The Ark: A Novel (39 page)

"Dilara," Locke said. "Now."

In the bio lab, Dilara hit the button marked, "Containment breach." A siren blared throughout the complex, different from the intruder klaxon heard earlier.

"Warning!" the amplified voice now echoed. "Containment breach on level five!"

As the warning repeated, Locke threw the west stairwell door open. If Connelly's information was correct, the control room would be at the midpoint of the seventh level hallway. Between the explosion and the containment breach alarm, Locke was hoping to cause a panic with the remaining guards. Surely they knew what Arkon could do.

As he predicted, two men burst through the door of the control room. Locke and Grant had to get there before the door closed on them.

Locke shot the guard on the left, and Grant took the man on the right, neither of whom had time to raise their weapons. Turner, his left arm slack at his side, came from the opposite direction, but he wouldn't make it to the control room door in time to keep it from closing.

Locke raced down and grabbed the door handle just before it clicked shut. He pulled it back as bullets pounded into it. Grant tossed the last flash bang grenade into the room. They couldn't risk disabling the barrier controls with a fragmentation grenade.

The flash bang blew, and Grant charged in, followed by Turner and Locke. The control room sprawled across 50 feet and looked like it managed every mechanical and electrical system in the facility. Two guards sat at a control station on the left, blinking their eyes. Grant took them down with two blows from his rifle stock.

Shots came from the right, and Locke saw Cutter and two more guards herding Garrett and his girlfriend into a hallway that had no outlet. It looked like Garrett had his very own panic room. Cutter fired as they retreated.

The panic room's door began to slide closed. Just before the door shut, Locke saw Garrett smile and mouth the words, "You lose." Then Garrett, Cutter, and Petrova were gone.

Locke didn't have time to worry about them. They'd be as dead as him if he didn't get the barriers open.

The only people still upright in the control room were Locke, Grant, and Turner, and they were faced with a control panel that stretched almost the length of the room.

The clock on the wall said 9:58. Half the monitors were black screens for the blown video cameras. The other half of the screens showed the status of different systems for operating of the facility.

"Quick!" Locke said. "Everyone look for the barrier control!"

"Hard switch?" Grant said.

"They wouldn't use a software control. They'd have something dedicated."

They started running their eyes over every switch and LCD panel.

"I think I found it!" Turner cried out. "It's called Lockdown!"

"Try it!"

Turner flicked the switch. The monitor above it changed from red to green. The barriers were opening.

Sixty seconds.

Turner spoke the abort code into his radio. "Ares Leader to Drillbit Command. Come in Drillbit Command. The well is dry. I repeat, the well is dry."

Nothing but static came back.

"We're too deep," Turner said. "Too much interference. We need to get to the surface." Turner was beginning to go white from blood loss. He wasn't going anywhere fast. And Grant was strong, but Locke was faster.

"I'll go," Locke said. He dropped his weapon and his pack and ran for the stairs.

As he leaped up the stairs two at a time, he kept repeating, "Drillbit Command. The well is dry. Drillbit Command come in."

By the time he got to the second level, he was out of breath. The last hour of nonstop action had sapped him, and his adrenaline was gone. But as he reached the landing, Locke heard a voice drop in and out. He willed himself up higher.

"Ares...come...can't...you..."

"I repeat, the well is dry. The well is dry!"

"This is Drillbit Command." It was his father's voice. "Say again."

"Dad, it's me! The well is dry! Don't drop the damned bomb!"

His father yelled in the background. "Abort! Abort! Abort!" Locke's new favorite word. He fell to his hands and knees, panting like he'd just run a marathon.

* * *

"Abort! Abort! Abort!" came the radio call. The pilot, Major Williams, relayed the command to the bombardier, who had been about to release the weapon.

Williams realized only then how tightly he had been clenching the yoke. Now that he no longer had the specter of bombing his own country hanging over him, he eased up on the grip and relaxed.

