Exit 9 (31 page)

They heard the footsteps enter the hallway where they’d been, and walk past their current position. There was only a single set.

Olivia pointed at two of her men, then opened the door wide enough so they could slip out.

When they returned forty-five seconds later, they were carrying a man with a sidearm strapped to his belt. Though there were no obvious wounds, it was apparent the man was dead.

Once the body was on the floor, Olivia said, “Everyone ready? We’re not going to have time to stop again.”

Nods all around.

“They’ll all be in the Cradle.”

“The Cradle?” Ash asked.

“It’s what they call the command center. There’s bound to be some security there, but not much. The rest will be upstairs covering the ground entrances. Once we have the Cradle secured, I’ll lock them down so they can’t get to us.”

“We’re going to have to deal with them at some point.”

She smiled. “Trust me.”

Ash frowned, uncomfortable, but said nothing.

“Any other questions?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“So we can go?” she asked.

“Please.”

As they reentered the hall, Ash couldn’t help but think there was something she wasn’t telling him.

41

I.D. MINUS 2 MINUTES

BLUEBIRD TIME 10:58 AM

A
S THE DOP
entered the Cradle from the conference room, everyone sitting at the monitoring stations stood. There was no applause. Silence seemed to be the appropriate response to the moment.

Solemnly, he made his way to the empty station that sat by itself, front and center in front of the monitor wall. Once he reached the desk, he turned and faced the personnel of Bluebird. Along with the Directors who were standing in front, and those at the stations, there were two dozen others squeezed in along the walls, nearly everyone at the outpost who wasn’t needed on security detail elsewhere. All eyes were on him.

He felt a surge of pride. These were some of the most dedicated members of Project Eden, most had been a part of the organization for at least a decade, and many of them for more. What he was about to do was as much for them as it was for everyone else.

Though it wasn’t part of the plan for the day, he felt he needed to say something, something everyone would remember. He’d been wrestling with what that should be for days. Finally he decided to just go with the first words that came to mind.

“Our actions here today are meant to accomplish only one thing—the ability for humankind to reach its full potential. With your dedication, heart, and service, we will achieve this.”

All right. Perhaps it wasn’t
One small step for man
, but no one in the room seemed to care.

He looked at the digital clock on the wall. They were eighty-three seconds away, less than a minute and a half until the time finally arrived.

42

T
HEY PAUSED AT
the junction, each of them listening closely for anyone who might be in the intersecting hallway.

For several seconds there was nothing, then a distant voice drifted toward them.

“…here today…meant…one…for…to reach…potential...”

Ash glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven a.m. If Olivia was right, they were seconds from being out of time.

“We need to go now,” he whispered.

43

I.D. MINUS 55 SECONDS

BLUEBIRD TIME 10:59 AM

A
S THE DOP
sat down at the computer, a hush fell over the room.

Ross had already brought up the activation screen, so all the DOP had to do was input his personal password and the correct code. He typed the alphanumeric combination he’d memorized long ago into the password box.

The code itself he didn’t know, not yet, anyway. It was currently in the Principal Director’s possession. Per protocol, the Principal would not hand it over until thirty seconds prior to the time assigned for Implementation Day to begin. Which meant, as the DOP noted, he would have it in twenty-five seconds.

He clasped his hands and set them in front of him. He heard the door at the back of the room open.

“Well, I’m glad we made it in time.”

44

T
HE DOOR WAS
open about an inch. Through the gap, Ash spied several people, all looking away from the door at an angle. The voice they heard earlier had stopped and been replaced by an eerie silence.

Olivia quickly divided her people into two groups, and made it clear where she wanted them to go. She looked at Ash and Chloe, and indicated they were to follow her.

She put one hand on the doorknob, and began counting down with the other.

Three.

Two.

One.

She pushed the door open. The two small groups went in first, then she stepped through with Ash and Chloe behind her.

“Well,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I’m glad we made it in time.”

The entire room seemed to turn as one to look at them. Immediately, the five security men scattered throughout the space went for their handguns. They could have saved the effort. Before any of them had their weapon above their waist, Olivia’s people opened fire. The security guards dropped to the floor, dead.

Screams of terror and surprise filled the room, as those nearest the new arrivals moved away as quickly as they could. Several people went for the doors, trying to get out, but when gunfire rang out again, slamming into the wall near the exit, they pulled back.

Olivia rushed toward the front of the room, where an unremarkable middle-aged man sitting in front of a computer on a solitary table had just been handed an envelope by an older, but similarly unremarkable man.

“I’ll take that,” she said, snatching it out of his hand.

45

I.D. MINUS 0 SECONDS

BLUEBIRD TIME 11:00 AM

T
HE DOP FROZE
. Standing at the back of the room was Olivia Silva.

She had once been one of the brightest stars of Project Eden. In fact, KV-27a would not have been possible but for her early work. Up until that previous spring when they learned otherwise, they had thought she was killed in the raid on the lab where she had been doing her research.

For the initial seconds, he thought she’d come back to join them, but that idea immediately vanished when the people who’d come in with her opened fire on the security detail. Joining them was
not
on her agenda, he realized.

The Principal seemed to have come to the same conclusion. He rushed forward, his hand moving under his jacket. Just as he pulled out an envelope, there was another round of gunfire, this time aimed at the doors to keep anyone from leaving.

“Here,” the Principal said as he handed the DOP the envelope. “Input the code!”

