The River (29 page)

"Then let's not give them any target practice."

They hurried down the hall.

"We don't have much time before the guard change," Jake warned. "And we still have to get to the weapons."

They rounded another corner and released a collective sigh as they met an empty hallway.

Her father headed straight for a steel door.

"Let's hope Gary was right about no guards inside," he said, slipping the ankh key into the control panel.

The light turned green and the door swung open into a narrow room that was lined with benches. It made Del think of a men's locker room. Except there were no lockers. The walls were constructed from a satin-polished metal, similar to the ankh key, and near the door, on both sides, two computer screens were positioned in the wall. Other than the screens, the walls were bare.

Del let out a moan. "Where are the weapons?"

Closing the door behind them, she noticed a tiny peephole―the only blemish in the door's austere design. She couldn't resist looking through it.

A slightly distorted view of the hallway emerged.

A motor droned behind her.

She twisted her head and what she saw made her mouth drop.

The entire left wall had opened, revealing racks of weapons that disappeared deep into crevices that were maybe ten feet in. There were handguns, rifles, machine guns and technologically advanced military hardware. Hundreds of them. The far end held shelves stacked with boxes of ammunition and some kind of plastic explosive that looked like twisted strips of black licorice.

While the men grabbed an assortment of weapons, her attention was captured by a row of dome-topped black metal objects that reminded her of the touch-lights she had installed recently on her back deck.

She picked one up, examined it and turned it over.

A number was stamped on the bottom.
10
.

She put it back, picked up another. It had a
5
stamped on it.

Five what―bullets?

She shook it, but couldn't hear anything. She was about to twist off the top to see what was inside when TJ snatched it from her hands.

"Jesus Christ, Del! Are you trying to get us killed?"

"I just wanted to see―"

"It's a bomb. If you had twisted the top, it would've gone off in however many minutes it's set to."

"Five," she whispered, shaking.

TJ pocketed the bomb. "Sorry I yelled."

She smiled bleakly. "No problem. I'll be lookout."

The celebration had been the Director's idea, and at first Hans had been excited. Military and government representatives from around the globe were all gathered under one roof. But within an hour, the party had become dull, boring.

Especially with Vance hogging all the limelight.

"You should've drowned in the river, you little shit!"

"Pardon, sir?"

Hans was in such a funk that he hadn't even noticed the girl in the hallway. She was carrying a stack of folders pressed haphazardly against her chest. She was one of the new interns, a sweet thing he had hoped to bed.

However, one look at her ID tag made him clench his teeth.

It was stamped with a gold ankh. Vance had beaten him to her.

Fuming, Hans waved her off and stalked toward the lab.

Delila Hawthorne was going to help him release the pressure that was building, threatening to explode.

He pictured her perfect mouth, those lips that were made for pleasuring. By the time he was through with her, she would be begging for more.

But first, he had to get her out of the lab.

He spotted the weapon room a few feet ahead.

Perhaps he should grab a replacement, something more powerful. Her friends weren't going to allow him to take Delila without a fight.

Especially good ole Dad!

He stopped in front of the weapon room door. Removing a sleek pistol from his pocket, he stroked it, admiring it. An SX2 Omega semiautomatic was more than enough to show them he meant business. And he had plenty of bullets to go around.

He had taken three steps down the hall when a muted sound rumbled from inside the weapon room. Puzzled, he listened, then moved to the door and pressed one eye against the spy-hole. Then he cursed under his breath, throwing a self-conscious look over his shoulder.

"Idiot!" he muttered. "You can see out, not in!"

He reminded himself of his rendezvous with Hawthorne's daughter. He had to get to her before Vance did.

As for the noises he had heard…?

He shrugged.
Probably some guard getting lucky.

Spinning on his heel, he strode quickly down the hall.

The effects of the champagne had worn off. Now he was pumped, ready to go…ready to get lucky.

He smirked.

Delila Hawthorne, here I come!

