And somehow, that was the worst, that the environment was so familiar, a place she'd always felt at home. The few differences were dramatic ones. The room was dominated by a stainless autopsy table, fitted with velcro restraints and there were two additional hos– pital gurneys next to it, likewise fitted. As she walked over to look at one of them, she saw the dark, dried stains at either end; the thin pad was soaked with blood from where a man's ankles and wrists would be. In the back of the room was a cage the size of a large walk-in closet, heavy bars surrounding an unpadded bench. Next to the cage, several slender poles leaned against the wall, each a meter or so in length and tipped with hypodermic needles. They were the kinds of instruments used to drug wild animals, allowing the person operating them not to get within reach. Karen looked down at the gurney, lightly touching the long-dried stain, wondering what kind of person could have willingly participated in such an experi– ment. The crust of blood was old, powdery, and filled her with thoughts of what the victims must have endured, waiting in the cage, perhaps watching as some gloved madman injected a toxic, mutating virus into a helpless human being…
It was a bad place, a place of evil deeds. They'd both felt it, both been affected by the realization of what had gone on there. Karen's right eye itched, distracting her from the terrible remembrance, drawing her back to the pres– ent. She rubbed at it, then looked at her watch again. It had been only twenty minutes since the team had split, though it felt longer. There was a sound of a door opening, followed by David's excited shout through the corridor. He'd come in through the west entrance.
'Karen, John!'
John grinned at her, and she felt a wave of relief; David was okay.'Here! Keep walking!' John called back. 'Take a right at the tee!'
His footsteps pounded through the hall. In a few seconds, he appeared at the comer and jogged toward them, his face tight with concern. 'Is everything…' Karen started to ask, but David cut her off.
'Did you find the laboratory room? Room 101?'
John frowned, his smile fading. 'Yeah, it's back the way you came.'
'Did either of you touch anything? Do you have any cuts, any small wounds that might have come in contact with anything?'
Their confusion must have shown. David spoke quickly, looking back and forth between them. 'We found a journal, naming it as the room where they were infecting the Trisquads.' John smiled again. 'Well, no shit. We figured that much out in about two seconds.'
Karen held out her hands, turning them over for David to see. 'Not a scratch.' David exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. 'Oh, thank God. I had the worst feeling all the way over that something had happened. We found the researchers in block A; Ammon was right, he killed them and our 'he' has a name now. Rebecca seems certain that it's Nicolas Griffith. He was the one she recognized from Trent's list, and he has a rather sordid history, she can fill you in when we regroup…' He shook his head, a wavering smile on his lips. 'I just… I suppose I let my imagination run wild for a moment.' John smiled wider. 'Jeez, David, I had no idea you cared. Or that you thought we'd be stupid enough to stick ourselves with dirty needles in a place like this.' David laughed, a soft, shaky sound. 'Please accept my sincerest apologies.'
'Where are Steve and Rebecca?' Karen asked. 'Probably in the next test area by now. I saw them safely off to block B before I came here… did you find test seven?' 'This way,' John said, and as they started down the hall, he began to recount their run-in with the Tri-squads. Karen followed, rubbing at the maddening, elusive itch in her right eye. She must have irritated it with all of the rubbing, it seemed to be getting worse. And to top things off, she felt a headache coming on. She wiped at her eye, sighing inwardly at the timing. She never got headaches unless she was coming down with something. The swim in the ocean must have set her up nicely for a cold and from the building throb in her head, it was going to be a nasty one.
ELEVEN
After he'd instructed athens and sent him on his way, he'd prepared the syringes and decided on a place to hide. There was nothing left for him to do but wait. In spite of his earlier feelings of confidence, he was nervous now, pacing through the lab restlessly. What if Athens had forgotten how to load a rifle? What if the enclosure release didn't work, or the intruders had the firepower to stop the Ma7s?
He'd tried to prepare for every possibility, each plan unfolding into a backup, but what if everything failed, if all of them fell through? I'll kill them myself, I'll strangle them with my bare hands! They will not stop me from doing what must be done. They can't – not after all I've accomplished, not after everything I've been through to get to where I am…
For the second time that day, he flashed back to the takeover of the compound… the strange, vivid im– ages of that bright and sunny day less than a month ago. Instead of blocking the thoughts as he'd done before, he let them come, inviting them in to re– mind him of what he was capable of doing when the need arose. He abruptly stopped pacing and moved to a chair, collapsing into it and closing his eyes.
