“Peter! The monkeys!” he yelled as the Brit came through.
The benefit of Omidi’s guards’ being completely preoccupied with the animals on the ceiling was that it made them easy targets. They crumpled unceremoniously to the floor when Smith put a single round into each of their chests.
“Stop shooting!” Smith yelled as Howell crammed himself into a corner and began tracking a monkey darting across an oblong light fixture hanging on cables. No one seemed to hear, so he threw himself over Farrokh, grabbing the closest man’s rifle and giving it a hard jerk. “Stop!”
A series of bulbs exploded as Smith went for the next man firing out of turn. In the dark, their chances against these little demons went to precisely zero. He managed to yank the gun from him and was trying to get to the last man shooting when one of the monkeys dropped down and did his job for him.
The young man screamed and dropped his rifle, clawing at the animal sinking its fangs into the back of his neck.
It was just the opportunity Howell needed. His bullet shattered the right half of the monkey’s skull and passed through, severing the desperate man’s spinal cord. A quick and humane end for both.
The last monkey was smaller and faster but obviously confused by the shadows created by the swinging of the last light fixture. Farrokh and his men tracked it with their guns but to their credit managed to control their fear and not fire.
The animal leapt for the wall and missed the hole in the concrete it was going for, causing it to somersault to the floor. The impact dazed it, slowing its chaotic movements enough to make it a viable target. Howell’s first shot spun it around and his second tore away most of its chest.
Suddenly, all that was audible in the room was their ragged breathing and the creaking of the light. Smith was the first to stand, feeling a little disoriented in the stillness. He pulled Farrokh to his feet and then held a hand out to the other three men. They just stared blankly at him as Howell started toward a steep ramp leading into the earth.
“Look on the bright side,” the Brit said as he disappeared around the corner. “How much worse could it possibly get?”
By the time they reached the main level, Smith’s heart had slowed to what still felt like twice its normal rate. He was on point as he came around a blind corner, rifle thrust out in front of him.
Nothing.
“Clear!” he said, aware of the cameras looking down at them but unable to do much about it.
Halfway down the passage they came upon three corpses wearing lab coats, each with a neat bullet hole in the back of the head.
“Nobody touch anything.”
When he got no response, he turned back to Farrokh. “Are you going to translate?”
The Iranian gave him a quizzical look and thumbed back at his men. “Do you really think it’s necessary?”
He was right. They were clearly petrified. It was unlikely that there was enough money in the world to get them to come into contact with those bodies.
They continued on, clearing every room in sequence, finding some empty and others strewn with corpses. None had been attacked by the animals they’d run into when they entered, though. They’d been executed.
Smith backed out of a room containing two people slumped over their desks, once again feeling a sense of relief at not finding Sarie. In truth, though, it would be better if he had. His problems were bad enough without her in the hands of Iranian Intelligence.
A dull whine started in the distance, and he froze, listening to it separate into a chorus of shrieks as it closed on them.
“Are you hearing that?” Howell said. “It’s not going to be two of them this time.”
He was right. It was impossible to pick out individual voices in the screams of the approaching animals. If his team got caught in the confined space of the hallway, they wouldn’t last thirty seconds.
“Inside!” Smith said, leaping back into the room with the others close behind. He slammed the door behind them only to find that the deadbolt was extended far enough to prevent it from fully closing.
“Farrokh. The lock. Can you get it to retract?”
The Iranian knelt to examine it. “No. It’s electronic. Controlled centrally, probably.”
“Incoming!” Howell shouted, grabbing a rifle and slipping the barrel through the narrow gap between the door and the jamb.
There were at least ten of them, coats so wet with blood that they were leaving streaks on the floor and walls as they charged. Smith dropped beneath the Brit, aiming his.45 into the corridor and trying futilely to track individual targets.
“Farrokh! Hold the door.”
The Iranian shoved his back against it and waved his men over to help him. Their prayers were just barely audible over the howls.
81
The arm appeared again, flicking around the crack in the door and grasping desperately at darkness. Sarie jerked back, tangling herself in the coats hanging in the crowded closet but keeping a death grip on the leather belt looped over the knob.
She stabbed at the arm with the sharp end of a broken broom handle, connecting with the blood-soaked biceps on her fifth try. The man gave no indication that he even noticed, adjusting his strategy from groping blindly for her to trying to pry open the door.
All she wanted to do was cover her ears to block out his enraged screams. And maybe she should. There was no way out of the facility, and she would eventually get tired, while he would just keep coming until his heart failed. If she let him in, it would be over in a minute. Maybe less.
He managed to get a shoulder through, and she could see his face in the dim light — the saliva hanging in long, pink strands across his beard, the wide eyes trying to catch a glimpse of his prey.
She swung the broom handle at his face, and it tore a deep gash beneath his eye. Other than making him even more grotesque, though, it accomplished nothing. Dropping her useless weapon, she put a foot against the wall and gripped the belt with both hands, trying to use her superior leverage to trap him between the door and the jamb.
Her forearms felt like they were on fire and her palms were slick with sweat, causing the leather to slip slowly but irretrievably through her fingers. The door opened another few centimeters, and the man’s head intruded a little farther, the gash in his face flowing with parasite-?infested blood. She felt the heat of it splash across her hands, but it didn’t matter. In a few seconds she wouldn’t be able to fight anymore — she’d lose her grip, the door would fly open…
And then he was gone.
The extended deadbolt clanged loudly as she pulled it into the metal jamb, her mind unable to process the meaning of the muffled shouts and gunfire outside.
A few moments later, fingers curled around the edge of the door and began trying to pry it open again.
“Get away from me!” she screamed, grabbing the broom handle and narrowly missing the hand when it was jerked away at the last moment.
“Sarie! Is that you?”
The hand reappeared and she slashed at it again.
“Let go of the door, Sarie! And for God’s sake, stop trying to stab me!”
The accent wasn’t Iranian. It was American. And there was something familiar about it.
“Sarie. Listen to me. Open the door, okay?”
The belt fell from her hands and she squinted into the light as Jon Smith lifted her from the closet.
“Are you all right?” he said, looking her over for cuts that the parasite could have invaded, finally settling on