"Drillbit Flight returning to base," Williams said into the radio and turned the B-52 on an eastern course, back toward Spokane.

The bomb bay doors closed.

Locke emerged from Oasis to find that the special forces team outside had already taken care of the rest of the guards, capturing a few, killing most, with three casualties of their own, including Private Knoll. As soon as the abort code had been given, Blackhawk helicopters that had been on standby flew in with two platoons of military police from Ft. Lewis. Scores of soldiers patrolled the grounds, looking for any stragglers who might be trying to make an escape through hidden exits. It took the MPs nearly an hour to roust the inhabitants of Oasis and gather them outside. Hundreds of dazed people sat under the arc lamps wondering what had happened.

When the containment breach button had been pressed, the entire fifth level locked down, so it took a while to extract Dilara. When she was free, Locke took her topside, where they both took a moment to enjoy the cool night air before heading for the staging area where the wounded were being treated.

Locke had already told Dilara about how Garrett had holed himself up in the panic room.

"We still don't know how all this was tied to Noah's Ark," she said. "Garrett said that a relic in the Ark was the source of the prion. I don't know whether to believe him."

"The CDC scientist told me the prion must have been engineered from some raw material," Locke said. "The relic would fit that description."

"So you think Garrett was telling the truth?"

"We'll know soon enough. When they finally pry Garrett out of that room, he's going to use every bargaining chip he has to save his skin, including the location of Noah's Ark. Garrett has a talent for self-preservation."

"The only thing I want to know is what happened to my father," she said.

"I've told them to call me as soon as they capture Garrett. I promise you'll get an answer."

They reached a clearing where six men lay on stretchers. Medics hovered around them, inserting IVs and bandaging wounds. Grant was standing next to Turner, whose shoulder wound was being dressed before he was transferred to Madigan Army Medical Center at Ft. Lewis. The red-headed captain looked even paler than normal, which Locke hadn't thought possible.

"How are you feeling?" Locke asked him.

"It isn't the hardest Purple Heart I've earned," Turner said weakly.

"Your men did a great job without you."

"I trained them well. You didn't do so bad yourself. I'm glad we brought you along."

"Now the hard work begins. Sorting this mess out."

"These people look like they don't know what hit them," Grant said as another helicopter landed.

""I don't think most of them do," Locke said. "From what I gather, the majority seemed to think this was some kind of test of their faith."

"You mean, they had no idea what Garrett was planning?"

"I'm sure some of them did. It'll take Homeland Security some time to find out which ones."

"But you burned all of the evidence," Turner said. "Garrett's going to get away with it, and we'll have a hell of a political mess on our hands. These religious nuts are going to make the government miserable."

"I don't think so," Locke said. "I only burned the dangerous stuff. The man who operated the sterilization chamber was so frightened about being blamed for everything that he led us to a trove of documents detailing the plan inside the lab level. Nothing about the prion weapon itself, but plenty about the rest of it."

"And a good thing," said Miles Benson, who rode towards Locke from the helicopter on his IBOT wheelchair. "Garrett's company can take the heat for that road race you had with the dump truck in Phoenix. I've already contacted our lawyers and the insurance company. Now I won't have take it out of your next partnership share." He smiled. "Strong work."

"Thanks."

"You look exhausted."

"I could use a nap."

A sergeant yelled "Ten hut!" and the soldiers that were standing came to attention before an immediate, "At ease!" followed. Locke's father, now in a forest camouflage BDU instead of his Class A service uniform, marched up and came to a halt next to Miles. Other than Miles' disability, the two men had the same appearance. Military stature, crew cuts, hard faces. They could have been brothers.

The General held Locke's eyes as he addressed the soldiers. "Excellent job, men. I couldn't be prouder."

"General Locke tells me you insisted on coming on the mission," Miles said.

"He's always volunteering for some damn fool thing," the General said. "Someday it's going to get him killed. Where's the prion weapon?"

