Scopes came nosing around, he’d notice the heavy use of resources. Or one of his network lackeys would point it out to him. And how the hell was he going to reply to Scopes’s e-mail?
Suddenly the datastream was interrupted.
Guy? Are you there?
We’re here. What’s wrong?
Who is this ‘we’? Is someone else there with you?
My lab assistant is also aware of the situation.
Very good. Now, listen to me. Is there anyone else on site who can help you?
No. We’re on our own. Dr. Levine, let me continue the upload.
There’s no time for that. I’ve received enough already to see what the problem is, and what I don’t have I can get from the GeneDyne net. Thank you for trusting me with this. I’ll see that the proper authorities are immediately called in to handle the situation.
Listen, Dr. Levine, we need to get out of here. We believe the OSHA investigator who came here may have been killed.
Of course. Getting you out will be my highest priority. You and de Vaca keep on as you have been and don’t make any attempts to escape. Just stay calm. Okay?
Okay.
Guy, your work has been brilliant. Tell me how you stumbled across this.
As Carson prepared to type his response, a sudden chill shot through him.
Who is this? he typed.
Suddenly the pixels on the screen began to dissolve into a snowstorm of white and black. The speaker next to the terminal came to life with a squeal of static. De Vaca gasped in surprise. Carson, rooted to his chair, watched the screen in disbelief, despair turning his limbs to lead. Was that the sound of raucous laughter, blending with the squeal of static in an infernal fugue? Was that a face, forming slowly out of the chaos on the screen: a face with jug ears, thick glasses, and impertinent cowlick?
Suddenly, the screen went blank, and the hiss of static abruptly cut off. The room was plunged in silent darkness! And then Carson heard the lonesome wail of the Mount Dragon alarm, rising in intensity across the desert sands.
PART THREE
Carson met de Vaca’s eyes.
“Let’s go,” he hissed, powering down the terminal with a stab of his finger.
They eased out of the radiology lab, closing the door quietly behind them. Quickly, Carson scanned the immediate area. Quartz emergency beacons had come up along the perimeter fence. As he watched, Carson saw klieg lights snap into ivory brilliance, first in the front guard tower, then in the rear. The twin beams began slowly scanning the compound. There was no moon, and large sections of the facility were sunken in pools of impenetrable darkness. He urged de Vaca forward into the shadow of the machine shop. They crept along the base of the building and around a corner, then scurried across a walkway to a dark area behind the incinerator building.
They heard a shout and the distant running of feet.
“It’ll take them a few minutes to get organized,” Carson said. “This is our chance to get the hell out.” He patted his pocket, ensuring that the CDs and the evidence they contained were still safe. “Looks like you’ll get a chance to test your hot-wiring skills, after all. Let’s grab a Hummer while we still can.”
De Vaca hesitated.
“Let’s move!” he urged.
“We can’t,” she whispered fiercely in his ear. “Not without destroying the stocks of X-FLU first.”
“Are you crazy?” Carson snapped.
“If we leave X-FLU in the hands of these nuts, we won’t survive even if we do escape. You saw what happened to Vanderwagon, what was happening to Harper. All it takes is one person to walk out with a vial of X- FLU, and you can kiss your ass good-bye.”
“We sure as hell can’t take them with us.”
“No, but listen. I know how we can destroy X-FLU and escape at the same time.”
Carson saw dark figures running across the compound, guards holding ugly-looking assault weapons. He pulled de Vaca farther into the shadows.
“We have to enter the Fever Tank to do it,” de Vaca continued.
“The hell with that. We’ll be trapped like rats.”
“Listen, Carson, that’s the
Carson thought for a moment. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Even a madman wouldn’t go back in there right now.”
“Trust me.” De Vaca grabbed his hand and pulled him around the far side of the incinerator.
“Wait, Susana—”
“Move your ass,
Carson followed her across a dark courtyard to the inner perimeter. They dropped into the shadows of the operations building, breathing heavily.
Suddenly a shot rang out, cracking across the desert night. Several others followed in rapid succession.
“They’re shooting at shadows,” Carson said.
“Or perhaps each other,” came the reply. “Who knows how far gone some of them are?”
A klieg light was making a slow arc toward them, and they ducked into the darkened operations building. After a hurried reconnoiter, they ran down the deserted hall and into the elevator that led to the BSL-5 entrance.
“I think you’d better tell me your plan,” said Carson as they descended.
She. looked at him, violet eyes wild. “Listen carefully. Remember old Pavel, who fixed my CD player? I’ve been meeting him in the canteen for backgammon. He likes to talk, probably more than he should. He told me that, back when the military funded this site, they insisted on the installation of a fail-safe device. Something to safeguard against a catastrophic release of a hot agent within the Fever Tank. It was taken off-line after Mount Dragon went private, but the mechanisms were never actually dismantled. Pavel even explained how easily it could be reactivated.”
“Susana, how could—”
“Shut up and listen. We’re gonna blow this whole
“Yeah, right. And fry us, too.”
“No. It’ll take several minutes for the airflow to reverse. All we have to do is set the alert, get out, and wait for the explosion. Then we can snag a Hummer in the uproar.”
The elevator door whispered open on a shadowy corridor. They moved quickly to the gray metal door leading into the Fever Tank. Carson spoke his name into the voice-recognition box and the door clicked open.
“You know, they could be watching us right now,” he said as he struggled into his bluesuit.
“They could,” de Vaca said. “But considering all the hell that’s breaking loose up there, I think they have more important cameras to monitor.”
They checked each other’s suits for safety, then stepped into decontam. As Carson stood in the sheets of poisonous liquid, staring at the dim alien figure of de Vaca standing beside him, a sense of unreality began to creep over him.
