Two Weeks' Notice

Zaragosa had to be seen to take action. He figured by using you we could send you into a trap, get you blown to bits, and take care of two birds with one stone. Like I said, he’s an accountant. All about saving resources. And it isn’t Pharmadene, sweetie. Pharmadene doesn’t exist anymore, except as a name on a letterhead. The government controls it—you’re absolutely right about that—but you know what the government is particularly good at doing?”

“Screwing up?” Annie said.

“Huh,” Jane said, and gave Annalie a longer, more thoughtful look. “That’s a valid point. But no. They like to give work to contractors. The FBI is overworked and underpaid, and they’ve got terrorists to chase, not to mention interstate bank robbers and kidnappers and serial killers.”

“So they outsourced,” Bryn said. “Outsourced what, exactly?”

Jane put a finger to her lips, crossing an impish smile. “That would be telling,” she said. “Would you like to guess?”

“The incubation?”

“Nice, for shooting blind.”

“Why did he make me point out the facility?”

“Killing time.” Jane shrugged. “I was late getting here. And I guess he just wanted to confirm that you really did know where you were kept. Last nail in your coffin, Bryn. By the way, FG runs about a thousand other medically related businesses, but their real business happens to be in bioweapons research and development. Who told you about the incubation process?”

The question was slipped in smoothly, in the same lazy tone, but Bryn’s nerves were raw and razor sharp. She didn’t answer. She and Jane continued to exchange stares for so long that Bryn lost count of her heartbeats, and then Jane finally shrugged.

“Doesn’t really matter,” she said. “You have a pretty limited circle of friends, Bryn. We roll them up; we get everyone who might know. Sorry, Annie, but that includes family, too. You’re just along for the ride. Sucks, I know.” Jane looked over her shoulder to Robinson. “Pete, do we have a twenty on Patrick?”

“Not at present,” he said. “I have a team at the estate, but nobody’s home. She even brought the dogs with her, which means McCallister and the butler aren’t planning to come back.”

“Do you know where they are, Bryn?”

“Not a clue,” she said. “And he’s not a butler.”

“Amusing that you think that matters, Bryn. All right. This has been really nice, and Annie, lovely to meet you, but I’ve got to get back to work tracking down all the cockroaches running from the light. Tedious.” Jane rose and went to the door, opened it, and said, “In case you’re wondering, the oven you saw on the surveillance? That’s here. It’s where they dispose of live Revivals they’re done using. Sorry I can’t watch, but I’ll be sure to run the tape later.”

The door slammed shut behind her with a boom, and Bryn and Annie were left with Robinson and his three guards. The man had a blank, soulless look in his eyes. There was no point in appealing to his humanity, Bryn realized; he didn’t see either one of them as remotely like him.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Now.”

Chapter 16

There was a time for fighting for their lives, and it came as they stepped outside the conference room.

Annie had been the first one out, and her flinch and attempt to pull free of the guard holding her was Bryn’s first clue that something was wrong—more wrong. Then she caught a glimpse of the two medical gurneys lined up in the hallway, complete with restraints, and experienced a horrible flashback of being strapped down, Jane, the spoon, the surveillance video of Jason screaming in the incinerator’s flames.…

And Bryn snapped. Hard and clean.

Her elbow caught the first guard right where it should—squarely in the nose, shattering it and sending him reeling back off-balance. Bryn spun and followed with a sharp heel-of-the-hand blow that drove the broken bone up into his brain.

His eyes rolled up to show whites, and he dropped. Dead, or so badly disabled it wouldn’t matter in terms of the fight. Bryn went down with him, which led to a confusion of people tripping over their bodies as she wrestled the gun out of his limp, warm hand.

She rolled, sending another guard reeling for balance, and while he was gaining it, she shot him three times. The bullets entered under his chin and exited through the top of his skull in a bright red mist.

Two down, but her window of opportunity had snapped shut. These weren’t mall cops; they were highly trained security personnel, most likely with military backgrounds themselves. As she reached to retrieve the second guard’s gun, she took fire from the third, the one holding Annie as a shield.

The bullets hit her in the side, the back, and the shoulder—not the head, which would have stopped her. The damage was probably fatal, but not immediately so, and she didn’t fucking care. At all. Bryn’s legs went numb, but she twisted around and aimed left-handed.

The agent was almost completely covered up by her sister, and he fired again, missing Bryn’s head by inches.

“Annie, drop!” she yelled, and shifted her aim to Robinson, who was in the process of drawing his sidearm. She killed him with three shots to the face, counting on the fact that it would take Annie a second to process her instructions, and sure enough, her sister had just decided to release her knees and drop when Bryn guided the muzzle back.

The agent was pulled inevitably forward to hold on to Annie—off-balance and with too many things on his mind. He fired, but missed, and then his hostage’s head dipped, and Bryn had a good, hard target.

She fired three more shots, and he fell backward, dragging Annie with him. She fought free of his limp arms, grabbed his gun, and stumbled over to Bryn. “Get up!” Annie screamed, and dragged at her elbow. “God, Bryn, get up!”

“Can’t,” Bryn said. She felt terribly calm just now. “One of the bullets hit my spine, it’ll take time to repair. Go, Annie.”

“Go where?” Her sister was crying, on the verge of hysteria. “Bryn, get up!”

“Try to get to the loading docks—that’s probably the best chance of an open exit.” There, on the opposite side of the hall, was the locked door with the ominous biohazard sticker. “Drag Robinson down there. Hurry!”

Annie grabbed the fallen Robinson by the collar and dragged him over the guards’ bodies, then down the hall. There were alarms sounding, and it was a matter of seconds before this would all be for nothing.

“Use his palm on the scanner!” she said. “Then swipe his card!”

Annie did it, but she had to swipe twice before the lock clicked open. She grabbed the door and swung it open, propped Robinson’s body against it, and came back to grab Bryn under the arms and drag her in that direction. Then she kicked the dead agent out of the way and slammed the door shut. “They can get in,” she said. “And we kind of left a trail.” Of blood. Bryn’s blood.

“I know that,” Bryn said. They were in an air lock with thick glass inset into the next door, and another scanner and—this time—a numeric keypad. Beyond that glass was another room.

It looked like a hospital ward. Gurneys, each docked at a medical monitoring station with readouts.

Hundreds of gurneys, all full. Most of them were occupied by elderly people, but there were a few younger ones…and Bryn recognized two of the faces.

Riley Block and Chandra Patel. Hooked up to machines, lying as still and silent as all the others in that room. There were two people awake, wearing negative-pressure biohazard suits, checking machines and making notes on clipboards.

Bryn raised her gun and fired into the glass, one pull after another. The first two only cracked the surface; the fourth punched straight through, and the fifth broke half the glass free of the mounting.

A new alarm started sounding. The two Pharmadene employees inside the room turned to stare in confusion, but Bryn wasn’t worried about them; they were lab dweebs, unarmed and about as dangerous as the Pillsbury