"Everyone quiet!" Del hissed. "Someone's coming!"

Through the peephole, she saw a man rush down the hallway. He wore a white jacket and white pants. A technician? He moved closer, and the satin shimmer of the fabric sent a shiver through her.

She had seen only one person who wore clothes like that.

The man came to a sudden stop in front of the door and he pulled out a gun. As his head lifted, she glimpsed his face.

It
was
VanBuren!

She whipped around, pressed her back to the door, hands splayed in fear. Her heart hammered mercilessly and she was positive that the man on the other side could hear it.

"VanBuren's outside!" she whispered, petrified.

Jake and TJ each aimed a gun at the door.

Unable to resist, Del bent her head and spied on VanBuren again.

As he moved away from the door, something clattered to the floor behind her. She spun around, glaring at her father as he reached for the gun he had dropped.

She pressed her eye to the peephole.

"He left. Wait! I can't see anything! It's pitch bla―"

Suddenly, the blackness moved, shifting into gray.

VanBuren's bloodshot eye backed away from the peephole.

"Jesus Christ!"

She twisted toward the others, tapped a finger to her lips and felt her stomach lurch.

Everyone froze.

Stone statues.

Del finally gathered her courage and stole another peek.

Oh crap! This is not good.

VanBuren was making his way down the hall…toward the lab.

"We have to go!" she hissed. "Now!"

Hans paused outside the Project Ankh lab.

As the doors parted, he pulled out his pistol, then stepped inside the dimly lit room where menacing shadows greeted him. The darkness sent a shiver up his spine.

There must have been a power surge.

"Lights on fifty percent," he ordered.

Nothing happened.

He edged into the center of the room and stumbled clumsily into a chair. He looked for a beacon, something to guide him.

In the corner occupied by the cell sorter, tiny multi-colored lights flickered on and off, like miniature Christmas tree lights. The machine made soft clicking sounds, and it gave Hans the creeps. In fact, the whole lab gave him the creeps.

Everyone's sleeping. Good, I'll catch them off guard.

Suddenly, a glowing screen caught his eye.

One of the computers was on.

Jerking his head, he peered into the shadows of the lab.

Something moved to his right.

"Come on out!" he ordered.

A short stocky form took a few tentative steps forward.

"I have a gun," Hans warned. "So don't do anything stupid."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"What are you doing?"

Gary Ingram stepped into the glow of the monitor.

"I was working on repairing the cell sorter files. But I fell asleep at the computer. Your serum may have improved my eyesight but I still need to sleep."

Hans lowered the pistol…just a bit.

Ingram wasn't a threat. The man worked in an office, filing papers and probably dreaming up annoying business programs that crashed every month.

He snorted at the thought.

"Where are the others?"

"S-sleeping," Ingram stammered.

The emergency backup lights kicked in, and Hans saw Ingram reach for something on the desk. He grabbed the man's arm and pulled him toward Hawthorne's room. Then he unlocked it, looking over his shoulder to say something to Ingram.

That's when he spotted the empty cots in the corner of the lab.

"What the f—"

He darted a suspicious look from the cots to Ingram.

"How can they be sleeping in there if the cots are still out here?"

Hans whipped around as the door opened.

The room was empty.

Dragging in a panicked breath, he pressed the pistol against Ingram's temple. "Where…are they?"

"I don't know, Hans. But you have more important things to worry about."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that your entire system is gonna crash in less than an hour," Ingram said boldly. "I've infected it with a virus."

"You're bluffing."

Ingram gave him a smug smile―the kind that Hans wanted to smack right off.

Maybe the man wasn't bluffing.

"What kind of virus?"

"The kind that'll make you lose everything―including the formula for the serum and your complete database. Not to mention that the Specimen Lab will be shut down, completely useless. The babies…
Francesca
…all of them! You're about to join the real world, Hans. And start
dying
like the rest of us!"

