Island 731 (35 page)

“Doctor Celia Green,” Bray said, holding up a name-tagged lab coat.

“You were conducting human experimentation long before Bennett staged his coup,” Hawkins said.

“We had no choice,” one of the men said, his voice booming with the defensive passion of a man who knows he’s about to be judged for his actions.

“Always a choice,” Hawkins said.

“They would have killed us,” a woman said through her tears.

“They’re still going to,” Hawkins said.

“What do you mean?” Green asked.

“Who are you waiting for?”

She didn’t answer.

“Son of a bitch,” Bray said. He held up an ID card he’d taken from the lab coat pocket. He handed it to Hawkins. It showed a picture of Green, perhaps five years old, looking young and innocent.

“Ignore the information,” Bray said. “Look at the logo.”

Hawkins noticed a strange glimmer when he shifted the card. The logo was holographic. He turned it in the light and saw an oblong globe with five bold letters written across it:
DARPA
.

“Darpa?” Hawkins asked.

“Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,” Bray said. “They were founded in 1958, in the wake of Sputnik, and worked on high-tech R and D for the U.S. military. They’re the guys who gave us stealth technology, the Internet, and the M16. But they have their hands in all the sciences; robotic, cyber, electronics, energy, weapons, space, and the most relevant—biology. In 2010, they started a research program to eliminate, and I quote, ‘the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.’ That sounds pretty damn close to playing God, right? The end goal is to create organic, living, intelligent life that can live indefinitely. And in case you’re worried about these new life forms rebelling against their creators, they’re engineering loyalty into their DNA and giving them kill switches. That’s the bright and cheery future of modern warfare—silicon soldiers. They called the whole thing BioDesign.”

Green looked surprised. “How did you know about that?”

“I was researching the subject for my next book, but it wasn’t hard to find. BioDesign is the kind of scary shit DARPA
puts in the budget
,” Bray explained. “The whole world knows about BioDesign. And that’s because it’s
benign
compared to what you’re doing.” Bray stepped up to the woman. “What’s the catchphrase you use to justify what you do here? ‘Combat performance’? ‘Biomedical research’?”

Green’s eyes fell to the floor. “Biological warfare defense.”

Bray’s face turned red with anger. “That’s the same fucking language the Japanese used. Anything is justified when you put it under the umbrella of defending the homeland. This can’t be an official program.”

“It’s not,” Green said. “Like all government agencies, DARPA has some black operations that no one is
supposed
to know about. But even the most top-secret projects find their way into the DARPA rumor mill. Scientists are naturally curious, and like to talk about their work. We were good about keeping things from the public, but not so good about keeping secrets from each other. As long as everyone in the loop had the security clearance, no one complained. We were all on the same team and shared the same goals. The thing is, despite the work here being my area of expertise, I
never
heard about this island. Not once. And I was friends with the DARPA director. She’s a good woman. A moral woman. There’s no way she knew about this place. I’d be surprised if any of the current DARPA leadership knows about what goes on here, if they even know about the island at all. Whoever started the program set it up so that it could operate autonomously while still having access to DARPA’s workforce for recruitment. I don’t know who that was, but at the time, there was a lot of postwar and cold war paranoia.”

“If the Russians are working on it, we better, too,” Bray said.

“Right,” Green said. “So the project was put under DARPA’s umbrella, but somehow shielded from oversight and allowed to evolve on its own. By the time I got here, it was a very dark place.” She sighed and shook her head. “Look, DARPA is a good agency. We want to change the world, but for the better. This island … the things done here … the things
I’ve
done here … are against everything DARPA stands for.”

“If you’re so against the biological warfare defense program, why are you here?” Bray asked.

“We were all recruited from other biological programs,” she said. “It was presented as a dream post. Tropical island. Cutting-edge research. The only downside is that we couldn’t talk about our work, publish our work, or quit until the project was complete.”

“But you didn’t know the program had been in operation since World War Two?” Hawkins said.

She shook her head. “Or that it wouldn’t conclude within our lifetimes. And none of us knew what the job really was until we got here.”

“And then it was too late,” one of the men said.