"Your prion weapon is clogging the filters somewhere in this facility," Locke said with satisfaction.

"My orders were to secure the weapon. What happened?"

"Sir," Turner said, still prone, "the weapon posed a serious threat to our mission. The only way to accomplish our objective was to burn it."

The General's eyes narrowed at Locke. "Is that right?"

"It was my call whether you like it or not."

General Locke took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'd like a word with my son. Alone."

As the General strode away, Locke leaned down to Turner.

"You didn't have to do that," he said.

"We take care of our own. And now you're one of us. Unofficially."

"Let's get you on the next chopper out of here," Grant said, helping Turner up. Locke left them hobbling towards the Blackhawk.

Locke approached where the General stood ramrod straight and stopped with his nose just a foot from his father's. His face was a rigid mask, ready to take whatever punishment his father wanted to dish out.

"You disobeyed orders," the General said.

"I wasn't going to let you get your hands on that prion weapon."

"I don't give a damn about that weapon. In fact, I'm glad you destroyed it."

Locke's face relaxed. Now he was confused. "What?"

"I told you that there's no place in the world for these kinds of things."

"But you ordered Turner..."

"Tyler, I'm a soldier, and my first duty is to follow orders. I was ordered to secure that bioweapon, so I passed that order on to Turner. Officially, that part of the mission failed, and I will have to take Turner's report for what it is. Unofficially, I think you did the right thing. That took guts."

"Surprised?"

"Not really. I've read your service record. Impressive enough, but back at White Sands was the first time you've really stood up to me. Not avoiding me, not like in college when you went behind my back and joined ROTC. To my face. Now seeing you in action for the first time only reinforces that impression."

This was nothing like what Locke was expecting.
The General was actually giving him a compliment.
Other than the condolences he gave Locke when Karen died, it was the first positive thing he'd said in years.

"Why didn't you want me to come on this mission?" Locke asked.

The General sighed. "You don't have kids. I'm sorry you don't. Then you might understand the position you put me in." He paused. "I was going to order that B-52 to drop its bomb."

The gruffness in his father's voice was still there, but it had softened just slightly. Locke realized that his respect for the General had just ratcheted up a few notches. He thought about what his father had said about him destroying the bioweapon and Dilara's revelation that a relic on Noah's Ark held the last remaining specimen of it.

"If there were another sample of this prion somewhere," Locke said pointedly, "and
somebody
knew where this small remnant was, what would you say to that person?"

"I'd say that I don't know want to know anything I'd have to officially act on," the General said, "but I'd hope that person had the fortitude to do the right thing and destroy it."

Locke held the General's eyes, then nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

They started walking back toward Miles and Dilara, who were still at the medic station.

The General gave him one last look. "And Tyler, stop being so pig-headed and stay in touch. Maybe next time I'll need
your
help." Then he walked away in the direction of the command post.

Miles looked at Locke in amazement. "You finally on good terms with him?" he asked.

Locke just shook his head, still stunned by his conversation. "I don't know. For now, I guess."

"So that means he's a legitimate business contact now?"

Miles knew how to strike while the iron was sizzling.

"If you can get the contract, go for it," Locke said. He held up a finger. "Just make sure I'm not the principal on the project. I don't think we're ready for that yet."

"Excellent," Miles said, practically rubbing his hands together at the thought of the money rolling in. "Oh, before I go, Aiden contacted me on the flight out. He wanted you to call him. Said he's got some interesting news for you." He handed Locke his cell phone. "While you do that, I'm going to talk to General Locke about all the capabilities Gordian can bring to Defense Threat Reduction Agency." He motored away toward the command post and left him standing with Dilara.

"Just one call," he said to Dilara, "and then we head back to Seattle."

"Good," she said. "I can use a shower."

He dialed Aiden, who answered on the first ring.

"Tyler! I heard you had a wee bit of excitement out there. I'm jealous."

"No, you're not, I promise you. Listen, I'm beat, Aiden. Miles said you had something for me."