Enraged, Hans jammed the gun hard into the side of the man's head. "Mr. Ingram. It seems you have a problem."

Ingram flinched. "Don't you mean
we
?"

Hans pulled the trigger.

"No, asshole!" he growled, wiping the blood spray and brain tissue from his face. "I mean
you
!"

"The entrance to the tunnel is just ahead," her father said.

Del hurried as fast as she could, careful not to make too much noise. TJ and Hawk were a few feet in front, while Jake remained at her side, his hand firmly gripping her arm.

She heard her father greet the guard.

"We're running some tests."

The guard straightened.

"Shit!"
Jake said.

"What's wrong?" TJ demanded, turning his head.

"That's Spike, or whatever his name is. He'll recognize us!"

Del's heart pounded as she stole a peek at the guard.

Spike's eyes drooped in an alcoholic stupor. Beer cans lay on the ground, surrounding him like a metal fairy ring. Only there was nothing magical or fairy-ish about the man. Particularly when he stumbled and reached into a pocket that wasn't there.

It's too late to turn back.

"There's only one solution," her father said quietly.

He shot the guard.

Shocked, Del hung back as TJ and Hawk promptly grabbed the unconscious man's arms and hauled him into a storage closet. Out of sight, out of mind. Then Hawk wiped up the blood trail with his lab coat.

Jake squeezed her arm. "The guard won't die, Del. Because of the nanobots in him. They'll force the bullet out and reconstruct the cells. A bullet to the brain or slicing his head off is the only way to kill him." He caught her eye. "Us too."

She shivered, envisioning a gleaming machete hacking off her head. "I think I'd prefer to keep my head right where it is."

Jake grinned. "Yeah, you've got a good head on your shoulders."

She rolled her eyes at him, unable to resist a smile.

Even in the darkest moments, he managed to shed a little light.

And we can certainly use some extra light here.

They passed through the unguarded doorway to the tunnel.

The tunnel to the transporter was manmade―excavated by explosives. Probably the same kind she had seen in the weapon room. The walls and ceiling were polished smooth by machinery and lit by a string of small clear bulbs. Sloping downward, the floor of the tunnel was tiled with raw slate in various natural shades. Every thirty feet or so, a set of steps would appear, dropping them to the next level. Then the giant wormhole burrowed lower, spiraling deep into the ground.

Del ignored the stitch in her side and hurried around a corner.

And came face-to-face with Justin Blackwell.

He held a sleek, black sniper rifle with an infrared scope. The tiny red dot was trained on Del―right smack in the middle of her eyes.

She stopped breathing.

"What are you doing down here?" Blackwell asked calmly.

"What the hell do you think?" she rasped.

His eyes drifted over each of them. "You're escaping."

When Blackwell gradually lowered his rifle, she was stunned.

Why didn't he just shoot them all on the spot?

An icy shiver crept up her spine.

Because they need us. Our brains.

"Yes," her father repeated. "We're escaping."

He motioned for the others to put away their weapons.

"You won't need them."

That's when it hit her. He was letting them go.

She didn't know what to say. Part of her wanted to thank him. And part of her wanted to run for the portal, in case he changed his mind.

She bit her lip. "Why are you letting us go?"

Blackwell let out a pent up breath. "I've had enough. I can't do this anymore. I got involved with the Centre because VanBuren and Paughter said they had a cure for my daughter. Amy had leukemia. But this has gotten out of hand. I've seen too many things.
Done
too many things."

He stared at the rifle as if it were the first time he had seen it.

"What now?" she asked.

"It seems you're the only one without some protection, Miss Hawthorne. Just flick this lever, aim and pull the trigger. Take it―you might need it. Especially on the other side. They'll send someone after you."

He handed her the rifle.

"But they won't send…you."

"No," he said, clenching his teeth. "I'm done here. VanBuren has let youth go to his head and he'll kill anyone for it. Paughter is obsessed with power and greed. And the Director…?"