“They would have killed you,” Hawkins said.

Green nodded. “They killed some.” She frowned. “Not all of us are that strong.”

Hawkins sheathed his machete. “Now that we’re playing nice, I’m going to ask again: Who are you waiting for?”

She pursed her lips for a moment, then sighed and answered, “Bennett left us here. For a long time.”

“He said a year,” Bray said. “Why didn’t you just leave?”

Green turned around and lifted up her straight, black hair. A small device, the size of a black pack of gum, was attached to the back of her neck. “If we leave a certain radius, it explodes. The only way we can leave is if we’re within one hundred feet of Bennett’s remote.”

Hawkins tensed. What these people had done was wrong, even under the circumstances, but no one deserved this.

“We have access to our quarters, bathrooms, a kitchen, and food storage. We’ve been living in just these few rooms for the past year. It took a lot of trial and error, but we repaired a satellite phone we found in one of our … deceased colleague’s quarters and powered it with some old batteries. It worked long enough to make a call.”

“Who did you call?” Hawkins asked.

“Michael Castle,” she said. “He recruited all of us, but I never got the impression he knew what went on here. He sounded genuinely shocked when I spoke to him.”

“Still,” Bray said. “Why not call the DARPA director? You said you were friends.”

“She was scheduled to retire a few months after I accepted the post,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure no one but Castle knows where the island is. He called back an hour later. Before the battery died, he told me to expect extraction today. Bennett wasn’t here at the time. We’re not sure they’ll be prepared for his response.”

“I’m not sure you’re prepared for
their
response,” Hawkins said. “They came once before, right?” The look on her face was all the answer he needed. “If they’re coming back, it’s not with a small team, it’s with an army.”

“And I hate to break it to you,” Bray said, “but your job here was a life sentence. Whoever is really running this program, they’re not going to let you leave. I doubt they’ll let you live. You’re a liability, especially after what Bennett has done. They’re not going to take any risks. Smart thing would be to incinerate the whole island and wipe out anything with a DARPA logo.”

“When are they coming?” Hawkins asked urgently.

“Sometime today,” she replied, a worried look creeping into her eyes. “Probably soon. If you can get the remote—”

A scratching noise from above cut her off and drew the eyes of all eight souls toward the ceiling.

43.

“What the hell is that?” Bray asked.

No one answered. They were too busy listening.

When the sound repeated, everyone jumped back a few feet from the source—a ventilation duct.

“They’re in the air system,” a man said.

Tapping and clawing sounds emerged all around them. Several of the things had worked their way inside the ducts and were now searching for a way out. He watched the metal duct above him bend and flex under the creatures’ weight.

Hawkins looked around the room, counting four vents, all large enough to accommodate the spider things. It wouldn’t be long before one of the creatures found the way out. “Blok?” Hawkins said.

“They’re still out there,” he replied.

Hawkins took hold of Green’s shoulder. “Is there another way out of here?”

“There are three exits,” she replied. “They’re all locked, but…”

“Right,” Hawkins said. “You can’t leave.”

He wasn’t sure what to do. They needed to leave. Not only were the creatures bound to find a way inside the room, but there was also some kind of strike force en route. If he didn’t find Joliet and get off this island soon, they would all die here. Still, he didn’t want to leave these people to die. They were wrong, and responsible for the things they’d done, but they were also pawns.

“If you can get the remote and come back for us,” Green said.

Bray rolled his eyes. “I don’t—”

“We’ll try,” said Hawkins. “But I’m not sure we’ll make it out of the—”

The sound of wrenching metal drowned out Hawkins’s voice. A vent on the far side of the room burst open and vomited a black blur that landed atop the nearest man and took him to the floor.

Screams and panic filled the room. One of the women ran for a far door.

“No!” Hawkins shouted, but she opened it to a clear hallway, turned left, and ran.

“Lock yourselves in your quarters!” Green shouted to the two remaining staff. The man and woman turned and ran for an open door at the side of the room.

Green moved to follow them, but Hawkins took her arm. “Get us out of here. It’s your only chance.”

