan.
He looked at her a little longer than necessary, but she did not seem to notice.
Marty sighed. “I know what you're going to tell me. `If you see anything, shoot.' Gad. And to think two weeks ago I'd never even held a gun. I'm devolving.”
They left Marty shaking his head as he guarded the disabled sentry and trotted down the slope to a side rear entrance of the lodge. The scent of pine was aromatic but somehow cloying.
As Randi stood guard, Jon found the right key and unlocked the door. They stepped warily inside a small foyer where sunlight beamed down from clerestory windows and more shone ahead at the far end of a hall. Closed doors lined the hallway, and there was the faint odor of good cigars as they padded toward the second source of light.
“What's that?” Randi stopped, her athletic shoes motionless on the parquet floor.
Smith shook his head. “I didn't hear anything.”
She was frozen there, her even features pursed in concentration. “It's gone. Whatever the sound was, I can't hear it now.”
“We'd better try all the doors.”
She took one side, and he the other. They turned every knob.
“Locked.” Jon shook his head. “They look as if they might be guest rooms or offices.”
“We'd better leave them until later,” Randi decided.
They passed a staircase that rose to a landing and turned. They could see nothing above the landing. They continued on, listening. The odor of cigars increased. Edgy, Jon's gaze swept everywhere. At last they stood at the timbered entry to a cavernous living room decorated with rustic wood-and-leather furniture, brass-and-wood lamps, and low wood tables. It had to be the big room Marty had described. Across it extended a wall of windows through which sunlight flooded. There was also an enormous stone fireplace in which coals glowed, warming the room against the October chill. The expanse of windows looked out to the lake through the dense trees, and in the middle of the wall were double front doors that opened out to a covered porch.
Without speaking, the silent pair slipped together across the room, stood beside the doors, and surveyed the porch. Beyond the porch, on the lawn off to the left, were the two remaining guards relaxing in Adirondack chairs, smoking and chatting, their rifles across their knees. They were gazing out at the valley where the colors of autumn had turned the sweep of hardwood trees to rich golds and reds among the green pines.
She was watching the sentries. “They're perfect targets,” she murmured.
“Lazy idiots. They think because Tremont is gone they can do what they want.”
“If it comes to shooting,” Randi whispered, “I'll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left. With luck, they'll surrender.”
“That's what we want.” Smith nodded in agreement. He was getting used to working with her. In fact, he was enjoying it. Now, if they could just do it well enough to survive… “Let's go.”
They eased the doors open and padded out onto the porch as the two men talked and smoked in their chairs. The sun was hard and flinty as Jon's gaze locked onto the guards sitting directly below, unknowing.
The taller guard flicked his cigarette onto the grassy lawn and stood. “Time to do another turn around the property.” Before Jon or Randi could move, he saw them. “Bob!” he called in alarm.
“Lay down your weapons,” Jon commanded.
Randi's voice was tense. “Do it slowly. So no one makes any mistakes.”
Both men froze. One was completely on his feet but only half-turned to face them, while the other was merely halfway out of his chair. Neither's weapon was pointed at Jon and Randi, while Jon and Randi had the guards completely covered. It was a surprise ambush that had worked, and there was no doubt in anyone's minds that unless the sentries wanted to commit suicide, they would do exactly as told.
“Shit,” one muttered.
The timbered grounds were quiet as Smith locked the three tied-up sentries in an outbuilding behind the garage. Marty stood in the shadows next to it, while Randi was out of sight, monitoring the lodge for any activity. Marty's round face was worried, and his green eyes had a dark look, as if he were in a world he had never wanted to know anything about. His plump body seemed desolate in his baggy pants and jacket.
He looked up at Jon. “You want me to stay here?” he asked, as if he knew the answer.
“It's safer, Mart, and we need someone to be sentry. I don't know what we're going to find in the lab. If something happens to us, you've got a chance to make it by escaping into the woods.”
Marty nodded soberly. His fingers twitched on the bullpup as if he longed for a keyboard instead. “It's okay, Jon. I know you'll be back for me. Good luck. And if I see anything” ? he gave a brave smile ? “I'll be sure to fire once.”
Smith clamped a hand on his shoulder in encouragement.
Marty patted Jon's hand. “I'll be okay. Don't worry about me. You'd better go.”
Weapons in hand, Jon and Randi met at the side door of the lodge they had used before. They exchanged a long look, and some kind of recognition passed between them. Jon moved his eyes away, and Randi found herself wondering nervously what was happening to her.
Inside the lodge, they paused at the foot of the staircase in the long hall. There had been no gunshots fired outdoors, and they hoped that whoever was at work upstairs had no idea the sentries had been taken and the lodge invaded. The whole point of this stealthy attack was to accomplish what they needed as quickly and efficiently as possible ? and to emerge alive and intact.
Warily, they padded up the stairs, rounded the landing, and continued on up. As they neared the top, there was still silence.
And then they saw why. A thick glass door with heavy glass panels on either side was set back from a small foyer area. Beyond the glass was a vast, gleaming laboratory with offices and rooms around its perimeter. Off to
