Mount Dragon (41 page)

He realized they had only one chance.

Disconnecting the useless air hose from his suit, Carson gestured for de Vaca to follow him out of the security substation and back to the central core. Carson grabbed the metal rungs of the ladder, craning his neck upward. He could make out the huge uptake manifold five levels above, hovering like a grim promise at the very pinnacle of the Fever Tank. No sign yet of Marr. Grabbing the rungs of the ladder, Carson climbed as quickly as he could, past the generators and backup labs to the second-level storage facility. With de Vaca at his heels, he ducked quickly behind an oversized freezer bay.

Turning toward de Vaca, he made a suppressing movement with his hands, then concentrated on slowing his own breathing, trying to conserve his dwindling oxygen supply. He peered out from the darkness of the storage area toward the central core ladder.

Carson knew there was no way to leave the Fever Tank without passing through decontam. Marr would know this, also. He'd look for them first at the exit hatchway. Finding they weren't there, he would assume they were still in the security substation. After all, Marr knew that nobody would be foolish enough to waste time in any other section of the Fever Tank, with their air supply running out and a massive explosion due within minutes.

At least, Carson hoped Marr knew that.

You have eight minutes to evacuate the area
.

They waited in the darkness, eyes riveted to the core ladder. Carson felt de Vaca nudge him urgently from behind, but he motioned her to stay still. He wondered, idly, what terrifying pathogen was stored in the freezer that stood mere inches from him. The seconds continued to tick by. He began taking shallow breaths, wondering if his plan had condemned them both to death.

Suddenly, a red-suited leg came into view on the ladder. Carson pulled de Vaca deeper into the shadows. The figure came fully into view. It paused at the second level, looking around. Then it continued downward toward the security substation.

Carson waited as long as he dared. Then he moved forward into the dim red light, de Vaca behind him. He cautiously peered over the edge of the central core: empty. Marr would be on the lower level by now, approaching the security substation. He'd be moving slowly, on the chance that Carson was armed. That gave them a few more seconds.

Carson urged de Vaca up the ladder to the main floor of the Fever Tank, motioning her to wait for him by the exit air lock. Then he moved quickly down the corridor toward the Zoo.

The chimps were in a frenzy, keyed to a fever pitch by the incessant droning of the alarms. They looked at him with angry red eyes, hammering on their cages with a terrifying ferocity. Several empty cages stood as mute testimony to recent victims of the virus.

Carson moved closer to the rack of cages. Then, careful to avoid the thrusting, probing hands, he pulled the cotter pins from the cage doors one by one and loosened the faceplates. Enraged by his proximity, the creatures redoubled their banging and screaming. Carson's suit seemed to vibrate with their desperate screams.

You have seven minutes to evacuate the area
.

Carson raced from the Zoo and down the hall to the exit air lock. Seeing him approach, de Vaca opened the rubber-sealed door, and the two moved quickly into the decontamination chamber. As the sterilizing agents began to rain down on them, Carson stood near the hatchway door, looking through the glass plate back into the Fever Tank. By now, he knew, the force of the chimps' pounding would have shaken free the faceplates and opened the cage doors. He imagined the creatures, sick and angry, racing through the darkened facility, over lab tables, along corridors…down ladders…

You have five minutes to evacuate the area
.

Suddenly, Carson realized his lungs were no longer drawing in air. He turned to de Vaca and made a chopping movement across his neck. If they continued trying to breathe, they would simply inspire carbon dioxide.

The yellowish bath stopped and the far hatchway opened. Carson moved into the next air lock, struggling against an overwhelming desire to breathe. As the immense driers roared into life, a terrible need for oxygen set fire to his lungs. He looked over at de Vaca, leaning weakly against the wall. She shook her head.

Was that a shotgun blast?
Over the hum of the drying mechanism, Carson couldn't be sure.

Suddenly the last air lock opened and they tumbled into the ready room. Carson helped de Vaca remove her helmet, then tugged desperately at his own, dropping it to the floor and gulping in the fresh, sweet air.

You have three minutes to evacuate the area
.

They struggled out of their bluesuits, then left the ready room, moving down the hallway and into the elevator leading up to the operations building. “They may be waiting for us outside,” Carson said.

“No way,” de Vaca gasped as she gulped in large lungfuls of air. “They're going to be running like hell to the other side of the compound.”

The hallways of the operations building remained dark and empty. They raced down the corridor and through the atrium, pausing briefly at the front entrance. As Carson cracked the door open, the frantic blatting of emergency sirens rushed in to meet them. He looked around, then moved quickly into the shadows outside, motioning de Vaca to follow him.

Mount Dragon was in chaos. Carson could see several small knots of people huddled together, talking or yelling among themselves. In a pool of light outside the residency compound, several scientists were standing—some clad in pajamas—talking excitedly. Carson could see Harper among them, shaking a raised fist. Figures could be seen, marching and sometimes running between the probing beams of the klieg lights.

They moved quickly through the deserted inner perimeter gate and into the shadow of the incinerator. As Carson scanned the far end of the compound, his eyes fell on the motor pool. Half a dozen armed guards surrounded the Hummers, brilliantly spotlighted in a bank of lights. In the center of the group stood Nye. Carson saw the security director gesture in the direction of the Fever Tank.

“The stables!” Carson shouted in de Vaca's ear.

They found the horses standing in their stalls, restless, alert to the excitement. De Vaca led the horses to the tack room while Carson ran ahead to secure the blankets and saddles.

