Deadout (33 page)

“She's fine. But we're all a little scared. She and Nola are hiding out in a house in the woods.”

His face was deadly serious, then he let out a barking laugh. “Annalisa and Nola are in a hideout together? No wonder you're scared.”

I smiled. “I know. I need to get back there. I'm thinking maybe you should come with me. For safety's sake.”

He shook his head. “No man, I'm good. I need to make my voice heard, right here with my peeps.”

“Okay. Be safe.”

“You, too.” He gave me a quick hug, then turned and headed back, joining in with the unintelligible chants of the crowd as he disappeared into it.

 

60

When I got back, Nola met me at the door, but I got the feeling it was more out of boredom that anything else.

“Did you find out anything?” she asked. I shook my head.

Annalisa was still at the dining room table, studying the pages and typing on her computer.

“Anything new here?” I asked.

Nola shook her head, but Annalisa looked up and said, “Maybe.”

We both walked over to her and she pulled two sheets of paper from the top of one of the piles, each one covered with columns of numbers, and each with a large red circle around a chunk of those numbers.

“I found the original data,” she announced.

“That's great!” I said. “What does it say?”

She looked up at us. “I'm working on that.” Then she was reabsorbed into her work.

Nola brought me a coffee. I sat on the sofa and took a scalding gulp, then another one. I figured I should let it cool for a minute, so I put it down on the coffee table and rested my eyes. Just for a moment.

*   *   *

I awoke with a start, wondering how long I'd been asleep. The light coming in from the window was still overcast and gray. My body felt achy and stiff. My coffee was cold. I sat up and drank it anyway.

Nola and Annalisa were sitting at the table, talking quietly. Nola leaned back in her chair so she could see me.

“You're up,” she said.

I nodded, drinking more coffee. “What did I miss?”

Annalisa got up. “I hit a wall,” she said quietly, walking into the living room and dropping into an armchair. “I have the missing data, but I don't have enough other data to know what to make of it. There are similar trends during the two events, steep elevations in certain markers, building to some kind of event and then dropping steeply back to the baseline. The events are consistent with each other, but I don't know what they are, and I don't have enough data to figure it out.”

“So does this mean that whatever happened when Claudia Osterman died is the same thing that happened when the other girl died?” Nola asked.

“Lynne. And probably, yes. And in both instances they faked the data and covered it up.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I didn't find anything that might tell us one way or the other if the splice is unstable. I should have just stayed there and run the searches on the computer. I panicked.”

“It was probably encrypted anyway, right?” Nola said. “If it's that sensitive?”

Annalisa smiled. “With a little time, I'm sure I could get past whatever they have in place.”

I shrugged. “We still have Julie's card.”

Annalisa's eyes went wide at the thought.

“You can't go back,” Nola told her firmly. Then she looked at me like I was some kind of animal for suggesting it.

Annalisa shook her head, her eyes fearful. “No, I can't. I don't know if the card even works anymore, but after what happened to Julie, I can't risk being seen by them. I don't know what I'll do for the rest of my life, but right now, I need to be invisible.”

“Of course
you're
not going back,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I am.”

Annalisa shook her head. “Doyle, you don't have the skills to get through the encryption. And I don't even know what it would look like so I can't tell you. What would you do when you got there?”

“I'll take the whole goddamned server and bring it back here.”

Nola was still shaking her head when the expression on Annalisa's face told her she was taking the idea seriously. Unfortunately, by the time Nola bought in, Annalisa was shaking her head, too.

“It's too dangerous,” she said. “We should just go to the authorities.”

“I don't know what authorities I trust, other than Jimmy Frank,” I said. “And right now, I don't think he trusts any, either. Sorry, but to me that says we need to figure this out on our own.”

Nola shook her head. “No,” she said. Simple and final.

“We need to know what's going on, right?” I said. “They're hiding something big, something big enough to kill people over—”

“Exactly,” Nola cut in. “And you're not going to be next.”

