prefixed with the same three letters: IMD.
He didn't understand the significance, but plainly the bees were used in some sort of research.
Or maybe Ivar just had a real hard-on for fresh honey.
Monk moved with Creed to the closest bank. The buzzing grew louder, the agitation more frenzied. The lights, though muted, must have stirred them.
'I think they're Africanized bees,' Creed said. 'Look at how aggressive they are.'
'I don't care where they came from. What is Viatus doing with them?'
And why all this security?
Creed reached toward a small drawer in the hive window.
'Careful,' Monk warned.
Creed pinched his brows and pulled open the drawer. 'Don't worry. I've worked with bees before at my family's farm back in Ohio.'
The drawer came out to reveal a sealed box with a meshed end. A single large bee rested inside.
'The queen,' Creed said.
The bees became even more frenzied within the cage.
Monk noted that the box was stamped with the same cryptic code as the cage. As Creed returned the drawer to its slot, Monk freed a small pen camera. Pressing a button, he took a short digital video. He recorded the banks of bees and the numbers above each hive.
It could be important.
For now, the best they could do was document it all and get the hell out. Once finished recording, Monk checked his watch. He still wanted to check the room across the hall before they headed to the servers and finished their primary mission.
'C'mon,' Monk said and led his partner back out into the hallway.
Stepping across the hall, Monk pressed his palm against the other door's reader. As the door unlocked, he headed inside. It opened into an anteroom similar to the other lab. But here respirator masks hung on wall pegs to one side. Ahead, lights flickered on as before. The room beyond the door was the same size as the other.
But there were no bees.
The room held four long raised beds running the length of the room. Even from here, Monk recognized the little fleshy umbrellas growing out of the beds in riotous exuberance.
'Mushrooms,' Creed said.
Monk passed into the next room. The door opened with the small pop of an air seal. The room was negatively pressurized to keep the air inside. Monk immediately understood why.
Creed covered his mouth and nose.
The stench struck like a slap to the face. The air was muggy, hot, and smelled like a mix of brine, dead fish, and rotted meat. Monk wanted to turn tail and run out, but Painter had related his discussion with Gray.
About mushrooms.
It couldn't be a coincidence.
Monk freed his camera, ready to document it. Creed joined him. He handed over a respirator from the anteroom. Monk pulled it over his face gratefully.
At least someone's thinking...
The respirator's filters took the edge off the stink. Able to breathe, he headed to the closest bed. The mushrooms were growing out of watery black mulch that looked oily.
Creed slipped on a pair of latex gloves and joined him. He shook open another glove. 'We should get a sample of the fungus.'
Monk nodded and set about recording it all.
Creed reached toward one of the mushrooms. He delicately grabbed it by the base and pulled it up. It lifted freely-but with it came a fleshy chunk of something attached to it. Creed shuddered and dropped it in disgust. It splashed into the wet mulch, shivering the surface like a soup of loose gelatin.
Only then did Monk recognize the growth medium for the mushrooms.
Clotted blood.
'Did you see...?' Creed stammered. 'Was that...?'
Monk had noted what Creed's mushroom had been attached to. It was a kidney. And from the size of it, possibly human.
Monk waved Creed back to the gruesome task. 'Get a sample.'
With his camera recording, Monk moved down the long bed of mushrooms. The smallest were closest to the door. They were white as bone. But the mushrooms grew larger along the row, gaining a richer hue of crimson.
Monk noted a couple of brown stalks poking out of the blood. He lowered his camera for a closer look. They were not stalks. With a cold chill, he realized they were human fingers.
He reached and pinched one of the fingers with his prosthetic hand. He pulled the finger up, dragging a hand out of the muck. As he raised it higher, he saw it was attached to a forearm. Mushrooms grew out of the flesh.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly lowered the limb back into the tank. He didn't need to see any more. Entire bodies lay buried in the blood, fertilizer for the mushrooms.
He also noted the dark brown skin of the arm, an uncommon sight in snow-white Norway. Monk recalled the farm site in Africa, the one destroyed in a night of bloodshed and fire.
Had more than corn been harvested from there?
Monk found himself breathing harder. He moved quickly to the end of the row. Here the mushrooms had matured into thick stems topped by ribbed pods. They looked fleshy and fibrous.
With his prosthesis, Monk nudged one of the pods. As he touched it, the bulb contracted in a single squeeze. From its top, a dense powdery smoke puffed outward and spread quickly through the air.
Fungal spores.
Monk danced back, thankful for the respirators. He did not want to breathe in those spores.
As if signaled by the first pod, others began to erupt. Monk retreated, chased by swirling clouds of spores.
'We have to get out of here!' Monk yelled across the room, his words muffled by the respirator.
Creed had just collected a sample of the mushroom and tied it into his loose latex glove. He glanced at Monk, not understanding. But his eyes widened as more of the puffballs exploded into the air.
They had to get back out into the hall.
Suddenly, overhead vents opened in the ceiling, perhaps triggered by a biological sensor. Foam jetted out of the ceiling in a massive flush. It spread over the floor and piled up quickly. Monk ran under one of the vents and almost got knocked down by the force of it. He slipped and slid.
By the time he reached Creed, the foam was waist deep.
'Go!' Monk hollered and pointed toward the door.
Together they slammed through the first door and into the anteroom. It was also full of foam, all the way to the ceiling. They had to paw their way through it blind.
Monk hit the hallway door first.
He shoved the handle and shouldered into the door. It refused to budge. He shoved again and again, but he knew the truth.
They were locked inside.
12:08 A.M.
As smoke choked the lobby, Painter vaulted over the low wall. Fires still burned on the floor. Blood made the marble slippery. He had his pistol out and skidded straight into the masked gunman who had barreled through the front door. Focused on the bar, the assailant failed to see Painter in time. Painter fired point-blank into his chest.
The impact spun the attacker away, blood flying.
One down.
People screamed and fled out into the street or hid behind furniture. Painter sprinted straight across the open lobby.