A bright and sunny day…
Once he'd realized what had to be done, he'd planned it for over two weeks, working over each detail tirelessly until he'd been satisfied that every variable had been addressed. He'd spent time reading about the Trisquads and going through the master logs, memorizing the routine of the facility. He'd watched the habits of his colleagues, learned their schedules until he could have recited them backward. He'd stared for hours at the sketches he'd made of each building, walking through them in his mind a thousand times. After careful consideration, he chose a date and several days before, he'd slipped into the Trisquad processing room and stolen several small vials of extremely powerful medication. Kylosynthesine, Mamesidine, Tralphenide – animal tranquilizers and a synthesized narcotic, some of Um– brella's finest work… It had only taken him an afternoon to get the mix the way he'd wanted it, just as he'd hoped. Then he'd waited, much as he was waiting now… The day before his plan was to unfold, he'd watched a Trisquad processing and then asked Tom Athens to come to the lab after dinner to privately discuss some thoughts he'd had on intensifying the suggestibility factor. Athens had been only too happy to accept, had listened eagerly to Griffith's description of the strain he'd already created – couched in hypothetical terms, of course – and after a nice, hot cup of laced coffee, Athens had become the first to experience Griffith's miracle. Griffith smiled, remembering those initial glorious moments, the very first -and truly the most impor– tant test of the strain's effectiveness. He'd told Athens that the only voice he could hear was that of Nicolas Griffith, that all others would be meaningless Babble and the suggestion had taken as easy as that. In the early hours of that fateful morning, he'd played a tape of one of Athens's own lectures for the compli– ant doctor and the doctor had heard nothing but gibberish. If it had failed, Griffith would have aborted the takeover, no one the wiser. He'd had an unfortunate accident in mind if the strain hadn't worked the way it was supposed to; Athens's body would have been found the next day, washed up on the rocky beach. But the incredible success of his creation had proved beyond doubt that it was meant to be, that he really had no choice but to continue…… and so, the kitchen. The drops of sedative in the coffee cups, on the pas tries, injected oh so carefully into the fruit and dissolved into the milk, the juices… Of the nineteen men and women who lived and worked in Caliban Cove, only one regularly skipped breakfast and didn't drink coffee, Kim D'Santo, the ridiculous young woman who worked with the T-Virus; Griffith had sent Athens to slit her throat as she lay sleeping, before the sun came up… and it was a bright and sunny day, cloudless and clear as they gobbled their breakfasts and swallowed their coffee, walking out into the cool morning air, collapsing to the ground, many of them not making it out of the cafeteria before they stumbled and fell, a few crying out that they 'd been poisoned as the words failed them and the drugs sent them to sleep. Griffith frowned, trying to remember what had happened next. He'd selected Thurman, unable to resist the petty pleasure of showing the good doctor what he'd created. Then Alan Kinneson, although he hadn't given the gift to Alan until later, keeping him sedated… He knew the facts: Thurman and Athens had dis– posed of the workers and piled them in block A. Lyle Ammon had managed to keep himself hidden for a time, but had been found by the Trisquads later that evening. Griffith had eaten a late supper and gone to bed, waking up early to move papers and software to the lab. These were facts, things that he knew, but for some reason, the reality had blurred and he couldn't actually remember what he had seen, what had transpired for him the rest of that day. Griffith searched through his thoughts, concentrat-ing, but could only find the same hazy and uncertain images: a blinding mid-day sun, bathing the sleeping bodies in red. The scream of a gull over the cove, relentless and wild, calling to the hot wind. A coppery smell of dirt and, and…
…blood on my hands, on the scalpel that glittered wet and sharp and plunged into soft, yielding flesh of faces and bellies and eyes and later, the thundering crash of waves in the dark and the spool of fishing line and Amman, Amman, waving…
His eyes snapped open and the nightmare was over. Shaken, Griffith looked around at the cool, soft light of the laboratory. He must have dozed off for a moment, must have. Yes, that was it. He'd fallen asleep and had a terrible
