Black (39 page)

What if he was wrong? The question had dogged him since the helicopter had abandoned them an hour earlier. But now it went from question to haunting certainty in one giant leap. He was wrong. This was nothing more than an abandoned concrete plant.

“It is abandoned?” Muta said.

He knows it too.

“You get behind the shed,” Tom said, pointing to a small structure thirty feet from the entrance to the main building. “Cover me with your gun. You can shoot that thing straight, right?”

Muta tsked in offense. “You kick so good; I shoot better. In military I shoot many gun. Nobody shoot so good as me!”

“Keep it down!” Tom whispered. “I believe you. Can you hit a man at the door from this distance?”

The man eyed the door a hundred yards off. “Too far.”

Good. He was honest, then.

“Okay, you cover me. As soon as I clear the entry, you run up and follow me in.” He looked at the machete in his hand. Most of his fighting skills consisted of fist- and footwork, but what good would hand-to-hand combat do him in a place like this? True, he did have some tricks, but his main trick was falling asleep and coming back healthy. A very cool trick, to be sure, but not exactly a knockout blow in a fight.

“Ready?”

Muta released the clip from his pistol, checked it once, and slammed it home in a show of weapon-handling prowess. “You go; I follow.”

Not exactly a raid by U.S. Rangers.

“Go!”

He jumped over the berm and ran low to the ground, machete extended. Muta ran behind, feet thudding on the earth.

Tom was halfway to the door when the doubts began to pile up in earnest. If the man he'd fought in the hotel room was inside this building, he'd be firing bullets. A machete might be less useful than a wet noodle. But hand-to-hand was out of the question; the man was much too skilled and powerful.

He slid to a halt, his back against the wall, the door to his left. Muta pulled up at the shed, gun extended.

Tom tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He pulled it. Braved a quick look and withdrew. The interior was dark. Vacant.

Vacant, very, very vacant. He swallowed and waved Muta forward. The man ran across the open ground, gun waving.

Tom stepped into the building.

“They're in,” Carlos said, eying the monitor.

“Let them come,” Svensson said. “Send a message to her father as soon as you leave. In view of his disregard for the terms we set forward, we have reduced the time for his compliance to one hour. Give him new drop-off instructions. Use the airport.”

Svensson strode for the door. “Bring her to the mountain,” he said. “I trust this will be the last complication.”

They'd seen the pair as soon as the sensors picked them up at the perimeter. They'd even released the security bolts on the doors to let the men in. Like mice to a trap.

How Raison had found this place, Carlos couldn't begin to guess. Why he'd sent only two men, even more mysterious. Either way, Carlos was prepared. What happened to these two was inconsequential. But the lab's cover had been compromised. Svensson would be gone through the tunnels in a matter of minutes, even with his bad leg. Carlos would follow as soon as he had the vaccine.

Carlos stood. “I'll bring her within twenty-four hours. Yes, this will be the last complication.”

Svensson was gone.

Carlos took a deep breath and faced the monitor. Perhaps this was better. The mountain complex in Switzerland had a far more extensive lab. The entire operation would be launched from yet another secured facility. The six leaders who'd already agreed to participate, should Svensson succeed, had established links with the base. The complication would change—

Carlos blinked at the monitor. The lead man's face had come into full view for the first time. This was either Thomas Hunter or Thomas Hunter's twin.

But he'd killed Hunter. Impossible! Even if the man had survived a bullet to the chest, he would be in no condition to run through the jungle.

Still, there he was.

Carlos stared at the image and considered his options. He would let the mouse into his trap, yes. But should he kill him this time?

It was a decision he wouldn't rush. Time was now on his side. At least for the moment.

Vacant. Very vacant and very dark.

A flight of stairs to his right descended into blackness.

“There.” He pointed the machete at the stairwell.

He ran for the stairs and descended on the fly, using the light from the gaping door above to guide his steps. A steel door at the bottom. He tried the handle. Open. The door swung in. A dark hall. Doors on either side. At the end, another door.

A thin strip of light ran like a seam beneath the far door. Tom's heart pounded. He kept his machete leveled in both hands. Two careful steps forward before remembering his backup. Muta.

He eased back, glanced up the stairs. No Muta.

“Muta?” he whispered.

No Muta. Maybe Muta had gone back to cover the front door. Maybe he'd been taken out. Maybe . . .

Tom began to panic. He breathed deliberately, shrouded in the darkness. It was a nightmare and he was the lone fugitive, panting down deserted dark hallways with the phantoms at his heels. Only his phantom had a gun, and Tom had already felt a couple of its slugs.

No way he could go back up those stairs now. Not if there was someone up there waiting.

He ran toward the door at the hall's end. Rubber soles muted his footfalls. He was passing other doors on either side.
Whoosh, whoosh,
like windows into gray oblivion. Doors into terror. He ran faster. Suddenly it was a race to get into the door with the light.