She gave a curt nod and motioned for them to follow her. As they moved through the room to the far door, Hawkins got a look at the fallen man. The spider was just beginning to unravel its tail. They ran into the hallway. The far wall was lined with windows that looked out into an atrium complete with a koi pond and sandy Zen garden.
A place for staff to go to forget all the horrible things they’d done
, Hawkins thought.

Blok slammed the door shut behind him. He was aided by the force of a striking spider thing. The door shook, drawing a deep frown from Green. Her path back to the safety of her quarters had just been blocked.

“Which way?” Hawkins asked.

She pointed to the right. “Follow this hall to the end. Turn left. Then right. First door on your right is a stairwell that will take you to the bottom floor and an exit.”

A scream spun them around. The woman who’d fled tore around a corner, heading toward them, face twisted with fear. She made it just three steps when a large spider creature tore around the corner, leapt up, and tackled her. As the woman toppled to the side, the thing wrapped its legs around her torso. The tail constricted her waist. Then—
crash
—they struck the window together. Glass sprayed into the Zen garden and the death-locked duo spilled into the atrium. As they fell, the creature stabbed her three times, but before they hit, a loud beeping filled the air.

Then an explosion.

The blast wasn’t massive, but the force of it was contained within the small atrium. The remaining windows burst, showering the hallway with pen-size glass shards. When Hawkins took his arm away from his head, he found one such shard embedded in his forearm. He plucked it out and tossed it to the floor.

“Hawkins,” Bray shouted, pointing toward the end of the hall. Two more of the monsters rounded the corner and charged toward them. Without thought, they ran. And Green ran with them.

Thirty feet into their run, a loud beeping filled the air. Green skidded to a stop. Hawkins stopped with her. Bray and Blok slowed, looking back, but kept moving.

“If I go any farther, it will detonate,” Green said, tears filling her eyes. She had nowhere to go and her choices were limited to a three-story plunge, giving birth to more of the killer creatures, or blowing herself to bits.

“Turn around,” Hawkins said. “I’ll yank it off!”

She shook her head. “It will explode! Just … just go!”

“But—”

She looked back to the spider things. The slippery coating of glass covering the floor slowed their progress, but they were closing the distance quick enough. “Go! Now! Let me do this!”

Hawkins understood that the desperation in her voice wasn’t just fear of death. It was also fear of some kind of afterlife and a God who might judge her. She wanted to die doing something right. She wanted atonement. And he wouldn’t deny her. “Thank you,” he said, and then ran to catch up with Bray and Blok.

Green stood her ground. The device on the back of her neck chimed incessantly. As the creatures closed in, she opened her arms as though to embrace them, and in a way that’s exactly what she did. The spider things sprung up as one, striking her body with a tangle of spindly black legs, twisting tails, and jabbing stingers. Green stumbled back under their weight, but had been ready for it. Instead of falling straight back, she stumbled backward before tripping. As she spilled back toward the floor, her head and neck passed through the outer radius. She, and the shelled spiders disappeared in a bright plume of light.

The powerful explosion shook the building and sent a shockwave rolling through the hallway like a mudslide. The force of it knocked Hawkins, Bray, and Blok to the floor. They were quick to their feet, but three more of the creatures rounded the far corner at the end of the hall, blocking their path to the exit.

“Hawkins.” Kam’s voice was loud and all around them, booming from a PA system. “Take the next right. Then the second door on the right.”

“We can’t trust him,” Bray shouted back.

“No choice!” Hawkins shouted. They ran toward the creatures and took the hallway on the right, sprinting for their lives.

Blok paused at a T junction at the end of the hall. He looked left and right. “Push doors in both directions.” He started to the left, no doubt trusting Kam as little as Bray did.

But Hawkins knew they’d still be prisoners if it hadn’t been for Kam. “Go right!”

Blok hesitated, but when he saw how close the spider chimeras were, he dove right and shoved through the doors. Bray rounded the corner, right on his heels. Hawkins went around last. The door was still open from when Bray went through. He could see them, just ahead, entering the second door on the right. He could also hear the creatures right behind him.