As Carson turned toward Roscoe, saddle in both hands, the earth suddenly shuddered beneath his feet. Then a flash of intense light illuminated the inside of the stables in a stark, unyielding glare. The explosion began as a muffled thump, followed by an endlessly building roar. Carson felt the wave of overpressure rock the stables, and the windows along the far wall burst inward, scattering shards of wood and glass across the barn floor. De Vaca's Appaloosa reared in terror.

“Easy, boy,” said de Vaca, catching the reins and stroking the animal's neck.

Carson looked quickly around the stables, saw Nye's saddlebags, grabbed them and tossed them to de Vaca. “There should be canteens inside. Fill them in the horse trough!” he shouted, throwing on the blankets and reaching for the saddles.

When she raced back, he was tightening Roscoe's flank cinch. Carson slapped the saddlebags on the skirts and tied them with the saddle strings as de Vaca mounted.

“Wait a minute,” Carson said. He ran back and grabbed two riding hats from their pegs in the tack room. Then, returning, he climbed onto Roscoe and they moved through the open door.

The heat of the fire slapped against their faces as they stared at the devastation outside. The low filtration housing that marked the roof of the Fever Tank was now a ruined crater from which gouts of flame licked skyward. The concrete roof of the operations building had buckled, and a reddish glow rose from its interior. In the residency compound, curtains whipped crazily through a hundred shattered windows. An intense fire roared out of the incinerator, coloring the surrounding sand a brilliant orange.

The path of the blast had cut a swath of destruction through the compound, peeling back the roof of the canteen and flattening a large section of the perimeter fence. “Follow me!” Carson shouted, giving his horse the heel. They raced through the smoke and fire to the blowdown, jumped the twisted wreckage of the perimeter fence, and galloped across the desert toward the welcoming darkness.

When they were half a mile from the compound and beyond the glow of the fire, Carson slowed his horse to a trot.

“We've got a long way to go,” he said as de Vaca pulled up alongside. “We'd better take it easy on these horses.”

As he spoke, another explosion rocked the ruins of the operations building, and a massive fireball arose from the hole in the ground that had been the Fever Tank, roiling toward the sky. Several secondary blasts slapped the darkness like aftershocks: the transfection lab crumbled into nothingness, and the walls of the residency compound shuddered, then collapsed.

The lights of Mount Dragon winked out, leaving only the lambent flickering of the burning buildings to mark the remains of the complex.

“There goes my pre-war Gibson flathead,” Carson muttered.

As he turned Roscoe back into the well of blackness ahead, he saw pencil beams of light begin to stab across the desert. The beams seemed to be moving toward them, blinking in and out of sight as they followed the bumpy terrain. Suddenly, powerful spotlights snapped on, illuminating the desert in long yellow lances.

“
Qué chinga'o
,” said de Vaca. “The Hummers survived the explosion. We'll never outrun those bastards in this desert.”

Carson said nothing. With any luck, they could evade the Hummers. He was thinking, instead, about their almost total lack of water.

Scopes sat alone in the octagon, examining his state of mind.

Carson and de Vaca were all but taken care of. Escape was impossible.

He had intercepted their transmission and cut off Carson's data feed almost immediately. True, the transparent relay he'd used as an alarm would not have stopped the initial part of the data transmission. It was within the realm of possibility that Levine—or whoever Levine was using to hack into the GeneDyne net—would pick up the aborted transmission. But Scopes had already taken the steps to ensure that such unauthorized entry would not happen again. Drastic steps, perhaps, yet necessary. Especially at this delicate time.

In any case, very little of the intended download had gotten through. And what Carson had sent seemed to make little sense. It was all about PurBlood. Even if Levine received the data, he would have learned nothing of value about X-FLU. And he was now so thoroughly discredited that no one would pay attention to any story of his, whatever it might be.

All bases had been covered. He could proceed as planned. There was nothing to worry about.

So why the strange, subtle, anxious feeling?

Sitting on his comfortably battered couch, Scopes probed his own mild anxiety. It was a foreign feeling to him, and the study of it was very interesting. Perhaps it was because he had misjudged Carson so thoroughly. De Vaca's treachery he could understand, especially after that incident in the Level-5 facility. But Carson was the last person he would have suspected of industrial espionage. Another might have felt terrible, even overwhelming anger at such a betrayal. But Scopes felt merely sorrow. The kid had been bright. Now he would have to be dealt with by Nye.

Nye—that reminded him. A Mr. Bragg from OSHA had left two messages earlier in the day, inquiring as to the whereabouts of that investigator, Teece. He'd have to ask Nye to look into it.

He thought again about the data file Carson had tried to send. There wasn't much, and he hadn't looked it over carefully. Just a few documents related to PurBlood. Scopes remembered that Carson and de Vaca had been messing around in the PurBlood files just the other day. Why the sudden interest? Were they planning to sabotage PurBlood, as well as X-FLU? And what was all this Carson had said about everyone needing immediate medical attention?

It bore closer looking into. In fact, it would probably be prudent for him to examine the aborted download more carefully, along with Carson's on-line activities of the last several days. Perhaps he could find the time after the evening's primary order of business.

At this new thought, Scopes's eyes moved toward the smooth, black face of a safe set flush against the lower edge of a far wall. It had been built, to his own demanding specifications, into the structural steel of the building when the GeneDyne tower was constructed. The only person who could open it was himself, and if his heart stopped beating there would be no way to open it short of using enough dynamite to vaporize every trace. As he pictured what lay within, the odd sense of anxiety quickly melted away. A single biohazard box—recently arrived via military helicopter from Mount Dragon—and inside, a sealed glass ampule filled with neutral nitrogen gas and a special viral transport medium. If Scopes looked closely at the ampule, he knew he would be able to make out a cloudy suspension in the fluid. Amazing to think such an insignificant-looking thing could be so valuable.