occasionally issuing a low growl.
Sam said, “Get the key.”
Tibor gave the man the order in Hungarian, but the man shrugged and said something. Janos patted him down. “He doesn’t have it.” He ran to the desk near the door and rifled the drawers. He found a second padlock with a key in it, ran back with it, and Sam tried the key in the first padlock. It didn’t fit.
Sam said, “Tell him to take his uniform and boots off.” He added, “You strip down too, Albrecht.”
The two men obeyed, and Sam said, “Albrecht, step back and get behind something solid. Everybody else, do the same. When I shoot the padlock, the clock starts running. We have to move quickly. We dress Albrecht like us and lock this guy up in his place. Then we move fast to the van and get out of here. If anybody we meet aims a weapon, shoot first.”
The others got behind some wooden crates. Remi took the dog with her and covered his ears with her hands.
There was a loud bang as Sam shot the lock off the cage. Everyone began to move quickly. Janos pushed the guard into the cage and sat him on the bed. Albrecht came out and put on the uniform. As Albrecht was tying his shoes, Tibor put the guard’s gun belt around him and clicked the buckle. Sam used the second lock to secure the cage.
Everyone trotted to the door. As Remi was about to open it, the buzzer sounded loudly and made her jump. Zoltan began to growl, but she whispered to him and he went quiet.
“Our two friends must be back,” said Sam. “We’ve got to let them in.”
Tibor stepped to the side of the door where the guard had pressed a button to open the cage before. He read the label, then nodded. The others all moved to the sides, backs to the wall, with guns drawn. Tibor pressed the button to buzz the guards in while Remi swung the door open.
The two men stepped inside, each carrying two paper cups of coffee, their rifles slung across their backs. As soon as they were in, Sam and Janos were beside them, holding pistols to their heads.
Tibor snapped some orders, and the men set down their coffee cups, set their rifles on the floor, stepped away, and lay down on their stomachs. Janos removed the handcuffs from the leather cases on their belts and handcuffed them to two steel girders that served to support the roof.
Remi and the dog went out, with Sam right behind. Albrecht followed, and then Tibor and Janos, carrying the two AK-47 rifles. When Sam looked at them questioningly, Tibor whispered, “Would you rather we had them or they did?”
They moved quickly, in loose formation, along the drive between the rows of buildings toward the spot where they had left their van.
There was the sound of a truck moving along the roadway on the far side of the buildings to their left and then a second truck coming along the paved surface outside the tall chain-link fence. They stopped in front of a building for a moment, using its bulk to hide from the truck moving along the fence. Sam and Remi moved to the corner of the building to see that it passed. The vehicle was a stake truck with about fifteen men inside, on two benches along either side, all in gray guard uniforms and holding AK-47 rifles, muzzle upward, between their knees.
When the truck had moved away along the outer perimeter, Sam moved close to the others. “So much for going over the fence.”
Suddenly there was the sound of running feet somewhere to their left beyond the next row of buildings. Sam, Remi, and Zoltan began to run ahead toward the gate, and the others moved up with them. “We’ve got to keep from being boxed in,” Sam said. “Stay ahead of them.”
The group ran harder until they reached the double-fenced building with the warnings about Contagious Disease Research. Sam said to Tibor, “Go over one row and see if you can keep those guys from flanking us. I’ll give them something else to think about.”
He waited until the others were around the next row of buildings and out of sight. Then he ran up to the Contagious Disease building and threw his body against the gate in the fence. There was a loud ringing alarm and a louder electronic siren. The red lights above the gate flashed, and a set of floodlights came on, illuminating the outside of the building. Sam ran along the drive on their original route.
Ahead of him, a group of six security men from the next buildings ran into the long drive. One of them raised a rifle to his shoulder, and Sam sidestepped behind the corner of the closest building and pulled out his pistol. He reached around the corner, exposing just his gun arm and one eye, and fired five shots into the group, saw two men go down, then three others begin to drag them to safety. The last man laid down covering fire with the AK-47, spraying the area where Sam had been with bullets. Sam was already running around the building to the next paved drive.
Squads of men were moving along the buildings to get to the Contagious Disease building. The stake truck that had brought the guards waited fifty yards ahead of Sam. He ran up behind it, dashed along the left side, and flung open the door, pointing his pistol in the driver’s face. He dragged the man out and pulled his sidearm from its holster. He knocked him to the ground, used the handcuffs on his belt to subdue him, then took his place behind the wheel.
Sam shifted the truck into first gear, turned left, then right, and saw Zoltan and Remi, Janos, Tibor, and Albrecht sprinting along the pavement. He shifted into second, gained a little speed, and then saw Tibor become aware of him. Tibor turned to face the truck and began to swing his rifle around. Sam switched his lights on and off, slowed, and waved his left arm wildly out the window. “It’s me!” he yelled. “Get in!”
Remi was at Tibor’s side in a second and Tibor lowered the rifle. The four ran hard to get to the truck as Sam drove to meet them. He stopped, and they clambered up onto the flatbed. He drove ahead.
Zoltan ran back and forth behind the truck, whimpering for Remi. The truck was too high for him to jump up. There was the sound of Remi pounding on the cab roof. “Stop, Sam!”
He stopped. Remi jumped down, ran around the truck, opened the passenger door, and stood on the step. She called, “Up, Zoltan!” The big dog ran and jumped up onto the truck seat, Remi spun herself around and sat, then slammed the door shut. “Hit it!” she said. She took out her pistol and rolled down her window as the truck gained speed.
Sam drove along the paved road between the buildings. They were now moving up the center of the complex, with rows on each side. A platoon of men ran out into the road ahead of them, knelt, and prepared to fire, but Sam switched on the headlights, and Tibor and Janos, standing up in the flatbed behind the cab, opened fire. They hit one of the men, and the others ran for cover.
Sam said, “We’ve got to crash the gate. Tell them to get ready.”
Remi got up on the seat, hung her torso out the window, and shouted to them: “We’ve got to crash the gate!”
Tibor and Janos stood, leaning forward on the cab, replaced the magazines on their rifles, and looked ahead. Remi held her pistol in both hands, also watching ahead.
Sam lifted his pistol from his belt with his left hand. “I’m going to go through as fast as I can. It would be best if we could make the guards keep their heads down until we’re out of their effective range.”
“Good plan . . . as plans go,” she said.
“I know you’re the only pistol champion we have, but I’d rather they not see enough of you to hit. You’re also the only wife I have . . .”
“You’re so sweet.”
“. . . at the moment.”
Zoltan looked at each of them in turn, not sure what to think.
Sam reached the last corner, slowed to make the turn, and drove past the van they had brought there. As they passed, two men hiding in the back of the van flung the rear door open. Sam, Remi, and the others were too far away to hit before the men jumped to the ground, pulled out pistols, and fired wildly in their direction.
“If one of us had opened that door, we’d be dead,” said Remi.
Sam shifted from third to fourth as he drove for the gate. The two men on duty had closed the chain-link barrier, and now there were five or six others standing in front to guard the exit. To Sam it looked as though they were overconfident, assuming that nobody would actually try to crash the gate, so they were not really ready. Their rifles were slung across their backs, and they had done nothing to reinforce the barrier, even though they had another stake truck parked beside the gate.
