Bloodline

forgotten.

Gray waited for the doors to close, then turned to Robert. “Looks like you’re out of a job.” He tilted his cuffed wrists toward the man. “How about we get these off?”

Robert looked both angry and grief-stricken.

Been there, Gray thought.

As the man undid his cuffs, Gray asked the question he was afraid to know the answer to. “What’s this fail- safe?”

Robert’s face went grave. “A thermobaric bomb. One will incinerate the vaults down here. But over at the lab…” He shook his head, looking sick.

“What’s going to happen at the lab?”

2:51 P.M.

The evacuation alarms echoed across the facility as red warning lights flashed, turning the world shades of crimson.

“Sinkhole,” Fielding explained as he shoved papers into a briefcase.

“What?” Edward asked, sticking close to the man. Others fled in various directions, grabbing what they could.

“A majority of the complex sits above a dry underground lake. Miners at the turn of the century discovered the lake below, fed by an underground river. Later, engineers capped that river during construction, built scaffolding to support the lab over the pit. We’re not in an underground lab.” He snapped his briefcase closed with a note of finality. “We’re on a massive suspension bridge over a yawning pit. And they’re about to blow out that suspension.”

He moved to his workstation.

“It will create a twenty-acre-wide sinkhole that will flood as that main river is unplugged. And a new lake will be born over our graves if we don’t get clear of here.”

Edward urged the man. “Then let’s bloody well go.”

“I’m not going to lose my research-or my work.” Fielding tapped at a screen. “This will be their ultimate test.”

“What are you doing?”

“Giving them a fighting chance.” Fielding leaned to a microphone as green lights flashed down row after row of pod designations. He spoke the final command order, transmitted to all of his army. “SURVIVE.”

Beneath Edward’s feet, a low rumble rose. He backed toward the door. What was Fielding thinking, unleashing that horde now?

“Just the generators powering up,” Fielding assured him, picking up his briefcase. “The activation sequence and warm-up mode takes eight minutes. We’ll be far away by then.”

Still, Edward hurried to the door. He turned to see something leap from the worktable and latch onto Fielding’s back, landing square between his shoulder blades. It was one of his new hexapods. In the excitement, the researcher had forgotten he’d activated this one earlier, left it on standby mode while he tinkered.

Fielding screamed and struggled to reach the beast, but its ice-pick-thin legs, sharpened to surgical points, punctured deep, latching on firmly.

Edward backed toward the door. Fielding had explained about this newest pod, a nester. Its bulbous body housed a swarm of smaller robots.

Fielding backed toward him. “Get it off! Get it off!”

Edward retreated, unable to tear his gaze away. Now, latched against his back, the pregnant creature vomited a stream of smaller bots from its swollen abdomen. They spread like fire ants-racing down his back, up his neck, over his shoulders, along his chest and limbs.

“No, no, no…” Fielding cried, spinning in a circle, knowing what was coming.

Then, as if on cue, the march of the bots all stopped at once-and began drilling into his flesh.

The animal howl of pain finally broke through Edward’s shocked paralysis. He twisted away. He knew what they were drilling for. The other, larger pods were attuned to body heat. These smaller ones were attracted to the sound of beating hearts.

They would drill and drill until that beat was finally silenced.

But from the endless howling that chased Edward toward the surface, it took a long time.

2:52 P.M .

As minutes ticked down, Gray lay on his side, rubbing his chafed wrists. The secretary of state of the United States knelt over his head, picking a plug of C-4 out of his ear canal, using a three-thousand-year-old sliver of Egyptian bone, a funerary object stolen from one of the cabinets.

“That looks like most of it,” Robert said.

Good.

Gray didn’t want to be down here when the thermobaric weapon exploded. Fuel-air bombs created blast waves that rivaled nuclear bombs and ignited oxygen to five thousand degrees.

Gray rolled to his rear end and set to work digging out the earpiece and blasting cap. He used a pair of tweezers to poke, prod, and pull the device free. It felt like yanking a walnut out, leaving his ear ringing.

“Got it.”

He hurried and gathered everything together. The barrier was layered tempered glass, too thick to break through with anything in the room. He stuck the reassembled explosive charge to the glass wall to the left of the air-lock door. He centered it in the middle of the etched symbol of the genetic cross.

“Get back,” he warned.

Gray carried the transmitter that Robert had given him. They found shelter behind a case, and Gray pressed the button. In the enclosed space, the blast felt like two anvils striking the sides of his head. He coughed against the smoke, reeking of burned tar, and hurried Robert to his feet. He waved a hand in front of his face and saw the tempered glass barrier had shattered to a bluish-white crumble.

With his ears deafened, he had to yell to hear his own voice.

“Out!”

Gray cast one last regretful glance behind him, at the vast wealth of history about to be destroyed. His eyes settled on that staff-the Bachal Isu, the staff of Christ-but it was sealed behind bulletproof glass. He did not have the time or force of strength to rescue it.

With a heavy heart, he had to abandon it.

Robert stood on shaky feet, dazed by the blast, but he allowed himself to be dragged along. It took his palm print and code to call the elevator back down. As they waited, Robert stared toward the smoky museum.

“Maybe it’s better I should die,” Robert said. “After what I did…”

Gray had to keep the man motivated and moving. “Robert, I need to share something with you. Your brother, Jimmy, and his daughter, Amanda.”

“What about them?” Robert asked, with a catch in his voice.

“They’re both still alive.”

Robert flinched, turning sharply to him. “What?”

As the elevator arrived and the doors opened, Gray gave him a thumbnail sketch of the story.

“And then there’s Amanda’s son to think about,” Gray said. “You mentioned he was here.”

Robert stared sullenly as the cage rose. “He was, but he was kidnapped again.”

This time, Gray jerked his head in the man’s direction.

Robert explained, “By another captive. A medical doctor. A woman investigating our fertility clinic.”

Gray pushed his shoulder and stared him hard in the face. “Lisa Cummings?”

“You know her?”

“Was there another woman with her?”

“Yes. They were both at the lab complex, with my grandnephew. But it’s ten miles away. We can’t even get