“The place has probably been cleaned out already,” I said. “But if it hasn't been, if the server is still there, it won't be for long. That e-mail said operations are being moved to Katama, so I need to go now and check it out.”

“It will be crawling with security,” Annalisa said.

“I don't know, the Katama site is crawling with security, and mobbed with protesters. They might have all hands on deck there. If I can't get in and out safely, I'll turn around and come back.”

“And then what?”

“And then we'll figure out something else.”

 

61

I drove past the place doing sixty, head straight, eyes barely glancing over. Five minutes later I came back the other way doing twenty-five and took a good long look.

My plan had been to create some sort of diversion, but there didn't seem to be anyone there to divert. The gate was closed and locked, but the place looked deserted. No guards, no protesters. No one.

I parked across the street behind Annalisa's lab and walked the same route through the woods as the night before, crossing the road and doubling back. Another layer of clouds had moved in, lower and darker, but I still felt exposed in the daylight. The twigs breaking underfoot seemed louder than before, and without the cover of darkness, it felt silly trying to sneak in at all.

The fence appeared up ahead, and through it the lab units. I listened silently for five minutes, but it was quiet. Even the wildlife seemed to have gone, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stirring as vague dark scenarios played out in the back of my mind.

Finally I pulled myself up onto the fence, trying to keep the clanging of the chain-link against the poles to a minimum. The tools in my front pocket dug into my leg as I climbed over the top.

When I dropped down to the other side, I pulled the Glock out of my ankle holster and paused, listening. Then I stepped quickly and quietly to the nearest trailer.

I laid my hand on the painted wood exterior. I couldn't feel the vibrations I'd felt before, and I wondered if the bees were gone. That would explain the lack of guards. I was troubled by the implications but relieved as well.

Stepping up to the door, I swiped the card through the reader. I was surprised and vaguely disappointed by the green blink and the muted click as the lock released. I took a deep breath. Then I went inside.

It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place was just as we'd left it: a dull red glow splashed here and there, everywhere else awash in shadows. I could smell a hint of patchouli. I put my gun on top of the server cabinet and slid the server out, released the clips on either side. The server easily lifted up and out, but the cords in the back had very little slack. I reached around and released the power cable, gaining a few more inches but no more.

The rest of the cords were tightly bundled and fastened to the side of the rack with a plastic tie. I reached around with my wire cutters to snip the plastic, squinting hard to see in the darkness.

Then suddenly I could see just fine.

Light was pouring in from the open door, framing a large silhouette. As the door closed, I saw a gun rising in my direction. Then the lab returned to darkness. I jammed the wire cutters against the entire bundle of cables and squeezed as hard as I could. The server came free and I heaved it at the figure stepping through the curtain. He put up his hands, but the server caught him on the bridge of his nose with a wet, meaty
thunk
. His head snapped back, and the gun went off. A small circle of light appeared in the ceiling. Below it, a larger one appeared on the floor.

That's when the buzzing started: deep and throaty, sounding far off and close at the same time. In the light from the hole in the roof, I recognized Pug-face, bloody and angry.

He tried to bring up his gun again, but the server somehow snagged onto his sleeve. I didn't have time to go for my own gun, so I closed on him, grabbing his wrist, trapping the server between our bodies. I caught a whiff of something nasty coming off him, and for a moment I thought he still smelled of the sewage I had lured him through. But that wasn't it. It was skunk.

I laughed—not taunting or victorious or even maniacal—just a laugh because I thought it was funny. But as I did he got his gun hand loose and chopped it down on my collar bone, causing me to step back and giving him enough space to take another shot. The server came down on his foot, making the shot go wild.

Another hole appeared, this one in the back wall, and I was relieved it wasn't in me or the panels separating us from all those bees, now sounding louder and angrier.