The DOP turned the envelope over, and stuck his finger under the end of the flap. But before he could rip it open, Olivia was standing in front of him.

“I’ll take that,” she said, grabbing it.

She had come to stop them. He couldn’t believe it. The Project was something she’d believed in just as much as he had, but now she was going to keep it from happening.

“Why?” he asked.

“You
know
what we’re trying to do,” the Principal said. “If you stop us, you’ll damn our whole species.”

“Oh, will I?” she asked. She pulled out a pistol from her pocket, and pointed it at the old man’s forehead.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

“Oh, please. I would.”

She pulled the trigger.

A collective gasp filled the room as the Principal Director dropped dead to the floor.

Olivia pushed the DOP out of the way, and sat in front of the computer. Without closing the activation window, she opened the program that ran Bluebird’s security system. Navigating it like an expert, she began sealing off different sections of the facility until the only exit from the Cradle would be out the emergency tunnel.

“There,” she said, standing. “I think we can relax a little now. Everyone move to an outer wall and have a seat.”

Slowly at first, but with growing speed that was encouraged by Olivia’s team, the Project Eden members did as ordered. All, that was, except for the Directors. Olivia made clear with her gun that they had to remain where they were. A few glanced at the floor where their former leader lay, while the others kept their eyes on her.

“How long did you know I was being held captive?” she asked them.

“We didn’t know,” one of them blurted out. “We were told you were dead.”

She looked at him with faux compassion. “Perhaps that’s what
you
thought, but what about the rest of you?”

Most nodded their heads, indicating they’d heard the same thing, but the DOP and the Director of Survival did not.

She looked at the DOP. “You knew, of course.”

“Not until recently,” he admitted.

“Let me guess. Last spring, when my friend over there delivered my message to Dr. Karp.” She nodded toward a man standing in the aisle.

The DOP looked at him, and squinted his eyes. Yes. It had to be.

Captain Daniel Ash. The very man whose immune system made it possible for the Project to come up with a vaccine for the virus. It was almost fitting he was here, though the look in the captain’s eyes was anything but friendly.

“So, over half a year,” Olivia continued.

Again, the DOP made no reply.

“Did you try to get me out at any point during that time?” She shook her head. “Don’t answer. You’ll only embarrass yourself.”

She returned to the computer and accessed a new area of the security program. When the DOP saw what it was, his eyes widened. On the screen were the controls for Bluebird’s self-destruct mechanism, intended to be used if there was no other way to protect the Project. But there was no way she could set it, was there? She would need the correct security sequence, and it was kept safely locked away in—

The vault in Costa Rica.

In the security boxes at every depot, there was always one that contained the self-destruct code for Bluebird in case it had to be remotely activated. The other boxes that had been opened had been a ruse to cover up what she really wanted.

Activating the sequence would still need one of the Directors to sign on, but he’d already done that for her.

Dear God.

46

A
SH HAD NEVER
felt so relieved as he did when Olivia stopped the man from activating the release of the virus. He didn’t even flinch when she killed the older man. But when she started working on the computer again, he moved forward so he could see what she was doing.

She’d accessed a self-destruct system.
Good.
This place needed to go.

He watched as she set the timer to fifteen minutes, then hit Start.

Without getting up, she turned to the men she’d kept at the front of the room. “You’ll stay here. The world won’t be needing your services after all.”

One of the men said, “You can’t let us die in here.”

Ash started to scoff at the irony, but was cut off by the sound of Olivia’s gun. The bullet ripped into the man’s leg, sending him crumpling to the ground.

She looked at the others. “If any of the rest of you want to try to leave, I’m happy to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

There didn’t seem to be any takers.

“Good.” She glanced at Ash. “You and your friend should move out into the hallway with my men. We’re not going to have a lot of time to get out of here. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve had a final, private conversation with my old colleagues.”

There was a tingle at the back of Ash’s neck, that sense there was something he was still missing.

But the threat
was
over. Olivia had stopped it, and in less than fourteen minutes the entire place was going to be destroyed. If he wanted to get back to Josie and Brandon, Olivia was right. They needed to leave.

He nodded, and started for the door. Ahead, Chloe and the members of Olivia’s team were already filing out.

A few of the Project Eden people tried to go, too, but they were shoved back. Those that Ash passed pleaded with him with their eyes, as if he might take them along, but he had no compassion for any of them. They had chosen their path when they joined the Project. They could all go to hell as far as he was concerned.

47

O
LIVIA TORE OPEN
the envelope the late Principal Director had given to the Director of Preparation. This was it. The activation code.

The DOP had been so very close to being the one who carried it out. She couldn’t have that.

She removed the piece of paper, and read what was written on it—the code that simply had to be input on the screen, followed by the Enter key. One word followed by one number:
EXIT 9
.

Was there a hidden meaning to them? she wondered. Did it matter? The only important thing was that they were the two most powerful words in the world.

Five simple characters that could wipe out mankind.

If anyone was going to bring on that kind of chaos, it would be her.

She placed her fingers on the keyboard.

E-X-I-T-9

48

A
S ASH REACHED
the door, he heard paper ripping behind him. It was a familiar, distinct sound. Not a sheet being torn in half, but something slower with stops and starts along the way. As he turned to see if he was right, he heard the tapping of keys.

The Go code for the virus!
Olivia had opened it and was entering it in the system.

His weapon was in his hand before he even realized he’d reached for it.

Olivia struck another key.

“Stop!” he yelled, moving forward.