He crashed into it, desperate for it to be open. It was. He burst through, blinded by light. He slammed the door shut. Shoved a bolt home and gasped for breath.

“Thomas?”

Tom spun. Monique was strapped to a chair in the corner beyond a row of white tables with bottles on them. This was the room Rachelle had wanted to be rescued from, almost exactly as he'd imagined it. But this wasn't Rachelle; this was Monique.

Her eyes were wide and her face white. “You . . . you're dead,” she said. “I saw him shoot you.”

Tom walked to the middle of the floor, mind reeling. She was actually here. He wasn't sure if it was an intense sense of relief or a general kind of madness that made him want to cry.

He was suddenly running again, straight for her. “You're here!” He slid behind her and ripped at the duct tape that bound her hands to the chair legs. “Rachelle told me you'd be here, in the white cave with bottles, and you're here.” An uncontrolled sob was in the mix, but he recovered quickly. “This is incredible; this is absolutely incredible.”

He pulled a trembling Monique to her feet, threw his arms around her, and hugged her dearly. “Thank God you're safe.”

She felt stiff, but that was to be expected. The poor soul had been taken at gunpoint and—

“Thomas?” She gently pushed him away. Glanced at the door.

Tom fell back a step and followed her glance. The door was locked from this side. Monique wasn't doing backflips at his rescue, and he wondered why.

“I came to rescue you,” he said. The reality of what he was doing, where he was, suddenly crashed in around him. He blinked.

“Thomas, we have a problem.”

“We have to get out of here!” He grabbed her hand and pulled. Then doubled back for the machete he'd set on the ground. “Come on!”

“I can't !” She jerked her hand free.

“Of course you can! It's true, Monique, all of it. I knew about the AIDS pairs, I knew about the Raison Strain, and I knew how to find you. And I know that if we don't get out of here, we're going to have more problems than either of us can imagine.”

She spoke quickly in a half whisper, hands on her belly. “He forced me to swallow an explosive device. If I go more than fifty meters from him, it will kill me. I can't leave!”

Tom looked at her stricken face, her hands trembling over her stomach. His mind went blank.

“You have to get out, Thomas. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for not listening. You were right.”

“No, it's not your fault. I kidnapped you.” He stepped up to her and for a moment she was Rachelle, begging to be rescued. He almost reached out and swept her hair from her forehead.

“You have to get out now, and tell them it's all true,” she said, glancing at the corner.

Tom saw the small camera and froze. Of course, they were being watched. Muta had been taken out because Monique's kidnapper had seen them coming all the way. They had let Tom walk into this trap. There would be no way out!

Monique stepped up to him and pulled him tight. Her mouth pressed by his ear. “They are listening; they are watching. Kiss my face, my ears, my hair, like we've known each other for a long time.”

She didn't wait for him but immediately pressed her lips against his cheek. She was giving whoever was watching something to think about.

“They have the wrong numbers,” she said, louder, but not too loudly. “Only you.”

“Only . . .”

“Shh, shh,” she hushed him. And then very softly. “His name is Valborg Svensson. Tell my father. They intend to use the Raison Vaccine. Tell him it mutates at 179.47 degrees after two hours. Don't forget. Take the ring carefully off my finger and get out while you can.”

Tom had stopped kissing her hair. He felt the ring, pulling it off.

“Keep kissing me.”

He kept kissing.

“I can't leave you here,” he said.

“They will need me alive. And if they think you have more information that they need, they won't kill you.”

“I'm right about the virus, then.”

“You're right. I'm sorry for doubting.”

He felt a strange panic grip his throat. He couldn't just leave her here! He was meant to rescue her. Somehow, in some way beyond his understanding, she was the key to this madness. She was at the heart of the Great Romance; he was sure of it.

“I'm staying. I can fight this guy. I've learned—”

“No, Thomas! You have to get out. You have to tell my father before it's too late! Go.”

She gave him one last kiss, on the lips this time. “The world needs you, Thomas! They are powerless without you. Run!”

Tom stared at her, knowing that she was right, but he couldn't leave her
like this.

“Run!” she yelled.

“Monique, I can't leave—”

“Run! Run, run, run!”

Tom ran.

It happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that Carlos found himself off guard. One second he had them both trapped in the laboratory at the end of the long hall. The next Monique was suggesting that Hunter still knew something they did not. That perhaps she and Hunter had planned this together, an interesting thought.

And then Hunter was running.

The American made the hall before Carlos reacted.

He leaped over the body of the guard who'd come with Hunter, threw open the door, and sprang into the hall. Hunter hit him broadside before he had time to bring his weapon around. Then the man was past and sprinting for the stairs.