I tensed to lunge for the gun on the server cabinet, but Pug-face was swinging his gun at me once again. I crashed into him and grabbed his wrist. He tried to throw me but I dragged him with me. Together, we slammed into the opposite wall.

I felt something dig into my back and the drone of the bees grew louder still, accompanied now by a mechanical hum as the wall panels started to slide up into the ceiling. Grappling, we fell sideways against one of the workstations. I heard glass breaking and something splashed my arm, my sleeve. The sound of the bees rose from a buzz to a scream. I spun away, sending Pug-face sprawling across the counter, his shirt soaking up pheromone and whatever else we'd spilled, his face inches from the mesh.

Even in the dim light, I could see the screen bristling with tiny daggers, already wet with venom as the bees frantically tried to inject their poison into something, someone, anything.

The smell of skunk was still strong coming off Pug-face, but over it I could detect the sweet, dangerous smell of the alarm pheromone.

Pug-face seemed mesmerized by the sight of the screen, maybe not realizing what it was. Maybe I was mesmerized, too, because I should have grabbed my gun and shot him. Then he seemed to understand, and his eyes went wide, their whites vivid even in the dim light. He spun, frantically trying to get away, trying to point that damned gun at me again.

I grabbed his wrist with two hands, leaving his other hand free to land three quick punches to my abdomen that altered the arrangement of my internal organs. But it gave me the leverage I needed to push his gun hand up against the mesh screen, against the thousands of bees frantically trying to sting.

He let out a growl, low at first but increasing in pitch as I held his hand in place and hundreds of stingers plunged into his skin. He stopped punching me and pried my hands off his. Then he gave me a savage shove and pulled his hand away from the screen, tugging it, like it was stuck on with Velcro. He got it free, but it was already useless. The gun fell away, hitting the counter and tumbling into the shadows.

He went for my gun, still on the server cabinet, but when I sprung at him he turned to fend me off. I tried to picture him standing in Annalisa's kitchen, the blood spurting out of his shoulder, and I drove my fist as hard as I could into that exact same place.

He howled like a coyote. I punched him again in the same place, then once more. When he moved his other hand to protect his shoulder, I punched him in the throat, cutting off his howl with a sharp gurgling sound. I could still see his eyes in the darkness. No longer round and scared, they were angry and hot. Maybe I should have been studying his hands instead, because one of his fists came out of the darkness, connecting with the side of my head and creating a shower of sparks behind my eyes.

He punched me again and I wrapped my arms around him, trying to pin his arms to his sides, trying to find that divot in his arm, but he shook me off with a roar, sending me crashing against the far wall. As I slid to the floor, I heard another mechanical hum and the lab grew brighter as daylight filtered through the bees massed on the mesh screen.

The outer panels were opening.

Pug-face was looking down at me now, pointing my gun at me. It wasn't his gun hand, but this close I was pretty sure he wouldn't miss. His smile said he was pretty sure, too.

 

62

I was expecting a bang and that would be it, but instead he screamed, “Ow,” and slapped the hand with the gun against his neck, rubbing it and then flinging something away from him. “Fuck!” he yelled, frantically brushing at the large wet spot on the front of his shirt. His hands were wet as well.

We both looked up at the bullet hole in the ceiling. A bee crawled in as we watched, joining two more that were already buzzing in the narrow cone of daylight. One of them seemed to find him, darting at him and weaving around his flailing gun hand.

He kept trying to line up his shot, but had to stop to swat at the bee, now two bees, darting and diving at him. I searched the shadows, trying to find his gun, but I gave up, cowering in the corner instead, watching him fight it out with the bees and hoping none of them would notice me. More bees had made their way in, and his swatting had grown more frantic. He yelped again and clamped a hand on the back of his thigh. Another bee landed on his cheek. He plucked it off and squished it, throwing it onto the floor, stomping on it, his face momentarily triumphant. There were more of them, now, half a dozen circling him, darting in and then retreating, feinting and thrusting. One landed on his shoulder, another in his thinning hair.